Eyes shut, she took a rapid mental inventory: knives gone, barrettes with their lock picks and shims gone, coat gone and along with it her cell phone, and worst of all, her sunglasses. Could have used them right now—as actual sunglasses. She knew from past experience that as soon as she did open her eyes for good, the slightest bit of light would spike through her skull with the force of a sledgehammer.
That’s what she didn’t have. What did she have? She was still dressed—yeah for the home team there, as the very idea of Gibson’s grimy hands on her body made her want to retch. Also, no new injuries; the damn cable noose was gone; she was sitting on what felt like a fairly old rickety wooden chair, no arms, slats along her back, not very tall, but wide enough that her shoulders hurt with the strain from her arms stretched behind her, wrapping around the outside of the chair…and the zip ties. Tighter now. Legs not restrained. Nice.
Okay, that was her. What else was going on? She listened carefully, heard heavy breathing from a man—no, make that two men. Micah? She resisted the urge to call to him, ask if he was all right. How stupid was it that she even had that reflex? No way in hell was he all right, and what good would her asking do except alert their captors that she was awake? Must be the drugs, still muddling her brain.
A creak and rasp filled the air. Some mechanism that needed oiling. She sniffed. Sawdust. Mold. Rotting wood. Burnt something…it wasn’t fresh, not like burning wood, more like at the dentist, but no, not organic…metal? Now that was interesting.
She’d run out of reasons to stall and slit her eyes open gingerly. The tiny amount of light slicing between her eyelids and the loose hair that had fallen over her face was still more than enough to threaten to crack her skull apart. She waited for the roaring in her head to settle and tried again. This time the roar was no stronger than standing on a roof during a thunderstorm while holding a lightning rod. Progress.
Her eyes slowly focused. A man—not that kid, Gibson, this was a grown man, broad shoulders, muscles on top of muscles—was hoisting something using a pulley system. She inched her gaze up. Rafters. They were in a barn.
At first the man blocked the view of whatever hung from the pulley, but then he tied it off and stepped aside. It was Micah. Dangling, his toes dragging in sawdust, arms stretched overhead, face etched with pain. Despite all the movies that used that position, she knew for a fact that it was slow torture: first shoulders dislocating, then the chest muscles giving out, leading to eventual suffocation.
It had been one of her father’s favorite forms of restraint. Once he hung them like that, no fish lasted very long before surrendering. Not unless they wanted to end it all—which of course, Clint never let them do. When they died, it would be on his terms and at his bidding, no one else’s.
Micah’s face was blotchy with the strain, but no fresh bruises or obvious injuries other than a split lip and swollen, bruised cheek. As much as she wanted to keep her eyes on him, she forced herself to look away, keep searching. She slid her gaze sideways and saw a wall for tools, hand-drawn outlines for various hammers and wrenches. Most of the tools were missing, but the few that remained were clean and shiny, well maintained. Not a barn for animals, some kind of workshop.
Explained the sawdust and the metallic smell—burnt machine oil and distressed metal. Which meant…she edged her gaze in the other direction and was rewarded with the sight of a row of saws.
Handheld saws hung from hooks on a pegboard along with a pair of safety goggles hanging from the wrong spot. Then a row of powered equipment. She recognized a band saw and a lathe, wasn’t sure what the next two machines were designed for, but finally came a sturdy looking table saw, its circular blade snapped, leaving behind a silhouette like an animal’s claw.
She lolled her head forward, peering below the saw with the broken blade. It sat not six feet away from her in a pile of sawdust. She pieced together the story in her mind: convicts, Gibson driving them here, still in restraints—standard handcuff keys wouldn’t work with maximum security restraints, and maybe they didn’t have time to steal keys from the guards they killed? Whatever went wrong, at least one of them needed his restraints removed and had been idiot enough to try to use the circular saw instead of just picking the locks.
Thank you, God, for the gift of stupidity, she prayed as her gaze caught the glint of broken metal nestled in the sawdust. Shards from the broken saw blade. Perfect for escaping zip ties. And then killing the man preparing to torture Micah.
She began to cough and gag, retching as if she was going to be sick, rocking her body and the chair.
“Looks like your girlfriend’s gonna puke again,” the man said. Instead of moving toward Morgan, he stepped back, out of range. Vomiting had that effect on people, made controlling the gag reflex a handy skill to have.
Morgan dry-heaved—perfect word for it as she threw her body to the side and toppled her chair so that its back came to rest in the sawdust. As her body writhed, wracked with gagging, her fingers stretched, searching for the bit of metal.
“Do something,” Micah pled. “She’s going to choke to death.”