The Sacred Blood

Wriggling her fingers, she tried to get some blood back to her milkwhite hands.

Panic began to set in, making it even harder to breathe. Nothing good could come from being terrified. She had to keep her wits. Calm down, she repeated in a loop. Breathe... use that yoga.

She meditated deeply to ease the cramping that was quickly setting into her tight muscles. This would be the point in the movie, she mused, where the crafty heroine would produce a hidden blade, a nail clipper, or a roughedged fingernail to cut the bindings. Nothing doing here. Wrong script, wrong heroine. Even her nails were nonexistent—snipped as short as short could be. Prissy nails had no place in the clinical confines of a laboratory. Now she wished she had the whole package—half-inch talons with perfect cuticles and a French manicure.

Helpless. Utterly helpless.

Just to spice things up a bit, the place was like a sauna too. Charlotte was drenched in sweat. Not that that was having any effect on the integrity of the damn duct tape. What a great product testimonial this would make, she thought. She could picture the thirty-second spot featuring her taped to this stupid chair. Rolls of the stuff would be flying off stores’ shelves.

Now she turned her attention to the room, her eyes poring over its contents. That’s when she realized something peculiar. On a shelf just over her right shoulder, there were dried food containers, stacked canned goods, and juice bottles. The awkward sight angle made the labels tough to read, but the ones she could make out had both English and Hebrew writing. And there was a common symbol on the packages that she could swear certified the goods as being Kosher. First the Yiddish, now this?

That’s when a tiny red light blinking high up near the ceiling caught her eye. Craning her neck to the limit, she was able to glimpse the circular lens glaring down at her.

Not for the first time, someone was watching.

The nausea was threatening an encore. She needed food. Water.

Then came sounds from outside the door. Cocking her head sideways, Charlotte watched the lit crack beneath the door as a heavy shadow swept into view.

She heard the tinging sounds of a key ring.

Then there was the scratchy metal-on-metal sound of a key being pushed into the lock.

The doorknob slowly turned until the bolt disengaged with a clunk.

Last, the door swung open in three clumsy stages, revealing the person on the other side.

Charlotte was completely taken aback. It was a young Jewish man, plain looking, wearing a crisp white shirt, black trousers, black shoes. And he was confined to a wheelchair.

51

******

Tempted to lash out at her invalid captor—not that she could have if she wanted to, thanks to the tenacity of her bindings—Charlotte merely watched in puzzlement as the frail young man rolled into the room. Clearly someone in such a condition couldn’t possess the physical stamina to perpetrate an abduction. So how could he be involved in all of this?

The man’s sallow complexion looked ghostly beneath the fluorescent bulbs. At first he appeared to be much older than she was. Much older. But upon closer examination, Charlotte thought that he actually appeared more boy than man.

“Are you all right?” he asked in a hushed tone. “Nod if you are.”

All right? Is he kidding? Eyes tightening with frustration, Charlotte shook her head.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he confessed in a whisper. His paranoid gaze went back to the door. “I’ll take the tape off your mouth if you promise not to scream.” Another glance at the door. “They will hear you,” he confided.

Unsure what to make of the situation, Charlotte nodded.

“Okay.”

Working the hand rims, the boy maneuvered the wheelchair closer. Reaching out, he worked his spidery fingertips under the edges of the tape strip covering Charlotte’s mouth.

Charlotte noticed the kid’s front teeth gnawed incessantly at a callus on his lower lip. There were raw calluses on the fingers too—some almost bleeding. Obviously some type of compulsion disorder. The kid was a wreck.

“This might hurt,” he said apologetically. Digging his fingertips in deeper, he squeezed the tape and tugged it free.

Charlotte immediately drew some fresh air into her lungs and exhaled. Though her breath was one notch below toxic, she wasn’t making any apologies. Her throat felt like a sandbox. With an unblinking stare steeped in resentment, she remained silent, waiting to see what the boy would say.

Slouching in the wheelchair, the boy dropped his eyes to his lap, where he wiped Charlotte’s sweat onto his pants. He began neatly folding the tape. “You’re very pretty,” he muttered, glancing up.

Unlike most people, who were usually fascinated by Charlotte’s emerald eyes, this guy was fixating on her long, shiny chestnut curls. Give the kid a chance, she told herself, fighting like hell to curb her tongue. “Why am I here?”

The boy’s timid eyes retreated to the tape folding. “I’m not allowed to tell you that.”

“The man who was with me . . . Is he okay?” Adrenaline rushed into her. He’d better be okay.

Without looking up, he mulled the question for a five-count before responding. “I don’t know,” he replied.

“Is there someone else here with me?” she clarified. “A man . . . a bald man?”