Page 129 of Whips and Chains
But he didn’t get out.
A recorded message played through the van’s speakers.
“Step where you shouldn’t, and boom goes your breath.
Run if you dare, and you’ll dance into death.
Each stone’s a secret, each step a mistake.
One wrong move, and the cliff will break.”
My blood ran cold. “No,” I whispered, staring down at the ground below me with the horrible realization that if the poem was true, then they’d rigged some sort of explosives that could detonate if I stepped in the wrong spot.
And last time, the poems had all been true.
I frantically searched the dirt for any signs it had been recently disturbed. That there might be explosives buried somewhere there, but it was impossible to tell amongst the long shadows and the rocky, uneven terrain.
I jerked my head up and screamed at the person in the van, over the top of the recorded message playing on repeat, just like the one in the warehouse had.
I knew what came next.
A countdown.
Bile rose in my throat. I spun around, staring down at the swirling ocean below me. I could jump without taking another step. And I could swim, but I had no idea if I could swim in a sea like that. In the cold, in the dark, in my clothes. How long would it take for me to get to the shore? What if I never found it?
My lungs got tight at the very thought of being smacked in the face by waves, over and over until I was pushed beneath them, the sea claiming their victim.
But I couldn’t move my feet either. Couldn’t run.
How could they have rigged the bluff with explosives that quickly? I’d only posted about coming up here at most two hours ago. Was that enough time?
It couldn’t be, surely. They had to be bluffing.
Except we’d thought that once before.
I’d underestimated them, and it had ended with a man being decapitated right in front of me, a blade dropping from a ceiling that had sliced clean through his neck.
Underestimating him again would be stupid.
And just like I knew it would, the message changed.
“Jump for the sea or run for your life,
Either way ends in panic and strife.
We’re bored of waiting,time to play,
Sixty seconds. Run or pay.”
I couldn’t jump.
I couldn’t run.
All I could do was stand there, locked in by fear, and the miserable realization there was no way out.
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