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Turning.
Toward Chris.
My gaze went in that direction too, finding her watching me with small, confused eyes, not understanding why I hadn't come back damaged, broken, a shadow of the girl I had been when I left.
There would be time for explanations and assurances later.
Now, I had to act.
Before he took her.
Before he and his friends made her pay for my mistakes, for my connections, for my ignorance of them.
Had I known from the beginning, I don't know, maybe I could have used that to my advantage. Maybe I could have gotten Chris at least freed in exchange for compliance, for whatever that nutjob of a grandmother wanted from me.
But even if she agreed, even if Chris disappeared one day, who the heck knew if she would be free?
It was better this way, I decided, as I took the key out of its hiding place, and stabbed it into the lock.
It sounded loud, metal scraping metal, to my overly-sensitive, paranoid ears.
But there was no time to think about that as I carefully slid it off my ankle, settling it down on the ground, pushing myself silently up, eyes dashing around the room for something I could use.
There was nothing.
They gave us nothing.
Except...
I almost felt my lips curve up as I tip-toe-ran across the room, closing my hands around the porcelain tank cover of the toilet.
Heavy.
Solid.
Perfect.
I lifted it up with a grimace before turning to find Chris' ankle was already freed, and that bastard's greedy hands were sinking into her hips.
She was going to shut down.
And I needed her here with me.
I needed her to be able to carry her own weight.
I had to act fast.
I flew across the room, not silently, my feet slapping on the concrete floors, drawing his attention.
But late.
Too late.
By the time his eyes could even relay the message of what was about to happen to his brain, I was pulling back, swinging, slamming the porcelain into the side of his face with every ounce of force in my body, half toppling forward from the momentum before I caught myself.
The crack was hauntingly loud, a sound I would likely hear in nightmares. The look of shock on his face froze there as his body crumpled to the side, out cold.
But there was no telling how long someone would stay out.
Seconds, like I had.
Longer, like I likely had been in the trunk of the car.
Who knew.
We had to move.
"Get up!" I whisper-yelled at Chris who I had caught just in time, before she slipped away to the beach or to Christmases of times gone by. Her eyes were saucers, lips parted wide. "Get up. We're getting out of here," I demanded again, grabbing at the man's still body, still enough that it almost seemed lifeless, digging out the gun, popping out the magazine.
Six.
I had six bullets.
Better than nothing, but if we hit trouble, six was not a lot. Not if she had dozens of men. Which, if she thought of them as disposable as paper dinner plates, she likely did.
I would have to save them, use my hands, use heavy objects, doing whatever I could to ensure I had them if or when I really needed them.
I rummaged for his pocketknife, knowing I would have to tuck it into my bra, being without pockets or shoes, and needing a hand free to open doors, but figuring any weapon was useful to have, even if it wasn't literally at-hand.
"Chris! Now!" I barked, knowing I was yelling at a traumatized woman made weak from pain and malnutrition, but I couldn't put on kid gloves now. Our lives were in my hands. I needed a good grip.
Her head jerked, like my words were a slap cracking across her cheek, making her jolt, jump suddenly upward.
Feeling a small bit of triumph, I darted across the floor, freeing Mary's ankle, slapping my hands into her zoned-out face.
Drugged.
She was high.
"Snap out of it. We need to get out of here," I demanded, hands framing her face - one with the gun in it, pressing against her cheek - voice a kind of desperate I needed not to sound like right now.
"She won't come," Chris' voice called, soft, quiet, afraid of being heard.
"She has to."
"Have your father come back for her," Chris reasoned.
Her entire body jolted violently as a low, deep, masculine grumble came from between the lips of the man on the floor.
My hand felt for the cool ceramic again, rising to my feet, ready to bolt across the room, when suddenly... something switched on in Chris.
Her anger.
Her righteous, too-long-buried, all-consuming rage.
It overtook her body that had always seemed so broken, barely capable of holding her up, livened, straightened, steeled itself with purpose.
And that purpose?
That would be kicking the ever-loving-hell out of the man on the floor, the man who had likely abducted her too, had trapped her in this basement, who had carried her upstairs to be raped and beaten, who had maybe participated himself.
