Page 11 of Descent
I couldn’t draw in a full breath, pressed between what I wanted to do, and what I needed to do. Zach hadn’t touched her yet. He hadn’t taken her off the island. But he would as soon as he got hold of the key. And what if he explored the cabin before taking her from me forever?
Every twisted and wrong idea I’d entertained, had even prepared for, came at me like a fucking wrecking ball.
“I’m not giving you the key.”
Something lit his eyes, and I realized my mistake too late.
The slip-up of all slip-ups.
“You have it on you, don’t you?” Triumph braided his tone as he narrowed the distance between us by another inch.
“No, it’s back at the cabin. You’ll never find it.”
His lips turned up at the corners. “I don’t think so. I think it’s right here in this room.” Another step, another moment closer to getting his hands on my wife.
My pulse did double time. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. My entire body went rigid in preparation. Zach reached for the pocket in my pants, and I struck, lifting my knee and catching him in the groin. Wheezing his wrath through clenched teeth, he bent over, face darkening to a deep red-purple hue.
And that’s when I really went on the offensive.
Grabbing the chains above my trapped hands, I hoisted myself off the ground and came down on his shoulders, wrapping my legs around his neck in a variation of a triangle chokehold born of desperation. The brunt of my weight cut into my wrists, but I didn’t give a fuck.
Not as long as I had him, and I intended to kill him. He thrashed for a few seconds, frantic fingers clawing at me to let him go. Then he went limp, and I doubled down on the pressure.
It wouldn’t be much longer now.
And that’s when Military Dude pried my legs from around Zach’s neck. Alex’s tormenter dropped like deadweight, irritatingly out of reach as Shelton’s guy pummeled me in the stomach until I lost my breath.
Until my hope fractured and my eyes burned from the pain. It still didn’t compare to the pain Alex would endure if Zach got his hands on that key.
“You’re lucky the boss wants you alive,” Military Dude warned, his beefy face flushing with color incongruent with his blond hair. He was so pissed he looked ready to burst. Zach awoke a couple of minutes later and crawled to his feet, huffing shallow breaths through tight lips.
“He’s got the key on him somewhere,” he rasped out past his bruised throat.
“Don’t you fucking move,” Shelton’s guy said, holding the gun to my head as he searched my pockets. Time seemed to stop as he withdrew the gold chain from which a single key dangled.
The key to Zach’s ultimate triumph.
The key to my ultimate failure.
The key that would end Alex’s life as she knew it.
7. Shock and Submit
Alex
Zach hadn’t returned since he’d come and gone with lunch and another water bottle. As each dark second ticked past with no sound of life coming from above me, I started to panic.
Where had he gone?
When was he coming back?
Was he even coming back?
The scenarios plagued me. The what-ifs. What if he’d wrecked his car and was laid up in the hospital somewhere? I couldn’t care less about his well-being, but until someone found me down here, I was at his mercy. I needed him for survival, and I hated it.
I was close to needing a paper bag to breathe into when I heard it. The faintest of sound. A door opening. A thump. Feet on the stairs to the loft bedroom?
He was back.
And then, for the longest time…nothing.
I railed at the darkness surrounding me, fought tears that begged to fall for the hopeless isolation that trapped me. I was going mad down here.
I was going to die down here.
“Please, please, please, please…” The chant was a whisper on my parched lips. A friend to my lonely ears. It had been a day since I last saw him. Maybe two.
It felt like a fucking eternity.
And I knew I was in trouble now that I welcomed the sight of him. Now that my sandpaper mouth yearned for the water he could give me, and my belly grumbled for the food he could provide.
Footsteps.
Above me.
I tilted my head and imagined the nondescript ceiling from my perch on the cot, free of spackle or other interesting patterns that could keep a person company, if only there were light to see by. Another footfall landed, and I tracked the noisy movement above me. A few moments later, the cellar door creaked open. Sharp light flooded the space, and I blinked until the ache in my temples subsided.
The way his boots hit each step, with deliberate and careful footfalls, set me on edge more than usual, because his presence owned the air around me. Zach managed an unhealthy dose of smugness in everything he did—the way he talked, the way he smiled, the way he moved.
