Don't Say a Word (Hometown Antihero)

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  “Stay behind me, and keep close, got it?”

  “Got it. I’ll be right on your bumper.”

  I climbed in as Dawson backed Shayna’s car out. He rolled toward the exit, waiting for me to follow. I went to stick the key in the ignition, then realized there wasn’t one—just a push button to start it.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked, pushing the button to no avail. I frantically searched for an explanation on how to fire up his fancy new car.

  A knock on the window startled me, and I turned, expecting to find a pissed-off Dawson staring at me, prepared to mansplain how his old-man car worked. Instead, I found Principal Thompson gazing through the window at me, a familiar smile on his face.

  My body went rigid.

  He motioned for me to roll down the window, but I couldn’t get that to work, either, so I just shrugged at him instead.

  “Do you need help with your car?” he asked through the closed window.

  “It’s not mine. Just trying to sort out how to start it.”

  I looked down at the button again and saw that it gave all the instructions needed.

  “Why don’t you step out and let me show you,” he said, trying the door handle. But I’d already locked that—force of habit.

  “No, thanks,” I said, pushing the button while slamming my foot on the break. When the car finally roared to life, I flashed him a nervous smile and threw the car in gear. I damn near ran over his toes as I backed out. Dawson was still waiting for me at the end of the parking lot. As soon as he saw his car pull up behind him, he turned onto the street. Before I did the same, I looked in the rearview to find Principal Thompson staring me down, his brow furrowed.

  I fumbled with my phone as I drove, wanting to call Dawson, but I was way too hopped up on adrenaline after that encounter, and I dropped it.

  “Shit!” I yelled, trying to reach across to the floor to retrieve it. When I nearly swerved off the road, I decided to pass on that and live instead.

  I tried to slow my breathing and calm my mind. I was okay. Shayna was okay. It was all going to be all right.

  With Dawson ahead of me, we took a shorter route to his house. One that led us around the perimeter of town to save time. We were the only cars on the road, which helped calm my anxiety, but I wouldn’t feel better until we were all back at his place.

  He was probably a quarter mile or so ahead of me, headed for the train tracks. Not long after he crossed, the lights began to flash and the guards came down. I was tempted to speed up and go under them but thought better of it. I didn’t want a lecture from Dawson about me endangering myself and his pristine car. Instead, I slowed my approach, in no hurry to get to the roadblock in my way.

  I took that moment to grab my phone off the floor and call Dawson.

  “Hey,” I said the second he picked up. “Thompson was there tonight. He came up to your car when I was trying to start it. He tried to get me to step out under the guise of wanting to help.”

  “How was he acting?” Dawson asked, his voice tight.

  “Normal, which made it that much creepier.”

  The blast of the train’s horn cut through the night air, nearly deafening me. I could see Dawson’s taillights on the far side of the barricade, waiting for the train to pass so I could catch up. It was a comforting sight.

  “If Thompson is behind this, we’re going to get him,” he said. I couldn’t tell who he was trying to reassure.

  The train finally roared past, blocking my view of Dawson and Shayna. Just as I settled back in my seat, waiting for it to pass, a flash of light from my left temporarily blinded me. I turned to see headlights barreling toward me from a remote railway access road. I reached for the gear shift to throw it in reverse, but my hand fumbled with it, the setup in Dawson’s car different than Heidi’s. Before I switched gears, those headlights were upon me. With a terrible crash, Dawson’s car was T-boned and pushed toward the edge of the road. I screamed as it rolled over the adjacent embankment, the crunch of metal and glass breaking, drowning me out. The car rolled until it hit the bottom, slamming to a stop. While I sat there for a moment, stunned but alive, the strangest thought flashed through my mind. As my vision swam and darkness encroached, I wondered what Dawson would say when he found me.

  He was going to be so pissed about his car.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  “Time to go,” Dawson said, pulling me into his arms. The ringing in my ears made his voice hard to recognize, but his hands were not unkind as he hauled me away.

  “What happened?” I asked, my head woozy, my speech slurred.

  “You were in an accident,” he said. I let my aching head loll against his chest. Sleep called for me—raged for me to join it. The night wrapped around me like a blanket, tucking me into the arms of my partner, and I relaxed in his hold, taking a deep breath to help clear the pounding in my head. When I did, something niggled in the back of my mind, just out of reach. Something familiar.

  Something wrong.

  “Where’s Shayna?” I mumbled against his chest.

  I felt it rumble beneath me, a deep vibration of a laugh coursing through him into me. That’s not funny.… my mind thought, feeling swimmy and disconnected from my body. Why does he think that’s funny…?

  “I’ll get her soon,” he replied, the rough sound of gravel reverberating as he laughed again.

  My brain caught hold of the sensation in the back of my head and yanked it forward, parading it in front of my mind’s eye. That wasn’t Dawson’s voice. That wasn’t Dawson’s laugh.

  Instinctively, I began to struggle against his hold, but it tightened around me like a vise.

  “The hard way it is, then,” he said, dropping me to the ground with a thud. My head knocked against the concrete, making my vision dance again as I struggled to get my bearings. A kaleidoscope of tires swirled before me and I reached out to grab one and haul myself up, but an arm wrapped around my throat, choking off my air supply. Like a novice, I pawed at his forearm, panicking as the darkness moved closer, narrowing my vision. “You just don’t know when to butt out, do ya? Well, this time, it’s gonna cost you.”

  “Dawson,” I croaked, my voice more of a desperate wheeze than the cry for help I’d hoped it would be.

  With that final word, the darkness swallowed me once again.

  * * *

  When I tried to open my eyes, I found more darkness waiting for me in the form of a blindfold. It was too tight against my throbbing head, but when I tried to remove it, I realized my hands were bound behind my back. I sat propped up against a cold, hard surface. The musty smell in the air around me told me I was underground.

  But at least I wasn’t dead—not that kind of underground.

  My first inclination was to scream for help, but the plea fell dead on my tongue. Whoever had gone to all that trouble to capture me was hardly going to stash me away where my calls for aid would be heard. No, I’d be tucked away somewhere far from anyone who could rescue me.

  While panic rose within me, I tried to recall all the details of the ride home. Keeping my mind busy was the only way I knew to hold it together. It was also the only way I had a chance at figuring a way out of the mess I was in.

  Thankfully, I hadn’t lost any pieces of that evening in the crash. I worked my way through the facts as I knew them one by one. What we’d done before going to Marco’s. Who’d been there that night. That we couldn’t have gotten far before Dawson found his wrecked car.

  My mind clawed frantically to hold onto that thread of hope, but continually came up short. I didn’t know if Dawson and Shayna were safe. I didn’t know who my captor was. I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. All I did know was that whoever it was had been two steps ahead of us for longer than I liked to think about, and that didn’t bode well for me.

  And Dawson …

  He was probably going out of his mind trying to find me.

  “Dammit!” I whispered, wriggling against my bonds. My feet were free, but
that did me no good. I couldn’t exactly untie my hands with them. But I could search the room with them.…

  Swishing them like I was doing half a snow angel, I worked my way around, hoping I’d eventually run into something. I continued the awkward movement, scooching along on my butt as I did. It seemed to go on forever, but I eventually ran into something solid. The distinct sound of foot on wood echoed through the space. The sound was short-lived, letting me know the room wasn’t that large. A home basement? I wondered, as though that detail was super helpful. I kicked at the wood and it inched away from the contact, dragging along the concrete floor. Table leg. But more helpful than that realization was the distinct sound of metal objects clanging atop it at the reverberation. Those were going to be my ticket out of captivity, assuming at least one of them was sharp.

  I managed to get to my feet only to crash over again, my equilibrium clearly off from the accident. As I lay on the ground, breathing hard to quell the nausea, I heard Kru Tyson in my mind: You get knocked down, but you don’t stay down. You fight. You fight until the fight is over.…

  “The fight’s not over yet,” I muttered to myself, rolling onto my side. Again, I forced myself to my feet in an awkward and unsteady motion, but this time I remained upright. Without my sight to help focus on the horizon, it took an insane amount of effort just to take a small step forward—then another, and another—until my hips were pressed up against the square edge of the table. Using it to help keep my balance, I slowly turned so that my hands could roam the table for something sharp.

  The second my fingers grazed something, my heart stopped cold.

  One by one, I took inventory of what lay on top of that table. Yes, there were definitely tools there that would be able to free my hands from the ropes binding them, but my mind was too focused on what else they could be used for to care. Gardening shears, tin snips, and a variety of other outdoor and construction paraphernalia were neatly aligned across the table. Had they been more haphazard, maybe I wouldn’t have jumped to the worst conclusion possible. But they weren’t, so I did. Whoever had put them there had taken steps to line them up in a precise and organized fashion, like a surgeon would his implements. I wasn’t in a basement at all.

  I was in a torture chamber.

  FORTY-NINE

  My blood pressure skyrocketed.

  “Oh my God…”

  I repeated those three words over and over again while I fumbled around the table behind me for something I could use to free my hands. I settled on what I thought were pruning shears—the kind that were perfect for snipping off fingers. With that morbid possibility settling upon me, I held them in my right hand and hooked the sharp edge against the ropes. My sawing motion was jerky and awkward and made the muscles of my forearms burn within seconds, but I could feel progress being made, so I kept at it despite the pain. Having those shears used on me in other ways promised to be far worse.

  When I felt one of the twisted fibers let go, I muffled a cry of joy. Biting my lip, I ground the blade against the remaining rope as hard as I could, though my arm screamed at me to stop. Almost free … I thought as cord after cord snapped. I could practically smell the crisp fall air and feel the bite of its wind on my face.

  Then reality punched me in the gut.

  A distant sound interrupted my fantasy—the sound of crunching leaves and gravel under the weight of a vehicle. My captor was coming.

  I hacked at the remaining rope, slicing my skin in the process, the sharp sting of the cuts doing nothing to slow me. The slam of a car door made my heart jump and I bit my lip to contain the yelp of fear that nearly escaped. “Come on … come on…” I begged the rope to let me go. Finally, with a desperate slash, it released me from its hold and fell to the ground. A second later, I had my blindfold off, scanning my surroundings for a way out.

  The ceiling was low—much lower than a normal basement—with a stumpy wooden staircase leading to the floor above. Footsteps echoed outside, and the jingle of keys punctuated their stop as my abductor paused to unlock the prison he held me in. Panic gripped me, but I shoved it down into a pool of black somewhere in my gut, praying it would stay there long enough for me to get myself out. I could melt down later, but the present required all my attention.

  Heavy-soled feet fell upon the wood floor above me, forcing me into action. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he was downstairs and ready to implement the menagerie of tools he had laid out for his pleasure. I had no interest in that.

  I scrambled around the room, which was barren except for shelves lining the circumference of most of it and the table in the middle. There were no doors—no windows—to be seen. The only exit I knew of was the one at the top of the stairs that would deliver me right into the hands of my captor.

  I had no interest in doing that, either.

  Grabbing some pointy object from the table, I quietly worked my way around the room, trying to find a place to hide. I was small enough to tuck myself away into tiny places. Maybe if he’d thought I’d already escaped, he’d leave to go find me. If not, I would have the element of surprise on my side, which was about the best I could do under the circumstances. Quickly and quietly, I scurried through the room trying to find something on the shelves to use for cover. I pulled boxes down, doing my best not to make any noise in the process, but it was hard. One that proved far heavier than I expected came crashing to the ground. The dirt floor did a lot to absorb the sound, but I knew it hadn’t been enough. The immediate pause of footsteps mulling about above spoke to that fact.

  Fear like I’d never felt before slammed into me.

  I was going to die.

  I looked up to the heavens, prepared to beg for my soul, when the soft glow of light fell upon my closed eyes. They shot open to find sunlight pouring in through a small, filthy window. One small enough for ventilation but little else. One I was about to try and cram my ass through.

  I climbed up the shelving, prepared to smash out the glass, but upon inspection I could see the casing had rotted away. With one rough tug, the entire pane came loose. I tossed it on top of the shelf and scrambled through the opening. I managed to get my upper half through without issue, but once my legs were unable to push off the shelving, my body hung from the not-so-egress-window. I was stuck.

  “No no no no…,” I muttered under my breath, wiggling wildly. I clawed at the loose dirt and moss surrounding the building, doing everything I could to pull myself out. It was then that I heard the muffled opening of a door. I knew in my heart it was the door to the basement. I was about to be caught.

  No longer afraid of making noise, I grunted hard, releasing my breath like I so often had in Muay Thai to conjure as much strength and power as I could. To land a fight-ending blow. Like a war cry, it left my mouth, and my lower half shot through the window. I was on my feet in a dead sprint seconds later, the angry shouting of a man the soundtrack to my escape.

  I was at a clear disadvantage—I had no idea where I was or where I was going, but I knew enough to just keep running. The one advantage I had was a head start, and I needed to milk that for all it was worth and pray that my abductor’s cardio was lacking. A lot.

  The sun was far higher in the sky than I’d expected. It was afternoon from what I could tell, and I was heading west toward the falling sun. The hills around me were dense with firs and birch and pine, and they bit into my skin as I ran. I hadn’t even realized that my coat had gone missing somewhere between the car accident and my escape. It left me horribly exposed and vulnerable to the elements. Another hurdle I hadn’t needed but was given nonetheless.

  I pumped my arms and legs faster, jumping over downed trees and brambles and branches, praying that I wouldn’t stumble upon the bodies of the missing girls along the way. Morbid, but true all the same. Denial was elusive in that moment. I knew all too well what fate would have in store if I was caught. I wondered if Dawson was alive and if he’d ever find me, or if I would be yet another disappearing girl turned forgotten headl
ine. I really would become the next Throwaway Girl of Jasperville County.

  No … I thought as a rogue branch snagged my ankle and dropped me to the leaf-covered forest floor in a heap. No …

  Over the rushing blood in my ears and my jagged breaths, I could hear something in the distance. A soft rumble. A quiet thrum of an engine. Somewhere out there was a vehicle, one far bigger than the one my attacker drove. A semitruck? Maybe a construction vehicle. Definitely something large and diesel consuming.

  My ticket home.

  I shot to my feet and continued my blistering pace toward nothing and everything, clinging to the hope that I wasn’t imagining things—that I really was near a road or quarry or mine. Something with people. People who didn’t want to torture and kill me.

  The ground beneath my feet started to angle downhill, but the density of trees was unrelenting. I couldn’t see where I was headed, but I could still hear the occasional rumble of an engine in the distance. And they were getting louder.

  As I ran, sunlight started to pierce the canopy, streaming welcome rays to light the way to safety. Going as fast as I dared, I descended the steep embankment, heading to a break in the trees—a clearly man-made break. With a strangled cry, I broke through the tree line, almost hurtling my body right out into the road. The paved two-lane didn’t look familiar to me, but it looked glorious nonetheless. I opted to head north, hoping to see a sign or crossroad that I recognized. Something to give me some sense of where I was. Because really, I could have been anywhere. I had no clue how long I’d been unconscious or if I’d been drugged. For all I knew, I was in another state.

  I knew staying out in the open was a risk, but I felt it was one worth taking. I had no idea if my kidnapper was following me on foot or in a vehicle. I had to make a decision, so I went with the one that allowed me to get my bearings. I ran along the shoulder of the road, headed toward some signs posted far off in the distance. Cold wind bit at my skin as I ran, trying to pull me from my adrenaline high that allowed me not to feel much of anything. I did what I could to ignore it, thinking about getting to a phone and shelter instead.