Chapter 8 Tessa
TESSA
Someone was shaking her gently, and a soft female voice was calling her name.
“Tessa. Tessa, can you hear me? Come on, wake up now.”
The voice sounded familiar, but Tessa’s brain felt like it was wrapped in cotton wool, sluggish and heavy. Her head throbbed with a dull, persistent ache, and her mouth tasted like she’d been chewing on old pennies. Her throat burned as if she’d swallowed acid, and her stomach churned with nausea.
She tried to open her eyes, but the lids felt weighted down, refusing to cooperate. Everything was darkness and confusion and that persistent, insistent shaking.
“That’s it, Tessa. Open your eyes.”
The woman’s voice was calm, professional, soothing. Like a doctor speaking to a patient. That thought penetrated the fog enough for Tessa to make another attempt at consciousness.
This time, her eyelids fluttered open, though the world was a blurry mess of shadows and dim light. She blinked hard, trying to force her eyes to focus, but it was like looking through water.
“There you are,” the woman said. “Here, drink this. Slowly now.”
A bottle of cold water was pressed against Tessa’s lips. She tried to sit up, but her body wouldn’t obey her commands. Her limbs felt disconnected, heavy, and unresponsive.
“Don’t try to sit up yet,” the woman instructed gently. “Your body’s still recovering from whatever was on that cloth. Just let me help you.”
Soft hands slid beneath Tessa’s head, lifting it carefully, and the bottle tilted against her lips. The water was blessedly cold and helped wash away some of that horrible metallic taste in her mouth.
“Slowly,” the woman reminded her. “Small sips. Your stomach’s going to be upset for a while.”
Tessa took a few small swallows, then turned her head away. The water helped, but it also made her aware of just how awful she felt. Like she had the worst hangover of her life, combined with the flu.
“Where...” she tried to speak, but her voice came out as a croak.
“Shh, give yourself a few more minutes. Your throat’s going to be raw from the chemical irritation.”
Tessa blinked hard several more times, willing her vision to clear.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the blurry shapes around her began to resolve into actual objects.
A concrete wall. A bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
And beside her, a woman with short dark hair and kind eyes that were creased with worry.
When Tessa’s eyes finally focused properly, she turned her head and was shocked to see Dr. Jackie Simons kneeling beside what appeared to be a narrow cot.
Dr. Jackie Simons. Sally’s best friend. The woman they’d just been talking about that very afternoon at the coffee shop.
Tessa’s first confused thought was: We were just talking about her.
Then fear gripped her chest like an icy fist. Did Dr. Simons kidnap her? Was this about what happened when Jackie was a teenager? Did she somehow know that Tessa knew the truth about Queen Nasty?
No, that’s absurd, Tessa told herself firmly, pushing down the irrational panic. Jackie had been the victim in that situation, and Sally had taken the blame to protect her. There was no reason for Jackie to come after Tessa.
“Can you sit up?” Jackie asked gently. “Take your time.”
With Jackie’s help, Tessa managed to push herself into a sitting position. The movement made her head swim and her stomach lurch, but she forced herself to breathe through it until the nausea passed.
As her surroundings came into sharper focus, Tessa realized with growing alarm that she was in a basement. A cold, bare concrete room with a single bare light bulb, no windows, and what looked like a heavy metal door, which Tessa guessed was locked from the outside.
She was sitting on a cot-style bed with a hard, flat pillow and a scratchy wool blanket. And around the room, she could see four more identical cots arranged against the walls.
“Where are we?” Tessa asked, her voice still rough and scratchy.
“I’ve yet to figure that out,” Jackie told her, settling onto the edge of Tessa’s cot. “There are no windows, no identifying features. Just this room and that door.”
“Wait.” Tessa looked at Jackie more carefully, taking in the woman’s rumpled clothes and the exhaustion in her eyes. “Why are you here?”
“I’ve yet to figure that out, too,” Jackie said with a humorless smile. She pointed around the room. “I asked when a giant wearing a hood so I couldn’t see his face came to give me food earlier. He said I’d find out soon enough.”
A giant in a hood. That didn’t sound good at all.
“How long have you been here?” Tessa asked.
“About four hours now,” Jackie told her, glancing at her watch.
“How long have I been here?” Tessa looked at her questioningly.
“About an hour. You were unconscious when they brought you in. The giant carried you over his shoulder and just dumped you on the cot. Didn’t say a word to me, just left.” Jackie’s expression was grim. “How were you taken?”
Tessa swallowed, wincing at the burn in her throat.
“I was in the town park. I’d been talking to someone, and he walked away.
I turned to go after him, and someone grabbed me from behind.
Put a cloth over my face. It smelled chemical, sweet, and horrible.
I tried to fight, but whoever it was, was incredibly strong.
I couldn’t break free.” The memory made her heart race.
“Everything went fuzzy and dark, and the last thing I remember was being dragged into the trees.”
“Chloroform was probably on the cloth,” Jackie said with the certainty of medical knowledge.
“That would explain the symptoms you’re experiencing now.
The headache, nausea, throat irritation, and confusion.
They got me the same way. I was on my way to make a house call.
This man bumped into me as I got to my car in my practice parking lot.
I dropped my keys, bent down to pick them up, and got a faceful of chloroform-soaked cloth.
” She shook her head. “I never even saw his face. One second I was reaching for my keys, the next I was waking up here.”
“Why?” Tessa asked, holding out her hand for more water. “Why kidnap us?”
“Drink it slowly,” Jackie reminded her, handing over the bottle. “They won’t tell me anything. The man who brought food wouldn’t answer any of my questions.” She glanced around the room at the empty cots. “But I think we can expect three more people.”
Tessa’s eyebrows shot up as she followed Jackie’s gaze to the other three cots. Her heart did an uncomfortable flip in her chest.
“I don’t suppose this is some elaborate hazing ritual?” Tessa asked, hearing the desperate hope in her own voice. “Or maybe a surprise birthday party? Or possibly a really bizarre escape room game that got way out of hand?”
“Would someone chloroform us for that?” Jackie asked, one eyebrow raised. “Seems like a bit of overkill. Plus, chloroform isn’t just something you can buy off the shelf at a drug store. It’s a controlled substance. Whoever did this had access to medical or industrial chemicals.”
“We can still hope, though,” Tessa said, taking another small sip of water. Then she looked at the bottle suspiciously. “This isn’t drugged or anything, is it?”
“I don’t think whoever kidnapped us would go to all this trouble just to poison us,” Jackie assured her.
“And I was given a really nice lunch about two hours ago. Sandwich, fruit, chips, and really nice cookies. Like something you’d pack for a picnic.
If they wanted us dead, there would be easier ways. ”
“Fattening us up?” Tessa asked, her heart lurching uncomfortably at the thought.
“Maybe,” Jackie admitted, her eyes scanning the room methodically. “I’ve been trying to find a way out since I woke up. But I haven’t had much luck.”
“I think the only way out is through that door,” Tessa said, pointing to the heavy metal door with its exterior bolt.
“Yes, but we have to get past a giant first,” Jackie told her.
“A giant?” Tessa’s mind was starting to clear now, adrenaline burning through the remaining fog from the chloroform. “Is there something we could hit him with? There are two of us now. You said he brings food?”
“Yes,” Jackie nodded. “But what are we going to hit him with? A bed? These cots aren’t exactly portable weapons.”
Tessa’s head snapped toward the cots, assessing them with new eyes. “How heavy are they?”
“Not something we could pick up and swing,” Jackie told her.
“They’re bolted to the floor. I already checked.
” But then her eyes widened, and she patted the pocket of her slacks.
“But I do have sleeping powder on me. Small bottle. I always carry some samples with me for patients who have trouble sleeping. It’s a fast-acting sedative in powder form that dissolves instantly in liquid. ”
“How are we going to get a giant to take sleeping powder?” Tessa asked. “And if he really is as big as you say, do you think it would even work on him? Don’t those things work based on body weight or something?”
“They do,” Jackie confirmed. “Dosage is typically calculated based on body mass. The standard dose in this bottle would be enough to knock out someone around one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds for several hours. For someone significantly larger, we’d need to increase the dosage substantially.
A man over three hundred pounds might need double or even triple the standard dose to achieve the same effect.
We’d have to use the entire bottle and hope it’s enough. ”
“We could try,” Tessa said, her mind already working through possibilities.
“But while we figure out how to get him to drink it, we should figure out why we’re here in the first place.
What do we have in common? And who the other three people are going to be.
” Her eyes narrowed. “Although I can probably guess one of them.”
“Who?” Jackie asked, leaning forward with interest. “Maybe I know them.”