“What are you doing?” Samantha asked again.
“Trying to get my cell phone out,” Megan snapped.
Anger at herself for not thinking about the possibility of calling someone this entire time was getting the better of her. The fact that they had gone so long without Jimmy coming back also added to this because it would have given her ample time to get the phone in position, get her shoe off, and dial a number with her toe. Now, however, Jimmy could return any second, and would surely take the phone away, especially if he heard one of the beeps.
She just couldn’t believe how stupid she had been.
Five hours.
They could have been rescued by now and Jimmy in custody if she had made the call right away, but instead she had just stood there like a fool, her body getting weaker and weaker, her mind growing more and more terrified.
“Why?” Samantha asked.
“So I can fucking call someone!” Megan shouted as her foot once again slipped free. God dammit!
“Don’t,” Samantha said. “He’ll punish us.”
“Not if I can get the phone out and call my dad before he gets back.” She hooked the purse again and once again it slipped free.
The phone beeped.
Five hours and twenty minutes.
“Megan please!” Samantha cried. “He’ll hurt us bad!”
“Samantha! This is our only chance!” Megan couldn’t believe her friend. “Now help me flip over the purse. You are close enough to tip it with your feet.”
Despite her pain Samantha inched toward the purse, but rather than helping Megan tip it over she kicked it as hard as she could.
“What the fuck!” Megan screamed, her foot stopping the purse at the last second before it slid too far away. “Samantha!”
“He’ll hang me again,” Samantha cried while trying to kick it again, tears falling from her eyes. “He’ll hang me all day!”
Megan tried getting the purse out of Samantha’s reach, and then kicked at her feet. “Stop it!”
Samantha didn’t and Megan was forced to hit her friend as hard as she could in the shin. The impact hurt her own foot and caused her friend to scream again.
“Samantha, listen to me,” Megan said, her voice stern. “We are going to die down here unless someone finds us and this phone is our best chance at the moment.”
Wet sobs were the only reply she got to this.
Megan couldn’t believe her friend, yet knew it wasn’t fully her fault. Still, one good kick and the purse would have been completely out of reach. One good kick and Samantha could have sentenced them to death.
“Samantha, I’m going to get this phone,” Megan said. “Now, if you don’t want to be a part of it just stay right there and don’t move, okay?”
Samantha continued to cry.
“If Jimmy finds out I will tell him you had no part in this.”
“It won’t matter,” Samantha said.
“Are you going to help me?” Megan asked.
Samantha shook her head.
“Fine.”
Megan turned back to her purse and quickly tried to think up a way of flipping it over. A moment later an idea struck and she used her left foot to take off her right shoe, something that would have to have been done anyway once the phone was free, and started reaching into the purse with her toes in an attempt to scoop everything out.
It worked and the phone came free, only it landed face down.
Megan tried to grab it with her toes to flip it, but her socks made it impossible to grab. She needed to remove them.
Beep!
God, he could be here any second!
Needing her other foot free from the shoe, Megan used her right to push against the heel making it possible to slip free. Once that was done she attempted to slip the toes of her left foot into the sock of her right and pulled. Once again the task was harder than it seemed and she spent several minutes trying and failing, her mind growing more and more desperate, until finally she managed to slip the sock over her ankle and then her heel.
Beep!
The sock was free.
Now she just had to grab the phone with her toes, flip it over, and call her father.
Samantha’s foot came out of nowhere and nearly hit the phone, the surprise strike only being deflected at the last second by Megan’s ankle, which hurt.
“God dammit!” Megan screamed at her friend and kicked her as hard as she could, the nail of her big toe cutting in the flesh of Samantha’s calf. “STOP IT!”
Samantha didn’t and Megan was forced to deflect several more attacks and then went on the offensive again.
Beep!
Things settled for a moment and Megan went back to trying to grip the phone, her foot hurting from the battle, her eyes going back and forth between the task at hand and watching Samantha, her mind wishing Jimmy had just left her hanging from her wrists so she couldn’t reach the phone.
It took three tries before she got the phone flipped over. Once that was done she tried using her toe to start dialing, her mind so focused on her father’s phone number that she didn’t even realize she could have just done nine one one, which would have been a whole lot simpler.
Her toe hit the forth button needed. At the same moment a sound echoed from the door.
Oh God!
She found the fifth button and then the sixth.
One more to go.
She heard the door starting to open.
She got the seventh button. The number was complete. All she needed to do was hit SEND.
Jimmy entered the room.
Megan hit SEND.
The sound of the phone ringing on the other end filled the room.
Megan looked toward Jimmy and saw his eyes go wide. At the same moment Samantha managed to kick the phone, which went across the room and shouted that she had told Megan not to call.
“Megan, is that you!” her father cried in the phone. “Are you all right?”
Jimmy lunged across the room.
“Daddy help me!” Megan screamed. “Jimmy Hawthorn has got us at the Hood place!”
There was no reply. Jimmy had smashed the phone with his foot before she had finished screaming. The question was, had her father heard enough to find them?
Jimmy looked back and forth between the smashed phone and Megan, panic building, his mind unable to comprehend anything but the words Megan had screamed into the phone: Jimmy Hawthorn has got us at the Hood place!
He didn’t know what to do.
“I told her not to call!” Samantha said, her lips repeating the words over and over again. “I tried to stop her!”
“Shut up!” Jimmy snapped.
“I told her not to,” Samantha continued.
“SHUT UP!” He grabbed her by the hair while shouting this and yanked her head back so that her throat was completely stretched and vulnerable.
“Let her go, you bastard!”
Jimmy turned and started at Megan. Beneath his panic was anger, both at himself and at her, all of which would be taken out on her.
Samantha whimpered beneath him.
He let go of her hair and started toward Megan, who took a few steps back, fear momentarily touching her face before being replaced with one of defiance.
Jimmy grabbed her by her cheeks and said, “I smashed the phone too soon. He doesn’t know you’re here.”
Megan tried to twist free of his hand, but couldn’t.