Page 86 of Lost on Ice
As I make my way to the sidestreet next to my building where my car is parked, I remember that I had an unread message from earlier, so I dig it out of my pocket. My heart flutters when I see I’ve got a text from Jake. He sent it about an hour after the game ended. I reach my car as I open the message. He’s coming home tonight! And he wants to talk. I wonder what about?
Whatever it is, I’m just glad that he’ll be home. I’ve missed him so much. I get in the car, key in hand. Putting my phone down, and move to turn the car on?—
A dark movement in my rearview mirror catches my attention.
What the hell?
I freeze when I realize there’s someone there. Sitting in my backseat. I feel something cold and metallic press against my temple and hear a distinct click.
A gun.
Fear like I’ve never known washes through me and I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t scream.
All I can do is sit and stare.
The mysterious person in the back is wearing a ski mask, their face entirely covered. When they speak, their voice comes out harsh and laced with static… as if they’re electronically modifying it somehow. And they only say a single word.
“Drive.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ABBIE
I feel nauseous,and my head is throbbing with one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had.
Slowly, I blink open my eyes and am so disoriented, I can’t comprehend anything I’m seeing for several long moments. Slowly, my brain catches up to my eyes and I realize I’m in some sort of barn. It’s old and drafty, with rusty and broken tools and farm equipment scattered around me. It smells of chicken detritus.
What the hell? How did I get here, and why…?
Why can’t I move my arms?
I jerk them, then wince as pain shoots up my arms, my wrists burning as they’re rubbed raw by rough rope. I’m tied to a chair, my hands bound behind me.
It all comes back to me at that moment.
Holy shit.
He had told me to drive. I did as I was told, driving until I didn’t know where we were anymore. Well outside of Ivy Glen, but in my terror, I lost all sense of time and direction. I don’teven know how long I drove for. We reached a farmhouse, and when I pulled up in the driveway and put the car in park, a musty rag appeared in front of me and covered my mouth.
Then, nothing.
Until now.
Panic seizes me and I look around desperately, trying to make sense of any of this. I can see through the broken windows that it’s still dark outside, so I can’t have been here long. Did Sophie call the police when I didn’t show up for our night out?
Does anyone even know I’m missing yet?
My coat is gone and I’m freezing cold in this drafty barn as the frigid night air seeps in through the cracks and separated boards along the walls, but I hardly notice as I begin hyperventilating.
Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Did he just get me? Did he follow me from Dad’s house? Does he know where Lilah is?
I never texted Jake back. By the time he gets home, I could be dead, and he’ll never know what happened to me.
I’ll never see him or Lilah again. My stomach twists and I struggle not to vomit as tears stream down my cheeks.
“Hello?” I call out, my voice raw and raspy. My words catch in my throat and I have to cough to find them again. “Is anyone there?”
No response. The only sound is my panting breaths and the wind whistling through the cracks in the barn.
