I’m fucking drowning. MOVE!
In my mind, I’m thrashing my limbs, but in reality I’m barely moving at all. I’m running out of oxygen. I know this because my desperation to claim any is frantic.
“Baby girl, Daddy’s here. I’m here. You’re strong. You can do this, Morgan. Show me. Find the surface.” I hear my father’s voice as if his lips press against my ear. “Take my hand.”
I’m reaching, and searching for his grip.
“My hand’s higher, Morgan; you need to stretch higher."
I manage to. Curling my fingers, I clutch onto something hard, and with one loud scream bursting through my gaping mouth, I yank myself upwards until I’m left, hung limp, over the side of a stable structure. It’s a gaggled gasp that has me coughing, and then my torso jerks as water exits in a vomit from my mouth.
Every breath I take burns as I moan, “Holy fuck.” I pant when I spot the concrete floor below, and the need to lift myself out of this water becomes strong … but I’m weak to the point where lifting my limbs seems impossible.
Just keep reaching, I tell myself, as I extend my arms and grunt my sheer desperation, walking my fingers along the flooring below. You can do this, Morgan. Pressing my palms downwards brings with it the suspicion I’m being tipped over, and without a second to contemplate what’s happening, my body smacks hard into the ground. “Fuck,” I wail, coiling myself into a tight ball. Protection.
I shiver.
I’m naked.
It’s cold.
Soft whimpering grows loud and more forced until my nose becomes blocked and I’m alerted to the fact that I’m the one howling. My wet hair wraps across my face, and in between the gaps it’s creating, and through the tears pooled in my eyes, I’m able to locate a wall the colour of silver.
The room. The wolf has brought me back to his prison.
I shuffle on my arse until my spine presses against the wall, and I shift my knees to my chest. I rest my chin on my knees and wrap my arms around my shins.
What the …?
I brush my fingers across thick threading, threading positioned where my once open gashes were on my shins. Sliding my feet across the concrete has my legs extended, and I gasp when I see the stitches now closing my previous injury. The wolf stitched me. Why? Isn’t revenge the point of his game and to cause pain and death?
It’s then I remember him placing me in the water and washing my lips. I’m urgent in inspecting every inch of my body. I’m terrified when I see the deep purple bruising, cuts, grazes, and rashes covering me. The five words, one through to five, that are tattooed on my inner arm remain, only now there’s a strike through ‘one’ in black.
Slowly, I bring my knees back to meet my chest and wrap my hands around each ankle. I whip my head left then right, searching, wondering if the wolf is somewhere in here, hiding, waiting to attack. I stop in a stare when I locate a clawfoot tub, one that not long ago almost claimed my life. Why? Why would he patch me up, clean me? Why did he offer care?
It takes some time to focus on the rest of my surroundings. There’s no longer a stretcher, or a table littered with blank papers. The rusty tap that dripped is also gone, as is the drum which had the backpack on its top. The only thing in the room is the tub and a tied garbage bag sitting on the floor right near where the blank projection screen hangs on the far wall.
“Where are you? Go on, show yourself. I know you can see me.” I try to yell the words, but they’re shaken and hoarse.
Will he appear on the projection screen, armed with vulgar taunts and vacant cold eyes? To my surprise, he doesn’t, yet I don’t shift my vision from the screen. Where is he? I know he’ll be watching my every move. I blink and then stare until my eyes burn, and I blink once more. I do this over and over. The screen remains blank. Where is the wolf? Is this my chance to find a way out? Is this my chance to escape? But how? There’s still no door. How can there be no door? How does he get me in and out of here?
Reid
Detective Dyson holds her hand across the mouthpiece of the second cordless and hovers her finger above the Accept button. “Go,” she mouths.
“It's Reid speaking,” I answer, preparing for the worst.
“I think you’re missing something more than your wife. Would this be correct?” He still speaks with the same British accent.
Dyson's eyes are wide as she shakes her head in a way that alerts me not to speak.
“Crisp green bills, wrapped in clingwrap … I’m guessing the wrap was your doing?”
“The money,” I growl.
“Bingo. Fifty thousand dollars is quite a sum to keep in a sports bag in your safe. I bet those Bizzies have given you a tough day. You can thank me for that tip-off. Those coppers are nothing more than brainless puppets on strings.”
Dyson is rotating her fingers in circles as she mouths, “Keep him talking.”
“How did you get in? How did you know where the money was? Or that I’d even withdrawn that amount?”
“Taking things you want isn’t hard. Do me a favour—tell that bitch detective to hang up the other line or I’ll fuck your wife up so bad you won’t be able to recognise her when I send her back to you in garbage bags.” He’s eerily calm.
I swallow hard as my eyes bulge from my head. This fucker is insane.
Dyson lays the cordless down on a couch cushion and raises both her hands, palms out, into the air.
“It’s been done.” My voice rattles.
“Detective Astin West? Now he can listen. Not her. She needs to leave the room. Tell her to leave the room now.”
“He wants you to leave the room,” I say robotically, gauging Detective Dyson’s reaction.
She only shakes her head.
“She can’t.” I can’t believe I just admitted this out loud to the man who has my wife. Comply with his requests, don’t deny them.
“Well, in that case, let me get your little lady, and I’ll kill her while you’re listening.”
“He’ll kill Morgan if you don’t.” My tone laced with panic.
Detective Dyson’s eyes narrow as she mouths, “I’m going.”
“No. Don’t. Detective Dyson is leaving. Don’t hurt Morgan.” My panic is entwined with these words.
Dyson draws her weapon from the holster wrapped around her waist. She lowers to the floor and crawls the short distance from the lounge room to the entryway.
“She’s out of the room. I swear.” I look to Maloney who mouths, “Keep him talking.”
“Say hello to Max for me, will you?”
Can he see us? He must be able to see us. I don’t pass on his greeting.
“I would follow my instructions. I have Morgan. I have your money. I even have a collection of your photos and home movies, too … I’ll destroy all of it.”
“He says ‘hi Max’.” I blurt this out fast, my heart pounding as rapidly as Tarzan beats at his chest.
Maloney’s eyes narrow into a scowl.
“Good.” I can hear the smile in his voice.
The line goes dead.
Slowly I drop the cordless to the ground and bring my hands up, cupping my face. “Motherfuuuuuucker.”
“Shit.” I hear Maloney say. “I’m ringing Astin.”
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
Urgent feet beat against the staircase. Maloney grabs my arm, yanking me with him behind the couch. “Stay down. Don’t make a sound,” he whispers.
I watch as Dyson performs an army roll, which sees her back in the lounge area and scrambling behind the small wall that exists before the opening. She kneels with her weapon drawn.
Is he in the house? Fright launches from the bottomless pit of my stomach to the back of my constricted throat.
“What’s going on? What’s with all the yelling?” It’s Ronald shouting.
I exhale with relief.
“Where are you?” Ronald yells.
“Loungeroom,” Maloney answers.
Ronald stands in the doorway wearing the same white cotton singlet and loose cotton boxer shorts I saw him in before he retired to bed. His head is tilted to the side as he scratches at the smooth part of his head. “What’s happened?”
“Another phone call.” I stand so he can see me as clearly as I can see him.