49. Ridley

49

RIDLEY

Waves of hot and cold battled through me, one taking hold and then getting washed away by the other. I groaned, trying to roll to my side. Do I have the flu? I hated being sick. Especially when said sickness included a fever.

As I moved, white-hot pain speared through me. I wanted to scream, to cry out, but the only sound that came was a sluggish moan. I shifted to my back, and the pain eased a fraction, but an intense burning still radiated from my side.

What the hell happened?

My eyelids fluttered, their movement scraping against eyes that felt far too dry. It was only light and shape and color at first. Nothing made sense.

Then my surroundings began to compute. The room was dark. Not completely, but shades were drawn, and only a small desk lamp illuminated the space.

My brows pulled together in an almost painful contraction. I was on a hard floor, and nothing around me was familiar. There was a desk and bench seating behind it on the opposite side. But everything was incredibly narrow. And up ahead were two captain’s chairs, a steering wheel, and a covered windshield.

An RV?

My gaze flipped to the other side, and I was greeted with a kitchen and small dinette. Past it was a small hallway with three closed doors. My mouth went dry as my heart pounded against my ribs.

None of this was familiar.

I frantically searched my memory for the last thing I could grab hold of. Emerson’s house. The podcast interview. Telling Colt I loved him in the garden, and then?—

I jerked upright, and a blinding pain stole my breath. I couldn’t hold back the whimper that left my lips at the agony. I fumbled, trying to search out the injury, but found I couldn’t because my hands were bound with coarse rope.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The curse was chanted over and over in my head. Someone had attacked me. Had—I looked down at my shirt and the dark brownish-red stain— stabbed me.

A wave of wooziness swept over me, and I squeezed my eyes closed. Just breathe. In and out. Nice and easy.

I didn’t want to think about what could happen if I passed out again. Slowly, I opened my eyes and tried to take stock of my injury. There wasn’t a huge amount of blood on my shirt, but holy hell did it hurt.

Slowly, I used my bound hands as best as I could to lift the cotton. I tried not to let the nausea take me under as I caught sight of the wound. It was so thin and precise, but blood still oozed from the puncture.

I let my shirt quickly drop and pressed my hands to my side. A fresh wave of pain rocked through me, and I opened my mouth in a silent scream as black dots danced in front of my vision. I tried to focus on my breath, but the agony was too much.

I wasn’t sure how long it took for the pain to ease a fraction, enough so that I was breathing normally again, but when it did, my surroundings came into better focus. It was an RV. A nice one from the looks of it, and I knew how expensive vehicles you lived in could be.

But I needed out of it. Now.

The man’s voice echoed in my head. I should’ve known you weren’t special like your sister. Just a whore like all the rest of them.

The panic was back in full force as blood roared in my ears. I couldn’t think about those words. Because if I let myself come to terms with the knowledge that the man who’d taken Avery—killed her—had me, I’d be paralyzed.

Just breathe.

That was what I had to do first and foremost. I focused on the inhales and exhales. Not too fast or too slow.

Once they were steady again, I looked down at my wrists and ankles. The rope was so tight, my fingers and toes tingled, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a way out. I tried to move my legs closer and that’s when I saw it.

The chain.

The rope around my ankles was connected to a short chain that was fastened to a bracket in the wall. Something that spoke of preparation, of doing this exact thing countless times before.

Just breathe.

I spoke the words in my mind over and over. And as my breathing evened out, I started searching again. This time for a tool. Anything that might be strong enough to slice or fray these ropes. They were the kind with rough strands that were always weakening and falling away; there was just an endless supply of them.

I glanced toward the kitchen and blanched. Even if the chain reached that far, there were locks on the cabinets. This man had kept people here. Young women. Girls.

Just breathe.

I turned toward the desk, trying to take stock of its contents. The surface was mostly clear except for a computer monitor. It had one of those screensavers that morphed from landscape to cityscape but told me nothing.

Then I frowned, nose scrunching. There was hair on the desk. The worst possible reason for such a thing filled my mind, but then I realized it was a wig. A mix of blond and gray. And then what looked like skin but I finally realized were prosthetics.

My breath caught in my throat as my body seized at the package of grape gum. Memories from the night I was attacked filled my mind, that sweet smell. Only it wasn’t just sweet—now I could identify it as grape. Like the gum I remembered chewing as a kid. And then I looked at the opposite wall.

A ringing started in my ears as my whole body buzzed. Buzzed because I wasn’t breathing, and I knew I needed to. But I couldn’t.

Because I recognized that view. I’d seen it countless times on the other end of video calls, set at different times of day and weather. And I’d never known it was completely fake.

“Ah, she’s finally awake.”

I whirled at the voice. I should’ve recognized it earlier. Should’ve known. But it was different somehow. Younger? The face that greeted me certainly was. No paunch or jowls. No wrinkles at all. He didn’t look decades older than me. Not now. But I knew those eyes, even if they had morphed with disgust.

“Sully?” I croaked.