Page 19

CHAPTER 18

S tar woke slowly. Her head felt like it was splitting in half, and she was hot. Damn hot. The metal shed was a sauna. The tape the cop had used flapped against her cheek. Pushing out the revolting piece of cloth he’d shoved into her mouth, she tried to wet her mouth, but it was impossible. She was dehydrated and sick to her stomach, and the drugs or whatever the cop had given her made her head hurt so bad. She laid her head down and closed her eyes. Ethan would find her. She drifted in and out of consciousness for what seemed like hours, but when she finally woke up, head raging like two sledgehammers were working in tandem on her skull, she was fully awake.

Carefully, she flexed her fingers and toes. The pain was intense, but at least they weren’t numb. She had some blood flow to her extremities. Good. Okay, that was good . She narrowed her eyes and took in the shed where she was tossed.

Star wiggled, trying to loosen the zip ties. The pain stopped that real quick. Then she tried to scoot backward toward the wall, but her shoulder hit something, and a ton of crap fell on top of her. She curled into a ball and closed her eyes tightly. Oh, crud . This is really not going well. Opening one eye, she blinked at the mess all around her. Somehow, she’d knocked over an old shelving unit. The cans on the shelves tumbled down, narrowly missing her head.

Her shoulder screamed in pain, so she tried to roll over and accidentally kicked what she thought was a box, but it turned out to be an old paint bucket. It tipped, the lid popping off as a thick, gloppy mess oozed out.

“Oh, great,” she muttered. “Just what I needed. What is it with me and paint cans?”

A clatter sounded above her. Then, a long, agonizing creak.

Oh no.

The ceiling was old. Really old . And Star’s flailing must have weakened something important. Because with one last sharp groan?—

Crack.

The entire panel above her head collapsed. A deafening screech of rusted metal giving way was the only warning before dust and debris rained down like a filthy avalanche. Something alive—small and scurrying—skittered across her shoulder.

Star shrieked, jerking so violently she knocked herself sideways into the shelving along the side of the shed. The shelves wobbled precariously. She sucked in a sharp breath, struggling to sit up. But as she leaned back, the shelving unit she’d bumped into earlier decided it had had enough. With a metallic groan, it surrendered to gravity, toppling over in a chaotic crash that sent more dust and junk cascading over her.

Star lay in the wreckage, panting. When everything settled around her, she opened one eye and then the other. Disaster area was an understatement. “Geez. That went well.”

Looking left, her eyes widened. The rusted metal panel from the roof now laid precariously close, jagged and deadly. She inched away from it, barely breathing. Her movement jarred something loose, and the sharp edge of a large piece of the roof slid against her arm, cold and menacing. It rested there without cutting her.

“Got it. Not moving.” She filled her lungs and screamed, “HELP!”

Silence.

Then … the distinct, high-pitched squeaking of something small and furry.

A rat.

Star’s eyes widened in horror as she felt the tiny claws scrabble over her legs.

“ GO AWAY! HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME !” she shrieked, her voice bouncing off the warped metal walls.

The rat, completely unimpressed by her plight, skittered up her thigh before darting away. Star’s entire body jerked instinctively—and nothing happened.

No slicing, no impalement, no tragic headline about a woman getting turned into a human kebab in an abandoned shed.

Her breath caught as she assessed her surroundings. The fallen metal sheet had wedged itself against the floor and wall. It was jammed tight. Thank God.

She shifted, turning as carefully as a person dismantling a bomb, and twisted onto her back. Her wrists faced the jagged metal.

“Slowly.”

She exhaled in a controlled release, inhaled deeply, and pushed her bound hands back. Her fingers brushed the rusted edge.

Carefully, she began sawing the thick zip ties against the rusty metal. The effort was exhausting. She used a slow, agonizing repetition that sent sharp pain radiating up her arm to her aching shoulder. Sweat coated her skin, making her wrists slick, and she prayed it was just sweat. Please, please don’t let that be blood.

Her shoulder screamed, a fiery ache that threatened to break her focus, but she gritted her teeth and kept going.

Up. Down. Again and again.

Her vision blurred as sweat rolled into her eyes.

Was she making progress? Was she just slowly torturing herself for nothing?

Then— SNAP!

“Oh!” Her arm flew up, and the other crashed into the storage shed's wooden floor as the plastic strap gave way. The sudden freedom sent her sprawling onto her face.

Breathless, Star clawed herself away from the rusted metal and sat up. Every muscle throbbed, but she couldn’t stop now. She braced against the shed’s warped wall and worked her feet into position.

The sharpest piece of metal was about three inches off the ground. She could use it like a saw if she lifted her legs just right.

It was an ab workout from hell.

“If I get out of this alive, I will start going to the gym,” she groaned between exhausted pants.

Lifting her legs took an obscene amount of effort, and the burn in her core made her want to cry, but she kept at it, gritting her teeth through the tremors cramping her legs and stomach.

“You can do this.” The mantra ran on repeat in her head. The sun’s angle had shifted. It was glaring through a warped seam in the metal wall. She didn’t have much time.

Her muscles spasmed, her calves tightening so hard she nearly screamed. Tears burned behind her eyelids.

“Come on! You can do this!”

She used her hands to lift her legs and forced them down in one final, desperate push.

The plastic gave.

Her legs snapped forward.

The rusted edge of the roof slashed through her slacks, and pain flared, white-hot and searing.

She hissed, clamping a trembling hand over the wound on her calf. Warm blood seeped through her fingers.

“Perfect.”

Stripping off her shirt, she tied it tightly around her leg without daring to assess the damage. Knowing how bad it was wouldn’t help—getting out of there would.

She pushed herself up, her feet tingling with a thousand stabbing needles as circulation returned.

Get out. Get out now! The door.

She grabbed the handle and yanked. It rattled but didn’t budge. She leaned closer and looked out the crack. A padlock. Right, she remembered hearing him secure it that morning .

“Not getting out that way.”

Her gaze flicked upward to the collapsed roof. The walls were too smooth to climb, and there were jagged pieces of rusted metal all along the top of the walls. Worse than the curly barbed wire she’d seen outside the county jail. She wouldn’t be able to climb the walls without help.

“You can’t give up,” she muttered. “There has to be something.”

Picking through the debris, she searched for anything useful. Blood now coated her makeshift bandage, but she ignored it. Survival first.

Then—

“Oh, thank you!”

Her hands shook as she pulled a coiled length of rope from beneath the wreckage. It was thick but lightweight.

Her eyes snapped up to the only viable anchor point—a power pole.

She chewed her lip. How do I get the rope up there? It’d be like tossing a noodle. She needed a weight.

Her gaze landed on the paint can.

“Perfect.”

Righting it, she slammed the lid down as best she could, and using the wire handle, she secured the rope and positioned herself in the middle of the shed.

She started swinging, testing the weight, feeling the momentum.

One shot. That was all she’d get.

With a deep breath, she launched the can toward the lowest arm of the power pole.

She missed.

Instead, the can hit the top arm, and the metal paint can whipped around it twice before the momentum carried it straight into?—

Oh crap.

The transformer.

A crackling hiss sizzled through the air.

Electricity arced.

Then—

BOOM!

The transformer exploded in a shower of sparks.

Star ducked as the entire pole shook .

For a split second, all she could do was stare.

Then she exhaled shakily as her heart sank. Where did the wires go? She stood on her toes to see a powerline sagged right next to the shed. She could hear the sizzle and arch of the live wire, but she didn’t know how close the end was to the shed. Carefully, she reached for a plastic bucket and put it upside-down on the wood. Carefully, she stood on the bucket and glanced at all the metal surrounding her. “Oh, man … you screwed yourself this time, didn’t you?”