The ropes loosened and I slipped one hand free, halting all movement the second he turned back toward me. “You’re going to kill me?” I stalled. I already knew the answer.
“What fuckin’ other choice do I have?”
The sound of my own heartbeat thrashed in my ears. I had to do something now before the other person he’d called got here. I might have a chance of taking on one man with my feet tied together, but I’d never take on two. They’d knock me out again, and I knew that time I wouldn’t wake up. I had to do it now because, as God is my witness, I’d rather die than let the opportunity to give Wyatt a chance slip by.
Working to gain control of my heart rate, I pictured Eloise, pictured that smile that had been on her face when the prism cast rainbows around the room, the way she’d grasped one in her hands. If I don’t make it out of this room, if I never know whether you would have come back, keep grasping rainbows, Ellie. Hold them in your hands and know I loved you until my dying breath. I whispered it in my mind, hoping the feeling behind my words would carry—somehow, someway—straight to her heart.
Thunder suddenly cracked loudly, shaking the house, and we all startled, the man looking back toward the window. My opportunity. I gripped the rope in my hand as I lunged with every ounce of strength in my body.
Taken by surprise, the man yelled as all my weight crashed into him. We both went down hard, but he took the brunt of the fall, breaking mine with his body. A loud grunt came from his chest as I scrambled up on my knees next to him as fast as I could with my feet bound together, grasping the rope between my hands and wrapping it around his neck.
“Run!” I bellowed at Wyatt as I used all my strength to strangle the man. I thought I caught movement in my peripheral vision—Wyatt running past me and up the stairs. God, please let him be running. But I couldn’t check. I was in the fight of my life with the man beneath me. He tore at the rope at his throat as I pushed it down with all my might, hoping desperately to cut off his air. He was big, and he was strong, but I used the strength in my arms and my thighs—the strength that had been gained lifting rocks and walking up and down a canyon as if in preparation for just this moment.
We struggled and fought for what felt like forever as I prayed that I could hold him down at least long enough for Wyatt to get out of here. My arms were straining so hard, they were shaking with fatigue. At one point, with a sudden burst of renewed energy, he surged upward and I was knocked backward. He came over me, now having the upper hand. I allowed my gaze to move to the couch. Wyatt was gone. Thank God, thank God. Had he been able to escape the house? Had he made it to a neighbor’s home?
With the knowledge that Wyatt was gone, my body and my will strengthened once more, and I let out a guttural yell, pulling my bound legs upward and slamming my knees into his soft gut. He let out an ugly gurgling sound of pain and reared back slightly. But when I tried to get out from under him, he pulled his fist back and slammed it into my face. Stars exploded all around me, and my head hit the hard concrete floor. For a minute, I thought I’d pass out again, but I didn’t. I gave it my last bit of strength and grabbed onto his shirt, pulling him toward me and pushing him to the side so I could swing at him. The punch I landed was sloppy and ineffective since we were in motion, but I swung again and connected to his face in a sickening sound of cracking bone and splattering blood. He screamed and suddenly there were footsteps and a door slamming open and loud shouts from above.
Two young black men were suddenly right on us, yelling and pulling the man off me, holding him down as I fell back on the floor, gasping for breath.
“The boy’s okay,” one of them said, directing his statement at me as the older man struggled fruitlessly. His energy was used up, and his will was obviously gone as well. There was a bright red mark across his neck where I’d attempted to strangle him, and his expression was dazed. “The police are on their way.” With those words the man gave one last attempt at escape, but it was a wasted effort. The two men holding him looked like linebackers. In the distance, I could hear the wail of sirens, and outside the small window, the soft pitter-patter of rain.
I could feel blood running down my cheek, knew one eye was swelling shut, but I didn’t care. Help was here. “The little boy’s safe,” one of them repeated. “He’s with my girlfriend.”
I offered a weak smile and held my thumb up in the air. It was all I could manage.
* * *
Rain pounded on the hospital room window, the noise drowning out the hustle and bustle of the corridor outside my door. I lay back on my pillow, enjoying the first moment I’d had with my own thoughts since the EMTs had carried me up the stairs of the basement I’d later learned belonged to Neil Hardigan, now in the custody of local police.
My head swam with everything that had happened since I’d walked into Sal’s hardware store the afternoon before. I was still having trouble believing it hadn’t all been a strange, fuzzy, half-formed dream. And yet, the joy that moved through me at the thought of Wyatt Geller at home with his parents right this very minute felt overwhelmingly real. They’d come into my room that morning and had barely been able to form words. His mother had hugged me so long and hard, it’d hurt my battered body, but that didn’t matter. They had their son back. I hadn’t been so lucky to be reunited with my parents the day I’d shown up in the hospital after facing the same trauma Wyatt had faced. But he had. He had, and I’d taken a part in it, and I took deep comfort in that.
We’d both arrived at the hospital together, and I’d later learned that after Wyatt had run up the basement stairs, he unbolted the front door and raced out into the street, waving his arms frantically, too terrified to yell at all.
It just so happened that three college kids on their way home from playing hoops in the neighborhood had been walking by on the other side of the street at that exact moment. They’d stopped when they saw Wyatt, and the one girl in the group stayed with him and called the police, while the other two ran into the house to help me. Wyatt had found his voice once the three of them rushed to meet him, and he told them where to find me. “The good guy has his feet tied together,” he kept repeating over and over like a mantra.
There had been a car pulling into the driveway at the same moment Wyatt came running out—most likely the man Neil Hardigan had called—and when the college kids came running toward him, the car backed out quickly and raced away. The police, with information retrieved from Neil Hardigan’s computer, had later arrested that man as he was packing up his car to make a getaway.
The police also hinted to me that the information they were currently confiscating from the hard drive of Neil Hardigan’s house would not only put him away for a very, very long time, but had revealed a ring of pedophiles in the area, including information on Gary Lee Dewey. Gary hadn’t kept such information at his home, but Neil had, and with his arrest, authorities had hit the jackpot. Men linked to them both were being rounded up all over the East Coast right this very moment.
The police had questioned me extensively the day before, and I was told the news media had been camped out at the hospital’s entrance through the night. It was surreal. It was familiar.
The door opened and George came in, holding a package in his hands. He set it down on the table next to my bed and put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it very gently. I’d only seen him and Dominic briefly the night before. They’d been stunned, quiet, George had tears in his eyes as he said, “This is the second time you’ve escaped from a basement and landed yourself in the hospital. Let’s not do this again, what do you say?” I’d laughed and heartily agreed.