‘You did,’ she said.
‘And you did too.’ He took her hand, bound behind her back. ‘Of course, I supplied all the devilish good looks,’ he laughed at his own joke, or hers, she supposed. ‘But you were always the brave one. Meticulous, annoyingly so. Determined to the point of recklessness. You always had a plan, no matter what.’
‘I didn’t plan for this,’ Pip said. ‘I lost.’
‘That’s OK, Sarge.’ He gave her hand a squeeze, her fingers starting to fizz from the awkward angle. ‘You just need a new plan. That’s what you’re good at. You’re not going to die here. He’s gone, and now you have time. Use that time. Come up with a plan. Wouldn’t you like to see me again? See everyone you care about?’
‘Yes,’ she told him.
‘Then you better get started.’
Better get started.
She took a deep breath, her airway clearer now. Ravi was right; she’d been given time and she had to use it. Because as soon as Jason Bell walked back through that door with the shrieking hinges, there was no longer a chance. None. She was dead. But this Pip, left alone and bound here to these metal shelves, she was only very likely dead. Not much of a chance, but more than that near-future Pip had.
‘OK,’ she said to Ravi, but really to herself. ‘A plan.’
She couldn’t see, but she could still check her surroundings. There hadn’t been anything in her vicinity before DT taped over her sight, but maybe he’d left something nearby after the mask was done. Something she could use. Pip swiped her bound legs in an arc, to one side and the other, straining her arms to reach further out. No, there was nothing here, just concrete and the dipped-down channel running beneath the shelves.
That’s fine, she hadn’t expected there to be anything, don’t sink back down into despair. Ravi wouldn’t let her anyway. OK, so, she couldn’t move, she was stuck here to these shelves. Was there anything there that could help her? Vats of weedkiller and fertilizer that were useless to her, even if she could reach them. Fine, so what could she reach? Pip flexed her fingers, trying to bring the feeling back to them. Her arms were bent behind her back, pulled up higher than they should be. Her wrists were taped to the front metal pole of the shelving unit, just above the lowest shelf. She knew all that, had taken it in before her face was taken. Pip shifted her wrists against the tape and explored with two fingers. Yes, she felt the cold metal of the pole, and if she stretched her middle finger down, she could just feel the intersection of the shelf, where it attached to the pole.
That was it. All she could reach. All the help she had in the world.
‘Maybe it’s enough,’ Ravi said.
And maybe it was. Because somewhere, in that intersection between shelf and pole, there had to be a screw, to hold them together. And a screw could be freedom. Pip could use that screw. Pinch it between her thumb and finger and pierce holes in the tape at her wrists. Keep piercing and ripping until she could tear herself free.
OK, that was it. That was the plan. Get the screw from the shelf.
Pip had that feeling again, like there was a presence in the unknown around her. And not just the Ravi in her head. Something malignant and cold. But time didn’t wait for anybody and it definitely wouldn’t wait for her. So, how was she going to get the screw?
Pip could only just touch the top of the shelf with one finger; she needed to somehow move her wrists lower, so she could reach the underneath of the shelf. The duct tape was wrapped around her wrists, sticking them to this exact part of the pole. But if she shifted maybe, just maybe, she might get the tape to unstick from the metal. It was just on one side. Only an inch or two of contact. If she could unstick the tape there, then she could slide her hands up or down the pole. She’d struggled and she’d left herself a little room inside the tape, inside Jason’s grip. She could do it. Pip knew she could.
She walked her legs in so she could push her weight back against the tape. Shoved her hands further into the shelves, fingertips brushing the plastic edge of one of the vats. She pushed and she strained and she shifted and she could feel it give. Felt one side of the tape coming unstuck from the metal.
‘Yes, keep going, Sarge,’ Ravi urged her on.
She pushed harder, she strained harder, the tape cutting into her skin. And slowly, slowly, the tape came free from the pole.
‘Yes,’ she and Ravi hissed together.
They shouldn’t have, because she wasn’t free. Pip was still stuck to this pole, her wrists bound tight around it, still very likely dead. But she had gained something: movement up and down between two shelves, her restraints sliding against the pole.