I don’t realize my fists should’ve stayed curled until it’s too late.
* * *
—
（I have spent years talking through it in therapy. Those four months we lived with him and that one day that changed everything.）
* * *
—
（This is what I know:
He tried to draw me in in the way that men like him—predators, pedophiles—think is the gentle way, which is just so fucking sick, you know? Like there’s anything gentle about it. Men like that want to groom you. They want you soft and scared and never knowing which way is up.
Another kind of tilted ground.）
* * *
—
（This is what I know:
I was not groomable. Not because I’m smarter or better. The opposite: because someone had got there first.
Abby had groomed me to become her. There was no room for outside influence. She was the weight that leveled my world.）
* * *
—
（This is what I know:
If they can’t make you soft and scared, they just make you scared.）
* * *
—
（This is what I know:
I had no idea what scared meant, when it came to me. I had no idea what I’d do.
But I guess we all learned.）
— 40 —
11:44 a.m. （152 minutes captive）
1 lighter, 3 bottles of vodka, 1 pair of scissors, 2 safe-deposit keys
Plan #1: Scrapped
Plan #2: Fucked Maybe not so fucked
Plan #3: Stab
Red Cap makes me go first down the hall, him and Duane shuffling behind me. We pass the room Iris and Wes are in, and I croak, “Where are we going?” loud enough for them to hear I’m alive. My throat is killing me, throbbing in finger-shaped pulses against my skin, and my eyes feel like someone rubbed sandpaper over them while I was forced to watch bad cartoons for hours.
“Shut up,” Duane tells me. He jerks his head to the office to my left, all the way down the hall. “In here.”
Once we’re in the office, they make me sit in the crappiest of the two office chairs. I slump in it, my eyes tracking across the room. It’s the same setup as the one they had us in, but the desk is bigger and whoever works in here really likes plants. Maybe I could chuck one at them and run. Death by fake ficus.
There’s that wishful thinking again. Gotta stop that.
Duane tries the good chair, but he’s wincing and sliding onto the ground within a minute. Red Cap helps him shift so he’s leaning against the wall. Maybe he’ll pass out long enough for me to get the dimwit to let us go. But life isn’t easy like that, and men like Duane are stubborn. They hang on. My flannel’s getting rusty, but not soaked. The bleeding’s slowing down, even as he’s getting paler.
I should’ve gone for his neck.
“Get back downstairs and finish the welding job,” Duane orders him.
“But—”
“I’ll be fine,” Duane says. “Tape up her hands and get back to work.”
I fight Red Cap when he tapes my hands in front of my body instead of behind, even though I’m pleased. I can do a lot with hands taped in front, especially because I can flex all my fingers. It’s still too many layers to break, but I’ll find a way out, and at least he doesn’t tape my feet.
Duane’s starting to sweat as Red Cap bends down to check his wound. He murmurs something to him, and I can’t make it out until he raises his voice—“Yes, I’m fucking sure”—in annoyance as he hands Red Cap the shotgun.
“I’ll be fast,” Red Cap says. “Don’t try anything,” he tells me.
“I was gonna pull a bank heist, but you two have that covered,” I snipe back. My voice cracks in the middle, ruining the effect.
His footsteps fade down the hall, and I turn my attention back to Duane. He doesn’t look great, but he doesn’t seem to be at death’s door, either. And the hand holding the gun on me is dead steady.
“So what’s the plan?” I ask. “Are you going to kill him in the bank, or use him as a human shield when you shoot it out with the deputies? Remember: I’m too valuable to be a human shield.”
“Do you ever shut up?”
“No. Get used to it. It’s gonna be a long trip to Florida.”
“One more word and I’ll knock you out. When you come to, you’ll be choking on exhaust fumes in the trunk of my car and you’ll stay there until we get to Florida.”
I make a mental note he said car, not truck. “Fine,” I say. I stretch my legs out, folding my booted feet on top of each other. “She’s not gonna let me go without a fight,” I mutter.