He comes to stand in front of me, looking at me with a frown.
I meet his gaze. “Save yourself.”
There’s a creak on the small porch.
My breath stalls.
Is it my imagination? More than anything, I want to look out the window, but I don’t want to alert Decker, so I shift back and tap the toe of my shoe on the trap door that will lead him to the cellar. “You have to look.”
His eyes narrow. “I don’t trust you.”
I blink up at him, doing my best to appear helpless. “What can I do? I’m tied to a chair, and everything is out of my reach. Open the door, go down to the cellar, and see. It will take a few minutes. How much trouble can I get into if you push me back a few feet?” I glance wildly around the room. “There’s nothing for me to use.”
He points at me. “You could stand up, close the door, and use your weight to trap me.”
“Then move me or leave with nothing. I don’t really care if you have supplies or not. All I care about is living, and I think that’s all you care about too. So if you don’t trust me and you want to leave, go. Now. Before it’s too late. But if you want to look, pull me out of reach. It’s not that complicated.” I make my voice urgent. “You’re running out of time.”
He lets out a frustrated yelp, scrubbing his hand over his bald spot, making tufts of hair stand up.
Hope surges as he tilts the chair so it’s on two legs.
It screeches as he starts dragging me across the floor.
I cry out as the movement sends pain shooting through my left side, and I grit my teeth as my vision swims. He roughly sets the chair back on four legs then comes to stand in front of me, leaning down and practically spitting in my face. “You’d better not try anything funny, got it?”
I gasp. “Got it.”
Then he opens the trap door and goes down the stairs.
Thirty seconds go by, in which all I hear are Decker’s footsteps and the pounding of my heart.
I hear another creak.
The knob turns.
And Charlie opens the door.
Charlie
* * *
Dressed in all-black tactical gear, we’d crept on to the property. We’d heard her talking, and silently, I’d urged her on, trying to communicate through my thoughts alone how smart she was.
How proud I was of her.
How much I loved her.
Wordlessly promising her repeatedly I was coming, as though we were connected by mental telepathy.
We’d surrounded the cabin.
Listened and waited.
The hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life was wait.
To trust her to get him where I needed him to make my move.
As she continues to talk about his escape, I keep my back pressed against the exterior wall, right next to the door, my gun chambered and ready.