Page 4 of Wild Card
I need to fight the darkness. I can’t give up. Someone could still see me. Rescue me.
I twist my wrists, trying to break free from the tape even as the thick backing of the piece covering my face chokes me.
“Jesus, Lorenzo, you’re going to fucking suffocate her. How the fuck is she supposed to breathe with her nose and mouth covered?”
So they want me alive? Not exactly comforting, but I’ll take whatever time I can get.
The other man, Ralphie, moves the tape down an inch so it’s just over my lips. Air rushes into my lungs again. Ralphie pulls me out of the trunk and drapes me over his shoulder, his arm under my ass. I imagine writing a review for this dress:
Cute cap sleeves. Love the exposed midriff. Perfect for the club. A-Line skirt is flirty and feminine but may let your creepy kidnappers see your entire ass when it rides up as they haul you up several flights of stairs.
Good thing I haven’t eaten in a while, or I’d be choking on my own vomit right now as I’m brought up to a dark attic space and dumped on a bare, thin mattress on a shitty, squeaky box spring.
He pulls the tape from my mouth and I scream.
The other man, Lorenzo, rushes up and slaps me across the face. My head rocks back with the force of it, knocking into the wall behind me. It leaves me dazed, tremors of fear running through me.
But also anger.
At this point, I’m in so much pain that his meaty palm across my face is more insult than injury. I hate this man, and my loathing of him helps me channel paralyzing fear into anger I can weaponize for my survival.
“Stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself,” Lorenzo snarls.
“Was that necessary?” Ralphie asks. He sounds like he’s scolding someone who stole his leftover food out of the fridge, not a man who kidnapped and assaulted someone.
“This isn’t a joke,” Lorenzo snarls. I can’t see their faces in the darkness. There’s a skylight in the space, but it seems to be boarded up along with the windows, thin beams of moonlight barely trickling in. It’s hot as fuck up here, too. It’s abnormally hot for the end of March, and this room seems to retain heat. I lick my lips and taste blood.
“Get some rest.” Lorenzo says. “We’ll let you know what’s going on tomorrow morning. If you cooperate, you’ll have no more trouble.”
I’m fucking sure. My heart pounds, adrenaline thrumming through my veins.
He and the other man stare at me. I can feel it even if I can’t see it in the absence of decent light. I want to tell them to go fuck themselves, but in my current state, that’d be a bad idea. Usually I’m not good at keeping my mouth shut, but thankfully self-preservation kicks in this time.
Cooperate with what? Why had they taken me here? And where was here? I don’t want to wait around and find out. As the two men leave the space and the metallic click of a bolt slides shut, I take deep breaths. This experience has already made me appreciate breathing more.
I’m completely alone, but still bound. I could scream again, but that’d bring my kidnappers back up. My energy is better spent trying to get this fucking tape off.
The tape on my wrists feels impossibly tight, but I’m small boned and flexible. Popping my wrists against it, I channel my breaths into the pain like I’d learned in yoga class.
Never thought I’d be using what I’d learned from that practice to escape a kidnapping.
I rock my wrists against the tape which squeaks in protest. Did someone find my phone? Was my abduction and assault blowing up on social media?
Did my family know I was gone, and would anyone come looking for me?
My brothers, maybe?
The uncertainty I feel around that is too much to think about right now. I can’t be rendered useless by fear. I can’t.
It’s unclear how much time passes, but the thin moonlight disappears from the mostly blocked skylight as the moon makes her journey across the sky. I’m absolutely exhausted, the adrenaline long drained from my body. Sleep is elusive, coming for indeterminate chunks of time, but then receding and I go back to fighting the tape. My wrists are killing me, but so is my cheek, my lip, my shin, my ankles and my foot. Maybe it’d be easier to think about what doesn’t hurt.
The pain and my steady progress alleviate the anxiety threatening to keep me too terrified to help myself. I’ve always been able to rely on myself and I won’t stop now. Finally, I’ve loosened the tape enough, and fold my hands, pressing my thumb to my pinkie, slipping first one hand, then the other out of their bonds.
A dull pulsing in my head matches the rhythm of the throbbing in my wrists. I can barely feel my hands but expect the sharp pins-and-needles pain to start soon as circulation returns. I curl closer to my feet, fumbling awkwardly for the edge of the tape binding my ankles. It takes a while, and I’m sure it wrecks my manicure. I laugh at the absurdity of it and hear my father’s voice in my head.
“Only Catriona would worry about her manicure as she tries to escape whatever terrible fate her kidnappers have in store for her. No fucking sense in her pretty little head.”
He always calls me pretty as an insult. My sisters get “my God don’t you look stunning,” and me? “We all know the boys love how pretty Catriona is.”
But thinking about my nails is more of a detached observation than anything else and distracts me from raw animal panic as I struggle with numb fingers to free myself. I finally find the end and unwrap the tape with great difficulty, and then sag into the disgusting mattress with relief. Now I just have to figure how to get the hell out of this room.
I will my legs to move, my muscles to obey me, but all of my strength seems to have fled me.
I close my eyes, a quiet whimper forcing its way out of my throat. Why did my body let me get this far only to quit now? I hear my father’s mocking tone again.
“You’re mediocre even at saving your own life, girl. Why can’t you be more like your sisters? Siobhan would’ve escaped by now, and Bridget never would’ve let herself be taken in the first place.”
Hot tears of shame slide down my face as I try again and again to move my legs from the hot, scratchy surface of the mattress. It smells like old cheese, and I just want to be back home, safe and in my own bed. A wave of exhaustion too hard to fight crashes over me, and I fall into a feverish sleep.
