Chapter 12 Krista #2
“What are you doing? I just said Derek would be here soon.”
I snorted at that. “Forgive me if I don’t wait for a man to solve my problems.”
“But…” She huffed in annoyance. “You’re ruining the fantasy!”
I paused, slowly looking up at her. “The fantasy?”
“Yes! Derek is Superman!”
Okay, that got my attention, but not because I believed her. In fact, now I was sure more than ever that I was going to have to rescue both of us because this woman was delusional.
“You…think your husband is Superman.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, one laced in disbelief and annoyance.
Rolling her eyes, she beamed at me. “Not the Superman. Though, how cool would that be? No, when I first met him, I thought he was Superman.”
The way she said it with very little embarrassment was almost heartwarming.
For a crazy person.
“That’s…”
“See, I was a librarian when we met. One too many books sent me into a constant dream state, if you know what I mean.”
“Nope,” I shook my head. “Not much for reading.”
Her jaw dropped in disbelief. You would have thought I’d shot her puppy by the way tears were welling in her eyes.
“That’s…so sad.”
“What can I say? I never really found something that interested me. Besides, who wants to read when you could just watch the movie?”
The gasp that flowed from her lips was almost comical, as was the matching look of horror on her face.
“The movie is never better,” she said fiercely.
“Okay,” I mocked. “Seriously, it’s not like anyone could effectively write about cars being blown up or play out a love scene the way some of these actors can.”
The woman pursed her lips, glancing away in a haughty fashion that nearly had me busting out laughing. She took this so seriously. Honestly, who cared if I preferred watching movies to reading a book?
“I just…need a minute,” she croaked out.
Geez, talk about melodrama. “Listen, not everyone—”
“Ah!” she cut me off, still refusing to look at me. “Some of us aren’t so casual in our dismissal of great writing. I just need a minute to wrap my brain around the fact that I rescued a woman who has no imagination or appreciation for the written word.”
“Oh, come on! Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic? We’re stuck in a—” I glanced around, taking in my surroundings with a sigh. “In a concrete bunker! There are no windows, one door, and not a single thing to help us escape. And you’re worried about whether or not I like to read?”
Her eyes widened in horror at my words. “How do you think people get ideas on how to escape?”
“They use their brains.”
“And ideas from books they’ve read.”
“Or maybe they watch a lot of MacGyver.”
She snorted at that. “I’m sorry, but no episode of MacGyver could rescue us right now. What we need is a man. A well-trained military hero who will drop down from the ceiling, tear off our bonds, and have his way with me before killing every single baddie in the place.”
The dreamy look in her eyes suggested this was not the first time she’d considered this scenario. And that was both amazing and disturbing at the same time. If only I had an imagination like hers. Maybe I wouldn’t be so freaking lonely all the time. I could just think up men to come to my rescue.
On the other hand, waiting around for a man just wasn’t in me. If I wanted something done, I did it myself. That was the way I had always been, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
“Well, while you dream of Superman, I’m going to work on these ropes.”
“I’m telling you, he’ll be here any minute.”
“Yeah,” I snorted. “That’s nice, but I live in the real world, and over here, men don’t drop down from the ceiling or fly in with a cape tied around their necks.”
“Don’t be silly,” she sighed. “The cape isn’t tied around his neck. That would choke him.”
“Of course,” I muttered, rubbing the ropes together. Slowly, the pieces frayed the harder I rubbed, but it would take forever at this rate. It would be easier just to untie them.
“Hey, scoot over this way.”
“Why? So you can take part in my fantasy? Not gonna happen.”
I rolled my eyes at her belligerent attitude. “No, so that we can rescue ourselves.”
“And why would I do that? Seriously, the whole point of a rescue is that the man swoops in and saves the day!”
What a load of bullshit. “And why should the woman have to wait for the man? So he can be the hero? I’m sorry, but women are just as awesome as men. We don’t need to be rescued all the time.”
She whimpered, her face pinched as tears filled her eyes. The woman seriously had some issues, but that was nothing I could help her with at the moment. I just wanted to get out of here.
“Look, just scoot over here and put your back to mine. We can undo each other’s ties. Honestly, it would be a little insane if two strong, capable women waited around for men to show up.”
That seemed to spark something inside her. “I guess.”
But she still wasn’t convinced.
“Claire, it’s fine to have your fantasies, but we’re actually stuck in a concrete jungle right now. Do you really want to wait and see what happens?”
“They’ll come,” she said confidently.
“I’m sure they will, but I’d rather not wait to find out what happens in the meantime. We have a short window to get ourselves out of here. If we don’t untie ourselves by the time the men return, we can wait for your lover to rescue us.”
“Husband,” she corrected. “And he really is Superman.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure he is.”
A grin crept across her face. “And Batman. And sometimes even Spiderman, but the webs really get in the way.”
I finally caught on to what she was talking about and grimaced. “Gross.”
“Not even a little. Let me tell you, there are things—”
“I really don’t want to know,” I cut her off. “Can we just get on with it?”
“Fine,” she sighed, scooting on her butt over to me.
Her fingers fumbled at the ropes, but it was pointless. Neither of us could move our hands in the right direction to actually do anything with the ties. After five excruciating minutes where all that happened was my shoulder being pulled out of joint, I gave up on that idea.
“I’m telling you, we just have to wait for the guys.”
“I’m not waiting for a bunch of men to show up and save the day! That’s just ridiculous. What we need to do is get our ties at the front of our bodies.”
“Brilliant idea!” she said sarcastically. “We’ll just call the bad guys back and ask if they can tie us in the front instead.”
“Would you just listen? I’ve seen it all the time in the movies. All we have to do is slip our arms around our butts and pull our legs through. It’s that simple.”
“Have you seen the size of my ass?” she laughed. “Fat chance of making that happen.”
“How would you know? Have you ever tried it?”
Sighing, she turned on her butt to face me. “Fine, let’s do this.”
I rolled backward, over my arms, then lifted my butt to give my wrists room to move. I wiggled and jiggled, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my wrists to move low enough to slip my butt through.
“Any luck?”
She grunted, cursing as she tried and failed to get her arms over her ass. “I told you my ass was too big!”
That wasn’t the problem, but I wasn’t giving up. I continued to writhe, determined to get my arms over my ass. “My arms aren’t long enough! How do they do this in the movies?”
“Well, first of all, they’re stick thin. Second, they probably work out for a living. Third, they probably dislocate their shoulder to do it. And four, they must have monkey arms because there’s no way my arms are long enough!”
I sucked in a breath and tried one more time, squeezing my ass cheeks in until finally, my arms slipped around my cheeks and—
“Oh God,” I whispered.
“What? Did you get it?”
“No!” I screamed in horror. “My arms are stuck!”
“What?” She wiggled around, trying to see what I was talking about. “How can you be—”
“My arms are stuck around my ass cheeks!”
“That’s just ridiculous. They can’t be.”
I tried to move them this way and that way, but they wouldn’t give. My ass was so scrunched in between my arms that I couldn’t move.
“Oh, God. I’m losing feeling. My wrists are going to snap off!”
“That’s just ludicrous. They won’t snap off because of your ass cheeks.”
“Yes, they will! I’m stuck, and when they come in here, I won’t be able to defend myself because my ass is too big to save me! I never thought that would be a problem!”
Claire burst out laughing, only making me feel worse about myself. The whole thing was absurd. I should have known it wouldn’t work.
“Instead of laughing at me, why don’t you try helping me!”
“Okay, alright,” she chuckled. “Roll to your side and I’ll press my foot against your ass. Just squeeze really hard.”
God, this was so mortifying. I did as she said, rolling uncomfortably to my side, then squeezed for all it was worth. Claire’s foot landed on my butt, and then she counted down.
“Just do it!”
She pressed hard, and my arms popped free, relieving the tension in my wrists as much as they could. My shoulders screamed in pain, but that just pushed me to get out of here. I would not be a victim.
“This is ridiculous! What would the guys do?”
Claire blew an errant strand of hair out of her face as she stared up at the ceiling. “They would have some hidden weapon that could immediately cut through the ropes.”
“And did you happen to hide a knife in your boobs?”
Sighing, she shook her head. “Sorry. I left my boob knife back at the compound.”
“Okay, then what else would they do?”
Groaning, she rolled toward me. “Why can’t we just wait for the guys?”
“Because we are not helpless women! We don’t need to be rescued by men! And what if those men come back before your husband arrives? What are we going to do then?”
I knew she didn’t want to admit I was right, but the fact was, we needed to get ourselves out of this.
“Fine, if they couldn’t do that, then…I guess they’d make sarcastic jokes to one another.”
“And that would accomplish what?” I asked, stunned that that was her answer.
“Well, they’d wait for the bad guys to come back, and then they’d banter with them until they annoyed them into submission.”
She had to be lying. That sounded like the worst plan ever. Who would actually do something like that? Then again, we were women. We could annoy people with the best of them. Not because we were actually annoying, but because we were evil geniuses at knowing what buttons to push.
“Then that’s our plan. If that’s what the guys would do, we can do the same thing, and probably better.”
“It won’t work,” she sighed.
“Oh, please! You were annoying me with that whole tirade about books being the best thing in the world. If anything is going to make someone want to blow their own brains out, you’ve got it in spades.”
“You know, I resent and respect that comment all at the same time.”
“You should. It’s a great skill to have.”
“Now we just wait for them to come back.”
“Exactly.”
We sat in silence for a whole minute, waiting for the men to return.
“You really don’t like to read?”