We crested and the engine eased, then a long, deliberate deceleration, guard shack coming up? No, not that. The way the brakes spoke, rhythmic chirp, said downhill with caution. The driver knew the road. A chime from the dash, seatbelt warning the men in the front ignored. Good. If they didn’t wear belts, they didn’t think they’d need them. Arrogance is a hinge.
I pushed my forehead against the bag and rocked with the van. A bump in the floor near my knees told me the right wheel had hit a pothole that always lives just past the mile marker that never gets fixed. We were exactly where I thought we were. My mouth went dry. My body began to choose for me what I had already decided: hairpins, water, cold, math. Not now. Not yet. Wait for the curve that throws bodies inward and doors outward. Wait for the moment when a hand on a latch can be a future.
“You breathing?” the voice at my boots said, not unkind, which made me want to bite him.
“Better than you,” I said, because the script that keeps women alive sometimes needs a line edit.
He kicked my calf, hard enough to warn, not to damage. “Keep it that way.”
Another right. Long. The floor tilted. I rolled with it and let my wrists slide higher on the ring until the zip tie’s lock kissed metal instead of my skin. I sawed twice. Plastic squealed. A thread parted. Millimeters. Maybe one. Maybe enough for later.
The watcher’s voice floated back again, conversational as a dentist. “You’ll sleep. Someone will give you water. You’ll be fine if you let yourself be.”
“Promise?” I said through the bag, flat as a table.
“Promise,” he said, and the men laughed. “We'll take such great care of your sweetheart.”
