Chapter Nineteen

Everlee woke in the dark again, upright and sitting this time, her forearms tied to the armrests of a chair, her poor butt flat and dead on a narrow wooden seat. Her muscles screamed for a bit of get-me-the-hell-out-of-Dodge exercise. There was no bag covering her head, not like she could see anything in this pitch-black darkness anyway. The rags in her mouth were gone. So were her boots. Her lips and tongue were still as dry as cotton, but breathing was easier without smelly fabric mashed over her face and mouth. But without light, her eyes were useless. She couldn't make out any points of reference, and there was no way to know which way to go or how to escape. Or if someone was in this dark hole with her. She didn't think so. She'd at least hear them breathe, right? She strained to pick up any other hints of life nearby. Usually, she could sense vibrations of other bodies. But now? Nothing. Until…

Plop. Something landed in her hair. Spiders!

Oh, hell, no. Fighting indescribable panic, she shook her head, needing that thing off her head, out of her hair, and far, far away. Maybe having a bag over her head wasn't a bad idea.

After a good shiver and a few minutes of head-tossing wiggles, Everlee stilled, more hyper-alert than before, in case whatever landed on her was now building a nest in her hair or sliding down the back of her shirt or—

No, no, no! She tossed her head harder, back and forth, side to side, shaking her hair to make sure she'd lost the unwelcome hitchhiker. At last satisfied it was gone, she listened again, striving to detect her kidnappers. The dirtbags, Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, possibly Mr. Asshole, too. Nothing came back to her, not a squeak or rustle, not the murmur of a television from another room. Just the panting sound of her breathing. No conversation, no defining, stinking, manly smells, no crickets chirping, no flies buzzing, either. Nothing but stark empty silence that almost hurt her ears, it was so loud.

Dare she trust it? Hell, yeah.

Trembling with a burst of adrenaline, Everlee leaned to the left, then to the right, as far as she could without tipping over. Thank God, the chair wasn't bolted to the floor. It moved. Good enough. It was just wood; she was invincible. It wouldn't take long to smash this piece-of-shit furniture to smithereens against the nearest wall and be long gone before anyone missed her.

Despite the need to hurry, she froze as the oppressive lack of sound wrapped around her like an iron fist. It was so quiet. Too quiet. She couldn't detect anything, no distant street noises or sounds of kids playing or dogs barking. No hum of planes overhead. Just the dull thud of the chair's legs digging into what now felt like packed dirt, not solid flooring. Not even concrete.

Man, she wished she had her boots. "Where on earth am I?"

Panic slithered up her spine like a slimy cold rattlesnake at the hollow sound of her voice. This wasn't a shipping container. Couldn't be. But a deep, dark well in the ground would explain the lack of ambient noise, well, except for her too fast heartbeat and highly anxious breathing. Stashing a kidnapped victim in an abandoned hole in the middle of nowhere made sense in a frighteningly scary way. Her kidnappers could leave her there until they got what they wanted—which wouldn't be much if they were after ransom. Or they could simply walk away if their demands weren't met, and who would know the difference? Who could find her then? This might very well be a grave. Her grave.

Which made no sense. Why kidnap her just to let her die? She didn't come from money or fame, and maybe that was her fault, too. Blame that and a million other character defects on her father and her ADHD. She'd never been able to sit still and do nothing; didn't intend to now. But it'd sure be nice to be able to see or hear. Or run.

Her toes wiggled with anxiety. She wasn't sure if the GPS locator hidden inside her TEAM phone worked below ground level. Would it? Could Mother find her? Could Alex? Was her cell phone even in her pocket for them to track her by? Everlee used to know important minutia like that. Anything that had to do with her job, she was on it. But between the oppressive darkness and that damned spider attack, panic had lifted its ugly, unreasonable head, and she was running on pure adrenaline.

It struck her then. Mother might've been able to track her TEAM phone, but that was smashed back at that convenience store. Shane's too. There was no way Mother could track them now. Shit!

"I've got to get the fuck out of here," she told herself. Would've sounded better if her voice hadn't trembled. If that expletive hadn't sounded so weak. "Settle down and think, Everlee." Wasn't that what Alex always told her to do?

"I am thinking, Boss," she whispered.

But there really were spiders in this place with her. She could hear them. Not the cute little spee-i-der that landed on Megamind's eyeball in that Dreamworks Animation movie, either. But real, no-kidding, black widow arachnids that came with poison in their fangs and bright red, telltale hourglasses stamped on their bellies. The kind that lived in dark places, like wells and caves. The kind that spun man-sized webs to catch their prey before they sucked it dry and—

Shivers raced over her shoulders. All the more reason to… "Hurry," she hissed. "Come on, girl. Get your fat ass moving. Get out of here!"

Leaning her cheek down onto the binding wrapped around her right biceps, she felt rope, just simple, scratchy jute, not smooth nylon. Which was a good turn of events. Lifting the chair off the ground, she tilted forward and planted her feet, which, thankfully, weren't tied together. With baby steps, as in really quick baby steps because of her hunched-over posture, she toured the limits of her confinement with her butt still stuck in the chair. The first square corner she came to brought a wave of relief. Corners were good. Curved walls were bad. Another good thing, these walls sounded like wood. Not concrete. Jute and wood she could work with.

Walking faster, she mapped the boundaries of her prison. Four ninety-degree corners. Four straight walls. She was inside a square room. She'd counted her steps. Each wall was ten steps long, which equated to a ten-foot square wooden box. Approximately. Kinda like a coffin.

Whatever. Not one to wait and wonder, Everlee planted her feet, dug her bare toes into the dirt, and prepared for war. She turned her body as far to the right as she could go. In her mind, she was a pitcher in the World Series, using her weight, winding up to deliver a fastball—her chair and her body—into that wall.

Strike one! Okay, so she bounced back, but she didn't fall. She counted that a good first attempt. If she fell, getting the chair back on its feet wouldn't be easy. But she was still upright and her butt was still in the driver's seat. With more vigorous hip action, Everlee swung her rear end around faster and hit that wall harder.

Strike two! Damn it. She'd also bit her tongue. Well, too bad. More determined than ever, Everlee put more spin into her hips, needing this chair to shatter. That would be perfect, but even a creak from its glued joints would be better than the beating she was giving herself. She stilled and listened to her rapid breathing and her crazy fast heartbeat. But okay. She was still the only one making noise. That much was good.

Try, try again. With a deep breath in, Everlee assaulted the wall.

Strike three! Didn't matter. She was in this game to win it.

Strike four!

Strike five! Hammering those legs into the wooden walls. Sweating up a storm. Cursing. Calling the wall names. Stupid names. Ugly names. Just not willing to quit, damn it.

The thought of being caught and further abused—or worse—hurried her desperate escape plan along. She refused to give up and die in this man-made tomb. No way! She flung herself, her hips and her butt into attacking the wall. She gave the fight all she had. If anyone could get away from these jackholes, she could. By hell, she would!

"I can," she gasped, sweat dripping off her forehead and stinging her eyes. "I have to. I'm no princess, you asshats. I'm sure as hell not waiting in here until I'm rescued. Screw that! I mean fuck that!"

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! those stiff, wooden chair legs went. Wood against wood. Something had to give, damn it. Maybe the wall. At least one of the legs. They weren't steel. And she was Everlee Yeager. Woman. Invincible. And all that shit.

At last, after a couple dozen more mega-hip gyrations, plenty of well-seated determination, and a whole lot of sweaty fucks, the chair's seat cracked down the center, then splintered into two separate halves. Okay then. Not precisely what Everlee was going for, but beggars couldn't be choosers. At least her butt was free. Well, almost.

Jerking the armrests apart, she easily busted the loosened slats from the chair's back and set her ass free. The armrests gave up next, and she was awash in scratchy jute and plenty of splintered wood that would make a damned nice fire. Later. Once her kidnappers were trussed up like turkeys. Skewered on a nice pointed post. Over a crackling fire where they could roast all night. That'd serve them right.

Tired as hell, Everlee scraped the circles of jute off her arms, then kicked the crap away. She was free to move all right, but that wasn't nearly good nor free enough. Back to the wall, she pressed her ear against the wood, hungry to know where she was and who was outside this damned box.

Still nothing. Not a single noise but her heavy breathing. Okay then. With her palms spread wide, she searched up and down the walls for doorknobs or latches. A window'd be nice. Or a loose board. When it became apparent there was no way out of this pitch-black room, she cast her gaze upward. Was it daytime or night? She had no way to know if she even had a ceiling. And the sky, if it were up there, was just as blank and black as everything else.

For hell's sake, there wasn't even a bucket in here to use as a toilet. Did they intend for her to dig a hole with her bare hands, just to pee in? Well, yeah. So she did, quickly did her business and buried it like a good little Girl Scout.

Wiping her now dirtier hands on her extra-dirty pants, Everlee leaned against the wall to rest. After ten minutes of that stupid idea, she felt around in the dark again this time for the remnants of that chair. She built a nice, tidy pile of rope and broken pieces, then selected one leg and began another round, tap, tap, tapping the walls. First at waist level, then knee level, then, when those revealed solid zeroes, she tapped higher up on the walls. She was on her second go-round when she caught a distinct difference in the sound her tapping made, about a foot above her shoulders. She reined her tapping into a tighter pattern. Sure enough. That part of the wall didn't sound as solid.

But how to reach up that high and what to do when she finally did. Hmm. Back to the drawing board. She needed more of that chair. It just might save her life.

She found what she was looking for, well, was feeling for. Two legs were still attached to half the seat. Making sure that half was solid enough to hold her weight, Everlee dragged it against the wall, balanced the flat end to the wall, then climbed aboard with a spare chair leg—her one and only weapon—and balanced herself on her splintered get-out-of-jail-free contraption just below the targeted space. With one hand on the wall to keep upright and her makeshift weapon under that same arm, she reached her free hand up and let her fingers smooth over the different sounding portion of the wall, searching for a joint or a crack or—

There. Just below the hollow-sounding space. At last. An edge she could get her fingertips under. The bottom edge of a piece of wood. Maybe a door? It was long enough to be a very small door, but was it big enough to be her way out? Man, oh man, her spirits soared at the prospect of freedom. Of escape!

Securing her chair-leg weapon under her arm so she didn't lose it, she used her fingernails like knife edges, tracing the bottom length of what had to be a small trap door. Leaning to one side but keeping her balance, she encountered one corner. That led her to a second corner and a tiny bit wider vertical space, like all doors had on their hinged sides. Yes! She could feel the cool of metal hinges. Okay, so it wasn't a trap door. It was an actual trapdoor. Even if it'd been shut tight, there'd still be space between the jamb and the door. Right?

Licking her chapped top lip, she backtracked, palming her fingertips over what absolutely was a way out. It was a door, damn it. Had to be. How else had her abductors gotten her inside this creepy dungeon of a room? Through the roof. Did it even have a roof?

Trembling and worried she'd fall off the unsteady stool, Everlee edged her fingernails up along the door's other vertical edge, the one opposite the side with what she thought were hinges. Digging her nails into the wood, she pulled that portion inside, toward her.

The damned thing gave, creaky centimeter by creaky centimeter, until, at last, dim light spilled into her hidden prison cell from the crack she'd created. Ducking low, she pulled the door over her head and stopped moving to listen to—absolutely nothing. At last, freedom! Best of all, no Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones.

Sunlight shone down on her sweaty head from above. This was almost too good to be true. Hoisting herself up onto the bottom ledge the open door offered, while still holding onto her weapon, Everlee worked herself into a sitting position and took quick stock of her surroundings. Okay, this was weird. She was sitting on the edge of a square door to a big wooden box inside what looked like a round, concrete silo.

The silo itself was inside a large dilapidated barn with a roof overhead that looked like it was ready to fall down. That was why she hadn't been able to hear anything. She'd been stashed inside layers of wood and concrete, hidden so well that no one would've ever found her. The small door frame she was now sitting on was cold but solid. Whoever'd built it intended it to last.

A creepy feeling that she wasn't the first person trapped inside what was essentially a coffin—or a torture chamber—slithered up Everlee's spine. Others had died here, she damned well knew it. Talk about sinister. It was time to get gone.

Like a ninja, she dropped off the nearly fool-proof and very sturdy box-of-a-torture chamber and landed on her bare feet. Still inside the silo, she dusted her hands together, then tipped her head back on her shoulders and peered straight up. She was looking at sturdy, wooden rafters and beams of sunshine overhead, but the rest of the roof was pretty much see-through.

"Jiminy Christmas. I've been trapped inside a box that's inside a silo that's inside a freaking old barn. Who thinks of this shit?"

Oh, look. A ladder. Metal rungs laced the far inside wall of this thirty-foot-plus dungeon. She was halfway up those rungs when she heard the hearty screech of squeaky hinges, followed by an angry woman screaming, "You stupid idiots. You grabbed the wrong one. That woman is not Tuesday Smart!"

"You got that right, bitch," Everlee breathed as she ceased climbing and clung to the rungs inside the silo.

"Get rid of her!"

I'd like to see you try.

"But you said grab the woman he was with," some guy muttered. "You never said there was two—"

"I meant the blonde in the picture, not the redhead. Don't you guys know the difference? Shit, I should've hired former military. At least they know how to follow directions."

"But I—"

"But nothing!" A single gunshot blasted outside the silo, maybe even outside the barn. Everlee wasn't sure.

"Jiminy Christmas," she whispered as she climbed faster. She needed out of this nightmare before it got worse. Right. Damned. Now.