She plans to leave me here. “They’ll be looking for me,” I croak.
“They won’t find you. Not in time.” With a gleeful look, she waves my phone. “I sent a text to Axton to let him know you’d be spending the night with Dani, and we both know that isn’t out of the ordinary, is it? No one will even know you’re gone until you’re beyond dead.”
Terror at the thought makes me shiver harder, my teeth clacking audibly. “Paige, please.”
Satisfaction glows on her face, and I know in that moment there’s nothing I can say. It won’t matter if I lie and try to convince her I’m in love with her too or try to rationalize with her. No. She’s thrilled with the thought of leaving me here to freeze. My only chance will be after she’s gone, if I can manage a way out of the cords and find my way to some help.
The play in the cord is just enough to let me stand or lie down, and I curl up on my side, trying to ball up to get warm. It’s been at least half an hour since I woke up here and I already feel like I couldn’t get any colder.
“Goodbye Naomi. If you’re lucky, they’ll find your body by spring.”
With that, she pulls open the shed door, letting wind and snow whip in. Another second and she’s disappeared into the storm, closing the door behind her.
The sound of the snowmobile motor reaches my ears, then fades into the distance.
My survival instinct kicks in and I try to take stock of the situation without letting panic set in. I’m alone. In a dilapidated shed god knows where, during a blizzard. Wrists bound, feet tied together, and my wrists tied to a beam. She took my phone and the only other things in my coat pockets are the packets of crackers and cookies I always carry for Caden.
Caden. If I don’t get out of this, if he feels like I left him again, he’ll be so heartbroken. I have to get out of here. If Paige texted Axton that I was staying with Dani from my phone, he’d have no trouble believing it after our conversation tonight. God, that seems like a lifetime ago now.
I can’t think about that, or any of the shit I’ve just found out. My time is limited. The cord she used is thick with some sort of protective coating. It has almost no give. There are no tools or anything within my reach that could help, so I start trying to gnaw through it.
It doesn’t take long for me to realize it’s impossible. Whatever the coating is, my teeth can’t pierce it. If I could just get my hands free of the beam, I could try to use them to untie my feet, even with my wrists bound together it’s a possibility.
I take a moment to study the beam and how it’s attached. I don’t know shit about architecture or framing or any of that, but it isn’t hard to tell that yanking too hard on the beam could potentially bring the whole roof down on my head.
It’s a risk, but if no one is looking for me, I’ll die here anyway. Already my hands, nose, and ears are transitioning from burning pain to numbness. What comes first, frostbite or hypothermia?
I hold my breath and give a tug on the cord binding me to the beam. The wood creaks but isn’t soft or rotted enough to give. I try again, watching the ceiling to see if it tries to separate from it. It doesn’t, but I’m surprised to feel a bit of give from the bottom.
Granted, taking this beam down from the bottom is likely to have the same catastrophic result of dumping a roof heavy with snow on top of me.
My head thumps when I kneel down and lean over to get a good look at it. The bottom has rotted and looks like it’s been chewed up by animals or insects or something. There’s a tiny gap on one side, between the beam and the floor and I take a moment to consider it.
I could slip the cord into the gap, but it could also get stuck there. I’d be pinned to the floor as well as the beam. Fuck, I have to try. I just don’t see another way. If I bring the roof down on me, at least it’ll be over quickly.
It takes me a few minutes to work the cord down the beam and into the gap between it and the floor. Gritting my teeth, I pull as hard as I can, crying out at the pain that shoots through my freezing hands and wrists. The cord makes it about halfway through before getting stuck.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I yell. Another pull moves it an infinitesimal amount, but that’s enough to show me it’s possible for the cord to penetrate the soft, crumbling wood.
Another idea occurs to me and I know this is going to hurt even worse on my poor wrists. I pull my hands toward me, tightening the cord against the beam as much as possible, then yank my wrists back and forth. The cord starts to move forward, sawing its way through the decayed wood. The pain is enormous, not just in my hands and wrists, but my back and shoulders, and the progress is very slow going. But it is going.
I can do this.
I can get free.
With something to focus on, the cold doesn’t torture me as badly. All that exists now is that cord eating its way closer to me and the pain in every inch of my body. Keep going. So close. Just keep going.
I have no idea how long it’s been since I was brought here or how long I’ve been trying to get free. It feels like days, but I know it can’t have been more than a couple of hours. The head injury doesn’t help me keep things straight.
If nothing else, all this effort is probably keeping me from freezing to death as fast.
Finally, the cord takes a big leap forward to the edge of the beam and a loud pop sends a spike of fear through me. My dry throat aches when I swallow and look up at the ceiling. This could go either way. There are other beams supporting parts of the roof, and whether this section will fall or the whole thing will is anyone’s guess.
“Okay,” I say out loud. “Tits up, girl, here we go.”
A few hard yanks back and forth is all it takes to eat through the last couple of inches of wood. When it gives, I fall back from the force of my pull and scramble to scoot away, keeping my eyes on the ceiling.
There’s a creak, a groan, and then silence. For the moment, it holds.
Sobbing with relief and pain, I scoot on my ass to the far side of the shed, where it looks more stable. I’m so tired, and that worries me. I’ve always heard how alluring sleep is to the freezing. On TV when someone is caught in an avalanche or something similar, they fall asleep then never wake up.
Five minutes, I tell myself. And no lying down. You have five minutes to rest and catch your breath then you find a way to get your feet free of these cords.
The wind howls and pours in through the cracks in the walls. Closing my eyes, I try to take myself somewhere else. Back to sitting in front of the warm fireplace with Axton next to me, with Caden asleep a few feet away. I let the peace and contentment of that moment steal over me. The crackle of burning wood. The heat against the front of my body and the contrast of the cooler air on my back. Axton’s hand. That long fingered, amazing hand wandering over my thigh.
I’m reluctant to pull my eyes open and face my reality again, but there’s no help for it. The feeling of panic and rushing adrenaline has faded, making it a little easier to think, and when I look down at my feet, I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
She tied my ankles together with the same type of cord.
Over my boots.
Something resembling a half laugh, half sob escapes me. How did I not notice it before? Leaning against a pile deflated snow tubes, I bend and start trying to work off one of my boots. The cords are tight, but the boots are thick and malleable. It only takes me a few minutes to work and stuff the material under the cord and get the boot off, which leaves enough slack to get the other boot off. Once both are off, my laughter sounds almost as disturbing as Paige’s did as I pull both feet easily out of the cord.