Were people out looking for her? Not her family. Jessie had never known her birth parents. She’d been closest to her adopted father, who’d recently passed away. She called her mom, who was remarried and now lived in Australia, on birthdays and at Christmas. Texted her sister in Toronto once in a while.
Neither would know, or maybe even particularly care, that Jessie was missing. Since moving here two years ago, she’d made only a few friends. And had recently lost her closest due to Danny. There were none that she communicated with regularly. The texts sometimes went dark for days.
The grim truth was that the only one who would raise an alarm was her supervisor at the hospital. Jessie was reliable. Her absence for Saturday’s shift would be considered a red flag.
Despite her needling him for information, Troy had been uncommunicative during subsequent trips to the bathroom. But the next day, he brought her supplies to clean the wounds of her fellow captives. Braden must have sided with her.
The first woman she met was petite, blonde, and scared as hell. She gazed at Jessie in shock.
Hot water and towels in hand, Jessie smiled at her.
“No talking,” Troy warned. “Clean ‘em up. That’s it.”
Jessie set down the bucket of hot water and sat beside the woman on the cot. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Laura—”
She never even saw Troy move. A fist buried itself in Jessie’s hair and jerked her off the bed. The other hand came at her like lightning, openhanded, snapping her head around. Hard.
“I said no talking,” he growled before releasing her.
Jessie picked herself up off the floor and glared at Troy.
He raised his hand again in warning.
She turned away, dipping the towel in the water. Laura’s eyes were huge and filled with tears. Using hand gestures, she obtained permission to pull the woman’s shirt away from the wounds on her shoulder.
The wounds were exactly the same as the ones on Jessie. Only the skin around the punctures was red and, judging by the flinch when she gently poked at them, sore as hell.
Jessie cleaned them as well as she was able. Then Troy took her to the second captive, a woman with chestnut-brown hair and frightened hazel eyes. Her wound was also in terrible shape.
When Troy escorted her back into the hall, Jessie spoke. “They will need cleaning for the next while. They are already infected.”
“You have five days,” he said.
“I might need antibiotics.”
“Dream on, lady.”
She glared at him, but he just took the supplies and pushed her back into her room. After he shut the door, Jessie roamed the perimeter. She kicked at a wall—took a while for her runners to do enough damage—and chipped a hole through it only to come up against metal sheeting.
Impenetrable.
An investigation of the ceiling revealed it was the same. The air vent above the bed was a grand total of eight inches square. At five-six and a hundred thirty pounds, she wasn’t squeaking through that. The doors had simple knobs that locked from the outside. Metal doors set into metal frames. No way she was getting out of the room on her own.
She plunked herself down on the mattress and stared at the filthy concrete. And at her runners. Long hours on her feet had resulted in a footwear wardrobe consisting mostly of sturdy running shoes. Even the laces were substantial.
Jessie curled up against the wall with her back to the camera and pulled the blanket up over her. Her fingers carefully pulled the laces free. Each was over three feet long. She knotted them together. How much did she need to get around Troy’s throat? Big guys had big necks. Maybe eighteen inches? Less, once she was pulling. She tried to get hand loops tied in the right place.
Then she lay there and shook. Could she do this? Who knew what these guys were really up to? So far, this had been more stressful than terrifying, but it could change at any time.
To be free, she had to try.
* * *
Finding the opportunity to enact her escape plan took more time than Jessie expected.
Troy was a massive man. Even reaching his neck would require planning. And he rarely, if ever, turned his back to her. She needed to bring him down to her level. What would work with mister-big-nasty-and-perverted-as-hell guy?
