Page 62 of Sultry Nights

She'd been sitting for a while. Stiffness had settled in, but she leaned forward on her hands, which were bound together with what felt like zip ties. She managed to stand. Taking a deep breath, she inched along the wall closest to the door.

Because she couldn't really see anything anymore, she brushed her back along the wall as she made her way. Slowly hugging the wall, her hands in front of her. As soon as she reached the door, she nearly wept.

She tried turning the knob, and it turned, but the door wouldn't budge. She started kicking the door. Pounding with her fists, hoping anyone would hear. She exhausted herself and leaned with her back against the door. She glanced around the room and remembered the big dark spot on the wall on the other side of the room. She slid along the walls toward the other side until she felt the frame of a window. It was covered with a board.

Using the zip ties between her wrists, she tried catching the zip tie under the corner of the board and pulling it away. The searing pain that shot through her as the zip ties cut into her wrists was nothing compared to the fear of what these women would do to her if they didn't find Isaac.

She kept pulling and tugging and scratching against the board. Finally, the zip ties between her wrists broke.

She sobbed as tingling raced up her arms. The warm stickiness of blood on her wrists made her nauseous. She let her arms hang for a moment and then remembered the chair across the room.

She crawled on the floor until she found the overturned chair. She picked it up and dragged it across the room. Once she was near the window again, she lifted the chair and beat it against the board and the window.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Another little piece of the corner of the board broke off and a little light shone through. She stuck the leg of the chair into the hole she made and tried using it to pry the board apart. She broke a little more of the board away and was encouraged to continue beating at it and prying it apart.

She kept working at the board until she had enough broken away that she felt she could probably crawl out.

Taking the leg of the chair, she scraped it along the window's ledge to make sure there was no pointed glass that would cut into her.

She squeezed her head through the opening only to see she was on the third floor. Tears flooded her eyes as her heart sank.

Allowing herself a bit of a pity party, she sucked in a deep breath and decided she was going to get the fuck out of there! With her fingers, she pulled and tugged on that board, breaking more of it away from the window.

And when she had enough, she began screaming out of the window. She screamed as loud as she'd ever screamed in her life.

And finally someone hollered up to her, "Hanna!"

She looked down only to see someone run around the corner of the building. She sobbed. Someone heard her and knew it was her. She slowly moved toward the door. Someone was coming!

32

The second they pulled into the barracks parking lot, Quinn's eyes scanned the area for the tracks. He saw them right away.

"There they are." He pointed.

Jared nodded. "There's more over there."

He followed the tracks with his truck, careful not to run over them in case the police needed pictures or to take impressions.

He stopped in front of the third building and hopped from his truck, his eyes scanning the ground for other tracks. He found two sets of footprints, a smaller set of prints looked to be walking backward.

Trey pulled to a stop at the far end of the building, his head down as he walked toward them, looking at the tracks. Jared ran to the door and noticed it was unlocked.

"Dad. Someone left this door open."

He stepped near his son, careful to straddle the footprints. Thank goodness it had rained last night. The tracks were easy to follow.

Banging sounded from the back of the building. Bang. Bang.

Jared said, "I'll go see what that is, Dad."

Jared ran around the building and Quinn continued inside. He heard Jared yell, "Hanna."

He froze. As he turned to see if Hanna was outside, Jared ran into the building.

"Dad, it's Hanna. She's on the third floor."

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