Page 3 of The Hangman's Rope
“Please!” she begged and the begging was pretty on that mouth of hers.
I swallowed hard and banished the thought.
“You’re okay,” I told her and, before she could blink, I lunged, wrapping the material as tight as I could around her, knowing it wasn’t enough. I let go to slide my arms around her more completely, locking them around her and keeping her bound tight in my embrace. She screamed and tried to unfurl herself to fight me off, but she was at a disadvantage. I was bigger, and stronger, and used both expertly to my ability to subdue her and hold her fast.
She shrieked, she wailed, and she fought to the best of her ability and I let her. She wouldn’t win. I had her firmly in the noose of my arms.
Chapter Two
Lorelai…
“What’s your last name, Lorelai?” he asked me and I struggled against him. Any time I relaxed and he began to, the moment I tried to stir, to fight, his arms would tighten around me like steel bands and there was no winning against him. His friends had left what had felt like hours ago but was probably only minutes. This strange man I didn’t know and I remained on the floor in the corner, his shirt wrapped around me like a strait jacket, the cage of his strong arms imprisoning me. During our struggle, I had somehow wound up with my back to his front and he had wound around me like a thick Wysteria vine. His touch was light when I stopped fighting, but strong and unbreakable the moment I even thought about trying to twitch a muscle.
I groped into the empty darkness that was my head for the answer to his question and told the truth, an icy finger of dread swiping across my heart.
“I don’t know,” I said and my breath was still and quiet, barely audible as I swallowed hard and shuddered against him. His arms tightened.
“Okay,” he said carefully, and I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not. Tears sprang to my eyes, my face growing hot with a fresh wave of panic as I realizedI didn’t know.
I mean, who doesn’t know their own name?
“Easy,” he said as I started to pant in panic once more.
“Where am I?” I demanded in a high, tight voice, and I hated it – I hated that I sounded so frightened and the fear only compounded the further I tried to grope through the miasma and haze to know anything about myself…
“Funeral home,” he said quietly. “You were, for all intents and purposes, dead.”
I swallowed hard.
“That didn’t stop your friend…” I whispered and he snorted.
“Reaper’s… different. Not an excuse, but it’s the best explanation I’ve got.”
“Let me go,” I pleaded.
“Can’t do that,” he said. “Not until we figure out who you are and where you came from.”
I heard myself whimper as I winced and my voice was tight when I said, “I don’t know anything!”
He sighed and said, “I believe you. Relax. We’ll get things sorted out.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “What’s your name?”
“They call me Hangman,” he said. “You can, too.”
I froze, the breath stilling in my lungs, as what he said sank in through my hazy and sluggish thought process.
Hangman…I knew what a hangman was, but I couldn’t tell you how I knew or who I was, or where I came from. It was like there was this strange block of darkness in my head. Like I knew how to talk, how to read, how to write, what things were,and how they worked, but everything else was blank. I didn’t know anything about me… I didn’t know my name or if Lorelai was even it. I didn’t know where I lived, my address, my phone number, my parents, where I went to school, or what city I was in or where I’d come from or how I’d gotten here. It was just all an eerily unpleasantblank.
“Why do they call you that?” I whispered.
“Never mind that for right now,” he said. “Just try to focus. What do you remember?”
I tried to scrape any kind of cohesive thought or memory out of the dark of my mind and I said, “I had a dog growing up, Mitzi… she was an Australian Shepherd. When she died, I swore I would never have a dog again. I never have.”
“Seriously?” he asked, as tears gathered and threatened to spill from my eyes.
“You asked, I told you!” I snapped. “Idon’t remember!”
