When my pleas get me nowhere, I claw my nails into the stranger’s leathery hands before throwing my head back.
The crack of my skull into his nose is brutal, but it has nothing on his grunt. “Arrgghhh!” It isn’t close to friendly. It roars through my chest as loudly as the stomps he does to race us inside the wood-like structure.
In my haste to get away from him, I didn’t check the direction I was crawling. Like an idiot with air for brains, I was scrambling toward the murderous scene instead of the freedom I’m sure is here somewhere if I were given a chance to look.
Although tired both emotionally and physically, I fight the stranger all the way. I kick him, bite him, and scream so loud, he has no choice but to clamp his hand over my mouth to ensure he doesn’t suffer permanent hearing loss.
It’s at that exact moment my fight comes to an end.
I’m petrified of being suffocated to death. It’s my biggest fear. Every nightmare I’ve had the past decade involves me being killed by some form of brain hypoxia.
Brain hypoxia is when the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen. It can be from drowning, choking, suffocation, or cardiac arrest, but my fear solely stems from oxygen deprivation by breath manipulation.
Even if it could have spiced up our unindulgent sex life, I wouldn’t let Cedric curl his hand around my throat. I was paranoid he didn’t know me well enough not to take it too far, and from his lack of remorse three nights ago, with good reason.
I loathe my neck being touched, but even more than that, I hate how paralyzing my fear is when it reaches full fruition. The stranger could do anything to me right now, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. I’m frozen with fear, and I have no idea why.
It isn’t like anyone has tried to kill me before now.
ChapterSeven
When creaking floorboards broadcast that I’m no longer alone, I roll over the best I can without announcing my movements to the bearded stranger. He didn’t hurt me last night when fear paralyzed me, but he did take advantage of my frozen state to protect himself from another attack.
I’m tied to a bed oddly similar to the one in the original cabin, and to keep things in perspective, he used a length of vine to restrain me instead of rope.
The subtleness of the vine is deceiving. It’s soft against my skin instead of scratchy like the rope would have been, but even rubbing it against the unvarnished slat of wood for over an hour this morning didn’t loosen its grip on my wrist. It’s as close to my skin now as the stranger was last night when he mistook the shivers of my body as me being cold. He used his body heat to warm me, and although his closeness should have increased my panic, it eventually subdued it. Not enough for me to contemplate sleeping, but it did give me time to process things.
If the cabins are his stomping ground, and he lives in the woods full-time, does he comprehend that women don’t fall out of the sky in snow-white convertibles? Even as adults, we’re conditioned to believe what we’re taught, so how warped would someone’s mind be if his way of life was starkly different from the norm?
I stop endeavoring to diagnose the stranger in a field I have no right to practice in when something stabs me in the back through the shirt he dressed me in last night. It’s long and pointy like the stranger’s fingers, but without his scratchy fingernails.
Although I want to continue pretending I’m asleep, the stranger doesn’t give me that choice. He tugs on my shoulder firm enough to make me become one with the ‘mattress’ before he shoves a banana into my hand.
It’s a little unripe, but the loud grumbles of my stomach don’t care. I rip it open like it’s my favorite candy bar before endeavoring to swallow it hole.
The smell barely registers with my senses before the stranger grunts at me. “Ugggh!” He snatches the banana out of my hand, rips an inch off the top, then hands me the measly piece.
“That’s it? That’sallI get? A meager inch? I would have gotten more from Cedric, and that’s saying something.” I mumble my last sentence through the sliver of banana sliding down my throat. It’s a little bitter since it’s not ripe, but with it being my only source of food for god knows how long, I gobble it down like two scoops of vanilla ice cream and a generous helping of chocolate sauce will soon follow it.
Once the clump of fruit has slid into my stomach, I return my eyes to the mostly untouched banana. If it was the dessert Cedric was forever adamant we should share, it would have been eaten by now. So not am I only shocked it’s still in one piece, I’m also a little excited. “Can I please have some more?”
The stranger’s eyes drop from my lips to the banana before he rips me off another chunk.
“Thank you.”
I chew this piece instead of swallowing it whole, conscious I won’t starve if I use my manners. My second chunk was almost double the size of my first one, and it doesn’t take a genius to realize praise goes a long way, even during a situation you’d never anticipate.
Furthermore, the longer the stranger watches the subtle movement of my lips, the more time I have to scope the premises. I couldn’t see a damn thing last night. My paralysis gives me tunnel vision as it is, but the blizzard made matters worse. Shadows didn’t dance around the compact space until the stranger lit the fireplace. Since that wasn’t until after I stopped shaking like I was in an ice bath, the opportunity to snoop never presented itself until now.
As suspected from the layout of the ‘bedroom,’ this cabin is almost a direct replica of the one we left last night. Even the rocking chair wedged next to the roaring fireplace is in the same spot. There are just a handful of differences. No deer heads are mounted to the wall, and there isn’t an ounce of dust to be seen.
He also has a gun by the door instead of an animal carcass.
When I finish my second piece of banana—and my perusal of his home—I lift and lock my eyes with the stranger’s. I don’t have to use my manners this time around. He hands me a third piece without a syllable slipping from my lips, the pleas in my eyes loud enough for a deaf man to hear.
I almost shove the chunk into my mouth like a piggie, but a flicker of silver on the kitchen counter steals my focus. A knife isn’t the best defense against a gun, but I bet it would have no issues slicing through a segment of vine, and the thought pops a brilliant idea into my head.
The stranger takes a step back when I shoot my hand up to cover my mouth at the same time my eyes pop out of my head. After making a gesture like I’m about to be sick, I gag like I just found out Cedric and I are related by blood.
