Page 5 of Honest Neglect

“What does that mean?” I called after him—or I tried to call, but the water had caught in my throat and I couldn’t get a word out. I descended into a coughing fit, trying to control myself, but it was too late. He walked out of there, leaving me with a million more questions than when I had arrived, and I was still stuck in this damn chair with no idea where I was in the world.

Once I had managed to catch my breath, I leaned back slightly, trying to pull myself together. It was going to be okay. I was going to get out of here. I didn’t know who exactly Mark had intended to come see me soon enough, but I wasn’t going to wait around to find out. I doubted he would send in anyone who would help me. I could already imagine him pulling in the people I cared about to torment me with, making me watch as he made their lives hell right before my eyes. I didn’t know where these men would stop at this point.

I didn’t know if they would stop at all.

I quelled the rush of panic in my system and tested the limits of my bindings again. They dug painfully into my skin, the bite of plastic hot against my flesh. Okay, so they were probably zip-ties. That was good to know. I could break them, right? I had to. I couldn’t sit around here, waiting to see what Mark and his cronies had in store for me.

My hands were starting to sweat from the exertion. That would give me a little lubrication. I started to work my wrists up and down inside the ties, trying to get used to the feeling of them tugging at my skin. I just needed to loosen them up a little, and then I would be able to get out of here.

I tried to pull myself out but felt the skin around my right wrist tear painfully. I let out a cry but pressed my lips together to try to stifle it. The last thing I wanted was for them to know they had me struggling and suffering. Hell, it wouldn’t have surprised me to find out that Tony had set up a camera in here to watch my pain. It was the sort of twisted thing he got off on.

As I gathered myself for another attempt, I tried not to think about the dead girl. Marcy. We had never gotten her name, but hearing it now made her all the more human to me. Knowing that the two of us had gone through the same thing, had suffered at the hands of the same man, and that her fate had been as brutal as Mark seemed to claim it was? It made me sick. She didn’t deserve that.

None of us had deserved anything that Tony had done to us.

With that thought in my mind, I used my renewed strength to go back and start trying to loosen the ties once more. My hand was slippery with blood now, and I bit down hard to hold in the pain as I yanked my right wrist out of the binding.

I felt a surge of triumph as I held my bloody right hand in front of me. It hurt like hell, but I could deal with that later. I tried to get to my feet, only to find that the chair was secured to the floor. I looked down to see what was pinning it and saw that someone had done a haphazard job of cementing the chair to the ground.

So I needed to get both hands free before I could run. I could see the light coming around the frame of the door Mark had just closed behind him, and I stared at it for a moment. See? It was right there in front of me. All it would take was a little more hard work, and I would be out and into the sunlight beyond. They couldn’t have taken me that far, could they? How far exactly did their influence span?

My phone! Wait, had they taken that, too? I prayed they had somehow made a mistake and left it behind as I reached down to check if it was there, but my pockets were empty. They must have taken it. And I didn’t have a lock on it right now. They could have been using it to fire off texts to anyone they wanted.

Not that it was my main focus right now. No, my main focus was getting out of here.

I leaned down to my other wrist and brought my teeth to the zip tie, chewing on it hard. It tore at my gums and nipped at my skin, but I pushed through it. I could feel it starting to weaken as I began to apply a little pressure to it with the outside of my wrist, and then, all at once, I broke free.

I flexed my fingers, quickly pulling off the shirt I was wearing to wrap it around my bloodied right hand. I had a tank top on underneath it, and the cold prickled at my skin a moment later. I knew I couldn’t risk staying here much longer. Mark hadn’t given me any indication how long it would be before my visitor was due to arrive, and I didn’t want to find out just how far he was going to take it when they did.

I was about to dive for the door when a sound froze me to the spot. Footsteps. I strained to see if I could hear voices, but no, it was just one person. Was it Mark coming back already? Maybe they had seen me making a break for it on their cameras or something, and now they were going to lock me up and throw away the key.

I jumped back into my seat, slipping my hands behind me and praying that nobody noticed what had changed since Mark had been here. The door opened, and sure enough, it was Mark. And when he raised his eyes to meet mine, I knew that whatever torture he had in store for me was only just beginning.

Chapter Four

Warren

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TWO DAYS.

Two damn days locked up in this place. I couldn’t believe it. I thought Frank would have gotten me out of here in a day, maybe a day and a half tops, but right now, it was drawing in on forty-eight hours since I had arrived, and they still hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to let me out.

I had been stuck in a tiny cell with nobody for company, which was something of a relief. I didn’t want to have to deal with whatever other criminals were locked up in here, though it wouldn’t have surprised me to find out that a fair few of them were just in on the whim of whatever McCarthy they had pissed off recently. The cops had mostly steered clear from me, and Frank had come down a couple of times to fill me in on what was happening with the case.

“It’s going to be okay,” he had promised me the day before, but there was a lack of sincerity to his voice that worried me.

“You really believe that, Frank?” I asked him.

“No, but I’m working on it,” Frank replied. “I managed to convince them to give you a visitor. Diane’s coming to see you tomorrow.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. That was something. I really wanted to make sure Diane was okay and get an update on what was happening in the outside world.

With Lily, specifically. She was the one I had been thinking about the whole time I’d been in here. How could I not? I missed her so much, and I was so worried about what might have been happening to her. I had tried to listen in on any conversations the cops had been having in my presence, but I hadn’t heard a thing about a missing woman. Which was either a good sign or not.

Or I couldn’t even consider the alternative.

Right now, I was waiting for Diane to arrive. I never thought I would be so happy to see my next-door neighbor, but right now, I needed all the allies I could get.