I lunge for the desk and the letter opener there. And miraculously, I manage to reach it. However, Eastman’s hands are on me seconds later, jerking my hand back from the instrument. He grips my wrist with his thin fingers, which are unnaturally strong. I yelp from the assault.
With a savage jerk, he pulls my pinky finger back and with a sickening crack, it snaps. A loud scream is ripped from my throat, as I clutch at the mangled digit.
Eastman spins me around and holds the cold steel of his blade up to my throat.
I can smell his rancid breath against my cheek, as he whispers against my ear, “Caught you, you fucking cunt. And now, you’ll sleep. Sweet dreams.”
And with his other hand, he presses a folded wet cloth smelling strongly of alcohol over my nose and mouth.
Knowing exactly what this is, I try to buck away from him without inhaling. The sharp edge of his blade bites into my throat with a painful sting and my mouth opens to scream. Inadvertently, I inhale a huge mouthful of the soaked rag’s fumes.
Within seconds, my strength wanes and my vision blurs. The world spins on its axis, and a moment later, everything is plunged into darkness.
24
GOODBYE HORSES
KAT
Iwake with a painful start, rasping for breath. The cold seeps through my clothes and skin all the way to my bones. I crack open my eyes, my head pounding. All around me is dark and damp and cold, so very cold.
With a shiver that runs all the way down my spine, I begin to stir, and my head absolutely hammers in pain and protest.Jesus Christ, it hurts.I attempt to sit up a bit and my head swims. Slowing my movements, I allow my eyes to open fully. Everything around me is blurred and out of focus. Carefully, I feel around the ground for my glasses and miraculously find them, just a few feet away. I place them onto my face and notice a large vertical crack going down the left lens. Little spiderwebs fan out from the damage, marring most of the lens.
Something sticky and warm runs down my face, and I trail my fingers up and across my face and head, searching for any signs of obvious injury. Pulling my fingers away, I see they are coated in blood. I feel a slightly scabbed portion of dried blood at the crown of my head and gently press into it. My head screamsin protest.Okay, a fresh head wound: not great.I shift again and push myself up to stand, placing some tentative weight on my legs. I feel another sharp pang coming from my left ankle. Gingerly, I apply some more weight as a test. An even sharper rush of pain radiates up my leg in nauseating waves.Fuck, I think.Might be broken.
It’s then that I look around and… up. And up.
I am down here. At the bottom of a pit of some kind. Alone. Exposed. Injured. And it’s starting to drizzle on me.Fucking great,I think,and now I’m going to die... Silence of the Lambs style. How fitting. Eastman always did like to play with his food.
I peer up again and carefully shift side to side, trying to see anything other than the small circular portion of dark and cloudy sky above me.Shit.I should have turned on my cell phone’s location sharing last month like Bea had asked me to. But no, I had to be too independent and stubborn and self-sufficient and mentally fucking ill to realize that that was a brilliant fucking idea, and she was just trying to help take care of me. And if I had just done it, maybe she could have tracked me here to this creepy fucking pit right now and saved me.
Why did I always have to hold people at arm’s length?Why couldn't I even share my location with my closest friend in the world?
“Fuck!” I whisper aloud. Then it dawns on me that Eastman is a smart killer. It’s the sole reason he was able to be active for so long without being caught. He would have immediately known to ditch my cell phone the second he had abducted me, so it couldn’t be traced. At this point, my cell phone was either back in my office or smashed up and thrown into the Pacific.
Probably the latter.
I try to walk again, and my ankle shakes in painful protest, eliciting a cry from deep in my throat. When I bring my handup to my mouth to stifle the sound, I notice my pinky finger. It’s crooked and sticking out at an odd angle, dark blue and purple blooming at the base. I wince with my whole body when I remember the sickening snap of that finger in my office last night.Was that yesterday? Fuck, how long had I been out for? Was I still even in the state of Washington?
My mind, though sluggish, starts to spiral.
Ok, Kat. Breathe. Focus.Bea doesn’t know where you are. She isn’t coming to save you. No one is. So, you need to figure out a way to save yourself. And ideally, before Eastman comes back and chops you into teeny tiny pieces and disposes of your body in the Columbian.I wish I could tell how long he’s been gone for. I wish I knew how much time I have left.
I let out a long breath, as my thoughts fall to Zayn. He knew my schedule, my routine, and my exact route to and from my office. He would know when to expect me home, surely. But then the excruciating memory of last night’s conversation comes surging back to me.
Zayn had left me last night. Or, I had left him. Either way, we had ended. A pang from deep in my belly strikes, and I double over, placing my hands on my knees.
Zayn wouldn’t have known what had happened to me, wouldn’t have even known that I ever went back to my office. He wouldn’t be coming for me either. I was utterly alone.
My eyes scan my darkened surroundings. The black soil down here at the bottom of the pit seems to be thoroughly soaked and feels damp and spongy beneath my bare feet. I am in an outdoor pit of some kind, open to the elements. But was it made wet by the near constant drizzle of rain that was so prevalent here? Or by something else?
I look around at the large stones lining the pit and notice faint horizontal rings of rust-colored stains, like ones made from old standing water. Was this… a well?
Looking toward the sky, I try to estimate how far down I am. Maybe thirty feet or so, though it’s difficult to tell in the waning light. That would probably be around the right depth for an old stone dug well, which is what this is appearing to be more and more with every passing second. Out of habit, I forget about my pounding head for a moment, and accidentally roll my neck to the side.
Ouch. Goddamn it.
I take a steadying breath, trying to triage my current situation. Based on the rapidly dropping temperature and my body already starting to wrack with faint shivers, the most dangerous thing I face at this moment is likely hypothermia. Based on my general ed anatomy and physiology classes, I recall that hypothermia can set in within a matter of minutes to hours, depending on several different factors. The first, being the temperature of the surrounding water or environment. The second, being amount of body fat and layers of clothing.
