Page 84 of Protecting Josie
Fumbling around, searching for something,anythingshe might be able to use to make some sort of mark on the wall, Josie gasped when her fingers closed around what she thought might be a coat hanger. Ametalcoat hanger, tucked into the corner behind her.
Even in the dark, it wasn’t hard to twist it apart. It was more difficult to write what she wanted on the wall, since she couldn’t see.
When she was done, she twisted the hanger into what she hoped was a sort of weapon. She didn’t like violence, but if it came down to her or someone else dying, she’d do whatever it took to get back to Nate.
The thought of him made her breath hitch with a small sob. What was he doing right that moment? Was he pacing his apartment, wondering where she was? Was he driving around Riverton, hoping to catch a glimpse of her?
No, he wasn’t doing either of those things. Her boyfriend had probably called in all the resources he had at his fingertips and was doing all he could to track her down. That thought gave Josie confidence.
She was going through different scenarios in her mind about what she could do if Millie or Gen opened the damn door, when it actually happened.
Caught unawares, she lost the element of surprise. And itwouldn’t have mattered anyway, because even the dim light in the basement was so bright after so long in the pitch darkness that Josie was basically blind.
“Get up,” Millie growled.
Josie didn’t want to. For all her wishing and hoping she could get out of that closet, suddenly it felt as if it was the safest place she could be. She had no idea what Millie had in store for her, but it wouldn’t be good.
“What’s that? Shit. Drop it!” Millie exclaimed. “I’ll shoot you, I will! Drop the weapon!”
Her eyes had adjusted to the light coming in from the basement, and Josie’s blood ran cold at the sight of Millie pointing the damn gun in her face once more. For a split second, she considered leaping out of the closet and doing her best to bury the sharp end of the coat hanger into one of the older woman’s eyes. But instead, Josie put the hanger down.
She wanted to live. And all it would take was one twitch of Millie’s finger and she’d have a bullet between her eyes. She couldn’t live the rest of her life with Nate if she was dead.
Slowly, hoping not to spook Ayden’s mom, Josie crawled out of the hole she’d been stashed in. The basement looked even more trashed now than it had when she was led to the closet. The path she’d taken had been obliterated. Millie and Gen must have scattered the junk all around them to hide the closet. To make it look as if walking through the years of accumulated crap was impossible.
Smart. And infuriating.
“Put those on,” Millie ordered, pointing to a pair of handcuffs sitting on top of a plastic bag. They were rusty and looked ancient.
Josie hesitated.
“I’ll shoot you and won’t feel an iota of remorse,” Millie warned. “But I won’t kill you. A bullet in your brain would be too quick. Too painless. No, I’ll shoot you in the knee and make you walk on it. Put on the fucking cuffs so we can get on with this.”
Josie wanted to ask get on withwhat, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. And her voice still wasn’t cooperating anyway. Even if she wanted to plead for her life, once again try to convince Millie that it wasn’t her fault Ayden had died, she couldn’t.
Reaching for the handcuffs, Josie tried to think of a way that maybe she could pretend to put them on, but with Millie’s impatience and her finger on that trigger, she couldn’t think of any way to get out of having to shackle herself.
Slowly, feeling dread rise within her, she encircled one of her wrists and tightened the cuff. The clicking sound of the device locking was terrifying.
“Now the other one,” Millie ordered, waving the gun at Josie’s face.
The dread increased as she managed to get the cuff around her other wrist.
Millie laughed then. A sinister, horrible sound that would stick with Josie for however long she had left to live.
“Time to go, bitch. Just remember, you’re getting everything you deserve. Karma will have her say. Upstairs.Go.”
It was almost impossible to walk across the boxes, bags, and piles of trash around the basement, especially with her hands cuffed together. Josie’s balance was thrown off time and time again, and she couldn’t use her hands much to keep fromfalling. Every time she went to her knees or fell to the side, Millie laughed.
It felt as if it took hours to get to the bottom of the stairs, where there was finally a path leading up to the main floor. Josie had never been so grateful to step on a crooked, broken stair tread in all her life.
She cringed when she felt Millie poke the small of her back with the barrel of the pistol. “Hurry up. I want you gone before your boyfriend comes back.”
Josie froze, and she whipped her head around to stare at Millie. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
Millie cackled. “That’s right, bitch, that ridiculous-looking redhead was here with two of his friends. We let them look around, but of course they didn’t find you, just like we knew they wouldn’t. Then they left. They aren’t coming back, and they aren’t going to save you from what I have planned for you. So if you’re hoping for some sort of last-minute rescue, it’s not happening. You’re going to wish you were dead long before someone puts a knife through your stone-cold heart. He should thank me for saving him from the same fate as my Ayden.”
Josie’s heart was beating almost out of her chest. Nate had been here? She knew it.Knewhe’d figure out who’d kidnapped her!
