The Big Fix, page 11
The tweed man grabbed Anthony’s hair and tilted his head up. I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he struggled to swallow. Blood colored his cheek red, from his temple to his chin. His brow had begun to swell. The gun was inches from his face. “I’ll ask again: Where is Portia?”
“Anthony, tell him!” I begged. I fought against my own restraints, as if I stood a chance of intervening. The ties bit into my skin in reminder that I didn’t.
Anthony licked a trickle of blood, which had found its way to his mouth, and exhaled a tight breath out of his nose. His lips parted to speak, and my pounding heart surged in the hope he would put an end to this before he got himself killed.
“She’s nowhere,” he said.
The tweed man snarled and released his hair with a sharp shove. “Fine. You want to do this the hard way? We will.” He stepped back and cocked the gun, loading a bullet into the chamber with a sharp click, and then pointed it at me.
I flinched with a frantic yelp.
“Where is Portia?” he asked again, directing the question at Anthony.
My vision swam with tears. The whole room narrowed to that beady little black eye. I couldn’t form words to beg, to plead, to try and talk my way out of an impossible situation.
He moved his finger to the trigger, and I winced—as if it was enough to prepare me to die.
“Stop!” Anthony shouted. His breathing was labored. His voice cracked and broke. “Stop. I’ll tell you.”
The tweed man relaxed his elbow, but didn’t lower the gun all the way. He turned to look at Anthony. “Go on, then. Tell me.”
Anthony heaved a painful-sounding breath. It looked like it took all his strength to lift his head to speak. “She’s in Iceland. There’s an isolated fishing village on the east coast. You’ll find her at the Glacier Point Bed and Breakfast.”
A small smile broke out over the tweed man’s face. He moved to stand in front of Anthony and bent over so they were face-to-face. He pressed the gun barrel into Anthony’s knee. “You better be telling me the truth. I’m going to go confirm. If I find out you’re lying, I will come back, and I will hurt her.” He nodded toward me.
I shriveled at the sincerity in his voice.
He headed for the stairs and left us alone again.
Anthony immediately sagged forward and closed his eyes. Blood continued to drip from his temple, now landing on his pants.
I knew he’d bought us time and I hoped it would be enough to come up with a plan.
It’s just a puzzle, Penny.
I forced a deep breath to fill my lungs. Think. We were both tied up; he was seriously injured, perhaps on the verge of losing consciousness again; and I had nothing more to work with than I had before he’d arrived, other than the knowledge he’d go to desperate measures to save me.
Except for one thing. One thing that the tweed man didn’t account for. I’d willed him not to notice the whole time he was tying Anthony up. I found it a small miracle he overlooked it again when he came back to question him. It might have been our only shot. But getting to it would be risky. And painful.
I weighed the risk and decided it was worth not dying in this basement.
“Anthony!” I whispered.
He grunted in acknowledgment, but didn’t lift his head. His chin pointed at his chest. A stream of blood still trickled down his temple. I ached at the sight. It made me all the more determined to get us out of here.
“Psst! Anthony!” I hissed again, this time rocking sideways to bump him with my elbow as much as I could.
His head bobbed. He angled his face at me a half turn. Blood dripped into his eye and caught on his lashes like red dewdrops. “Hmm?”
“How much time do we have?”
“What?”
“I know you lied to him about where Portia is, so how much time until he figures it out and comes back for another round?”
He blinked away more blood as a small smile twitched his lips. “How do you know I lied?”
“Because Portia hates the cold. She would never go to Iceland.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve read her entire life’s history on the internet. Now, I have a plan. How long until he comes back?”
He cast an appreciative glance at me before he tried for a deep breath. He didn’t get far and winced. “Hopefully, long enough for my ribs to heal. I think he broke them. What are you doing?”
As he spoke, I did my best to hop over closer to him. With a good upward bounce—never mind the zip ties slicing into my skin each time—I could move a few centimeters. I stopped, once my shoulder was flush against his.
“My plan. I want you to bump me.”
“What?”
“Knock me over.”
“What?”
“Look, I know you’ve taken a few hits to the head, but this really isn’t that complicated. If we get enough momentum going, you can tip me sideways and my chair will fall over.”
“Are you nuts? That’ll break your arm when you hit the floor.”
“Perhaps, but your knife is behind me, and I think I can reach it.”
“I—” A breath caught in his throat, and he paused the next argument on his tongue. He shifted his head to glance behind me. “My knife?”
“Yes. It went flying when the tweed man attacked you. He didn’t notice. It’s been there the whole time.”
“The tweed man?” he asked with a curious tilt of his head.
“Yes. I don’t know his name, and he’s always wearing tweed. Do you see the knife? If I land right, I think I can grab it.”
I could feel him calculating: He was weighing the risk of my injury to set us free, potentially versus the beating we both might take when the tweed man discovered his lie and came back downstairs to express his discontent.
“Penny, that’s really going to hurt. How about you knock me over?”
I scooted a centimeter closer again, ready to get to work. “That’s very noble of you, but you’re already injured—”
“Exactly. What’s one more hit?”
“—and you’re twice my size. There’s no way I can knock you over. It’s simple physics: I’m smaller. Now hit me!”
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“Not like that. You know what I mean. Come on. Bump me. Scoot me. Nudge me—Ah!” I yelped when he rocked to his right and then slammed into me from his left. My chair rose up on two legs, but not quite far enough. I landed with a soft thud.
“Good! Do that again, but let me get ready this time.” I braced for impact as he winced. A fleck of blood had escaped from his brow and landed on my thigh in a little crimson dot. The visceral reality of our situation hit me like a gut punch. I took a deep breath. “Okay, ready,” I said.
This time, when he rocked over and slammed into me, I threw all my momentum with it. My chair lifted again, teetering on two legs, and teasing us with a promise.
“Come on, come on, come on!” I begged. I was a domino about to crash. All I needed was a breath of air, a hair to fall into place, a dust mote to land. But the chair wouldn’t cooperate.
“Shit,” I spat when I landed on all four feet again.
Anthony groaned, clearly in pain and now frustrated too.
My skin was raw beneath my zip ties. I’d nearly lost sensation in my hands and feet. But a determined fury burned in my belly.
“Okay, one more time. Give me all you’ve got.”
“Penny, I—”
“Just do it!” My voice cracked in a desperate wail. I felt tears prick my eyes, but I would not let them fall again. Hope wasn’t lost yet.
Anthony glanced over at the fraught sound I made.
“Please,” I begged.
The same last-ditch desperation burned in his eyes. He nodded. And then he came in like a wrecking ball.
I gasped when he slammed into me and I threw everything I had into leaning sideways. The chair went up, up, up, on two legs, and I held my breath.
“Yes, yes, yes! Go, go, keep going!” Anthony pled.
“I’m going! I’m going!” I squeaked. My whole body tensed. I tottered on the precipice, hoping to fall and fearing it at the same time. With one final inch, I passed the point of no return, and the cold, hard floor was all too eager to greet me.
I slammed into it with ten times the force I’d expected. My teeth rattled in my jaw. The chair smashed into my arm like a club. No bones snapped, but surely my arm would be ten shades of purple. My body sagged against the bindings, tearing my skin in at least three places, but we’d done it. I was on the floor.
“Penny?” Anthony asked. His voice hovered above me, cautious and full of desperate concern. “Are you all right?”
The wind had left my lungs and taken my voice with it. “Yeah,” I croaked. “You were right: That hurt like hell. Don’t look up my skirt.” I could feel my dress flipped up around my thighs and exposing my crotch, a consequence I’d overlooked in my plan. At least I had put on nice underwear this morning.
“It’s kind of impossible, given your position, but I promise I’m not looking on purpose,” Anthony said. I detected a hint of a smile in his voice.
I’d worry about my dignity later; there were more important matters to tend to. I moved my hands as much as I could, feeling around for the knife behind me. “Am I close? Where is it?” I’d lost sight of him completely, but the sound of his voice fell over me like a raspy, warm blanket.
“To the left and about six inches back.”
“Inches? I hoped you pushed me right on top of it.”
“Sorry. Next time we’re kidnapped and tied up, I’ll be sure to have better aim.”
I thrust my hips back into the chair as hard as I could, ignoring the pain shooting through my left arm pinned beneath me, and managed to move back an inch. “I mean, it’s really not too much to ask when you think about it. I’m trying to come to your rescue. The least you could do is shoot for accuracy.” I thrust again and moved another inch.
“There you go. Do that again,” he encouraged.
I did it again, sure my left arm was losing a layer of skin against the cold floor. I felt the chair grinding against my bruised bone. “You never answered my question,” I said for distraction.
“Which one?”
Once more, I scooted. “The one about how much time we have.”
He paused as I scooted a final time and felt the icy edge of the blade kiss my fingertips. “Hopefully, enough. There! You’ve got it.”
My hands were half numb and I felt something warm and wet when I gripped the knife’s handle. The zip tie had cut into my skin; I was bleeding. “How sharp is this thing?” I asked as I maneuvered the handle into my palm and the blade beneath the plastic band holding my hands in place.
“Sharp enough,” Anthony said. “Flip it around; the blade is the wrong way. You’re going to cut yourself.”
“Judging by the blood I can feel, I think that ship has sailed.”
“Well, yes. But there’s a difference between a ligature laceration and a blade.”
“Spoken like someone with experience. I thought you weren’t one of the bad guys.” I grunted as I locked the knife into position and began to saw. In that moment, I didn’t know if accidentally sinking the blade into my skin would have been worse than the pain I was already in from the zip ties. It was a true toss-up.
He ignored my sarcastic comments. “You’ve almost got it. Just push down and pull up.”
“Push down and pull up?”
“Push down with the knife and pull up with your arms at the same time.”
“What’s that going to do?” I asked as I did it, somewhat annoyed he was micromanaging my escape attempt.
“It will create leverage. There! Like that. Keep going!”
A high-pitched whine spilled from my lips as I pressed the knife down and lifted my elbows as much as they could go. My hands were either going to fall off, or I was going to pass out from the pain.
“Almost! Almost,” Anthony cheered me on.
Sweat broke out on my brow. I bit my lip and squeezed my eyes shut. I was seconds from giving up, from surrendering and dissolving into a puddle of defeated, bloody tears, when three things happened at the same instant.
The pressure around my wrists released with a snap, Anthony desperately whispered, “Yes!” on a broken breath, and the door at the top of the stairs opened.
I didn’t have time to cut my feet free before the tweed man came stomping down the stairs.
“I told you that you’d regret lying to me,” he boomed in an angry voice while we could still only see his feet. “And now—” He stopped at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the rail, and surveyed the scene.
I was still on the floor, hands behind my back, but head angled enough to see him, and Anthony was still bound to his chair, bloodied and bruised.
“What happened here?” the man asked.
Anthony didn’t speak, but I could feel him silently willing me to do something. What, I wasn’t sure.
I thought as quickly as I could. Flailing my arms at the man would only prompt him to tie me up again, so I played the part of still-helpless victim.
“I had an accident,” I said.
The sound of his shoes scraping the concrete floor came closer. “An accident?” he purred. His voice took on a completely different tone when he spoke to me. Something dark and indulgent, like a big cat playing with its food before he ate it.
My hands twitched with urge to pull my skirt down, but I kept them behind my back. “Yes. I tipped over,” I said.
He leaned down to meet my eyes, and I felt his gaze slowly travel over my bare thighs and upturned skirt. The smell of cigarettes wafted off him in noxious clouds. Checking Anthony’s information on Portia wasn’t the only thing he’d done while he was gone. “Well, I bet that didn’t feel very good, did it,” he said in a low hum. He placed his palm on my thigh and slid it upward. I tensed at the contact, my stomach turning over, and fought to hold still. He grinned and kept sliding his hand higher toward the exposed lace of my underwear as Anthony made sounds of protest I couldn’t make out. My hearing had gone offline. I seethed in rage and fear while a primal instinct buried in the most basal part of my brain took over.
I quietly mumbled.
“What was that?” he asked, and leaned in closer, leering and choking me with the scent of stale smoke.
I lifted my head to meet his eyes and made sure he heard me the second time. “I said, Don’t touch me.” While he was still bent over with his hand on my thigh, I swung my right arm around and drove the knife into his torso. It sank between his ribs with a sensation I couldn’t describe, and never wanted to feel again. Anthony was right about his knife: It was certainly sharp enough.
The man gasped. His eyes went wide in shock before he stood and stumbled back. The knife slipped out, but stayed in my hand and was now dripping blood. I blinked at it in horror, stunned at what I had done. The white noise of shock filled my mind with a buzzing that drowned out everything. I couldn’t be sure how long he’d been calling me, but Anthony’s voice eventually penetrated the haze and broke through.
“Penny! Penny, cut me loose!” he demanded.
I was still staring at the knife in my hand, which had begun to tremble. The man lay on the floor in a heap, moaning and swearing. “Holy shit,” I muttered. “I stabbed him.”
“Yes. Yes, you did,” Anthony said. “Now cut yourself loose so you can cut me loose before he gets back up.”
He’s not dead, I convinced myself based on what Anthony said. He wasn’t going to get back up if he was dead.
“Penny! We’re on borrowed time here!”
The urgency in his voice snapped me back to reality. I twisted to push myself up with my right hand and free my left arm. I yelped in pain, once the pressure of the chair was released from on top of it. The bruise inside my elbow already bloomed like a small flower bed beneath my skin. The limb dangled like a useless noodle. My wrists were bloodied, as were my ankles. I finally took a moment to smooth my skirt as I sat up to free my feet.
“I didn’t mean to stab him,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “I didn’t plan on that.”
“That’s okay,” Anthony said. “You did what you had to do to save us.”
“To save us,” I parroted as I sliced my right foot free.
The man continued groaning. I averted my eyes from the pool of blood leaking onto the floor. The tablet sat on the concrete beside him, where he’d dropped it.
I got my left foot free and struggled to stand on wobbly legs. Vertigo hit me as I stumbled a few steps. How long had I been tied up? I had no idea, but the blood in my body looped around in disorienting ways. I yanked the gag off and threw it on the ground.
The man muttered something that sounded like you bitch as he tried to sit up. I took a step toward the sound as Anthony called again.
“Penny! My hands! Cut my hands free!”
“Yes! I’m coming,” I said as I fled the man rising from a pool of his own blood like a scene from a nightmare. I ran around behind Anthony and sliced through his plastic handcuffs. He immediately grabbed the knife from me and cut his feet free. When he stood, he instantly doubled over in pain, wincing and cursing.
“Yeah, ribs are definitely broken,” he muttered at the floor.
Any hope of him carrying my bruised body to safety was out of the question. He could hardly stand up.
I slithered under his dangling arm and threw my arm around his back. “Come on, big guy. Let’s go.”
We stood, both of us wincing, right as the man on the floor sputtered at us, “Y-you’re not g-going . . . anywhere.” Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth in a syrupy line, and I wondered for a stomach-churning second what I’d hit with the knife. I expected to see him reaching for a gun, but instead he was reaching for the tablet.
“No!” I said, and lunged for it, shrugging off Anthony in the process.
“What are you doing?” Anthony said, and clutched his injured side.
I kicked the tablet out of the tweed man’s reach and then grabbed it. “He was using this to monitor you finding me; we were watching security feed. He said this place is surrounded and everyone had been instructed not to interfere until you got to me. He’s going to tell them we escaped!”
