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"He wants us weak," Mia guessed. "He wants to make sure we can't fight back." Mia's chains rattled as she moved. Her voice sounded closer, and Pauline guessed she'd turned onto her side. "What were you doing? Before, I mean. Why were you hitting the wall with your head?"
"If I can punch through the sheetrock, maybe I can get out. It's standard building code that the two-by-fours have to be sixteen inches apart."
Mia's tone filled with awe. "You have a sixteen inch waist?"
"No, you dumbass. I can turn sideways and slide out."
Mia laughed at her own stupidity, but then she pointed out something that made Pauline feel equally as idiotic. "Why aren't you using your feet?"
They were both quiet, but Pauline felt something welling up inside her. Her stomach twinged, and she heard laughter in her ears, honest-to-God, all-out laughter as she thought about how fucking stupid she was.
"Oh, God," Mia sighed. She was laughing, too. "You are such an idiot."
Pauline twisted her body around, trying to spin on her shoulder. She lined up her feet, bracing them together so that the chains wouldn't throw her off, and kicked. The sheetrock caved on the first try.
"Dumbass," she muttered, this time at herself. She slid back around to face the opening, using her teeth to bite off the broken chunks of sheetrock. There was poison in the dust, but she didn't care. She would rather die with her head poking six inches out of this room than be trapped here while she waited for that fucker to come for her.
"Did you get it?" Mia asked. "Did you break—"
"Shut up," Pauline told her, biting into foam padding. He had soundproofed the walls. That was to be expected. No big deal. She just grabbed it with her teeth, taking chunk after chunk out, aching for the feel of fresh air on her face.
"Fuck!" Pauline screamed. She inched around so that her waist was lined up to the hole. She reached out with her fingers, which barely went past the broken sheetrock. She tore out the foam, then her fingers brushed something that felt like a screen. She arched her back, reaching her hands out as far as they would go. Her fingers traced along crisscrossed wire. "Goddamm it!"
"What is it?"
"Chicken wire." He had lined the walls with chicken wire so they couldn't break out.
Pauline angled herself around again and jammed her feet against the wire. The soles of her shoes met solid resistance. Instead of the screen giving, the counterforce moved her several inches across the floor. She inched back to try again, rolling over onto her stomach and placing her sweaty palms to the cement. Pauline reared her feet back and kicked with all her strength. Again, she met solid resistance, her body sliding away from the wall.
"Oh, Jesus," she gasped, falling onto her back. The tears came, the tiny spider legs encroaching on her vision. "What am I going to do?"
"Can your hands reach?"
"No," Pauline cried. Hope drained out of her with every breath. Her hands were too tight to the belt. The chicken wire was attached to the back of the two-by-four. There was no way she could reach it.
Pauline's body shook with sobs. She had not seen him in years, but she still knew how his mind worked. The basement was his staging ground, a carefully prepared prison where he would starve them into submission. But, this was not the worst of it. There would be a cave somewhere, a dark place in the earth that he had lovingly dug out by hand. The basement would break them. The cave would destroy them. The bastard had thought of everything.
Again.
Mia had managed to inch her way over. Her voice was close, almost on top of Pauline. "Shut up," Mia ordered, pushing Pauline out of the way. "We'll use our mouths."
"What?"
"It's thin metal, right? Chicken wire?"
"Yeah, but—"
"You bend it back and forth and it breaks."
Pauline shook her head. This was crazy.
"All we need is for one piece to give," Mia said, as if the logic was clear. "Just grab it in your mouth and pull back and forth, back and forth. It'll break eventually, then we can kick it. Or we can just break every single piece off with our mouths."
"We can't—"
"Don't tell me can't, you fucking bitch." Mia's foot was chained, but she managed to kick Pauline in the shin.
"Ouch! Jesus—"
"Start counting," Mia ordered, inching toward the hole in the wall. "When you get to two hundred, it'll be your turn."
Pauline wasn't going to do it because she would be damned if she let this bitch tell her what to do. She heard something then—teeth on metal. Grinding, twisting. Two hundred seconds. Their skin would rip open. Their gums would be in shreds. There was no telling if it would even work.
Pauline rolled over, sat up on her knees.
She started counting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FAITH HAD NEVER THOUGHT OF HERSELF AS A MORNING PERSON, but she had gotten into the habit of going into work early when Jeremy was a child. You couldn't not be a morning person when there was a hungry boy to feed, dress, scrutinize and send off to the bus stop by 7:13 at the latest. If not for Jeremy, she might have been one of those late-night people, the sort who rolls into bed well after midnight, but Faith's usual bedtime ran closer to ten, even after Jeremy was a teenager and his waking hours were few and far between.
For his own reasons, Will was always at work early, too. Faith saw his Porsche parked in its usual space as she pulled the Mini into the lot under City Hall East. She put the car in park, then sat there trying to get the driver's seat back where she could reach the pedals and the steering wheel at the same time without being impaled by one while having to stretch to reach the other. After several minutes, she finally found the right combination and briefly thought about having the seat bolted into place. If Will wanted to drive her car again, he'd have to do it with his knees around his ears.
There was a tap at her window, and Faith looked up, startled. Sam Lawson stood there, a cup of coffee in his hand.
Faith opened the car door and wedged herself out, feeling like she'd put on twenty pounds overnight. Finding something to wear this morning had been a near impossible task. She was carrying enough water weight to fill a tank at SeaWorld. Thankfully, her giddiness over Sam Lawson had been a twenty-four-hour virus. She did not relish having a conversation with him now, especially since her mind needed to be focused on the day ahead of her.
"Hey, babe," Sam said, looking her up and down in his usual predatory way.
Faith got her purse out of the back seat. "Long time no see."
He gave a half-shrug that implied he was merely the victim of circumstance. "Here," he said, offering her the coffee. "Decaf."
Faith had tried to drink some coffee this morning. The smell had sent her rushing to the bathroom. "Sorry." She ignored the cup, walking away from him, trying not to get sick again.
Sam tossed the cup into the trashcan as he caught up with her. "Morning sickness?"
Faith glanced around, afraid they'd be heard. "I haven't told anyone but my boss." She tried to remember when you were supposed to tell people. There had to be a certain amount of weeks before you were sure it took. Faith must be coming up on that mark. She should start telling people soon. Should she get them all together, invite her mother and Jeremy to dinner, get her brother on speaker phone, or was there a way to send a bulk, anonymous email and perhaps jump on a flight to the Caribbean for a few weeks to avoid the fallout?
