There was a door on the slanting roof above me and even a latch to open it, but someone had removed the steps that should’ve led up to that door, and no matter how much I jumped or tried to climb, crawl, or claw my way up to it, I couldn’t reach it. I’d cried so many frustrated, mad, frightened tears in the past few days, I probably could’ve drunk my dehydration away with them.
Closing my eyes as the metallic flavor trickled across my tongue, I rested my cheek on the wall and went to my happy place. It was with Colton, always Colton, with him either grinning at me from the other side of the bar at Forbidden as he commenced to flirt his way into my pants, or smiling with sated satisfaction in my bed with his bare chest still gleaming with sweat, or watching me with that knowing twinkle in his eyes from across the classroom in philosophy. It didn’t matter where we were, he was always there, watching me, wanting me, loving me.
I choked out a sob and wondered if I’d ever see him again. But those thoughts led to the worst panic. The thought of never getting out of here alive, never seeing Colton or my dad or best friends again, it all made my chest heave and body shake. So I shut those thoughts down and returned to just images of Colton’s face and the way he never failed to look at me with an impatient hunger.
I love you, I whispered inside my head, wondering if maybe he might hear it in his head if I thought it loud and hard enough. I love you, and I’m right here. Please find me.
A tear trickled down my cheek, making me grit my teeth. Dammit, no more tears. I couldn’t waste anymore moisture coming out of me. I needed to survive, prove my hearty ancestors proud, and make it through this.
I would overcome.
I just didn’t know how. And I felt so lost and alone and hopeless, another tear tracked down my cheek.
“Someone,” I croaked the word aloud, though my rasping voice barely lifted above a whisper. “Help me.”
As if answering a prayer, footsteps approached outside, making a crunching sound, like maybe boots plodding over gravel. Then metal scraped against metal. It was dark in my pit, but the air vent allowed just enough daylight in that I could see the inside of the door latch turning until it began to swing open. But the amount of brightness that flooded the cellar caused me to shrink back in my corner and hold up my hand to shade my eyes instead of scampering forward for help.
It was probably just as well I didn’t surge forward, anyway, because I soon discovered my captor—not a savior—had arrived.
“Hey,” a male voice said. “You still alive down there?”
I didn’t answer, wondering what would happen if he thought I was dead. Would he come down personally to check on me? Maybe I could overpower him and get out. He’d hit me from behind to capture me, he hadn’t tried to physically manhandle me; it was possible he wasn’t that big of a guy. Or would he shut the door, never to return, so that I really did die down here?
I was too afraid to move, yet too afraid not too. My breaths started to heave, so I slammed my hand to my mouth and bit my knuckles, hoping to keep quiet. A second later, the beam of a flashlight invaded my dark corner and hit me right in the eyes, causing me to clench them shut and cower my face into my knees.
“There she is,” he cooed approvingly. “Time to wake up now, Chocolate Tits. We got some justice to serve.”
Chocolate Tits?
I lifted my face, squinting until the flashlight moved away from my face, and I could make out the man’s silhouette. He crouched down onto his haunches, and the shadows shifted just enough to reveal the side of his face, along with a teardrop tattoo dripping down from the corner of his eye.
I gasped, my mouth falling open.
But what the hell? I thought he was in jail. The officers had said he was being arrested after he’d gotten into that fight with Colton. How had he gotten out? How had he found me? And why in God’s name had he kidnapped me?
“Remember me, do you?” he asked, resting his forearms on his knees so that his wrists dangled between them, one of his hands holding what looked like a knife.
My gaze shifted back and forth between his face where a cynical sneer contorted his features and that knife swaying lazily from his fingers.
He smirked when I didn’t answer him. “Yeah, you remember me.” Tilting his head to the side as he continued to watch me, he added, “Bet you’re wondering why I took you, huh? Probably think it’s payback for the way you and your boyfriend got me arrested. But no. That’s not it. That’s not it at all.” Then he chuckled. “Okay, maybe it is a little.”
He stood up again and spread his arms wide. “You probably can’t see it from down there, but all this land around me here is my family homestead. We owned the biggest damn orchard in the entire state. My parents, and brother, and I. It was…” His voice went breathless with awe as he gazed around him. “It was amazing.”