I check the pockets of my slinky black trousers, looking for assets—no phone, no wallet, nothing. Not even a breath mint to chase away the hideous chemical taste in my mouth. My slim gold watch, a gift from Glenn, is also gone, as is my wedding ring.
With another bump, I slide down the wall and sit, hugging my knees.
The metal of this truck radiates cold, forcing it into my very bones. Maybe it’s a crazed fan wanting me to play Scheherazade or an opportunist wanting a cash ransom. Glenn will pay it, any amount, a king’s ransom for my return.
But he doesn’t have access to my money.
While my mind is racing, I work on the zip tie around my feet. Fumbling, I find the catch and press it, even as the plastic cuts into my almost-numb fingers, until the loop loosens enough for me to drag it over my heels.
Points in my favor: three. First, my hands and feet are free. Second, the driver of the truck can’t see me. Third, I am smarter than they know.
Every time the truck hits a bump, it’s not just bruising me, it’s making me angry. I will not be the victim—not now, not ever. I am the author. If there is an evil mastermind, a malevolent god, that role is mine. I am the one who files for divorce, I am the one who proposes, I am the one who meets Zoe’s weakness with strength over and over again. I am the Ava Hallett. This is my story and I will take charge of it.
I open the truck from the inside, holding the doors. Once they fly open, the driver will see it in the side mirrors. When I hit the ground, I need to run.
The truck sways from side to side as a rutted dirt road unrolls behind it. All I see on either side is forest—trees and undergrowth. The sun is low in the sky and the shadow of the truck stretches out on the road like the mouth of hell.
My breath is shallow and my knuckles are white as I cling to the doors. This is the only way out, I know it, but my mind whirls, trying to find the best way, the right way. I imagine the options—kneeling down, jumping or rolling out; then I suppress the image of a woman—me—lying on the road with a broken ankle, arm, or neck, dying of starvation, lost in the wilderness. The driver could back the truck over me, run me down, shoot me, or most likely, recapture me.
I shut my eyes and let go.
The shock of landing knocks the wind out of me. My empty lungs burn. I lie on the ground, my body lit up with pain so intense it shuts down thought. Before my brain reboots, I’m running, first on all fours, then sprinting, vaulting over the edge of the dirt road and into the woods.
I catch a glimpse of the truck stopping and a figure, a man, opening the door, but I keep going, darting between trees and around scrub. The farther I run, the thicker the underbrush gets, the more uneven the ground, until I’m flying down an incline with barely a knife’s edge of control. I’m the only thing making noise now, I’m filling the world with the sound of crunching leaves and snapping twigs, too much sound to hear if the man, my kidnapper, is behind me.
I need a place to hide.
Trees are flashing by me, the world is so blurred with my speed that I can’t look for a safe place; I can’t even slow down. I could be going in circles, I could be running straight back to my captor, I could run right off the edge of a cliff or plummet into a ravine. When a thorn-laden creeper snares my ankle, I fall hard on my outstretched hands, plunging them through the dried surface layer of dead leaves to the colder underlayer.
Gasping, I’m on my feet again, running, before I realize I haven’t heard anyone behind me. There’s a tall pine ahead of me, its lower half bare of branches. Darting around it, I press my back into the wide trunk, breathing hard. The setting sun doesn’t penetrate the forest here. Maybe in my dark clothes I’m camouflaged, just another wild thing crouching in the underbrush, straining to make out the sounds of an approaching predator.
Nothing human breaks the silence, no footsteps or revving engines, only the noises of the indifferent forest surrounding me. Somewhere a branch pops, and my muscles spasm; then a bird sings out.
Cold sweat beads under my hairline as I risk one cautious step, then another. In the gathering dusk, I see something larger, darker ahead, and make my way toward it.
The upper part of the hill overhangs and has made a cave, really just a little notch in the face of the earth. I can see all the way to the back wall, and it looks empty. Before all the light is gone, I grab at the lowest branches, snatching one. As it snaps, I feel a jolt of fear that I’m making too much noise, but the woods around me are still silent.
I take another branch, then another, snapping off the dry ones and twisting the live ones until I have an armful. My face is itchy and I’m trying not to think about all the things that could be in them. I pile them at the entrance to my little cave. Maybe if I hide now, I’ll be able to find my way to safety in the daylight.
By the time I finish, I can make out the thick trunks of trees, but wire-thin vines and twigs are impossible to distinguish from the inky air. I’m shivering, only partly from the growing chill.
If this were a story I had written, my kidnapper—the villain—would have thought of everything. He would be wearing night-vision goggles, there would be cameras throughout the woods, he’d be an expert tracker and there would be no easy escape. But I have to envision a different ending, a happy one, where I survive the night and find salvation in the morning.
I scoop up an armload of leaves, trying to get only the dry ones, and creep into the cave. Dumping the leaves on the earth, I pull at the branches, trying to make sure the inside of the cave is totally and completely dark. If no light can get in, not a scrap, then surely no one will be able to see me. I wedge myself in a nest of leaves against the narrowest corner. Tucking myself into a ball like a hedgehog, I close my eyes against the gathering night.
My body is freezing, but my soul is full of heat. There’s a puzzle to solve, my life’s on the line, and I just need to know a name, the mastermind, someone who hates me enough to have me kidnapped. I didn’t recognize the man who was driving the truck from the brief glimpse I got, but he could be just the muscle and the transport. Anyone who’s found success knows that someone else is always watching. Someone who wants what you have. Who thinks you don’t deserve it. Who wishes you would disappear.
Of course, I didn’t have to hit the best-seller list to find that person. I grew up with her.
Once there were two sisters. The older was a storyteller, and the younger was her favorite story. Zoe is the only person I know who lives in Technicolor, not thinking or reflecting or pondering, only living every moment full force. All the noise and action in our house was Zoe, and she looked at me like I was one of them, our colorless, constrained parents. So when I wrote, I wrote about her. I did it to figure her out, or to nettle her, or to give my stories all the energy and life I could channel into them. She’s always been my furious muse.
Maybe Zoe and I would have been closer if we’d had another sibling. Two are always in opposition—good and bad, oldest and youngest, smart and dumb, black and white—and with names like Ava and Zoe, it was obvious we were the alpha and omega, the only two our parents intended to have.
I probably should have been a better older sister. I was impatient, often angry, like she had been put on this earth to plague me. Maybe some older sisters teach their younger sisters to put on lipstick or sneak out after curfew, but I was never interested in that kind of thing. She was my unwanted shadow, forever a step behind me, at the edge of my consciousness, waiting.