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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

BLANE ROOSEVELT

Blane is in that twilight area, half asleep, half awake, and unsure why he doesn’t want to wake up. Perhaps it’s the familiar ache in his head from too much beer, the feeling of a hand clasped around his brain, squeezing. But dread is also blanketing him. He feels it even in this fugue state.

He’s hot, sweating, but in this quasi-dream he can’t move, can’t rip off his shirt, push the bedspread to the floor. His thoughts frolic from place to place, time to time.

For a moment he’s eleven years old, playing with his WWF figures, shutting his door to block out his parents screaming at each other. Then he’s at Panther Beach that night, half baked, stars twinkling overhead.

Then it’s back to his parents, them sitting him down, telling him he’d have two houses, two bedrooms, two Christmases now.

He knows his parents’ story from various versions he’s heard over the years: meeting at Harvard, opposites attracting. Mom needing a creative writing class to satisfy some course requirement she found absurd for her international politics degree; Dad being the star of his program, selling his first novel six weeks after they graduated. Though he didn’t make much money from the book, it was everything a trust-fund creative could ask for: literary awards, speaking invitations, hanging with those types. They moved to D.C. to support Mom’s job, where she rose quickly in the government. A Washington golden couple if there ever was one.

Then the downward spiral.

Finally, Blane realizes he’s awake. It’s pitch-black. Then he remembers. About last night. About their phones being taken from them. About his hands and feet being bound. About the tape covering his eyes and mouth.

He yanks at his arms violently, trying to free himself. Oh god oh god oh god.

He hears movement, a groan to his left. He realizes the others must be here too. Lined up like sardines.

He tries to shout through the tape sealing his mouth. It’s muffled, but the panic echoes in the small space where they’re confined.

Someone, one of the girls, responds with a gagged scream-turned-moan. She’s only a few feet away.

No no no no no.

The muted pleas, the sounds of terror continue until they all are too exhausted to continue or realize it’s futile. There’s no one to help in this sensory deprivation tank.

He rolls to his right, feels another body.

He manages to scooch over, hands behind his back, closer to the mass. He bumps his shoulders to the figure to elicit a response.

But the body is still. Then a crushing memory hits him: the image of Mark rushing one of their captors. The pop of the gun, Mark hitting the ground hard.

This can’t be happening.

But it is.