Page 159 of Protecting Peyton

Bile rose in my throat. That last voice made the asshole count at least four.

“Patience,” Monster said. “I’ll be back in half an hour. Nobody touches her. Nobody even goes in the room, you hear me?”

“Got it,” Baldy replied as the door closed.

I kept my head down and listened carefully.

Had he left someone in the room to see if I was faking?

After a minute of not hearing anything, I chanced one eye open, then the other.

I was the only one in the room, and I had a half-hour countdown to a fate so terrible I couldn’t contemplate it. Scanning the room for options, I refused to let the monster dictate my fate. Grace’s recounting of Terry’s advice rang loud and clear in my head—“Fight with everything you have and never give up.”

Zane would be tearing the city apart right now looking for me. He’d come, I was certain of it.But when?

He’d told me of the escape and evade training he’d undergone, and now it was my responsibility to do just that until he found me.

This chair was wood, which meant that with enough force, it could be broken. Sometimes in the movies, the bound person knocked the chair over and it broke, but they were all big, heavy, strong men. For me, it would be too risky. If it didn’t break, I’d be stuck.

When I jostled the chair, my legs throbbed where the ropes bound me to the wood. It moved with a small squeak, at the expense of some skin on my shins.

It hurt even more when I rocked the chair one more time. I couldn’t let the pain matter. This pain was nothing compared to what was to come if I didn’t get out of here.

Bang.

I froze at the sound of a gunshot outside the room.

“What the fuck?” That was Baldy. “Boris, put that gun away.”

“I hate fucking rats.” That voice belonged to the one who wanted to know when he got his chance with me.

“You shoot again,” Baldy warned, “and I shoot you.”

The shooter mumbled something unintelligible.

With no more gunfire, and only muffled conversation, I scanned the room for a destination. The nightstand’s wood looked too smooth to be of any help cutting my bindings, the same with the small dresser.

The headboard was wrought iron above smooth wood, but too high for me to lift my hands to it. Looking closer, I noticed the handcuffs attached on each side. Lovely. Then, I had an idea.

I rocked and twisted to walk the chair slowly across the room. If I was lucky, there might be some matching wrought iron at the foot of the bed under the comforter.

It was a lot harder than the movies made it seem. A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and into my eye. It seemed like it took forever to reach the bed, moving only an inch or two at a time, being careful not to tip over. If I fell to the floor on my side, I’d be doomed.

Rotating the chair slowly to back up against the corner of the bed, I finally grasped the comforter and lifted it one handful at a time.

I finally uncovered a short section of wrought iron. Thank God, it was at a height I could rub against. Rubbing a section of rope at my wrists against the corner of the ironwork, I wondered how much time remained before Monster came back.

When I felt the first strands give way, I sped up my efforts. “Come on, come on,” I chanted under my breath. If I wasn’t fast enough, none of thiseffort would matter. I would be cuffed to this bed, and what would follow was too terrible to contemplate.

Thread by thread, the rope gave way to the cutting action of the iron. Then, my hands were free. I had no idea how much time it had taken and how much I had left.

Quickly, I untied my legs. Then, I checked the dresser for anything I could use as a weapon or a tool, and found it completely empty. Moving to the nightstand, all I found was a jumbo box of condoms.

Great.

Next, I surveyed my situation, trying to think in three dimensions as Zane had said was important, or was it outside the box.

Box was an appropriate term, because that was what I was in. The room had no overhead air ducts, so climbing up was out. A single narrow and short air grate in the wooden floor against the wall wouldn’t help either.