Page 376 of Roughneck

But I only rolled a little. Still, it was enough to dislodge Ruth from my chest.

Fuck, it hurt to move. It was so fucking difficult. My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Two thousand pounds even.

But I thought of my rage at Victoria, of how helpless I’d felt those months of nights, knowing she’d come home and torment me into the long hours of morning. And I roared inside my head and forced my muscles to contract and move again.

This time I managed to heave myself up onto my knees. I swayed drunkenly, but at least my body was upright, my arms tight behind my back.

I breathed out and fought to stay upright. I knew what I needed to do, I just needed to stay conscious to do it. But fuck, the idea of getting all the way to my feet seemed nigh impossible at the moment.

I looked down at Ruth, though, and realized I didn’t have only anger to fuel me.

Like back then, it wasn’t just anger that had kept that last wall of sanity up, safe from Victoria’s total influence and control.

It was love, goddammit.

Love for my brother, and now this new love. Love for Ruth. The woman I wanted to make mine forever.

But I could only do that if I saved her from this hell hole.

I roared again and leaning one shoulder against the side of the shed for balance, heaved myself up on one knee, and then, without letting myself stop this time, continued pushing until I was on my feet.

Ruth made encouraging noises from where she laid sideways in her chair on the floor. I didn’t dare look down. I was barely keeping steady. My head swam crazily and the world tilted even as I got my second foot underneath me. I leaned my whole body against the wall when my knees buckled and threatened to dump me back on the floor. No, goddammit, NO.

I gritted my teeth and forced my knees to lock, keeping me up.

But getting up was only the first part of this trial. I sucked in a deep breath, and before I lost focus, lifted my arms as high as I could behind my back, then brought them down hard against my tailbone.

Nothing happened.

I hadn’t been able to produce enough force. While in my mind the movement had been dramatic, in reality, I’d done little more than lift and drop my arms a few inches or so. That wouldn’t do jack shit, though. For this to work, I needed momentum and force. I’d watched enough YouTube videos on escape techniques to know that.

So I bent over, leaning my shoulder against the wall so I didn’t fall, and lifted my arms again until it was painful—this one needed to count—and then I yanked my arms back down as hard as I could, imagining I was smashing Buck’s face in.

The duct tape around my wrists split down the center, right along the seam in the tape like when you ripped a piece off—a critical weakness that few would-be abductors realized. You could do the same with zip-ties. Enough force and they’d snap the same way, at the seam.

And then I crumpled to the floor, all my energy momentarily spent.

Ruth cried out in alarm. I didn’t have much energy to tell her I was okay, but when I brought my arms out from around my back and crawled over to her, her eyes were wide and excited. I pulled the tape off her mouth first.

“Get my hands,” she said. “Then I can help you with the rest.”

I didn’t bother wasting the energy to nod, I just got to work heaving my million-pound arms around to tug at the tape binding her. It took longer than I would have preferred, but finally I’d gotten her wrists free and together, we pulled her hands and arms free of the tape.

I fell back and rested, breathing hard as she made quick work of the tape around her ankles and then mine.

“Okay, that was badass,” she said. “And now it’s time to get the hell out of here. Come on.”

She held a hand down to me, and then, quickly realizing that wasn’t enough, she leaned down and put her shoulder underneath my arm. Which was a ridiculous idea considering how small she was.

I wasn’t a skinny street kid anymore. I’d bulked up to be twice the size I was as an eighteen-year-old, and there was no way Ruth was dragging me out of here without assistance.

So, as exhausted as I was, I pushed for a little bit more adrenaline and got to my knees, then stumbled to my feet, Ruth attempting in vain to steady me.

I’d just reached out for the wall when we heard the sound of a truck engine pulling to a stop nearby.

Ruth’s head snapped my way, eyes wide and terrified. “It’s him. He’s back.”

Well, shit.

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