* * *
“Max?” I tapped his cheek, hoping he would stir. I was worried about the strength of the drug he had ingested with the beer. When he didn’t move, I picked up the flashlight and aimed it at his eyelids. “Max, please wake up.” I repeated the process of poking his face and shining the light at his eyes for a long time. Eventually, he responded.
“I don’t feel good,” he groaned, rolling over.
“I’m sorry, Max,” and I told him about my plan that had gone awry. I chose to skip the details of my humiliating episode with Abner, as I didn’t want to relive it. Instead, I focused on my silverware failure. “I didn’t even manage to swipe a spoon, and it was the perfect chance. I’m sure we won’t get another one.”
“It was the perfect chance.”
Thanks for rubbing it in, but then I realized he didn’t sound disappointed. I looked at him curiously, and he wiggled his eyebrows.
“It was a chance I made the most of,” he said, producing a shiny spoon from his coat pocket and raising it dramatically, triumphantly, in the air like a prized sword.
“Max, that’s great! But how? How did you manage—”
“Come on, Char. Have you forgotten I’m an expert magician?” The spoon vanished from sight with a flick of his wrist. He waved his hands mysteriously. “Sleight-of-hand is one of the most basic tools of the profession. No self-respecting magician can remain kidnapped. It’s very bad for the reputation.” He hiccupped.
I laughed and hugged him. “You’re awesome!”
We set to work immediately. That is, one of us dug with the spoon, while the other one held the flashlight. When one got tired, we switched. We prayed while working, and thus we ushered in the New Year full of hope.
* * *
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when we’re free?” I asked Max as I dug. I reveled in the joy of wording it that way: “when we’re free,” as if it were a certainty. I’d never thanked God for something in my life as much as I now thanked Him for this spoon.
“The first thing I’d do?” Max repeated. “That’s a no-brainer. Report the psycho kidnappers to the police.”
“Yeah, well, besides the very obvious, I mean.” My arm muscles burned and my wrists ached, but I worked feverishly at the hard dirt wall.
“Okay.” He thought a moment. “I’d go to Taco Bell and order everything on the menu.”
My stomach growled cruelly. “You can count me in on that, and when we’re done, we’re cleaning out the nearest ice cream joint.”
“Girls,” he scoffed.
“But what I really can’t wait to do is soak in a long, hot bath—using every type of bubble bath and soap in the mansion. And you know the stash Gwen has; there won’t be anyone in the world cleaner than me. And,” I added, “I’m going to wash my hair with an entire bottle of shampoo and let it sit for two hours before I rinse it.”
* * *
Despite our eager efforts, we didn’t get very far in relation to how much time we spent digging. But that was okay. All we had was time. At least, until time ran out . . . and when that would be, we had no way of knowing. I supposed each day that the ransom failed to arrive would make Abner angrier.
How right I was.
About 4 p.m. on New Year’s Day, we heard the familiar, dreaded clang of the dryer door opening above us. We immediately clicked off our light and crept away from the site of our digging project. Perhaps if we were very quiet, Abner wouldn’t disturb us. Or, I thought hopefully, maybe he’s dropping off some food or water.
“Girl, get up here.”
No, not me again! But I smothered the thought even as my hand went to my throat. I would not wish Abner on Max, even if it did mean sparing myself. And Max was stronger than me. He could dig while I was gone. And when I get back—I swallowed—if I get back, we’ll be closer to escape.
I emerged nervously from the dryer, stood up, and did a double-take. A massive man draped in a black robe stood before me. A heavy hood and a black ski mask hid his face. From the size of him, the voice, and the steely glint of his eyes, I assumed it to be Abner—but then again, the voice didn’t sound quite right. He spoke near my face, a grim “Welcome.”
I smelled an overpowering stench of beer on his breath, and that’s when I knew: It is Abner, and he’s drunk.
Drunk, but still very much in command. He looked like a messenger of death. Or death itself. His talon fingers pressed into my shoulder. The wide drape of his sleeve didn’t conceal his gun completely.
“Into the living room,” he ordered.
In the living room, the lighting was very dim. I spotted Clay in the shadows, tied to the rocking chair. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. Then I spotted the metal folding chair placed before the wood stove, and a torrent of blood rushed to my ears.
“Sit,” Abner commanded. He raised his arm, and the flowing black material slid back slightly to show the gun in full view, aimed alternately at me and Clay. Once I was seated, Abner sliced a rope and freed Clay. “Tie her up.”
Under Abner’s guidance, he did. I ended up with rope wrapped around me from shoulder to ankle, cinching one arm uncomfortably behind my back and pressing the other arm against my side. Rope constricted my wrist, but my hand poked out at an odd angle so that my palm faced up. I stared at my hand anxiously. It was my right one, so useful, so perfect, with all five fingers.
“All right, boy.” Abner waved the gun. “Roll it.”
I looked up to see Clay holding a small outdated video camera, just in time to see the red “record” light blink on. I struggled to swallow. This is definitely not good.
Abner spoke to the camera in a very low, slow raspy voice. “Greetings, Mr. Perigard. It has now been five days since you received the first ransom note, three since you received Max’s special package . . . and you’ve still failed to meet my reasonable demands. I warned you about involving the police, but you ignored me. Big mistake, old man. This is your last chance, your last warning.” He paused.
“Perhaps your cold heart is not swayed by your grandson. Therefore, this time, I’m going to use your granddaughter.” Abner made a sweeping gesture toward me. I imagined Clay zooming in for a close-up of my wretched face, and I hated him.
Abner continued. “Perhaps your granddaughter’s screams will persuade you to finally cooperate. If not, this is the last you will ever see of her. And now . . . on with the show.” He opened the stove door and stuck some kind of black iron in it, probably a poker, I thought queasily. The fire crackled and sparked orange and gold, dancing and writhing with snakelike forms. I tried not to think about what was coming. I wished I could turn my brain off.
Then Abner circled around me, chanting eerily. At first I thought he was just making nonsense noises, but then I caught a few words . . . some kind of language. Yes, I recognized it: Latin. Latin, the universal language of the Church. But how did he know it . . . and why, why would he use it? Another form of mockery, perhaps?
I attempted twisting in my bonds, but Clay had pulled the ropes too tight. Abner reached for the poker. No, it wasn’t exactly a poker, I realized. The end was bent, but straight; the whole thing looked like an “L.” And the bottom part glowed red-hot.
He brought it toward me, eyeing my hand. I knew what would happen an instant before it did, and I screamed. He pressed the hot iron deep into my palm, the burning tool sizzling and eating my flesh in one searing wave of pain too intense to be called merely pain. Agony. Excruciating. Lasting forever. The pain couldn’t have been worse if my palm was being slashed with razors.
The repelling odor of burning skin filled the air.
At last, he lifted the branding iron. But he merely rotated it and pushed it back on my palm for another round of torture. I screamed again, and then I cursed. I cursed Abner, I cursed Grandfather, and I cursed God.
I knew Abner was grinning behind his ski mask.
And even when it was over, it was not over. The pain continued, soaring to new heights, plunging to new depths
, rippling and rolling and scratching and tearing. Lacerating my senses. Wounding my very soul.
How, I wondered, how do I not die from this? White light flashed in my head. Black spots appeared. I almost passed out—hoped I would—but was not granted such luxury, as the pain kept yanking me back to reality. The reality of torment.
At some point, I became aware that Clay had dropped the video camera. More than that, he was fighting with Abner, or trying to. Abner seemed to be holding him off easily with one arm.
“Are you completely insane?” Clay’s voice held horror. “You are a monster!”
Abner dropped the iron, and it clanged to the floor. “And you’re a weak kid who can’t stand the sight of pain. That’s where the power is. You still don’t get it, do you? I’ll do whatever it takes to make the old man pay.”
“It’s not worth it,” Clay cried. “It’s just money. Just dang money!”
Abner gripped him by both shoulders. I dazedly wondered where the gun had gotten to. Abner had probably pocketed it in the billowy depths of his robe. “That’s right,” he sneered, “you still think this is all about money. What a fool. Of course it’s not. It’s about revenge.” He drew out the last word with obvious pleasure.
Clay swung punches, thudding Abner’s chest. In return, Abner simply drew back and, with a smashing fist, knocked him out cold. I watched him crumple to the floor through wet, blurry eyes. No one is ever going to save me.
Abner turned his venous red eyes on me.
“You’re a devil,” I cried. “Why don’t you just kill me now and be done with it?”
“That’s just it, my dear. I’m not ready to be done.” He cracked his knuckles. “A slow torture is a so much more satisfying revenge.” He let out a little sigh.
“Revenge,” I repeated, my spine curling. “Revenge for what? I’ve never done a thing to you—neither has Max. We never even knew you existed until—”
“True,” Abner broke in, “you didn’t know me. But your grandfather did. I worked for him, on his oil rigs, and I was good at my job—the best. Then one day, for no reason at all, the old geezer decides to fire me. So the way I figure it, your grandfather owes me quite a bit of money—call it lost wages, if you will. But the revenge?” His eyes narrowed into snakelike slits. “That’s for taking my wife.”
Your wife? My mind felt fuzzy. Clay had said Abner’s wife had left him. I clenched my teeth, still resisting the pain in my hand. Obviously there was more to the story than Clay knew. So again, we’re paying for Grandfather’s sins.
I blinked my leaky eyes and looked at my hand for the first time since the branding, astonished to find a cross shape burned into my palm.
“Like it?” Abner asked. “I thought you would. You and your sign of the cross. Now you’re marked as a Catholic forever, whether you want to be one or not!” He roared with laughter as if this were the funniest joke in the world.
* * *
I couldn’t even move my fingers without the pain of my palm increasing. I was back in the prison hole, and after gaping at my branded hand with the flashlight, Max finished dragging the latest happenings from me.
“I’ll pulverize him. Someday. Somehow. We’ll see him dead,” Max promised. “Then we’ll go to his grave and burn it. If he has a headstone, we’ll blast it apart. We’ll blast his bones apart and throw them in a sewer.”
I reveled in the hateful words, but they didn’t comfort me. “He’ll burn in hell, but we probably will too,” I said despairingly.
Max peered at me. “We could pray,” he offered. “Would that help you feel better?”
“No. Why would it?” My voice was scathing. All I could think of was the pain, and how I couldn’t escape it. “How can I pray when I have no faith left?”
He was quiet a moment. “Maybe that’s what helps us have faith,” he suggested, as if it were a revolutionary thought, “praying when we don’t feel like it.”
“Don’t preach to me,” I snapped.
He clicked off the flashlight. I heard him stalk away, each stomp of his foot exacerbating his wound, I was sure.
Jesus suffered a lot more than either one of us, my soul admonished me.
I clenched my left fist and glared into the darkness, the black, smothering blindness.
A scraping sound told me Max had begun digging for freedom once more.
* * *
The dryer door opened.
I’m not going up. He’ll have to drag me up. I’d rather stay down here and die of thirst. I held my palm pressed against the cold dirt wall, absorbing the chill, attempting to counteract the still-flaming pain.
But it was Clay, and he came down with a bag and a bobbing flashlight. I noticed how Max sat with his back jammed against the wall opposite me, covering our escape project. Clay headed straight for me. “I brought you some food and water, and some salve for your burn.”
“What, you’re awake already?” I asked sarcastically. “You were probably faking it all along. Coward.”
He worked his jaw, and his eye twitched. His face still looked terrible, and I knew I wasn’t being entirely fair. Abner had given him a hard blow. Still, Clay had taken part in the torture from the start.
“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t jump in sooner. I honestly didn’t know he was going to do that to you—I had no idea.”
“You had no idea? That makes it worse. He could have done anything. Anything! It could have been far worse. And you would have let it happen.”
He dropped the bag and raked his hands through his hair. “I want to stop him—every second of the day—but I don’t know how. God, I don’t know how!”
“So what do you do all the time you’re up there with him? He can’t be watching you every second.”
“Yes he can. And when he’s not—when he’s sleeping—I’m handcuffed in the bedroom. That’s where I was when he went to check for the ransom. He came home furious, convinced there were undercover cops at the hill.”
“So what did you think he was going to do when he had you tie me up and film me? Seriously? Are you that stupid?”
Redness climbed up his neck and he looked ashamed. “I only thought he’d maybe taunt you a bit.”
“Taunt me? When he cut off Max’s toe?”
“Yes.” His voice was emphatic. “The Abner I know would never treat a woman that way. I don’t understand—”
“The Abner you know,” I scoffed. “You obviously don’t know him at all.”
“Believe me, I do now.” He bared his teeth. I was surprised he still had them all. “I’m on your side; I just don’t know how to help you, other than this.” He kicked the bag. “Lame attempts after the fact, I know. Not good enough.”
“It’s not. So don’t do me any favors.”
He swung around, searching the shadows as if just remembering Max’s presence. But Clay was safe for now. Max wouldn’t risk our project being discovered. In fact, I saw Max’s eyes were closed as he feigned sleep.
Turning back to me, Clay spoke firmly. “Let’s quit wasting time and get your burn taken care of. You know how hard it was for me to convince Abner to let me down here with this stuff?”
“Oh cry me a river.”
He pried my hand from the wall.
I tried to pull away. “Real tough you are now. Now, when it doesn’t matter.”
Ignoring my resistance, he clamped my wrist, uncapped the tube of salve, and squeezed a dab on the center of my wound. Then he used one finger to spread it gently over the rawness.
I braced myself for stinging pain, and it came, but I refused to yelp out. I bit my lip instead. A hacking cough broke my composure, and I cursed the cold. “Like living in a freakin’ freezer.”
He replaced the cap and pocketed the tube. “I could try to get you some more blankets.”
“Like I said, don’t do me any favors. I’d rather freeze to death than take your charity.”
“Fair enough.” He turned to leave. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter
Fifteen
“You could have helped me out, Max,” I tossed across the darkness. “Said something. Clay is such a jerk.”
“You’ve got some pretty hefty standards for the guy. He’s only human. Cut him some slack.”
I was taken aback. “How in the world can you say that? All you’ve been wanting to do is deck him.”
“And I did deck him. So did Abner. More than once. The guy’s a mess. Sheesh, I’m not saying I like the moron; I’m just saying he’s in a tough spot.”
“He’s a pushover,” I insisted, “letting Abner run his life.”
“Sort of like you.”
“Me!”
“Sure. The way he is with Abner—it’s kinda like you and Grandfather.”
His words rankled my stomach. “Don’t be absurd.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Well don’t,” I shot back. “Just dig. Even though it’s probably a waste of time.”
“Man, Char, you’re one negative crank.”
Don’t I have the right to be? Shuddering in the dark, I tried to ignore my pulsing palm. I heard Max return to digging, and I was left with my own hateful company.
And I hated it.
* * *
The portal door opened again so soon, I assumed it was Clay returning with more blankets. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I swallowed my last bite of dry sandwich and took a quick swig of water as Abner beamed a flashlight down and found me. “I hear you’ve been complaining down here. About the cold?”
I remained mute and didn’t look up.
“Well, I’ll just have to do something about that for you. I can’t have you freezing to death before I’m through with you, now can I? You want some heat, how ’bout a fire? Here’s the matches, and here’s the fuel.”
A heavy thud made me jump as something hit the dirt a few feet from me. The spotlight of Abner’s flashlight revealed two very unusual objects. I edged closer for a better look. “A Bible,” I breathed, “and a crucifix. What—”
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