Page 11 of Killing Emma

I sit still for just a moment, the thought of kicking him in the face crossing my mind. However, I’m still bound to the chair by my wrists, and I don’t think I could get very far dragging it with me.

“Fuck,” he mutters, grabbing my ankle and lifting my foot into the air. “Stupid girl.”

I raise my brows. “Excuse me?”

His shoulders rise and then fall. “You shouldn’t have run into all that glass.”

“And you shouldn’t have chased me into the woods, kidnapped me, and then tied me to a chair.”

He chuckles. “Alright.” He drops the pliers and fishes out a pair of needle nose tweezers. “This is going to take a while.”

“Well, it’s not like I have anything to do,” I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Except try to avoid my death, I guess.”

“Hmm.” He holds my foot out as he begins to dig out the shards, and I wince as he works.

“My grandma was kidnapped for ransom in the seventies,” I tell him, desperate to make myself into a human being. “They asked fifty thousand for her.”

“Wow,” he says flatly.

“Yeah, she used to tell me the story when I was a kid. She always said to keep an account with easy access in case it ever happened to me. So, I can pay you.”

“I don’t need you to pay me.”

My heart sank. “But I can buy my freedom. I can pay you whatever you want.”

“Why? So you can go back to drinking a bottle of wine a night and sitting in your big house alone? Sounds like a hefty price to pay for being miserable.”

My cheeks flush with heat. “Fuck you.”

“You would’ve liked to,” he snaps back, digging into the ball of my foot. I yelp out in pain, my foot kicking forward out of reflex. His grip tightens painfully around my ankle, and he digs them in deeper.

“Stop!” I cry, trying to break my foot free from his grip.

“Don’t try to fucking kick me then,” he growls. “Just shut up and let me finish this. You’re not going to talk your way out of anything. Not worth the effort to try. You’re going to die whether or not you run your mouth.”

“Well then, I guess I should go out being as annoying as possible,” I snap, glaring down at him. He tilts his head upward slightly, and I’m certain that if he didn’t have on a mask, I’d be looking him dead in the eye.

“Your existence at this point is annoying enough.”

My jaw drops. “You act like you know me.”

He shakes his head, going back to plucking glass from my feet. “I know you drink too much. I know you never go outside. I know you come from a wealthy family, and you’re the last one alive—unless your estranged husband counts—but he doesn’t, does he?”

The mention of Jared makes my stomach sick. “Do you know him? Are you doing this to scare me?”

He grabs a tube of what I think is Neosporin and covers the bottom of my foot with it. “I don’t know him, no. But I know he must’ve been something else to put up with you.”

That hurts, pain reaching in deep into my insecurities and twisting at my heart. I blink back the tears and look away.

“Can dish it out, but can’t take it, huh?” He laughs nefariously and starts on my other foot, plucking with much less gentleness.

I don’t answer him, choosing silence as I grit my teeth. I endure the next few minutes of agony, refusing to look down at the man in the mask. Instead, I find a spot on the bare wall, staring at it until my vision blurs. Whoever my captor is, he knows enough about me to hit me where it hurts…

Or at least, that’s how it appears.

But I can be strong. He might think I’m weak because I drink too much wine and spend too much time inside, but that’s just an assumption. I’m broken, sure, but we all are—and the longer I’m bound to this chair, the more I realize I’m not going to die like this. I’ve learned to bend and flex when needed, and if there’s one thing I’m good at…

It’s surviving. Because God knows I wasn't ever thriving.

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