Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
The lock on the outside clicks into place.
I bang on the lid, crying hysterically. “Let me out.”
Heavy footsteps fall on the floor. A door shuts with a mockingly quiet click. A second ticks past. Two… Nothing but silence follows.
I can’t breathe. There’s not enough air. I suck in the thin oxygen like a suffocating person, the effort hurting my chest.
Filling my lungs with the precious air, I scream until I faint.
Days could’ve passed. Or hours.
Only one thought keeps me from losing the battle against insanity.
Noah.
I have to stay alive for my baby. I have to fight for my son.
I mutter his name while touching my knuckles like the beads of a rosary. It’s a trick my mom taught me to calm myself when I was scared as a child. Like a prayer, I repeat his name, over and over.
Thumb. Noah. Forefinger. Noah. Middle finger. Noah. Ring finger. Noah. Pinky. Noah. Noah, Noah, Noah…
I’m so absorbed in my prayer that I don’t register any sounds until someone opens the lock.
When the lid lifts, I blink against the sunbeams that cut through the room. After the complete darkness, even the faint light spilling from the holes in the cardboard hurts my eyes.
Hulk hauls me out and puts me on my feet. He’s still wearing the army fatigues, but he smells clean, as if he bathes and changes clothes regularly.
Unlike me. I smell. My hair is oily and my skin sticky.
My joints and limbs are useless from being squeezed into the cramped space without moving for endless hours. They fold in on themselves like a puppet with snipped strings.
The man grabs my arm to hold me up.
“Tatiana.”
A shiver rakes down my spine. For a while, I’m not sure how long, I’ve forgotten my own name. I hate how he says it. His accent is heavy. Russian, I think.
“It’s time to make a choice.”
No.
I want to scream, but my vocal cords are too raw. I can’t make a sound.
Noah, Noah, Noah…
“The trunk or water?”
I want to cry, yet my eyes have been dry for a long time now. They seem to be as dehydrated as the rest of me.
I manage to squeak out, “No, please.”
“Now, now.” He clicks his tongue. “That’s not an answer.”
Sagging in his hold, I let my legs give out. It feels as if my arm may pull out of my socket, but I don’t have enough strength left to fight.
“I’m waiting, Tatiana.”
I shake my head. If I say water, he’ll ask me questions I can’t answer. Then it’s back to the trunk.
His voice is deceptively gentle. “Where’s the necklace? Tell me where it is, and you can have a glass of water.” He reaches out and takes something from the darkness. “Here. Listen.”
Bells ring through the air, pure and angelic.
“It’s nice and cold.”
Ice cubes, not bells. Aren’t they the same?
I feel myself going, giving in to the mercy of darkness, but a rough shake jerks me back to the cruel present.
“Do you want a sip?”
“Yes.” I shiver with anticipation. “Please.”
“Then tell me where the necklace is.”
I utter a cry that doesn’t even qualify as a sound. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He sighs. “Come on.”
No!
My scream is silent as he drags me back to the trunk. With a single push on the center of my breastbone, I go down, falling onto my back. I don’t have the energy to pull my knees to my chest. Hulk does it for me, folding me double before he forces the lid down.
Click.
When he pulls me out again, I simply go with the flow, letting him dump me on the floor.
“Tatiana.”
I know that girl. In a distant corner of my mind, I remember her face. Her history seems intimately familiar. I try hard to focus because if I get the questions right, I can have that water with the tinkling bells. No, ice.
“Where’s the necklace?”
I curl into a ball, not wanting to go back into the trunk.
“Where did you hide it? At home? Somewhere else? In a safe?”
Safe.
An image of a metal box pierces my memory. Gold letters on a black façade.
“Did you bury it like a treasure?”
Four numbers flash through my mind.
“My poor Tatiana.” Hulk hauls me up by my arm. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” I rasp as he heaves me toward the trunk, my uncooperative legs dragging behind me.
He pauses.
“Prosperity.”
His voice sharpens with his greed for answers. “What was that?”
“Prosperity Bank.”
“Are you sure?”
I see it clearly now, the black building with the big glass doors.
I nod.
Somewhere, a door opens with a squeak. Footsteps fall on the floor.
Hulk speaks. “Get the car ready, and send Oxo to get her cleaned up. Give her the broth but only a few spoons. Otherwise, she’ll vomit it up.”
Not the trunk, I want to say, but Hulk lowers me into the chair.
He leaves with whoever he’s addressed, closing the door behind them. Unless he was speaking to me? Panicking, I claw at my knuckles.