Hours later, it feels like, I’m startled awake when the trunk pops open. It must be about noon, the sun high in the sky casting the three men in front of me in back light, three creepy silhouettes, only the white of their eyes and their equally white teeth glinting menacingly.
I try to speak, but I can’t get a word out with the rag still stuffed in my mouth. Before I can do much more than try, one of them grabs me, and I’m half dragged, half carried toward a thick forest. I have no idea why I’ve been brought here. There doesn’t seem to be much around, and I wonder, a sick feeling in my stomach, if I’m about to be shot, execution-style, against one of the trees. Instead, one of the men lifts me up and I fall with a thud over his shoulder. I shiver, the position reminding me of the time Quill had put me over his shoulder before going to dunk me in the lake.
Back then, I felt powerless and humiliated at the hands of my cruel bully.
Now, I’m all that too, but this bully is far worse than Quill, because I suspect he’s planning to kill me.
For the moment, though, I’m still alive. They carry me for a while through the forest, its foliage so thick the place looks gloomy and dark, even though the sun is still high in the sky. After a while, they stop at a very large boulder. I frown in confusion, only for my eyes to widen when, after one of the men manipulates something, a concealed door suddenly swings open.
Okay, what the fuck. Since when did my life turn into a story straight out of Indiana Jones?
I’m not much of a movie person, but I definitely remember watchingIndiana Joneswhile Quill was going down on me, and I have fond memories of it.
I can only wait in shock and apprehension as we enter into a web of tunnels that take us into what feels like the pits of the earth.
We go through the cramped stone passageways until we reach a surprisingly large space. Large enough to fit the more than one dozen men who are crowded inside it. None of them are speaking, but with the flashlights some of them are holding, I can tell their ominous faces are turned toward me.
It feels like I’ve just interrupted a cult meeting. My fear melts somewhat at the absurd weirdness of this situation.
I definitely have started to feel more like I’m in a Nancy Drew book than in an Indiana Jones movie.
It’s like a scene out ofThe Secret of Red Gate Farm, my favorite Nancy Drew book, which Idefinitelyread until I was way too old for it. Like, this is a book I was still reading in college, not that I would ever admit it to a single soul.
In it, Nancy had found a cult in the middle of the woods at the back of the farm, hiding out in a cave. But this place feels even cooler and more unlikely. A freaking boulder with a secret passage behind it? Insane.
It’s like a Nancy Drew-Indiana Jones mashup, and theexcitement of my bookworm dreams meeting my spicy Indiana Jones memories has me all but forgetting the danger I’m in, until the man carrying me abruptly pushes me off him, and I tumble onto the ground.
“So that’s her,” I hear whispered by some of the men, as my captor tears my gag off me. I spit out the rag in disgust. Then I open my mouth, because I’ve had time during the hours-long car ride to push through my freeze response.
Though clearly, my brain cells are lacking, because rather than ask any of the obvious questions, I blurt out, “What the hell is this place? How did you even carve the door into the boulder? Did you actually dig all these passages? How long did it take?”
The men glance at each other, visibly surprised.
“It’s a through cave,” grunts one of them. “The boulder’s fake.”
“Oh.”
I guess we are firmly in Nancy Drew territory, because Indiana Jones wouldnever.
“Why is she acting like that?” breathes a guy uncertainly. “Doesn’t she know we’re going to kill her?”
Right.
Any hope I’d have, given the cool hideaway, that the stakes were just about as high as those in a Nancy Drew story, are dashed.Okay, Piper. Get it together. Stop fangirling. This is real life.
Life never felt so real when my captor shoves me to my feet a second later and punches my face again, this time, utterly crushing my glasses. I spit out a stream of blood, groaning, while he turns me around, forcing me to face the others.
I blink as the fog in my vision, coupled with the darkness, prevents me from seeing any of them. But they clearly see me.
“No doubt about it, huh? That’s her?”
“She looks exactly like Lia,” agrees one of them.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say that he could have removedmy glasseswithoutpunching me, but I realize I’ve already spoken far too much today.
So I bite my tongue, forcing my words down.
“We can’t do a thing until Coltello gets here.”
