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Chapter 2
Nayome woke up with a headache to rule all headaches. Groaning, it took a few seconds before she attempted to blink her eyes open. Swallowing panic, she glanced around, seeing only blackness. The memory of her head hitting the ground in the clearing came flooding back. Was she blind? Had there been enough damage to cause that?
Her hands were pinned underneath her, probably from her awkward landing. As Nayome shifted and attempted to reach out to get her bearings, she was horrified to discover that someone tied together and trapped her hands under her weight. Her bindings were so soft, she could barely feel them until she tried to drag her hands apart. But the ties were strong. Testing the resistance, Nayome discovered that there wasn’t much slack. And there was something else…her face. She could feel a whisper against her lashes as she blinked. She was blindfolded.
Nayome stilled as an icy chill worked its way through her body. Shock, probably. This must be what shock felt like. That shape…that man, closing in on her in the clearing. Someone had tied her up and blindfolded her.
Patting around as best she could with hands pinned under her weight, she expected to feel the cool, hard packed earth of the forest floor. Instead she felt give, and fabric…some kind of cushion, maybe a couch or a mattress. Let’s go with a couch. Her mind wasn’t ready to deal with the implications of being tied up in a bed. And it was quiet…too quiet. The forest had been full of noise, wind rustling leaves, bird songs, the buzz of crickets.
Shivering, Nayome was suddenly grateful for the sign-in system at the park office. Someone would realize she was missing, at least. But what time was it now? There was no way to tell how much time may have passed since she fell, or where she might be now.
Wouldn’t they just assume she was another tourist lost in the woods, though? How would anyone find her here, wherever here was? And…what…what did whoever brought her here want with her? Money? She did alright at CRINA, but she was far from wealthy. Her parents had both passed away about ten years ago in a car wreck, before she had finished University. They had both been only children, so she didn’t have any aunts or uncles to lean on. There was no family money or distant well-off relatives that could be ransomed. It was just her.
If it wasn’t money they were after…Nayome’s mind shut down that train of thought as her body shook, an icy wave of panic working its way down her spine.
Taking stock of her injuries was something she could do right now. Other than being tied up, it didn’t seem like she had come to any harm. Though it was hard to tell, since she had banged herself up pretty badly before she had passed out.
Growing up in an upper middle class suburb of Mount Pleasant, New York, Nayome’s mind was struggling to latch on to any direction, or sense of reality. This type of thing didn’t happen in her hometown. She had no frame of reference.
Maybe…maybe this was just a nightmare. A vivid, disturbingly detailed nightmare, she thought as she felt the silky texture of her blindfold shift against her lashes. The next time she woke up, she would be back in the forest, with a couple of bumps and bruises but none the worse for wear.
That attractive, rude, park office guy would roll his beautiful dark brown eyes when she strolled into the office just after sunset. Typical tourist, making him stay late. But at least he wouldn’t have to call in the search party. That was a reality she could deal with.
Feeling around with her feet, Nayome was relieved to find her legs weren’t bound like the rest of her. Though her legs were sore and stiff, each small movement pulled on her bruised and scraped kneecaps, giving her a friendly reminder of the earlier fall into the clearing. Toeing the edge of the couch, yes…it was definitely a couch, Nayome sighed in relative relief that she wasn’t incapacitated in some creep’s bed. She must have hit her head pretty hard to be sighing in relief at the current state of things, but her imagination was doing a good job of jumping between the worst possible scenarios.
She swung her legs off the edge of the couch and managed to prop herself up into a seated position. Feet hitting a cool hardwood floor, Nayome realized she was missing her shoes. Swinging her head around side to side, she attempted to get some visual indication, change in light, anything to give her some sensory information about her surroundings. Nothing. The blindfold, though silky and delicate feeling against her skin, was effective. She was completely blind.
Moving forward, Nayome lowered into a kneeling position and began an awkward, slow shuffle around the room. If she could just find something…yes, that might work. She bumped into what was probably a coffee table. Her hands were bound behind her, but the table was framed with metal and had sharp corners that she felt digging into her thighs as she had pressed forward. If she could catch the fabric of her hand bindings, maybe she could tear it or loosen them enough to wriggle free.
Not wanting to think about what might happen if whoever brought her here came back, Nayome turned around and attempted to snag the silky fabric on the corner of the coffee table. Where the glass top met the metal frame, she could feel it was sharp. This could work, should work—but every time she managed to hook some of the binding on that edge, the fabric moved like water and would not snag.
Sighing in frustration, Nayome moved on—stumbling to a standing position, she took an awkward step forward, bracing herself as she shuffled forward blindly. A few steps from the couch, her foot made contact with something on the ground. Giving it a tentative tap with her toe, the welcome sound of small glass containers clanging almost brought tears to her eyes. It was her bag. Her over packed bag, which was full of supplies, including a pen knife.
Lowering into a seated position, with her back to the bag, Nayome fumbled at each pocket with the minimal range of motion her wrist ties would allow. Finding the side pocket with the little knife, it took her a painfully long couple of minutes to unbutton, and grip the hilt. Sweating from the exertion, or maybe the stress of not knowing how much time she had to pull this off, she finally lifted it out of the pocket.
Blade held in one hand, and pulling the binding as taught as possible, Nayome managed a gentle sawing motion against the fabric. At first, it seemed not to do any damage, but eventually she felt the first layer fibers give way, fraying under the slow methodical sawing. What felt like thirty minutes later, though in reality it all happened within a few minutes, the bindings on Nayome’s wrists loosened enough for her to free her hands. Dropping the knife, she clawed the blindfold down off her face, gasping with relief as she freed herself.
It was dark. Swallowing the alarm bells ringing in her head, telling her she may have damaged her vision afterall, Nayome focused her eyes, reassured to see there were layers and shapes in the darkness. It was nighttime. She wasn’t blind, there just weren’t any lights on and it was dark. The only source of light was a faint glow of moonlight that was streaming through a large floor-to-ceiling window a few feet behind the couch.
As Nayome’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, the shadows cast by the thin moonlight elongated, creeping up the walls surrounding her. Gripping her bag, she glanced around. Whoever brought her here would come back, and she wanted to be gone before that happened.
Spying what looked like an exit, she was bracing to get to her feet when a light flickered on behind her.
Stiff backed, Nayome froze in place. She had heard no one…this whole time, no creak, or sigh, or breath. She had been sure she had been alone.
“Who’s there?” She whispered, trembling, still on her knees.
From behind her, she heard a shift, as if someone was getting up out of a creaky leather chair.
“I’m impressed. I didn’t mean to startle you, but I couldn’t just let you run off at this time of night.”
The deep male voice that answered filled Nayome with an undefinable fear, chilling her to the bone. She had thought she had a chance to escape, but he must have been watching her the whole time.
Looking back, Nayome could not say where she found the strength to stand and face her captor. Legs barely holding together, bones feeling like jello, she clambered to her feet and turned to meet her fate head on.
For one moment, Nayome forgot she was in a crisis. The man in front of her, haloed by the lamplight behind him, was angelic. There was no other word to describe it…he was towering over her, at least six foot five, with shining silver blonde hair that shimmered in the moonlight.
“What do you want?” She asked, ashamed, when her voice cracked with fear.
