by Chrys Fey
She took a slow breath. “Donovan, I don’t know if you heard that or not, but they’re going to kill me if you don’t come soon.”
“Tell him we’ll offer a trade,” Mr. Gun said. “If he comes, we’ll let you go.”
She relayed the information though it made her sick.
“I’m at the Bay Area American Red Cross,” Thorn told her in hushed tones. “They’re trying to figure out how to deploy volunteers. They’ve agreed to let me come along.”
Knowing Thorn was in California, a plane ride away, gave her fuel. She spoke quickly. “Go to Honolulu, past South King Street, away from the mud. Look for the spiral and infinity. Look for—” She was going to repeat those instructions when a hand lashed out and backhanded her across the face. The phone clattered to the floor.
“What does that mean? Look for the spiral and infinity?”
She didn’t answer.
“What does it mean?”
She kept her head bowed.
“She probably doesn’t even know what it means,” another voice mocked. “Look at her. She’s lost a lot of blood. Her brain isn’t functioning right.”
Silence buzzed in her ears as the men watched her. After a moment, she heard muttered curses and the sound of them retreating.
The door locked.
She lifted her head toward the ceiling. “Look for my bracelet and ring,” she whispered, hoping God would carry her plea to Thorn.
Chapter Seventeen
A ruckus pulled Donovan out of his sleep. He opened his eyes to dawn. It took some effort to sit up. His body was weak, battered, and aching. Even his toes and heels hurt from walking. He scanned the parking lot for the source of commotion. A delivery truck was creeping through the crush of bodies to the center of the parking lot. It came to a stop, and the back door was lifted. Crates were stacked inside, taking up about half the space. Cheers erupted as small silver objects were tossed to the waiting crowd.
He slowly got to his feet and went to the boards while everyone pushed to get closer to the truck. In the pale light, he ran his finger down the lists. He spotted a Bethany, but no Beth Kennedy. He trudged back to his spot, pulled out the small patch of cotton left from his other T-shirt, and draped it over his eyes so he could sleep a couple more hours.
When he woke again, the sun was blazing down on him, trying to burn him through his clothes. He shifted into a sitting position, and his knee bumped into something. Metal hit rock. He looked down to see a tin can lying on its side with a plastic spoon. He picked them up and turned the can over in his hand. Minestrone soup. His gaze flitted over the people closest to him, but no one looked at him. Someone had left him this soup. Whoever it had been, he sent them a silent thank you.
The smell of herbs and savory broth made his mouth water. He had been sure there wasn’t any water left in his body, but the saliva pooling in his mouth proved him wrong. He meant to only eat half the can of soup, but it was so good he gobbled down every last kidney bean and shell noodle and scrapped the sides for good measure. His stomach was still impossibly empty, but the soup gave him enough strength to get to his feet.
He moved along the gathered people, looking at faces, but not finding the one person he yearned for. At the delivery truck, he paused. Empty crates were stacked beside it. Inside a single row of crates remained.
“Where did this come from?” he asked the man organizing crates.
“Walmart was destroyed. We spent all day yesterday searching what was left of it for canned goods.” He hopped out of the truck and spoke with a hushed tone. “This is all we found. One can for each person here, and we are dangerously low. We won’t have enough for everyone a second time.”
The MREs were gone, and soon, so would the canned goods. What would they do next?
He walked along the stretch of black top with the heat bearing down on him. He was beginning to think Beth would never find her way there.
As the hours went by and the sun grew hotter, he went to the side of the building for some relief. He found a shaded spot. All alone, his sorrow and fear began to build inside him until it burst free. He buried his face in his hands and wept for the faces of the dead women he saw yesterday, for the people who died in the tsunami, for the families who wouldn’t ever find each other, and for his soulmate who he may never get to hold or kiss again.
At noon, a car’s horn beeped.
He peeked around the corner. A few vehicles with red plus signs on the doors were driving into the hospital. The American Red Cross. He hoped they brought provisions. Not interested in getting up, not even to see if they had food, he turned his head and let his eyelids drift shut.
A voice broke through his peace from the hospital’s crackling PA system.
“Donovan Goldwyn.”
His eyelids snapped open. He leapt to his feet.
“Donovan Goldwyn, come to the nurse’s desk ASAP. I repeat, Donovan Goldwyn, Donovan Goldwyn, come to the nurse’s desk ASAP.”
Static erupted from the speakers.
The message ended.
Donovan shoved through the crowd with his heart pounding. Hearing his name elated him. He had one thought as he fought through the hospital’s front doors.
Beth.
He went to the front desk. “Excuse me? My name was called over the intercom.”
“Donovan!”
He turned at the shout. Confusion pounded his head. It took him a moment to place the face in front of him because there was no way he could be there.
“Thorn?”
“God damn, you’re an indestructible son-of-a-bitch!” Thorn threw his arms around him and clapped him on the back.
Donovan stood stiffly, not returning the hug.
Thorn stepped back and surveyed him. “Take these. I don’t want you falling down dead.”
Falling down dead was what a lot of people had been doing since the tsunami hit.
Donovan looked at the water and protein bar Thorn shoved into his hands. They looked foreign, but not as foreign as Thorn standing before him, looking clean in jeans and a T-shirt.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came because…” Thorn looked around. “We need to find somewhere to talk.”
Donovan took him to where he had been napping.
“Donovan, Beth called me.”
Those three words almost brought Donovan to his knees. He sagged against the wall. A grin split his face. “She’s alive?” A mixture of relief, that conjured tears and stole his breath, and happiness that made his heart light, overtook him.
“Yes, she’s alive. Or at least, she was.” He paused. “Donovan, what I’m going to tell you isn’t going to be easy to hear.”
Donovan didn’t understand. If she was alive, why’d Thorn make it sound like it could be temporary? “Why? What happened to her?”
Thorn took a deep breath before saying, “Jackson’s men have her.”
The sweet emotions he had felt were robbed by this new information. The weight of Thorn’s statement sent him sliding down the wall to the ground.
Thorn crouched in front of him. His words echoed inside Donovan’s head. What he said didn’t make sense. How could Beth be locked up somewhere with her life in the hands of Jackson’s gang?
“She called me pretending to call you,” Thorn explained. “She gave me instructions before our last call was disconnected. She said to go past South King Street, out of the mud. Then she said something strange. ‘Look for the spiral and infinity.’”
Donovan’s gaze flicked up. “She said that? Spiral and infinity?”
Thorn nodded. “You know what that means?”
The jewelry he had been looking for when he inspected the field of body bags flashed in his mind. “Her charm bracelet with the hurricane symbol and her infinity engagement ring. She left them as clues.”
Thorn nodded. “That’s good. We have a way to find her then. And Donovan, we have to do it fast. She didn’t sound good when I last spoke to her.”
Do
novan sprang to his feet. “I know where South King Street is. Let’s go.”
He ate the protein bar and drank some of the water. His stomach felt hollow, but he ignored it. They walked without a single word passing between them. Both lost in their thoughts, in their determination.
Beth meant a great deal to the two men. For one, she was a sister. For the other, she was his true love, his everything.
Thorn suddenly stopped and crouched on the ground. Donovan stood next to him. There in the drying mud were two marks, as if something had been dragged. Thorn’s fingers traced a shoe print in front of the lines. “It’s about a size eight.” He stood and looked up and down the road. “The tracks for these shoes begin here.”
Donovan peered up and down the road.
“I think they had been carrying her and set her down here,” Thorn said as he inspected the other footprints. “She never said how many of them there were, but I can make out at least three clean prints.” He faced Donovan. “Where’s South King Street from here?”
“Up ahead.”
Thorn nodded. “That’s okay. We found where she was at one point, and we know they headed away from here, so we have to go back the way we came. Keep your eyes peeled.”
Heading back the way they came, Donovan eyed the footprints, keeping his gaze locked on the tread of Beth’s sneakers. When the mud disappeared, a few muddy tracks were left on the road, but soon, not a single line of mud was visible.
“Wait.”
Donovan took his gaze off the road and stood in the middle of the intersection. He saw Thorn staring at the road that broke off to the right. “What is it?”
“I think I saw something.”
“Like what?”
Thorn met his eye. “Silver. Something silver in the road.”
With that, they took off at a jog. Their eyes scanned the asphalt.
“There.” Thorn ran ahead of Donovan, bent down, and picked up something that flashed in the sunlight. A chain dangled from his fingers.
Donovan snatched it from him. The metal was blistering hot from the sun’s rays, but it looked as it did the last time he saw it hooked around Beth’s wrist—her bracelet.
Chapter Eighteen
Beth shivered on the floor. The second piece of bread was gone, and a few swallows of water remained. After she begged to be taken to the bathroom, they brought in a small trashcan. She had set it in the corner behind the door and had hovered over it to relieve herself. At least they were nice enough to keep the bag in it so when she was done, she could close the bag to keep the smell of urine from escaping.
Hours had gone by since she had spoken to Thorn. With no light coming into the closet, she couldn’t tell if it were day or night, but she figured she was well into the first forty-eight hours of her captivity. The urge to escape welled inside her. She didn’t have the energy to run to the door, though, nor did she have a weapon. The chair was still in the room, but she wouldn’t be able to wield it. Whoever came into the room next, she had to be able to overpower him, and that would be highly unlikely in her given state.
Weapon. What could she use for a weapon?
Her eyes trailed down her body. Shoelaces. Hair tie. That’s all she had. She could twist together her shoelaces and choke one of the men, but he’d have to be within arm’s reach and she’d have to jump him from behind. No way was she capable of jumping, nor were her arms strong enough to be able to hold the shoelaces long enough to render him unconscious. At this point, she wouldn’t even be able to hop. The hair tie? All she imagined doing was flicking it into a man’s eye. But her aim, with something so small, wouldn’t be so good. More likely, the hair tie would sail past his head and out the door.
She needed something that could cut, stab, or draw blood. Her thoughts went to the underwire in her bra. If she could manage to get out of her shirt and bra, she might be able to rub her bra against the concrete wall until the threads broke enough for her to fish out the underwire. With that wire, she could pick the lock and slip out undetected, unless someone was posted outside the door. Her eyes lowered to the zipper of her jean shorts. If she didn’t mind being in her underwear around four men, she could try to rip out the zipper and wrap it around her knuckles like she did with the belt. The thing was she knew she wouldn’t be able to attack someone like that again. Not with so much of her blood gone and her left arm out of commission.
She stared down at her shorts. If only cotton and jean could make a weapon. She was beginning to abandon the idea of escaping when she noticed a sliver of silver poking out of her pocket. Dipping her fingers into her pocket, she felt sharp metal. She pulled out the two screws she had removed from the air vent. They were two inches long. A smile tugged her lips. She slipped the screws between her fingers and made a fist. The screws jutted between her knuckles like Wolverine’s claws.
She didn’t have to wait long for the next man to check in on her. Her head swayed as she peered up at him. Garbled words fluttered from her lips.
“What?”
She repeated herself, the words nothing more than a sigh.
“Huh?” He closed the door and crossed to her.
She fumbled with her words.
He knelt in front of her, bringing his ear closer to her mouth.
“You’re dead,” she said.
The man jerked back, and she swung her arm. Her fist slammed into his face. He let out a roar. Through his opened mouth, she saw the screws protruding from his cheek. She drew her fist away, sliding the screws out of the holes, and jabbed her fist at him again. The screws slipped into the meat of his shoulder.
He screamed. Blood coated his teeth and streamed down his face.
She was aiming for his neck, wanting to give him a fatal wound, when he fell backward on the ground. Now was her chance to flee. She pushed herself to a standing position and took a step toward the door.
She froze as it opened.
Three men stood there flabbergasted to see her standing with two screws caught in her bloody fist.
The largest of them, the man Beth referred to as Two-by-Four, tackled her into the wall. The hit sent pain shooting up and down her arm. She yelled and jabbed her fist at him, puncturing the screws repeatedly into his chest and abdomen.
He brought her to the floor.
Her breath punched from her lungs. Pulsing electricity swaddled her shoulder.
The other men joined in on the fight. Someone gripped her forearm as another uncurled her fist and stole the screws. Then a boot stomped onto her fingers.
She screamed.
The heel tramped down on her fingers again.
A crunching sound was followed by her wails. Hot tears plunged down her cheeks.
Mr. Gun’s face hovered over her. “I think we underestimated you, but not anymore. Let’s see you try something now.” His smirk was wolfish.
She shrank from him.
As the two other men, Broken Nose and Screw Face, supported Two-By-Four, Mr. Gun picked up her bottle and poured out the last of the water onto the floor. On his way out, he picked up the chair.
Alone, Beth sobbed on the ground. Her left arm was draped over her stomach, and her right hand lay mangled on her chest.
Sometime later, her crying stopped. She felt distanced from her pain, hunger, thirst. The silence was deafening. Darkness was her companion.
Her blood loss teamed up with her growing dehydration and hunger, bending the real world. Whenever her eyelids cracked open, strange images assaulted her. A giant blowup snowman, like those grotesque Christmas decorations people put on their lawns, towered in one of the corners. It took her a moment to realize it was falling. She lifted her right arm to stop it from trapping her. Her crippled hand propped it up.
After a moment, she realized the snowman wasn’t even touching her hand. She lowered her arm. The snowman’s carrot nose was aimed at her face, but it didn’t come any closer. She blinked.
The snowman vanished.
Her hand floated back to her chest. She conti
nued to stare at the spot where the snowman had been in confusion. While eyeing the darkness, her eyelids drifted close.
Sleep was fleeting. Every few minutes, she’d wake and see something new, something terrifying. At one point, a man shrouded in shadows rushed at her with a knife. She grabbed the empty water bottle with her crushed fingers and chucked it at him. It sailed through his torso and bounced off the wall. The man had seemed so real.
Her fear had been palpable.
Darkness accepted her into its arms, and she dreamed frightening things.
Crushing water surged toward her. Instead of crashing into her, it swooped around her like a cocoon. Trapped in the swirling water were hundreds of bodies. Their blank faces pressed up against the wall of water, and their dead eyes stared at her. Screams echoed around her. A part of her realized the screams were coming from her own mouth.
She rotated around and around, desperate for a way out. The whirling water rose to the sky. If she had wings, she could fly out of there, but she was grounded. Her gaze dropped and landed on a face she recognized. Donovan. He was trapped in the water. His eyes gleamed with death.
Her cries magnified.
Suddenly, the wall of water burst, and she was swallowed by it. She woke gasping for air and failing her arms. Pain exploded through her body. Heart thundering, she tucked her arms back to her body. She fought to stay awake, but the lure of sleep was too strong for her to defeat. Her nightmares from then on were swirls of colors and explosive sounds. She couldn’t make out a thing. Objects and faces bled into each other.
She teetered out of her dreams and opened her eyes.
Donovan knelt beside her.
“You’re alive,” she whispered.
“Of course, I am.”
His voice. Oh, it sounded so good.
“I’ve missed you.”
“I never left you, Beth. I’ve been here the whole time.” He pointed to her chest, indicating her heart.
She shook her head. “Sometimes that’s not enough.”
“But it is, Beth.” He took her battered hand in his and kissed her bruised knuckles. “Our love is so strong we can live in each other’s hearts. Even in death. As long as we are alive, neither of us can truly die.”