Chapter 61
Somewhere, California?
It’s the need for water that wakes me up.
My throat is absolutely parched.
How much did I have to drink last night?
But as I force one of my eyes open, I remember that I wasn’t out drinking last night and the pounding head and raging thirst are not a hangover.
I was hit over the head.
‘Hey, sleeping beauty. Weren’t you supposed to rescue me? You don’t look like you’re in rescue mode.’
I open my eyes fully and see that I’m not alone, wherever the fuck I am. Antoinette is here too.
She’s alive.
And as snarky as ever.
I’ve never been so happy to hear sarcasm in my life.
‘Antoinette!’ I say, pulling myself up into a sitting position. It’s not the easiest of manoeuvres with my hands cable-tied behind my back. I wriggle my feet. Yep, ankles too. My mind flashes to Aidan Ward in the wine cellar. How the tables have turned. ‘You’re okay.’
‘Well, no thanks to you. But yes. I’m fine.’
I’m so pleased to see her that I think I might cry.
‘Where are we?’ I ask, looking around for clues.
‘In the cellar of Little House on the Scary,’ Antoinette says.
‘We’re still in Cort’s cabin?’
She nods. ‘Yeah. He brought you down a little while ago.’ She peers at me. ‘Are you okay? Think you got quite a nasty smack on the head.’
That’s right. Someone hit me. ‘Where’s Lauren?’ I say but Antoinette looks at me blankly.
‘Lauren?’ she says and I explain that it was Lauren who remembered this place, that Cort used to bring her here on dates.
‘What a romantic,’ she says, screwing up her nose in distaste. Then her face goes serious. ‘He hasn’t brought Lauren down here.’
Anxiety courses through me. Where is she? What’s he doing to her? If he thinks she brought me out here … well, I can’t even think about how angry he’d be. And what that might look like for Lauren.
‘How did you get down here?’ I ask and I swear I can hear Antoinette roll her eyes.
‘That faux-feminist psycho offered to give me a lift to find Agnes after I stormed out of the villa,’ she says.
‘Then he chloroformed me and, the next thing I know, I’m waking up and he’s dragging me into this abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere.
Honestly, I thought it was some sort of hazing thing at first. But no. He is absolutely batshit delulu.’
‘Has he hurt you? Has he … done anything to you?’ I almost don’t want to hear the answer.
But Antoinette shakes her head. ‘Not physically. But having to listen to that sentient man-bun’s deranged yapping has been pretty painful.’
‘Deranged yapping! He should rename his podcast that. What’s he been saying?’
Antoinette rolls her eyes so hard I can feel it. ‘Oh blah blah blah, sluts this and yada yada, whores that. Anyway. Good to see you, sis, what’s the plan?’
‘Plan?’
‘Yes, the plan to get us out of here. I’m not really loving basement life.’ She shuffles around to show me that her hands and ankles are also cable-tied. ‘What’s the plan?’
Oh. Right. She thinks there’s a plan.
‘Um … so, the thing is. There isn’t really a plan.’
Antoinette blinks at me.
‘What do you mean there isn’t a plan? There has to be a plan.
’ Her voice goes up a few octaves. ‘Because if there isn’t a plan, that means we’re just stuck here.
In a basement in the middle of the fucking desert at the mercy of that unhinged podcast posturer out there.
’ She sighs. ‘Please tell me someone knows where you are?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘Charlie and Agnes went round to Cort’s to see if he was there. Lauren tried to text them to tell them where we were going but there’s no signal out here.’
‘Wait … Charlie?’
I feel a blush creep up into my cheeks. ‘Yeah. We’re kind of back together.’
Antoinette’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘Um … how did this happen? Details, please.’
I stare back at her. ‘Do you not think we’ve got more pressing immediate issues, Antoinette?’ I look pointedly at my bound ankles. ‘I can tell you about my love life when we’ve figured out what we’re going to do.’
Her brow furrows. ‘Okay, but make sure you do. This tea is too good to miss out on.’
Seriously.
This girl has been held hostage by a lunatic for the past few days and she’s just casually wanting me to fill her in on what’s been happening in my love life.
I’m surprised Cort didn’t bring her straight back the moment she started talking.
Then I remember something else.
I remember what I saw before the world went dark and I woke up down here.
‘Travis,’ I say to Antoinette.
‘Huh?’
‘Travis was up there. Before someone, Cort I guess, hit me over the head. Have you seen him? Are they in on it together?’
‘Wait. What? Travis the PI? Why would they be in on it together? Do they even know each other?’
Of course. Antoinette doesn’t know about the whole fake-PI thing so I fill her in. She listens, her lips pressed together and her eyes wide.
‘You do realise that is the absolutely last time that I trust a recommendation from you?’
Antoinette thinks about this for a minute. ‘Fair,’ she says. ‘But Travis didn’t have anything to do with kidnapping me. Unless he’s like a sleeper partner or something?’
‘Then what was he doing here?’ I say, confused. Nothing makes sense at all.
‘I don’t have any answers,’ she says. ‘Now seriously, how are we going to get out of here? Do you know anything about slipping out of cable ties, by any chance?’
I shake my head.
There must be something we can do.
I look around the room, trying to see if there’s anything useful here but there isn’t. Just some tins of food that have probably been here for years. Maybe even decades.
Then I remember.
The knife.
The little paring knife I grabbed from the kitchen when I was going to kill Aidan. The one I couldn’t find.
It’s in the back pocket of my cut-offs.
That’s where I put it.
I’d been wondering what was digging into my bum in the car.
‘I’ve got a knife!’ I say to my sister. Her eyes light up.
‘Of course you do! You’re Kitty Collins. I knew you’d come through for me. Where is it?’
‘In the back pocket of my shorts,’ I say and I try to reach it. But I can’t. The angle at which my hands are tied is too awkward for me to be able to. It’s a futile mission. ‘I can’t reach it! You’re going to have to get it out.’
Antoinette nods and bum-hops closer to me. Her hands are behind her back too so she’s going to have to feel around for the knife. She moves herself into a back-to-back position with me.
‘So this is awkward,’ she says as she tries to pretzel herself into a position that allows her access to my back pocket. I can feel her twisting and turning behind me but her hands are nowhere near my pockets.
‘Lower,’ I say. ‘You’re not even in the right zip code.’
‘Well, it doesn’t help that you’re literally sitting on your butt, you know, the place where the pockets are situated. You need to move too.’
‘I can’t stand up,’ I say. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed my feet are tied too.’
Antoinette clicks her tongue. ‘You’re going to have to roll over onto your side,’ she instructs me.
‘What? I thought you were like the queen of sleight of hand or something?’
‘Just do it. Roll over. Hurry up.’
I grumble as I slide down onto my back and roll over onto my side.
The floor is made of stone and it’s cold and hard.
‘This is the least fun I’ve had since losing my bag at the airport,’ I say.
I’m sure I hear Antoinette stifle a giggle.
I’m not certain that she’s taking our kidnapping as seriously as she should be. ‘Are you laughing?’
‘No. Okay, a little. But you’ve got to admit this is kind of funny. I’ve got it!’
‘Great,’ I say. ‘Now cut through the cable tie on my wrists.’
Again this is not as easy as it sounds. And having Antoinette poking around near my skin with a blade while she can’t see what she’s doing isn’t exactly ideal.
‘This knife is useless,’ she hisses as she attempts to saw through the plastic tie. ‘Could you not have sharpened it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Next time I find a knife I’ve stashed in my shorts and forgotten about, I’ll make sure I sharpen it first.’
‘There’s no need to get snippy. It hurts my feelings,’ Antoinette says.
As if she has any feelings.
I’m not sure how long it takes her to cut through the cable tie.
It might be ten minutes, it might be an hour.
Time becomes something of an abstract concept when you’re lying on your side, cable-tied on a cold, stone floor with your sister blindly stabbing near your butt with a knife.
But she eventually gives a cry of triumph and I feel the tension in my wrists slacken.
I’m free.
‘Now do me,’ Antoinette says and I’m only tempted to leave her bound for a split second.
Once our hands are liberated, we cut our ankles free too.
‘That feels so good,’ Antoinette says as she stretches her arms high above her head, wiggling her fingers.
‘How often does he come and check on you?’ I ask.
‘A couple of times a day usually. To give me some water and crackers. The refreshments here are extremely mid.’
‘Okay, we need to think smart and be prepared. Here’s what we’re going to do.’
And I tell Antoinette my plan.
Because she’s right. I do always have one.
Eventually.