He placed the smoldering needle into the bowl and stood, walking over to a large wooden crate. He shoved it aside and then spun around, the anger on his gray face so intense that it bordered on madness. “They chased me... made me run. I had to hide, like a coward... in a dark trunk.”
He pushed and pulled at something, dragging it across the room. He moved out of the shadows, and Hallie saw what he had. It was a smoke-blackened coffin.
“But I’ve been watching, and waiting.” He bent down, picked up the needle and he moved toward Hallie, grabbed her hair with one hand, pulled her up, and with the other waved the smoke in her face.
Hallie held her breath, closing her eyes from the burning smoke. “Breathe it!” he screamed at her.
Still she held her breath, though her lungs ached with the need for air. He jerked up so hard on her hair, Hallie gasped, and then the smoke filled her mouth, nose, and lungs. Long minutes passed and she could hear Dagny’s muffled crying, but she had no will left. She was dizzy and sick from the sweet smoke.
He released her hair, and she fell onto the floor, unable to move her body. He reached under her arms and dragged her across the floor. Then he pushed her up against something and shoved her inside. It was cold and she shivered, but she couldn’t move her limbs.
She willed her eyes to open, but her lids were like weights. Over and over she tried to open them, until finally they lifted, just as Abner slid the coffin lid closed.
He pounded the nails and she tried to move, but she couldn’t. Oh, God, she thought, do something! Move! But she was numb. All she could feel was her thick blood, flowing around and around her. The air was warm, heavy, and it tasted of smoke. The wooden box shook with the madman’s hammering, but Hallie couldn’t move. She was so tired, so dizzy. She had no strength, and her eyelids drifted closed.
Dagny struggled and foughtat the bonds on her hands and feet. She tried to scoot forward but the rope tightened on her neck.
“It won’t do any good to struggle. You can’t get away,” Abner said with eerie calm while he hammered the nails on the coffin lid.
“You see what I’m doing, don’t you?” he asked her. “I’m the lion now, you know.”
The man was mad! She wondered what he would do to her, and she remembered the last time. Her head spun and she thought she might throw up. She sucked air up her nose. She couldn’t be weak, not now, not when Hallie needed her.
If Hallie were alive.
Dagny didn’t know what that stuff was that Abner smoked, but she saw what it did to Hallie. She told herself it couldn’t be deadly or Abner wouldn’t have smoked it. Oh, God, she had to get away!
“I’ll devour Kit Howland, the hunter,” Abner told her. “He made me hide. He made me look like a coward. I’m not, you know. My father was, but not me. I’m stronger. I’m not like him... no...” He shook his head. “I won, and I’ll keep winning. You’ll see. Everyone will see.”
He shoved the table over to a cabinet in the wall. He opened the door and pushed the coffin through. “I’m going to hide your sister in a dark place. She’ll hide, like I had to.” He laughed again, and the sound crawled through her. He closed the door and turned back to her. “How long do you think she’ll stay alive, hmm? An hour? Two?”
Smiling, he walked back toward her, but paused by the smoldering bowl. He picked it up and breathed the smoke again. “These are flowers, burning, sweet flowers. You want to try them? Here.” He moved toward her and waved the bowl under her nose. “See, it makes the pain go away.”
Dagny tried to turn away.
Abner laughed and set the dish down next to her on the table.
“You’ll want it later,” he told her, then left the room.
Dagny waited and listened. She could hear him sliding the coffin from the other side of the wall. She was searching for some way to get free when her eyes lit on the smoldering bowl. She hopped as far as the noose would let her and held her bound hands over the smoking ball, hoping it was still hot enough to burn the rope around her hands. She took a deep breath and laid the rope against the hot ball.
It singed her skin but also burned the rope. After a few long, agonizing seconds, she pulled her hands free. She jerked the gag out and gulped air while working the noose open, then slipped it off her head. Bending, she untied the bonds around her ankles and tiptoed to the door.
She listened closely and heard the soft snicker of horses outside. Something banged closed, and then she heard Abner’s footsteps. Quickly, she looked for something to hit him with, grabbed the hammer, then held her breath and waited. A few seconds later the wagon took off.
Dagny sighed with relief, and she cracked the door open. The back street was empty, and she ran, as fast as her bare feet would take her, praying to God that she could get help in time.
“They’re gone!”
“What in the hell do you mean, ‘they’re gone?’” Kit said, panicked but trying to get Maddie to calm down.
“Both Dagny and Hallie! Their windows are open and they’re gone! Someone has taken them. Liv saw the man climbing out the window with Dagny, but by the time she got me, he had taken them off in a wagon!”
Maddie grabbed his shoulders. “I didn’t hear anything, Kit. Oh, God, you have to find them!”
“Abner,” Kit breathed, and Duncan nodded. Kit pried Maddie’s hands from his shoulders. “Calm down, Maddie, we’ll find them.”
He turned to Duncan. “Go get Lee. I just left him at the Thistle Inn. He should still be there. Get back here as fast as you can. I’ll see if anyone recognized that wagon.”
