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5
River
The big manwith the wild, dark eyes grins one more time and then gets up and strides toward the door. His footsteps echo as he heads back up the stairs to the upper part of the house, leaving me alone in the room in the dark.
I can still smell him on me, and I can remember the heat of his breath on my face. He reeked of smoke and burned flesh, and I spare a second to think about the informant I killed outside their club. He’s probably nothing but ashes now, and I bet the big guy liked it. I probably did him a favor by leaving that body there. Made his fucking night or something. He’s obviously fucking psycho as hell, grinning like a loon while talking about torturing me the same way someone else might talk about sex or having dinner or something. But for some reason, I felt weirdly… drawn to him. To the wildness in his eyes, maybe. He’s not the type to back down from a fight, and I understand that completely.
Then I remember what he said—how foxes don’t survive with wolves.
Annoyance rises up in me, sharp and acrid. I’m prepared to die. I have been since I started this mission of vengeance. Maybe it will end in death for me, or maybe it won’t, but that’s not the thing that makes me mad right now.
What pisses me off in this moment is the fact that I might lose to these assholes.
Whatever their issues are, they have nothing to do with me. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and pissed them off, but it has nothing to do with them. I have my own stuff to deal with, and being stuck down here in their shitty dungeon is fucking with that.
They don’t even give a shit about the man I killed, or me, just their club.
There has to be a way out of this, without compromising myself and giving them more information than I want them to have.
I jerk on the chains, hearing them rattle against the cold brick of the wall. They’re bolted in there, and I’m definitely not going to be able to yank them out.
The shackles are tight around my wrists, and there’s not even much room to wiggle them free. They definitely know what they’re doing, and I think about the big guy and the pride and excitement in his eyes at the thought of being able to torture me. He’s done it before. He has the tools for it, apparently.
When they grab someone, that person probably doesn’t get out. But I’m not just anyone.
My double joints have come in handy before, and I think they will now, too. I suck in a breath and start compressing my hands, working them so they’re as small and slender as they possibly can be.
I start on the left, yanking my wrist against the hard metal of the cuff. It hurts like a bitch, the metal digging into my skin, slicing it up a little.
But pain has never stopped me before, and it’s not about to stop me now. I grit my teeth through it and keep pulling until my left hand is free. It’s sore and red around the widest part, but it’s out.
Time for the right one.
That one’s harder, and by the time I have it halfway out, there’s blood pouring down my forearm, and it seems stuck. I rotate my wrist, letting the blood slick the slide of it, lubricating it enough that I can wiggle it free after a minute or so.
I pause when I’m done, holding my breath to hear if anyone is coming. The basement is silent, and I can’t hear anyone on the stairs or coming to the door. Above me, there’s the creaking of floorboards, but that could be coming from anywhere in the house.
There are at least three of them here now, and if they catch me, it probably won’t be pretty.
Stepping away from the wall, I hiss and shake out my wrists. I go over to the cabinets the big guy gestured to before. If he keeps his torture implements in there, then maybe there’s something I can use as a weapon or to get out of the basement in one piece.
I try every door, but they’re all locked up tight. No amount of tugging on the handles does anything to even budge them, and there’s nothing I can use to pry them open.
I’d rather find something I can use to defend myself with before attempting to escape, but I don’t have a lot of choice, so I try it anyway, creeping over to the door that leads to the stairs and testing the knob.
Of course the fucking door to the rest of the house is locked too.
Motherfucker.
They’re smart. Maybe they’ve had a prisoner break out of the shackles before, so now they aren’t taking any chances by leaving the door unlocked. Maybe they’re just good at this and not dumb enough to leave anything to chance. Either way, I’m not going to be able to sneak out of here that way. And there are no windows in the basement, so there’s nothing for me to break or try to force open and climb out of.
I’ll have to wait until one of the guys comes back and then fight my way out. Unarmed, since that one asshole took my gun. I usually like my odds in a fight, but there are three of them and one of me, and the one guy with the wild eyes definitely wasn’t fucking around.
He’d put me down in a heartbeat and probably get off on it. And Blue Eyes and Green Eyes would just let it happen.
I have to find some way to get an advantage over them, but I can plan that as I go.
For now, I settle back down to wait. I work my hands partially back into the cuffs, keeping them loose enough that I can get myself back out of them easily enough. At a quick glance, it looks like I’m still restrained and helpless in their little torture basement, but it won’t fool anyone for long.
