“But it seems I have misplaced something. I came back to see if you had something of mine?”
My eyes darted to where the phone lay on the ground. It was facedown and the case was black. I knew he wouldn’t be able to see it.
“Are you talking about your heart?” I snapped. “Cause I’m pretty sure you weren’t even born with one.”
“Feisty.” He chuckled. “I like feisty. It turns me on.”
Gag. Me. With. A. Spoon.
“It seems my cell phone has gone missing,” he said. “You don’t have it down there, do you?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t still be here,” I yelled.
“Well, that’s good. Because I would hate to have to move up my timeline and just kill you now.”
His timeline?
Something told me that being killed now versus later was probably the better option.
“I’m going to send down a rope ladder. Climb up,” he said.
I wanted to laugh.
It was almost cute the way he tossed down the rope ladder and adjusted it so I could climb right up.
If pigs with mustaches and goatees were cute.
“Come on,” he instructed.
“No.”
The silence that followed my one-word reply was almost comical.
“What did you say?”
“I said I would rather sit down here and rot and die than climb up there and be any closer to you,” I spat.
I heard his rough inhale and I knew I pissed him off.
Good. He pissed me off too.
“Get. Up. Here. Now.”
“Why? So you can rape and murder me? No thanks. I’m not really feeling much like rape and murder today.”
“You little bitch.”
“I thought you said you liked my feisty attitude.” I mocked. I knew I should shut up, but I found myself with a severe case of diarrhea of the mouth.
I sat down to punctuate my intention of doing exactly what he told me not to do. As I sat, I slowly pulled the phone into my palm and then crossed my hands over my chest, hiding it beneath my arm.
“How rude of me,” he said in a conversational tone. “I realize my mistake.”
Then he disappeared, leaving the rope hanging there, taunting me with freedom. I knew better. He probably wanted me to think he left so I would climb up to my doom.
While he was gone, I shoved the phone up my sleeve and then hooked my thumb through the little hole made into the arm. Hopefully that would be enough to keep the phone hidden.
A few minutes later, something hit me in the head.
I looked up only to see something else plummeting toward me, and I ducked just in time to avoid being hit in the face.
“What the hell?” I muttered and reached out to pick up the items he chucked down the hole at me.
My hand closed around one of the slightly textured, round items. It was an orange.
The crazy ass threw two oranges at me.
“I get grumpy when I don’t eat, too,” he said, like the reason I didn’t feel like dying was because of low blood sugar.
There weren’t enough M&Ms in the world for that. An orange sure as hell wasn’t going to do it.
My stomach rumbled at the sight of it. I was tempted to peel it and dig in. But my writer’s brain kicked in. He might have used a syringe and injected it with some sort of deadly poison.
I think I’d rather starve.
“Eat,” he commanded.
I stood and threw the orange back up at him.
I was a girl. I threw like a girl.
The orange came back down and made a plopping sound at my feet.
“I would eat that if I were you,” he growled.
I didn’t bother to reply. I was exhausted, and fighting with him made it worse. I needed to save my strength for getting away.
I sat down in the dirt just as more thunder rolled overhead. I wished it would rain. I wished it would lightning and thunder and a storm of epic proportions would rage. It would chase him away. He would be forced to leave me here and not come back ‘til morning.
Maybe by then, Nathan would have found me.
If he was even looking.
Let’s face it here. My situation was pretty bleak. I was depending on a guy that I met through my kidnapper’s phone. I highly doubted that he kept upstanding citizens as company. I more than likely texted his partner in crime. The pair of them had a good laugh at my expense and then creepy up there came back to throw oranges at my head and then murder me.
This wasn’t one of my romance novels.
A dashing, romantic hero wasn’t going to come riding up on his white horse and save me.
I was going to end up on the eleven o’clock news.
“Come on,” the man above demanded.
“No!” I shouted.
“Fine!” he snapped. “If you won’t come up, then I’ll come down. It’s a small space, but I’m sure we’ll find room.”
I shot to my feet. “I’m coming up.”
He was already descending the ladder. I calculated my chances of yanking him off and beating him up before he overpowered me. Yes, he was bigger. Yes, he had weight on his side.
But I was seriously pissed.
(And I wanted to live to get a dog.)
“Fine, then. Hurry up. Or I’m coming down.”
He went back up to ground level and stood, staring down. All I could see was the round paleness of his face against the dark backdrop of night. I walked over to the ladder and hunched over a little, acting as if I were defeated. Quickly, I pulled out the phone and shot off one last text to Nathan, taking a risk that maybe he was going to help me like he said.
“I’m waiting,” he said angrily.
I tucked the phone back inside my sleeve and started to climb. I was freezing and surprisingly weak. It made climbing hard. I wasn’t a large person, but I slipped a few times and my weight seemed like a lot to haul up a thirty-foot hole.
I took my time, trying to drag out the minutes while trying to formulate some sort of plan. The only plan I could come up with involved not dying.
I guess that meant as soon as my feet touched the ground, I needed to run like hell.
And hide. Hiding might be good.
He got impatient the closer I got and suddenly the rope ladder began to sway as he dragged it upward, bringing me with it. I started to slip and I gripped the rope tighter. The friction between the dirt wall and my fingers ripped open the skin on my knuckles. I bit my lip instead of crying out because I was still standing by my decision of not giving this guy one second of satisfaction.
When I got to the top, he gave the ladder one great yank and I spilled out over the lip, landing hard against my side and sharp pain radiating through my body. I was pretty sure at least a couple of my ribs were broken, and I was staring at the reason why.
Black boots (or shit kickers as some people might say) stepped into my line of vision, and anger swelled within me. It was those boots that nailed me in the ribs; it was those boots that snapped my bones.
I ignored the fierce burning of my scraped knuckles and pushed up onto my knees. He grabbed my hair and
