13

Krissi's face hurt. Her mouth was dry from the rag that had been tied around her head. It was being used as a gag, forcing her jaw open and absorbing all the moisture in her mouth. She lay on the floor on her side, her hands tied behind her back, making her shoulders burn. She didn't know how long she'd been here and she didn't know why she’d been taken. She was positive that if these guys had been told to take her by her father, they would have treated her better. Sucking air between her teeth, she pushed the pain from her mind. It wouldn't do her any good swell on how bad she hurt. It wouldn't get her out of here, where ever here was, and it sure as hell wouldn't save her ass.

She'd been laying as still and quiet as she could for what seemed like hours, hoping they would think she was asleep or passed out. It had been eerily quiet for quite a while. It could have been a few minutes or it could have been hours. She had no way of knowing but she was fairly certain that where ever she was, she was alone, at least for now.

With a deep breath, Krissi opened her eyes and looked around. The light was dim, but from where she lay with one side of her face pressed against it, she could see dirt covering the cement floor, as if it hadn't been swept in weeks, if ever. She let out her breath and rolled onto her back, but couldn't stay like that, not with her hands bound behind her, so she kept rolling until she lay on her other side. While moving, she'd seen a single light bulb hanging on a wire, high above her. On this side, she could see a door with a small window, at least fifty feet away. The window was black. She hoped the door led outside but there was no way to know.

If it was as dark outside as it looked, that meant she had been here for hours. That was good. Other than tying her up, they’d left her mostly unharmed, as if they were waiting for something, or someone. She wondered if anyone noticed she was gone yet. Danny, the cook scheduled to work at the diner tonight wouldn't think too much of a waitress not showing for her shift. It happened far too often to be remarkable. But Ruger was supposed to meet her after work. He would notice when she wasn't there. Would he care enough to search for her? She couldn't count on it. She was going to have to rely on herself to gain her freedom.

Krissi wiggled her arms and twisted her wrists, trying to work her hands free, but only succeeded in making her shoulders throb more.

Fuck. How was she going to get out of here? She couldn't remember how she'd gotten here, at least not much about it. She'd finished her last class and was on her way to the car Ruger had gotten for her, when someone had grabbed her. There had been an odd, sweet odor, then nothing. The next thing she'd known was pain as she'd been kicked and slapped awake. The two men had been short, dressed in leather and denim, and had smelled like they hadn’t seen a shower in several years. What had she done for them to kidnap her like this? From the way they’d behaved, she didn’t think she was a random victim, but she couldn’t be sure.

Pushing the whys and hows out of her mind she focused on figuring out how to get out of here. While trying to work her hands free she'd been able to figure out they were tied with rope, not cuffs. That meant if she could find something sharp, she might manage to cut herself loose. She scanned the room. There was no furniture, nothing to help her. Wait. There. What looked like a jagged piece of metal stuck out of the wall. Could it be sharp enough? It was on the far side of the room though and she needed to stay quiet to keep from letting her captors know she was awake or what she was doing.

Cringing against the pain she knew was coming, she picked up her knees, planted her bound feet on the floor and shoved. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as her body slid along the floor. She lay still for several seconds, trying to catch the breath the shot of blinding pain had forced from her lungs, then took a deep breath and did it again. This was going to take forever, she knew, but it was better than laying there doing nothing. She couldn't just wait for them to come back and beat on her some more. Or worse.

As a distraction from how bad every movement hurt, she tried to think of something more pleasant. The night before with Ruger. She did her best to remember every touch, every caress and every sensation as they had stumbled to the futon and come together with heat and fireworks. It helped some. She did such a good job of distracting herself that she lost track of where she was until her head thumped into the wall. Looking around, she searched for the piece of metal that she'd been headed for. It took her a moment but she eventually found it. About ten feet away and three to four feet up the wall from the floor. She needed to get to it, once there she'd have to figure out how to reach it. But one problem at a time. First, she had to get there. She used her feet to spin herself like the needle on a compass until she was aimed in the right direction. She lay there, still on her side to keep from putting all her weight on her hands, and gathered her wits. With a deep breath, she braced her feet against the floor and kept pushing. It was awkward to move like this while laying on her side but she didn't see any other way to do it.

After what seemed like forever, Krissi was laying with her head directly beneath the piece of metal she'd spotted from the middle of the room. From this distance, she could see it was a broken shelf bracket. She was glad no one around here was a stickler for safety or it would have been removed. Krissi stared up at it for a moment, trying to figure out how to make it work exactly. Twisting around she rolled onto her back and lifted her feet toward the bracket hoping to cut the rope on her ankles. Shit. That wouldn't work. It was too far off the ground. Her legs were too short to reach it.

Krissi slumped in defeat, dropping her feet once more and letting her head fall back against the floor. She let herself wallow in the feeling of helplessness that washed over her for a couple minutes then pushed the less than helpful emotion away. She was not going to lay here and wait for them to come back and kill her, probably in a slow, painful and torturous way that didn’t bear thinking about. Looking up at the broken bracket she knew she had to find a way to reach it. To do that, she had to find a way to stand.

She tried pulling her knees up to her chest then rolling onto her stomach so her knees were under her. That didn't work. She wiggled and rolled and wiggled more. She was sure she looked like a fish flopping around on the floor but she finally managed to make it to her knees. From there she could swing her upper body up and use the momentum to get to her feet. After a couple of deep breaths, she hopped back to the wall and turned her back to it. Feeling blindly behind her, she found the bracket and started working the rope at her wrists back and forth across it.

It took forever to make it through the rope. Or at least it seemed like it to Krissi as she jumped at every sound, certain that her captors were coming for her to finish the beating they'd already begun. After what seemed like an hour had passed her binds loosened and she could work her hands free. Once she’d managed to get free, Krissi stretched and rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen some of the stiffness from being held in the unnatural position for so long. She pulled her hands around to rub her aching wrist and found she'd scraped the shit out of them while trying to cut the rope and there was blood smeared in several spots.

There was nothing that could be done about that now. Without much hope, she checked her pocket for her phone. It was missing. She couldn't call for help, so instead she bent and went to work untying the knots on the rope on her ankles. Whoever had tied the rope had no clue what they were doing. They had tied knot over knot, with no rhyme or reason but they'd tied them tight and it took her a while to get them undone.