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It reminded me of how high up we were. How easy it would be for us to follow the same path as the cell phone.
“How’d you even get us up here?”
“Elevator,” he said, pointing toward a steel box that seemed to be suspended in mid-air only feet away from us. “Don’t worry, I cut the power line. No one else is going to use that tonight.”
Black stars popped at the edges of my vision, threatening to overwhelm me. I took in a deep breath and tried not to start hyperventilating.
Nick cocked his head, his expression becoming similar to that of a tiger cornering a mouse. “You’re scared of heights, aren’t you, Sam?”
I didn’t want to give him any kind of answer. I just stared straight ahead. Part of me went back to that date with Rocky, where I thought my fear of heights had been conquered. It was such a perfect time back then, even though my life didn’t seem perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
What I wouldn’t give to go back to that moment right now.
Nick looked to me, to the edge, and then to me again. His sinister smile seemed to spread on his face like a deadly virus.
“Stand up.” He pointed at me with the knife.
I didn’t move. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t.
“Stand up!”
I did, but the bindings around my ankles threw me off balance. I fell back into the chair.
Nick came over and with one swift move, bent down and sliced the rope off my ankles.
“Good thing I kept this,” he said wickedly. “The same knife I used to kill Jesse. I was planning on dumping it in the ocean, but this seems so much more resourceful.” He waved the knife inches from my face.
“Stand up,” he said again, a little more controlled.
This time, standing was more successful. My hands were still tied behind my back, but I could move, even though my legs felt like they were filled with cement.
Think. I’m standing. I can fight.
But Nick’s knife was now pressing against my belly, the sharp point cutting through the fabric of my shirt and pushing into skin. If I tried anything, that knife would find its way into my stomach.
I swallowed what felt like a boulder.
“Come, let’s take a walk.”
He led me toward the edge of the building, where two steel beams framed the horizon like some fucked-up kind of portrait. It felt like I could see from one edge of Florida to the other.
It was beyond sickening. I couldn’t feel my legs or my hands or any other part of my body. A powerful numbness came over me.
“Oh, look at how pale you’re getting. What’s wrong, Sam? You don’t like being so high up?”
He pushed me. My eyes bulged wide as a muted shout tried to tear through my throat, blocked by fear.
I wasn’t plummeting through the air, though. Nick had a hold on me.
“Come on. Let’s get over this fear. Take a step. Go, take a step.” The knife pushed hard into my back now. I took a step. The smallest step I could. I was crying, the wind pushing the stream of tears across my cheeks. The tips of my sneakers were now over the edge, with nothing beneath them except air.
The fear was primal. Fear the cavemen must have felt at the sight of a saber-tooth.
“All right, other foot now.”
“I… I can’t. Please. Stop this, Nick.”
“Other. Foot.”
The knife was drawing blood. I could feel the warm trickle of it down my back. I took another centimeter-long step, my knees shaking. I started to pray they wouldn’t buckle.
“How’s it feel, Sam? Huh? Being so close to the edge?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t get anything out.
“You don’t like it, do you?”
I shook my head, my eyes snapped shut.
“Open your eyes. Look out. Open.”
The knife dug deeper. Through the sharp pain came an even sharper realization.
The knife was also cutting into the rope around my wrists. If I moved just the tiniest bit, I could feel the rope start giving way, becoming weaker, thread by single thread.
I realized that if we wanted any chance of surviving this, I had to keep him talking. I had to stay with my toes suspended above thin air.
I opened my eyes. Strength filled me from some unknown source. “Why’d you kill Jesse?”
The question seemed to catch even Nick by surprise. “Huh?”
“Why did you kill him? Because you loved him? Because you thought loving him was a sin?”
“Because I got too high on ketamine and hallucinated that he was a zombie. So I stabbed him to death.”
Well… that wasn’t what I was expecting.
“But, well, you did love him, didn’t you? Secretly?”
“No. I didn’t. We were hooking up, yes, and I’ve repented for those sins. But I never loved him, no.”
The rope felt like it was giving way around my wrists. The wind whipped at my cheeks, howling in my ears. Bile rose up in my throat but I swallowed it down.
