Page 58 of To Have and to Hold

I thought I saw the Skull crouching in corners, but as soon as I narrowed in, he disappeared.

For whatever reason, he’d left the flashlight on the floor when he’d left. As a tease? Or did the unexpected visitor above distract him enough that he left it without thinking? Would he come back within minutes to retrieve it once he realized he’d given me a source of comfort?

Flashlight held tight to my chest, I directed the beam back and forth, the white light creating a bright path of direction on the backs of my eyelids. This went on for an hour, maybe more, and while limbs ached and joints complained, I refused to come out of my corner. He snuck in once, but he wouldn’t be allowed to do so again.

Until I remembered the flashlight was on borrowed time, both in battery and privilege.

Reluctantly, I turned it off, whimpering in the new dark.

In the black, the hard metal became my teddy bear. For the first few hours, the slightest noise would have me flicking it on again, scanning my confines, but nothing was there but imagined terror. Each time I had to switch off the light, my stomach pitched. Becoming victim to the dark was more than a nightmare. It was torture.

To get my mind out of worry, I tested the fruit punch, first sipping, then slurping, and eventually getting down two painful gulps. My gut roiled dangerously, but kept the liquid. I was ultimately able to consume about a cup, which was more than I’d tasted in probably forty-eight hours. To calm the sickness of sugar, I chewed on half a stick of gum, aware enough that preserving what I had was of the utmost importance.

Chewing thoughtfully, I gazed blindly in the direction of the door. My greatest wish was to have a swarm of SWAT blow through that metal, bursting with the sparks and gunfire of rescue. The days I’d spent in here proved that even if this was a possibility, the chances of that happening were dwindling.

The next option I had was Spence. I gave him a clue, albeit not a very good one. I’d never considered the idea that the Skull would give me such an opening. Now that he had, he’d ultimately gifted me with the very thing he was attempting to take away: Hope.

The Skull had motivation, and while still a mystery to me, there was a point to contacting Spence. And there was a chance my captor would do it again. The initial contact, that was what Spence called it. Opening a line of communication for a purpose. This man did not want me dead—not yet—and that realization pumped more heartbeats into me than I’d felt in days.

I am still alive.

It took me an hour of sitting without light—refusing its comfort despite any noise or hiss or phantom scratch—to figure out the best chance I had was myself. I was the one in charge of my fate and it would be the greatest mistake to wait for a hero.

I had wits. I knew my way around puzzles. Every Sunday in college, Jade and I would kick back on the couch and work through the New York Times crossword. Most times, Jade solved 70% of it. Sometimes, Becca would fill it with random words that just happened to fit into the boxes. But, everybody who knows the difficulty of the Sunday crossword would be mildly impressed at my 30% ability. I kept the habit up when I moved out with Spence, and then on my own, and now with Dave, though Dave wasn’t as into it as I wished he’d be. He’d rather pull me out for a jog on Sunday mornings, or in the winter, use the pool in our building to swim laps before heading to brunch in Chelsea. Dave much preferred exercising the body than challenging the mind.

Combine that with inheriting my dad’s passion for criminal suspense novels, I loved solving mysteries. It always made me feel superior, somehow, when I could guess the killer before the author meant to reveal them. Even though I ruined my own enjoyment in the end by pulling that crap.

So, while I’d been beaten and knocked unconscious and stripped both of my clothes and dignity, the Skull was not going to succeed in taking my mind. He’d bruised it and the purple-black bloomed ominously, but I was still here, which meant I could still plan.

The door was my only escape. It mocked me every time he came in here, arcing it open and leaving it that way until he felt it was time to lock up his treasure.

Sneaking past him wouldn’t work. I’d already tried that when he initially locked me in, and he took all my clothes for my efforts. Jumping up and scratching and kicking my way out also proved fruitless. My torn, scabbed-over nails could attest to that. The obvious solution was to do the opposite and think of a trick that would take him by surprise, but that left some troubling questions. What could I do to get myself out of here? Gnaw on the concrete until I crafted a hole wide enough to fit through? Or do what old-time criminals did to escape prison and pick at stone for years upon years, hiding the secret behind their toilet (or in my case, a bucket) until the perfect time came to slip into the tunnels below?

For many reasons, that could never happen. First of which was the problem of not having my bucket back yet.

Perhaps even thinking I could succeed was a mistake. He had me cornered, naked, cowed, and alone. And when I wasn’t, he hurt me until I’d found my place again. Maybe my story was meant to stop here. No more future. My life was to end within these four walls.

That idea—that my destiny ceased within the clutches of this man—haunted me through any happy memory I conjured up.

I wouldn’t go easily. The thought brought stark memories of the existing encounters I’d had with the Skull and the future possibilities he had in store. I was weak in his eyes. A petty plaything. So, what would he least expect from his dirtied, broken doll? I straightened out of my despair as the answer came to me.

I had to find something in this room to kill him with.

I glanced down.

My fingers tightened around the steel of the flashlight.

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