Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
She waved a hand to get my attention. I glanced up, and she pointed at me before miming eating. “Am I hungry?” I asked, and she nodded. I was. “Actually, I need to use the bathroom first.”
Her finger rose to point at a bucket, then the chair, and landed on the open window. That’s when I noticed the hole in the seat of the plastic chair. “No bathroom?” I tried and hoped maybe she was wrong.
She shook her head and left the room. She returned with a dress much like hers, only bigger in the belly. I slipped it over my head and hated the feel of the scratchy material against my skin. But it was better than being naked.
“Serenity.” The voice was male, stern, and came from downstairs.
The fear that hit the girl frightened me. Her eyes were too wide when she gave me a parting look, and then she was gone.
I needed to get out of there. I sat and pulled my bound foot to me. It was harder than usual because of the baby. A basic O ring encircled my ankle, and I worked at bending my foot so I could work it off. I stopped when, at some point later, I heard the floorboards creak.
Seconds later, Serenity appeared with a paper plate and paper cup. She set it next to me and mimed eating and drinking. I nodded, though I had no intention of eating or drinking anything they gave me. Though it appeared there was no plumbing or maybe even electricity in the house and dirt under her nails, cleanliness was the least of my worries. I worried more about what they might have put in the food or drink to keep me under control.
My stomach growled. The baby needed food. I had no intention of staying here for months or even days. I was getting out of here as soon as humanly possible. The woman’s threats had given me pause, but everyone needed to sleep. If my counting had been good, we’d driven ten minutes after exiting a road. That was about thirty minutes of walking. If I could slip away in the night, I had a fighting chance of them not noticing long enough for me to make it to civilization before they released the dogs. I couldn’t do that if I were drugged.
What couldn’t wait was my bladder. I didn’t use the chair. I squatted over the bucket and then hauled it to dump the contents out of the window.
By nightfall, I was trying to break the rusty ring around my ankle because I couldn’t work my foot through. I wasn’t giving up and was going to see how well the chain was bolted to the floor when the door below banged open and voices sounded downstairs.
“You got dinner ready, girl?” the same male voice I’d heard earlier called out.
There was no reply, but I imagined her frantically bobbing her head.
“I heard we have a new one,” a younger but no less ignorant male voice said.
“Is she pretty?”
They had the twang of someone from the South, not Utah. They probably moved here for work or, more likely, to hide from the law.
“She ain’t for touching,” the older man boomed out. I sighed with relief. “Not until the doc clears her.”
If there ever was a time to leave, now was it. Only I didn’t have many options. Then I remembered my high-tech earrings. Everything had happened so fast that I forgot to activate them. The team would have no idea what happened because we weren’t scheduled to go until tomorrow. I had the power to turn them off and on so I would have privacy when in the bathroom and getting dressed. The studs were tiny and looked like cheap metal so as to not draw attention to them.
I reached up and carefully turned the piece on the back to activate the mic first. At this point, I could see nothing, but I could hear a whole lot. I was in the middle of turning on the camera when I heard running up the stairs. The men laughed. I scooted to the doorway in time to see Serenity barreling up to the landing. As I sat in the open doorway, she gave me a frantic wave as if to signal me back inside my room before running the opposite way to the door at the end. She threw herself inside and shut the door.
The camera had been activated when, a few minutes later, the older man appeared at the landing. I scooted just out of sight, not wanting to draw attention to myself. He turned away from my doorway and I peeked out. I had no idea if the camera and mic were working, but I prayed they were.
“Serenity.” He laughed a little sloppily.