Big fucking deal.
Nora Belle hated the woman like nobody else. Plopping down astraddle her now, she wrenched the sleeping bag down and started pummeling away. Every time her fist made contact with the woman’s face, she felt a jolt of electricity race through her body.
Beneath her, Naomi struggled.
Someone shouted from under her. It was not Naomi’s voice. She stopped what she was doing, climbed off, and pulled the sleeping bag all the way down so she could see who was in there.
“What the hell are you doing?” the guy asked, his nose bleeding all over the place.
She was on all fours, staring at the man. “Where’s Naomi?”
“Who?”
“This is Naomi’s sleeping bag. Where did you get it?”
“I found it on the side of the road.” His hands were covering his nose. “I think you might have broken my nose.”
She looked around, pushed herself up, and started searching through his shopping cart.
The loser staggered to his feet. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” She grabbed a few of his things, including a picture that looked as if it might have sentimental value and ripped it into tiny pieces. “You’re being inducted into the Ghost Hall of Fame.”
The man had long red hair, just like Naomi. She was going to have to pay closer attention next time—not that it mattered. They were basically all the same.
He grabbed hold of her sweatshirt and yanked it down over her shoulder as he tried to stop her from going through his things.
She backhanded him, and he staggered back, leaving her to gape at the damage he’d done. “You broke my zipper! You just ruined my favorite sweatshirt.”
She jumped on him then, bit his hand, and clawed at his face. All she could see through her blinding rage were the whites of his eyes as she ground her knee into his nuts, determined to show him what happened when someone like him dared to lay a hand on someone like her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Claire sat up and tried to figure out where she was. The room was dark. Her head was spinning. Her tongue kept sticking to the roof of her mouth. She needed water.
Where am I?
She felt around, using her hands to search in the dark. She was on a thin mattress covered with a sheet and a scratchy wool blanket. Her heart raced, pounded against her chest.
She crawled over the mattress until she could feel the ground. Smooth cement. Pushing herself to her feet, she kept her arms straight out in front of her, careful not to trip as she explored the room. The tips of her fingers brushed against a rough stone wall. She moved slowly, inch by inch, feeling around, hoping to find a window or a door. Finally. A door.
She tried the knob, but it was no use. The door was locked. Down on her knees, she tried to peek under the door. She couldn’t see a thing. Back on her feet again, she crossed to the other side of the room and found a wall of empty wooden slots. She was in a wine cellar.
A clear image of the man’s face came to her: he was wearing a hat and sunglasses. He had a crooked nose, an ugly, wiry beard, and a wide smile. The man who picked her up on the side of the road had brought her here.
How stupid could she be? Getting into the car with a stranger was bad enough, but then asking him for drugs and taking his magic pills? Hell, she didn’t even know what kind of car he’d been driving. Four-door? Two-door? Blue? Green? She had no idea.
She sank down onto the mattress and tried to get a grip, tried to think.
Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t remember ever being so thirsty. Once again she began to crawl around the room on all fours, hoping he’d at least left her some food or water. But there was nothing here. No windows. No table. No chairs. No food and no water.
“Are you awake?”
Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice. She scrambled to the door. “Please let me out. My family is probably worried sick about me. You have to let me call my mom.”
“Oh, Claire. That would be foolish of me. You’re a smart girl. I can’t let you do that.”
She banged on the door, didn’t stop until her hands hurt from the effort. “Let me out of here, you sicko!”
She heard the squeak of metal. A sliver of light spilled through the top of the door. It looked like a mail slot. She stood on her tiptoes and found herself peering into gray-blue eyes.
She stepped back, put a hand to her chest, tried to catch her breath.
“Please,” she said when she realized he might leave her there and never come back. “I’m begging you. I’ll be good, but I don’t like the dark. And I’m thirsty. My throat is dry. I swear, I can’t breathe.”
“My little drama queen,” he said. “I’ll get you a glass of water and something to eat. I’ll be back.”
The metal door shut with a clank.
She stood still. She needed to think. He said he would be back. As soon as he opened the door, she would attack him, claw at his eyes and then run.
Where was she, though?
If she escaped the wine cellar, would she find another locked door? And it didn’t help that she was small and he was tall. Inside the car, the top of his head had looked as if it was only an inch from the roof. The weird hat he’d been wearing probably made him look even taller. The hat. The strange hat and sunglasses made sense. His beard hadn’t looked right, either. It had to be a disguise. She never should have gotten into his car. What an idiot she was. And to think she had believed every word the man uttered. Right down to the ridiculous magic pills he happened to keep in his car. Shit!
She chewed on her thumbnail. She already knew she couldn’t fight the man. Her little brother could practically pin her to the floor when they wrestled. When it came to fighting her way out of there, she didn’t stand a chance.
Not without a weapon.
That thought set her in motion. She moved around in the dark until she could feel the wooden wine rack beneath her fingers again. She brushed her hands over every wooden slot, looking for a loose board. The squeak of metal—the slot in the door—stopped her dead. Damn. She’d have to wait. She dropped down on the mattress.
He had a flashlight this time, and the little beam of light hit her directly in the face.
“There you are.” For a long moment, he merely stared at her, the beam of light roaming over her, his beady eyes unblinking. He was a creeper, all right.
“Stay right where you are, Claire. You need to understand how this works. You need to stay perfectly still. If you do anything that I don’t tell you to do, bad things will happen. One wrong move and it’s over. Now, Claire, I want you to nod your head if you understand. Can you do that?”
She nodded her head and prayed she would find a way out of there alive.
It wasn’t long before she heard the door being unlocked.
The door opened. Using his foot, he pushed a doorstop in place to hold it open while he brought in a tray. There was a bowl of soup and a tall plastic cup filled with water. There was also a napkin and a spoon. The bowl and the cup were made of plastic. No help there.
He put the tray on the floor, then watched her closely as she reached for the water and gulped it down in thirsty swallows. She kept her eye on the spoon. It was metal.
“You are a thirsty girl,” he said.
His voice grated on her nerves. The man disgusted her. She looked at him, tried to get a view of the room and the stairs behind him. Stone floors and narrow steps made of stone curved around the wall until they disappeared. It was like some sort of medieval castle down here.
“There’s no way out,” he said. “You can pound on these walls and scream at the top of your lungs all day long and nobody will hear you.”