Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
He just watches me.
“Dean, this is so wrong. Please. You have to let me out.”
He stands tall and stretches. The man is all hard, lean muscle. And he sure would look pretty with my hands wrapped around his thick neck. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to do that. You may as well get comfortable.”
And this is when I officially lose my shit. “Let me out of here, you motherfucking asshole! You kidnapping cunt! Open this fucking cage right now. How dare you drug me and lock me up in here, you deluded dickhead!”
But he doesn’t even hang around to hear my rant. His face blanks and up the stairs he goes, leaving me to scream my abuse to no one.
CHAPTER TWO
FRIDAY
My captor returns an hour or so after I stop yelling. Something that happens due to a sore throat and eventually running out of expletives. I sincerely hope he sat upstairs and listened. Because the one about his marked resemblance to a goat’s genitals was honestly inspired.
The first full day of captivity is mostly pleasant, all things considered. Which is surprising. Breakfast is buttermilk pancakes. The man knows how to cook and makes a decent cup of coffee. Both important life skills. My silverware is a child’s silicone spoon. The chances of me successfully stabbing him with it are low. It would take a serious effort along with his cooperation to gouge his heart out with this sucker. And my coffee was served in a cardboard takeout cup, with the pancakes on a paper plate. He’s thought through this hostage situation. Nothing he’s given me can be used against him as a weapon.
I am doing my best to stay calm. It’s sort of working.
The bathroom is small, with modern white tiling. Just room enough for a shower, basin, cupboard, and toilet. An array of products have been left for me. There’s even some decent skin care. Dean didn’t cheap out on anything. Guess if you’re expecting the world to end, there’s no need to worry about credit card debt. No cameras in the bathroom that I can find, thank fuck. Cleaning my teeth, brushing my hair, and applying deodorant have me feeling at least half human.
This is the longest I’ve gone without my phone. No scrolling social media or internet shopping or anything. Life in a cage or prison cell is about as boring as you’d imagine. Especially if not much is happening. And while being kept in captivity is all sorts of messed up, he’s not actually hurting me. The mattress and cushions are quite comfortable. Even the décor is nice. Though if I wind up dead and buried in his backyard, the joke will be on me for letting my guard down for even a second.
Someone must have noticed me missing by now. Surely. Dean might have the logistics of kidnapping me covered, but he can’t control everything. I had an online meeting scheduled with my boss this morning. Work could have noticed my absence and called the relevant authorities. For all I know, detectives are on their way here right now. However, I highly doubt it. My boss, Kate, is related to someone in upper management. She’s likely to have forgotten about the meeting and gone to breakfast with her boyfriend. Insert heavy sigh here.
From my way of thinking, the best chance of getting out from behind these bars is by making Dean think we’re friends. Just because my social skills suck in real-life situations doesn’t mean I can’t fake it upon this occasion. It will be fine. I can absolutely do this.
“How about you give me my phone for five minutes,” I ask. “I don’t think you understand the stakes here. If I lose my streak on Wordle, I’ll never forgive you.”
It earns me a short laugh. But my captor doesn’t deign to reply.
“What happens if you trip on the stairs and fall and break your neck or something, and I’m left alone in this cage to die a slow and painful death of starvation because no one knows I’m down here, and years from now someone discovers our desiccated bodies?”
He looks at me over the rim of his cup of coffee.
I shrug. “It could happen.”
“There’s an email scheduled to go out each day alerting the local police and other assorted emergency services, and a couple of other places I thought might be useful, as to your whereabouts.”
“You stop it from sending.”
“That’s right,” he says.
“Are they looking for me yet?”
“No. Not that I’ve noticed. But with everything going on and so many people off sick, I’d be surprised if the police had time to knock on doors for a missing person right now. And you’ve also only been gone for fourteen hours.”
“It feels longer than that.”
He grunts in response. Like a Neanderthal.
The TV is on, though muted, with captioning along the bottom of the screen. As the day progresses, the tone of reports seems to be shifting. Things seem distinctly more dire. Like the government is losing control of the narrative. Now they show how hospitals are struggling to keep up. Morgues and funeral homes are overwhelmed by the sheer number of deceased. The woman from the World Health Organization pauses her speech on current recommendations for how best to keep yourself safe to have a coughing fit on air.