Page 119 of Cowboy Heat

Right?

I could wonder from here until the end of time about all the things I’m probably missing, so I decide to table that until I’m out and free from wherever I am. Slowly, I rise from my spot, and even slower, make my way to the stairs. My head spins once, I feel like I’m going to be sick twice, but I make it without coming apart.

The door at the top of the stairs isn’t fancy, but it is metal. Not something you’d typically have inside of a home.

Again, I have no idea where I am.

Why did Jon do this?

It had to be because of Guidry. Take me, squirrel me away.

A different kind of pain and panic seizes me.

If Jon has me, is Micah okay?

Is Alice?

For the first time since waking up in this hellhole, I ache for Beau.

I pray Jon spared him. Because whatever is going on here is too much.

Way too much.

I clutch the door handle and try to turn, but it’s not budging.

My throat gets a lump in it.

I feel sick again. I need to cry. Scream.

I need to get out.

I throw my body against the door. Then I start banging on it with my fist.

I yell for help next before I switch to a chorus of “let me out.”

Finally, I become a sobbing mess.

No one’s coming, and I can’t get out.

Where’s Micah? Where’s Beau?

Was Mimi able to raise the red flag when I dropped my phone during Jon’s attack?

Part of me wants to crumble right here, ignore the world around me until it wants to do something more than terrify and confuse me.

But then Beau comes back to mind.

Twelve years old, going down the stairs with other children to save a little girl who’s spent seven months in a dark basement.

My problems start to shrink. I wipe my face with the back of my arm and finally look at the room again with new eyes.

Maybe I can use something in the boxes.

The one closest to the stairs has nothing in it worth grabbing. Hundreds of plastic to-go containers, obviously used but since cleaned. Some spill out onto the floor. I step over them to another box.

This one nearly falls apart from a box it’s so old and worn.. There are two blue blankets inside, frayed and old. I move on.

Boxes and plastic containers two, three, and four have nothing I can use as a weapon or escape tool. Not like the toilet lid at the Fulton house. Instead, it seems that I’m making my way through someone’s belongings that never made it to being unpacked in a home. By the fifth box, I find newspapers that are barely legible. It’s from the local paper but dated twenty years ago. The only reason my eye lingers as long as it does on the third paper is because Wyatt has a framed copy of the front page in his house.