Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
He kicks off Pearl faster than I expect him to.
This time, I don’t make it through the door. My hands reach out for the chainsaw, as if some part of me knows that’s how this is supposed to go.
But the man grabs my arm, ripping the blade out of his shoulder as he does, and pulls me back into the cell with Ariana lying lifelessly against the wall.
“Help me!” I scream, looking around wildly. Pearl is on the floor, blood pooling around her, and Ariana might not be here at all anymore, if I’m being honest with myself. “No! Someone help me, please! This isn’t how this is supposed to go!”
Somehow he ties me back up, and after a dizzying movement, I’m back on the meat hook, my feet barely touching the floor as I scramble for purchase on the concrete.
“Help! Oh, please, God, anyone!” The man moves closer with a leering grin on his face, and when he opens his mouth, smoke curls upward from his lips.
“You really think you got away from me?” The blade gets closer, shining in the dull light, until I can feel the heavy weight of it on my skin.
“You were never going to make it out of Wolf Lake alive, little rabbit.” He cuts my throat, though in the dream, I don’t feel pain. Instead, my head lolls back, and I can feel the blood pour from my ruined neck, cascading down my body to spatter on the floor below.
My hands flex above me, and I stare upward, strangely disconnected, as the man whistles and continues to cut me, the knife digging in and out. In and out, until finally he grabs the spot on my arm where I was caught by the knife.
This time, the blade does hurt. I gasp and arch upward, feeling like I’m trying to come up through water, and when I break through—
I gasp and jerk upward, my upper arm twinging as I roll off it. My eyes open and I brace myself on my other arm, fully expecting to see the cell from earlier or Ariana against the far wall.
Instead, I’m greeted with the sight of a half-open window, white curtains blowing inward on a breeze that smells like nothing industrial has ever touched this place, and whitewashed shiplap walls on every side of me.
Am I dead?
No, I realize a second later as I look at my bandaged palms that sting when I press down. I’m definitely not dead. I hurt too much to be dead. My whole body aches like I was hit by a truck, and moving makes it worse.
“Pearl?” I call, though the dog doesn’t magically appear from under the bed. Nothing happens at all, except for the breeze picking up outside. It draws my attention to the window, curiosity helping me push off the bed to limp toward it.
“Where am I?” The words leave my mouth in a whisper, and I press my face to the glass to gaze out at the small homestead behind the house I’m in.
A distant, detached part of me can’t help admiring the property, with its animal pastures, red barn, and wooden outbuildings.
A giant patch of tall, flowering weeds sits close behind the house, surrounded by a white picket fence that’s definitely seen better days and makes me wonder if the weeds used to be a garden.
Maybe I am dead, since I don’t know how else I’d wind up here. While it isn’t exactly somewhere out of my wildest dreams, given that I don’t dream of ending up in rural Texas very often, it’s…nice.
Absently I gaze down at my bandaged hands, my clean wrists, and inspect what I can of the bandage on my upper arm. Clearly someone cared enough to keep me from getting tetanus or going septic, though I definitely need a shower more than I ever have before.
“What the fuck?” I murmur to myself, still getting no answer. Absently, I try the door, only to find it predictably locked. Still, my stomach sinks, churning, and I look around again, finally finding my shoes by the bed.
I need to get out of here.
I need to be anywhere but here. I need to find Pearl, a car, and Ariana—
My thoughts grind to a halt, and whispers of a truth I don’t want to face sing at the edges of my mind.
Ariana is probably—
No. Nope. I’m not going there. Not yet.
With shaking hands, I pull my hair up into a messy bun, using one of the remaining ponytail holders on my wrist to keep it up. It’s hard to ignore the stiffness of blood and gore still in my hair, but I manage, then slip my feet into my shoes.
Fuck, I really need a goddamn shower.
I try the door again, just because, and when it still doesn’t open, I give it a quick glare and huff out a breath. Naturally, the door would be too easy.
But also too fucking obvious. I’m not that stupid, I chastise myself. Not nearly that stupid, and probably not brave enough to actually use the door when the two men from before are most likely on the other side.
Fox’s face swims into my mind, obscuring everything else when I let my eyes close to focus on anything other than my current reality.
It could be worse, I tell myself. I could be dead, or dying, or getting chopped to bits.
Though I guess if I don’t get out of here quickly, those possibilities are still on the table.
Sucking in a breath, I move back to the window and immediately wrap my sore hands under the bottom sill.
The room is nice, comfortable even. Part of me longs to stay, to curl up back in the bed and cry until I can convince myself this is all just a really awful dream.
Too bad it isn’t.
I hesitate with the window open in front of me, the breeze from outside fanning against my face in a mockery of how awful my day is going.
It feels like it should be dark, stormy, or somehow ominous instead of just a really nice, slightly cloudy day.
My hands splay out on the wood, and for a few moments I just stand there.
Wishing, pleading even, with a god who certainly isn’t paying attention if he somehow exists.
“It’s just you, Sadie-Rae,” I whisper to myself, flattening my palms on the sill until they sting. I don’t let myself look down before hoisting myself through the window, though I’m careful to set my feet on the slanted roof and test my balance before I rest my whole weight on it.
“Fuck, this is awful.” I definitely hadn’t thought enough about this plan before doing it. I saw the slanted roof, the shingles that look pretty rough and grippy, and with the door locked, this really feels like my only option.
It’s a shitty option, though.
I stumble along the edge of the roof, my heart racing in my chest with every step. It feels hotter than it should, like the roof is radiating heat through my sneakers, reminding me of the dangers of falling off the roof. If I’m achy now, I’ll be in agony if I fall. When I fall.
No, I tell myself, taking a deep, steadying breath and finding a place to balance where I don’t have to move for a moment.
“I won’t fall.” The breeze takes the words out of my mouth, and I steel myself, walking toward the edge of the roof where I can see something peeking out from above ground level, but still below me.
“I won’t fall,” I yelp when I momentarily lose my footing, though I recover before I do, in fact, land on my face on the ground. It occurs to me how loud my steps must be, and I cross my fingers that there isn’t anyone in the house.
When I finally make it to the edge of the roof by taking small, sliding baby steps, I’m able to step down onto another roof, this one clearly an addition that creates an overhang along the back of the house.
It’s low enough that when I drop to my knees and Hilll to the edge, the drop to the concrete patio is only terrifying, rather than mind-numbing.
Parkour has never, not once, been on my list of things to try, but maybe it should’ve been. I attempt to lower myself sideways, only to find that won’t work, then finally shimmy my ass backward until my knees are at the very edge of the roof and the shaking of my hands is impossible to ignore.
“I won’t fall,” I whisper, closing my eyes.
“I will not fucking fall.” Bile rises in my throat, but I know the longer I hesitate, the harder this is going to be.
“Fuck it.” In one quick movement, I shove myself backward, and my body falls through the air until I’m able to lock my arms and catch myself on the edge of the roof with just my hands, the rest of me swinging freely as I panic.
My palms burn, the scabs breaking open under the bandages and causing them to tingle, the feeling like thousands of tiny needles stabbing into my skin.
“Ow! Ow, ow, ow.” Somehow, vocalizing my discomfort makes me feel less alone. At least until can I find Pearl.
Unless they—
Stop. I put a stop to that and shock myself back into the present by dropping another few inches through the air. I will not go down that road until I absolutely have to. If I have to. While I haven’t heard her barking, I refuse to believe she’s dead.
I can’t be alone again.
With my whole body dangling in the open air, and my arms burn with the effort of holding me. Fear takes a foothold in my stomach, but luckily for me and any decision I might have to make, my grip fails on the edge of the roof, sending me falling downward faster than I can even process.
The jolt from hitting the ground makes me gasp before the pain actually hits, and I curl on my side as a sharp shock spreads from my lower back and hip.
Well, I think to myself, eyes closed as I lay in the fetal position on a kidnapper’s back porch, at least I wasn’t stupid enough to put out a hand or something that could’ve broken more easily than my ass.
“Fuck, that hurts,” I grumble. But the pain ebbs as I lie there, mentally telling myself to get the fuck up. I can’t just lie here and wait for someone to rescue me.
Clearly, there’s no white knight or even any less-crooked cops in Wolf Lake, and I’ll have to do both the damsel-ing and the rescuing myself.