Page 104 of The Executioners Three
And second: another figure moving into Freddie’s vision. Someone taller, broader, and draped entirely in shade.
Edgar,she thought hazily as she hit the floor.Are you Edgar?
The world went black.
It was the bells that roused Freddie. Three sharp peals that reverberated through her brain. Shredded at her skin.
Thrice rings the bell,she thought groggily, as her eyes opened. As white snow and bitter cold swept in.No chance to atone.
The world hung sideways, dark forest and frozen shadows. Freddie knew, without words actually forming in her brain, that she must be in the county park. How she had gotten there, though…
That was a mystery. One neither her brain nor her gut could unravel. Her head pounded. Her left wrist was a burning throb. And her stomach roiled like vomit was on the way.
She blinked away snowflakes on her lashes. Nothing looked familiar from her spot upon the snow. It was just an army of skeletal pine trees. Row upon row, awaiting their marching orders.
If Freddie were smart, she would stand up and figure out where she was. If she were smart, she would get up and try to run. But that feat seemed impossible. Too high, too far, too challenging.
You’re delirious,she chided.You need to get up, Gellar. Now. You will freeze to death if you don’t.
She didn’t get up. Instead, she thought back to the Frame & Foto. To the glass front door, that she’d almost reached. Then she thought back tothe white cloth that had been shoved into her face. And to the gleaming sheriff’s badge.
At that thought—at that memory—a gag reflex scorched up Freddie’s gullet. Hot and heavy and surging in too fast. She tried to rise. Tried to haul herself onto her knees before the bile surfaced. But as soon as she drew her hands beneath her, she found her body didn’t want to comply.
Itcouldn’tcomply.
She was bound.
Freddie vomited then. It burned out of her mouth and down her face. There was no time to worry about that nor time to clean up or brace for the next gag, rising fast.
Freddie was tied up, lying on the snow. And she was all alone in a dark, dangerous forest.
She blinked down at her arms, fighting the next round of nausea. Her wrists were bound with a zip tie.Just like you saw in Mrs. Ferris’s attic.Attached to the zip tie were a pair of handcuffs—also familiar—and those in turn were fastened to another zip tie around Freddie’s ankles. She couldn’t even unfurl her body if she wanted to.
She was well and truly trapped, stuck in a crooked fetal position while frostbite and hypothermia shivered in.
Okay, Gellar,she told herself, swallowing back more bile.You can do this. Tamp down thoughts. Tamp down feelings. Focus only on the task at hand.
With a grunt, a shove, and greatclenchingof her abdominal muscles, Freddie rolled upright. The forest dipped as blood rushed from her head. She blinked. Then blinked again until the trees righted themselves.
No familiar markers stood out in the darkness. No archives hut nor gravestones with candles. However, if Freddie listened… Yes. Great cracks split the night every few seconds—and she knew that sound.
Ice.
Freddie must be somewhere near the lakeshore, and the lake must have already frozen over. It was months too early, but she couldn’t say she was surprised. After all, third came the ice, wreckt upon the stones. Then thrice rang the bell, no chance to atone.
Freddie had heard the bells. Now she heard the ice.
And that meant, at least according to the poem, the Disemboweler would be hunting.Theo,she thought. He’d been on his way to the hospital after the Frame & Foto. Surely Edgar Jr. couldn’t have gotten control of him there. Assuming Edgar really was using something like hypnosis to control the descendants of the first Executioners, wouldn’t that require privacy and solitude?
Something about that tickled at Freddie’s brain. Although it vanished as quickly as it appeared. She was too cold to think clearly. She needed to get out of this snow, out of this forest—and to do that, she would need to get out of these zip ties.
Thanks to a bored afternoon with Ibrahim during her last internship, Freddie actually knew how to get out of zip ties: if you use something small and sharp to release the fastening mechanism, you can slide them right off. The problem was, where was she going to find something small and sharp in the middle of a snowy forest? Paper clips like she’d used that day were, unfortunately, not in abundance here.
But you have something even better.
Freddie laughed. A shuddering, frostbitten laugh because this Fortin Prep uniform was turning out to be more useful than she ever could have predicted.
It took her numb fingers two attempts to release the safety pin holding her shirt together. And once the pin sprang open, a fist-size gap suddenly opened on her chest. But she scarcely noticed the fresh cold and wet against her skin; all her attention was on maneuvering the safety pin into a zip tie’s fastener.
