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Forty-One

The Mine

Not knowing what was going to happen next was getting to Olivia.

Early this morning the man had arrived carrying a plate of fresh hot pancakes drenched in butter and maple syrup.

He’d made her stand against the wall and placed two cups of to-go coffee with the fixings on the small table in her cell, backed out without saying a word, and left.

After hearing his footsteps die away in the distance, Olivia had fallen onto the food, eating it with relish.

After wrapping the second to-go cup in her socks to keep it hot, she’d spent a long time sipping the coffee and licking every small trace of syrup and butter from the plate. Why was he being nice to her?

After he’d ordered her to take a shower the previous day he’d placed her in this cell.

It was different from the others. It had a bed with clean sheets, a table and chair, and snack food on shelves.

Although the walls were the same hewn rock, no damp dribbled down them and they were void of moss.

After Chloe had left with him, she had lain awake most of the night waiting for him to return, not knowing what he had planned for her—but he hadn’t returned.

Her mind had been conjuring up what could be happening with Chloe.

Where was she? Had he hurt her? Chloe had been so scared when she left, and her look of pure terror as he dragged her away chilled her to the bone.

She didn’t believe she could ever get the image of her terrified face out of her mind.

Being the last person locked inside this terrible place and having no one to talk to would drive her insane.

The other thing she had now was light in the form of a small battery-operated lantern.

Shivering, she pulled a blanket around her shoulders and sat at the table sipping her coffee.

She stared at her nails. She’d always had nice nails but now she’d bitten them down to the quick.

She looked at the bloody stumps, regretting biting them as they were her only weapon.

The past few days kept circling around in her mind.

She had witnessed things so horrific no amount of counseling would ever remove them from her memory.

That’s if she ever survived this place. No matter what the man told her, she wouldn’t believe him because if he’d released the others as he’d promised, one of them would have alerted the sheriff.

She scrubbed her hands down her face, and her heart pounded with the implications. There could be no escaping the truth. He’d killed them all and she’d be next.