39. Breathe
I tried to move, but there was resistance. Confused, I tugged at my arms - they wouldn’t follow. I started to breathe quickly, through my nose – my mouth wouldn’t open. I frantically looked around in the dark. Where was I?
Then I couldn’t see at all. There was something over my face. My heart beat hysterically, like it was going to explode in my chest. I pulled harder at my arms which were strung above my head. I heard the jangling of metal as the sharp edges of the restraints dug into my wrists.
“I am not losing my family because of you,” she seethed.
Panic consumed me. I started squirming, screaming as loud as the restricted covering would allow. The pillow pressed against my face. I shook my head back and forth vigorously, trying to remove it. It wouldn’t shift enough to provide me air.
There was pressure on my chest. I tried to twist to get her off. That’s when her cold hands gripped around my neck. I screamed louder, but my frantic pleas were muffled by the tape. I flipped my body back and forth - the restraints on my wrists and the weight on my chest wouldn’t allow me to escape her strangling grasp.
This couldn’t be happening. Please someone hear me.
I pulled at the restraints - the edges scraped away my flesh. I strained to pull harder, needing to be free of their hold. I couldn’t find my breath as her grip tightened. I needed to cough, but the air wouldn’t escape.
I pushed against the bed with my feet, arching my back. The strain of our weight pulled at my shoulders, and heard something pop; then a searing pain catapulted through my shoulder.
One of her hands released its hold. I sucked in a breath full of air, the effort burning my throat. I shrieked in agony when the bones of my ankle crunched with the impact of something she swung into it. I collapsed onto my back, my breath faltering. The darkness swirled as the torturous pain overtook me. I fought the pull taking me under.
The cold clutches returned to my throat, squeezing harder. I choked, trying desperately to breathe in. The air didn’t come.
I needed someone to hear me. I swung my left leg toward the wall with all my force, pounding against it. The adrenaline and panic shrouded the pain.
The pressure in my head continued to build. My lungs burned. The claws around my neck crushed in deeper.
I pounded on the wall one more time. Please someone hear me.
I could feel it pulling me under. I couldn’t struggle anymore. The burning was too much. I gave in, collapsing beneath the hands, and succumbing to the darkness.
Reason to Breathe
Rebecca Donovan's books
- Reasons I Fell for the Funny Fat Friend
- Reasons to Be Happy
- By Reason of Insanity
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Ancient Echoes
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Bad Games
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy