Dean is still trying to pry the hands from my neck. “I don’t have you!”
“Just… drive!”
My vision blurs as the fingers around my throat cling harder, but then one hand releases me and there is a moment of hope—maybe Dean hurt him, maybe Dean scared him away—but the other hand returns. It returns with a shiny piece of metal, and I think it’s a gun, oh God, I think it’s a gun.
More screams.
They are mine, I’m sure.
And then the butt of that gun collides with Dean’s head with a sickening thunk.
“No!” I shout, plead, beg. Dean falls across my lap like a ragdoll, and I feel myself being lifted from the seat and yanked through the window as shards of glass tear my dress and skin. “Let me go!”
A thick palm that smells like gasoline clamps over my mouth, stifling my cries, and when I glance up, my eyes widen.
It’s him.
The John Wayne Gacy look-a-like from outside the bar.
No.
My muffled sobs slip through the cracks of his fingers, and I keep fighting as he drags me across the gravel. My legs kick and flail, my nails digging into his fleshy arms until they bleed.
Then I open my mouth as much as I can and bite down.
Hard.
The man wails in pain as blood seeps from his finger wound, and I try to make a break for it. I pull free for a moment, for just a moment, before something strikes the back of my head…
… and everything goes dark.
Chapter Two
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I’m dreaming.
I’m dreaming about the ocean.
We went to Disneyland when I was eight-years-old—me, Mandy, Mom, and Dad. I’d been so excited. I wanted to put my toes in the salty sea for as long as I could remember. We rented a car and made the drive out to the Pacific ocean one afternoon, and I can still recall the way my heart was beating inside my chest with wild abandon when the ocean came into view. I pictured Ariel and her sea sisters swimming beneath the surface.
There was magic. There was beauty.
And then I choked. I parked my butt in the sand and watched from afar as my sister and parents splashed and giggled and created memories I so desperately wanted to share.
But I couldn’t move. I was frozen to the beach, surrounded by sand castles and unfamiliar faces. The water looked so dark and ominous when I’d gotten close. The vastness of the ocean had spooked me, and I was terrified that I’d be swept away.
And then it was time to go.
“Are you sure you don’t want to dip your feet in? You were so excited,” my mother encouraged, gathering up sand toys and colorful beach towels.
I swallowed hard, my eyes carefully assessing the waves rolling in.
Maybe. Maybe I can do this.
I pulled myself to my feet, my toes digging into the soggy sand. Then I moved towards the howling sea with timid footsteps and trembling limbs. I stopped just short of the shoreline, glancing up at the gray clouds overhead.
“Let’s go, Cora!” my father shouted from a distance. “It’s about to rain.”
Wait, wait, no… I’m almost there. I just need one more minute.
I sucked in a deep, courage-filled breath and continued my sluggish trek forward. That’s when the rain started. I watched the droplets pelt the ocean, water mixing with water. My dream washing away before my eyes.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It started coming down fast and furious. I tried to make a run for it, but a strong hand wrapped around my upper arm, pulling me back.
“Time to go, Corabelle. There’s a bad storm coming in.”
I gulped, my eyes filling with tears as my father pulled me away. I never did feel the way the water splashed at my ankles. I never felt the seaweed tickle my toes. My father promised we’d go back the next day, but we never did.
To this day, I still haven’t been back.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
My eyes flutter open, the steady drips tearing me away from a dream that may forever haunt me. But it’s not rain I hear. And I’m not lying in my warm bed, preparing for a new day in the classroom teaching high school English. I’m somewhere else. I’m somewhere cold and dark and frightening. There’s a dull ache throbbing at the back of my skull, and I try to bring my fingertips to the source of the pain. It’s then I realize that my wrists are chained together behind my back, shackled and bound like an animal.
Oh, my God.
My eyes shoot open, wide and alert. Petrified. I rattle my chains that are attached to handcuffs, trying to gather my bearings, trying to remember how the hell I got here. It’s dark, but it’s not too dark. My eyes just haven’t adjusted to my surroundings yet. I blink rapidly, scanning the room I’ve been imprisoned in. I’m in some kind of chamber or cell. Maybe a basement. I squint my eyes, noting a small, narrow window across from me with the faintest trace of light. Sunrise is peeking through my new nightmare, confirming that I am, indeed, awake.
That’s when I hear it. A deep, throaty groan.
I twist my neck through the pain and discover Dean Asher chained to the opposite corner of the cement room in the same position, his head lolling back and forth as he brings himself back to reality.
I don’t know if there is a sense of dramatic irony in the fact that I’ve been taken captive with the one person in the world I hate most, or if there is a semblance of relief in the realization that I am not alone in this.
“Dean.” My voice is hoarse and weak, hardly a whisper fracturing the heady silence that envelopes us. I watch as Dean lifts his head and it falls back against a hard post, prompting another moan. “Dean,” I repeat—this time a little louder.
“Where the hell am I,” he croaks out, but it’s more of a statement than a question. It’s a demand. I can see his eyes narrow at me through the hazy darkness, questioning my existence, questioning if his mind is playing tricks on him, questioning everything. “Cora?”
“Dean.”
His name squeaks out through parched lips. I feel tears begin to bite at my eyes as the fear swells in my gut. I feel nauseated. Hollowed out. I start yanking at my restraints, pulling and tugging, shaking the shackles against a steel pipe.
Dean follows my lead and does the same, shouting for help and clanking his manacles as I scream at the top of my lungs.
“What the fuck is this? Where are we?” Dean is out of breath, his questions heaving out of him with frantic desperation. “Are you hurt?”
I think I should be surprised that my well-being is at the forefront of his concerns, but I’m too overwhelmed with terror and anguish to ponder it. I swallow hard. “My head…” It’s all I can manage before more tears well in my eyes and I’m too choked up to say anything else.
“Yeah, me too.”
I try to pull myself together, sucking frazzled breaths in through clenched teeth. I feel a panic attack edging its way through me, but I can’t let it take over. I’ll panic when hope is lost—when everything else has failed, death is imminent, and all options have been exhausted.
Right now, I need to stay focused. Level-headed.
I need to get us out of here.
I watch as Dean rises to his feet, his hands cuffed behind him and chained to his own pipe. Metal screeches against metal as he stands, then he slams the cuffs against the steel with all his strength, over and over again. “Someone, help! Get us fucking out of here!” he bellows, his voice echoing through the dank basement, mingling with the clanking chains.