Page 76 of Furever Loyal
Eventually, she would be pushed aside, and Haley would be forced to watch as Kincaid found someone else, someone he could reproduce with. It would have to happen. His kind was not very plentiful, and he owed it to his race not to be with her when she couldn’t bear the type of children he needed, children that he probably wanted. To think that Kincaid wouldn’t be as driven to come after her, to come save her…The dark thoughts fed into the panic she was already feeling, amplifying it.
The world began to shrink around her, the darkness closing in, wrapping tight. It became hard to breathe. Haley struggled against her bonds, straining to free herself, but they didn’t come loose. There was no magical parting as she was given superhuman strength to free herself. Instead, she grew lightheaded and, eventually, the world went completely dark as she passed out.
***
An unknown amount of time later, she came to, her neck aching from being stretched while slumping forward.
Slowly, Haley lifted it, resting her skull against the back of the chair she was tied to and giving her screaming muscles a break.
“Note to self,” she said, deciding that thinking in her head wasn’t helping. “Panicking doesn’t work.”
She immediately found that sound helped her focus. It made her remember she was still alive, and that there was no big boogeyman waiting in the dark for her. In fact, there wasnobodywaiting for her. If Haley was going to escape, she was going to have to do it on her own. Kincaid may or may not come for her, she couldn’t be sure, but until he showed up, Haley wasn’t going to wait around helplessly.
“Nobody is going to help me if I don’t help myself,” she said firmly.
There was still no light, no window with an indication of what time it might be outside.
“Hello!” she shouted.
The sound carried for a way but stopped much shorter than she expected if it was a warehouse. Either she had been wrong about that, or she was in some sort of office near a factory floor. Maybe a walled-off partition. It felt larger than an office.
Nobody responded to her shout, but she knew that didn’t mean a thing. A dozen guards could be just out of her hearing range and she would never know of their presence until it was too late.
Doesn’t matter. If theyarepresent, I’m screwed no matter what. All I can do is operate under the assumption I’m alone. Don’t be helpless. What would Kincaid do in this situation?
“He’d flex and snap the ropes,” she muttered. That wasn’t an option to her though. Was it?
Carefully, slowly, she tested the bonds that held her hands behind her back. They didn’t part, but then again, that was never realistic to expect. She pulled her elbows apart, trying to stretch them, creating a picture in her head of how she was tied up.
Ropes under her armpit, over her hips and at her ankles kept her tied to the chair itself, while her arms were pulled back tightly until they were crossed, tied at the wrist. They were tight, but whoever had tied the ropes had tied them farther up her arms, instead of around both wrists. Haley found that by pulling her arms apart, she could force the ropes closer to the wrists.
It hurt. She could feel skin chafing itself raw, but bit by bit she was gaining more slack. Not much, but it might be enough for her to slip free. Ten minutes passed, and her skin grew irritated and every breath caused pain as her arms tightened against the bonds. After twenty minutes, she could feel it grow warm with heat. After thirty, it became wet, and the air gained a hint of iron to it. She’d drawn blood.
A minute or two later, and the ropes slipped down to her wrist. Loosely. The blood had been just what she’d needed. Haley worked herself free from the limp bonds as fast as she could. Even with the extra slack, she still needed to pull one hand free, without re-tightening them. It took her another minute, but she had the time. There was nobody around.
Finally, the rope fell free, and she brought her arms around, shoulders screaming at the sudden movement after being pinned back for so long. Haley gazed at her tortured wrists, blood welling up and dripping from where she’d worn the skin free.
Nothing serious,she decided, shocking herself at the cavalier attitude toward such painful injuries. Yet another change in herself that she was experiencing as her worldview widened with each passing day spent with Kincaid.
The ropes under her armpits weren’t actually secured to the chair for some reason, and they slid up the back of it easily. “Sloppy, Melanie, very sloppy,” she muttered, now free to reach around and undo the knot around her hips and then the ones keeping her ankles to the chair. It was a tedious process, but less than twenty minutes later, she was completely and totally liberated, slowly standing from the metal chair.
Muscles and ligaments protested, forcing her to move slowly, taking her time as she warmed them back up, preparing them to move. She might be free of the chair, but Haley still had no idea where she was, or what had happened to Kincaid. It was time to get the hell out of there and make a dash for freedom.
The room was pitch black, which presented the first obstacle. Haley thought about her situation, thinking back over every spy or thriller movie she’d seen where someone was captured. It was an odd thing to do, but that was all she had to go on. There was also one constant. Every time someone was tied up, they always seemed to be facing the door.
It’s not like I’ve got anything else to go on.
Shrugging her shoulders in silent helplessness, Haley found the chair, turned the other direction and then slowly started walking forward, hands out front, moving around in slow circles. She shuffled one foot out in front of her, felt around, then slowly transferred her weight forward and repeated the process.
“This is more nerve-wracking than being tied up,” she muttered, relying on the sound to help break up her fears. Anything could be out there in the dark, just waiting for her.
She jumped when her hand finally encountered something solid. A little more touching around showed it to be a wall. She decided to go right, but after five feet or so, she encountered a corner. Reversing her direction, she went left. It paid dividends. Not more than two or three feet from her original position, she found a hinge. Reaching lower, she found another. A door! Moving more confidently in the dark, she found the handle and twisted.
It didn’t move.
“Dammit!” she cursed, shaking the locked handle a few more times in frustration.
An idea came to her. Fumbling around blindly on the wall to the left of the door, her fingers encountered three little plastic switches. Closing her eyes and saying a brief prayer, she flicked the first one.
