Trapped

Sara gave it the standard key-jiggle, bumped the door with her shoulder to loosen up the bolt, and tried again.

It worked. Sara pocketed the key and pushed the door open, keeping a protective hand on Jack as she looked around. The room was well-lit, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Sara saw a bed, a dresser, but no Georgia.

Sara studied the door, and noticed the pneumatic arm at the top. She bent down and jammed the ice pick under the rail so it wouldn’t close automatically, and then stepped inside.

“Georgia?”

Sara glanced behind the door and was met with the shocking image of a Georgia standing there, nude and covered in blood.

“Georgia! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, now that you’re here.”

Georgia smiled, oddly incongruous with her appearance. Then Sara noticed the bloody scissors in Georgia’s hand.

“Georgia?”

The pudgy girl launched herself at Sara, stabbing downward with the scissors.

Instinct took over, Sara sidestepped to the right, ducking under the arc of Georgia’s swing and driving an elbow into the teen’s back.

Georgia smacked into the dresser and Sara turned to face her, planting her feet apart and stepping on something squishy. She took a quick look at the floor.

It was covered with blood. Blood and animal parts.

Georgia spun, raising the scissors again. Her expression was gleefully manic.

“It’s me, Georgia,” Sara pleaded, cradling Jack against her chest. “It’s Sara.”

“I know who you are, bitch.”

The girl lunged again, but this time she feinted before the swing, throwing Sara off balance. Sara back- pedaled, the scissors passing inches in front of Jack’s head. Her ass hit a desk, and Georgia slid and fell onto one knee.

Sara looked to her right. The bed was in the corner of the room, at least ten feet away. Then looked down at her son, and at the crazed face of Georgia.

Without second-guessing herself, Sara yanked Jack from his sling and tossed him through the air, at the center of the bed, aiming so he hit back-first. Before she could tell if she hit her target, Georgia had recovered and plowed into her, doubling Sara over and knocking her onto her back.

Jack didn’t make a sound, and Sara couldn’t see him.

Georgia fought like a rabid dog. Sara fought to push the girl off, but Georgia had straddled her, making the older woman cry out when she ground her knee into Sara’s leg wound. Sara strained against her, but Georgia was strong and fierce and weighed more.

Georgia used that weight, leaning onto the scissors, bringing the blades closer and closer to Sara’s throat until they poked into her chin.

Georgia was more than just excited. She was aroused. The scissors pricked at Sara’s face, making little blood freckles, and Georgia was loving it.

The rat had been fun, but this was a hundred times better. Georgia had never tried any drugs, never had friends who attempted to share any with her. But she imagined this is what they must feel like. Each drop of blood that bloomed on Sara’s face was like another spike of ecstasy. Heroin and sex and cocaine and sky-diving all mixed up in one gigantic, pleasurable rush.

Then Georgia’s fingers were being bent back, and she had to turn her body with the rotation so they didn’t break.

She rolled off of Sara, no longer holding the scissors. The intense pleasure was gone, like a faucet that had been shut off. Not even an afterglow.

Georgia looked up at Sara and snarled.

“We can get you help,” Sara said, wiping red off her chin. “You have to trust me.”

“I don’t want help.”

Georgia scrambled onto all fours and then tackled Sara, wanting, needing, to bite the bitch’s face off.

Martin reached the top of the stairs and immediately noticed a power drill and hammer next to Georgia’s door. He ran to them, saw the door was open, and saw a naked Georgia wrestling with…

Sara. How the hell did she get free?

He rushed into the room, blood boiling, yanking Georgia out of the way and cocking back a fist guaranteed to break his wife’s jaw.

Georgia was there one second, gone the next, replaced by Martin. Sara had been trying to control Georgia without seriously hurting her, but with Martin she had no such compunction. She kicked him with everything she had, right between the legs, and then threw a right cross that broke the bastard’s nose.

Martin went down.

Then Sara was running for the bed. She panicked when she didn’t see Jack—

Did I miss the mattress? Did he bounce off?

—then saw him behind a bunched-up blanket.

Sara scooped Jack up with one hand, pressing him to her chest, and took a quick look over her shoulder.

Martin was getting up, turning her way.

Georgia was on the floor, reaching for Sara’s ankle.

Sara vaulted over Georgia’s hand, toward the doorway. Then she was reaching for the ice pick and yanking it free, pulling the door shut behind her. After confirming the door was locked, she stuck the pick in her pocket and checked Jack over.

He smiled at her. This had to be the least-fussy, best-behaved child on the planet. She kissed his forehead and tucked him into his sling, then scooped up the hammer and drill, and limped down the stone stairs. They came to an end at the cell room, which was brighter with the lights on, but not by much. She gingerly touched her leg wounds and noted they were bleeding again.

Wouldn’t it be funny if I lived through this and then died of an infection?

She ignored the pain, scurrying over to the kids’ cells. They each had their hands cuffed behind their backs, and Tom was curled up in a ball.

“Sara!”

“Shh,” she told Cindy. “I’m going to try to get the doors open. You all need to watch the stairs and the door over there, make sure no one is coming. What happened to Tom?”

“Lester and Martin,” Tyrone said. “Beat him up pretty good. Why’d you marry that guy anyway?”

“The man I fell in love with was a good man,” Sara said, squinting at the lock on Cindy’s prison door. “He was turned into something else.”

Sara knew the key for Georgia’s room wouldn’t fit, but she tried it anyway. No suck luck. Then she stuck the ice pick in the keyhole. Sara had no idea how lock mechanisms worked, other than something needed to be turned. She poked around for a minute without getting anywhere.

“Tyrone, can you pick locks?”

“Why, ‘cause I’m black?”

“No, Tyrone. Because you’re a criminal.”

“Hells no. Only thing I ever needed to bust a lock was my foot, or a gat.”

Sara tucked the ice pick away and wielded the drill.

“That might work, too,” Tyrone said.

She placed the bit inside the keyhole and pushed while pressing the trigger. The bit was stronger than the old iron, and it immediately began to dig in.

Then the drill whined, and slowly petered to a stop. Sara pressed the trigger a few more times.

The battery was dead.