Page 78 of All Wrong
Was this death? Or had she broken her neck?
She had no idea how long she remained in suspended animation, but eventually, she began to feel things again. It was mild at first. A tingle here, a zap there. Then the sensations intensified until she was consumed with white-hot, blinding pain across not just her head, but her whole body too.
Then her sense of smell returned. The pungent metallic scent of fresh blood and, less obvious, sunbaked dirt and dry scrub.
The screech of a hawk far above signaled the return of her hearing. The distant rush of … flowing water?
She couldn’t see anything. Then, she realized her eyes were squeezed shut. She opened them slowly and saw nothing but blue. The bright, brilliant cloudless blue of the late summer sky. The blindfold had come off at some point during the tumble from hell.
There wasn’t an inch of her not aching or screaming in pain. But she was alive.
Very, very carefully, she took stock of hersurroundings.
If she had any doubts about being granted a miracle, they were quickly dispelled. She’d landed on a rocky ledge, barely large enough for her body.
Above, a steep incline of rock and scrub and the occasional epilithic trees and plants that had beaten the odds and somehow found a way to root and grow in the crevices.
Below, much of the same and then, at the bottom, a shimmering band of water.
She was on the slope of a ravine, deep in the middle of nowhere. No one knew where she was. Hell,shedidn’t know where she was; although, if she had to guess, she’d go with the Adirondacks or upper Appalachians based on the shape of the mountains and the trees covering them. When she was younger, she’d done her share of hiking up and down the East Coast.
Given the way things were at home, no one would be looking for her anytime soon.
On the positive side, there was no sign of her captors. Chances were, they hadn’t been as fortunate.
Taking a moment, she offered up another prayer.Thank you. I won’t let you down.
First order of business: get rid of the zips aroundher wrists. Mercifully, her miracle ledge seemed to be made of shale and had a sharp edge. It took a while, but she kept at it and managed to saw through the plastic. Then, she began the long, arduous climb upward.
It was weird how, when one looked back, seemingly random, unrelated moments in life suddenly didn’t seem so random. Like those self-defense classes she’d taken with Lacie. The rock-climbing excursions Brian had goaded her into. The weeklong survivalist camp getaway package she’d booked two summers ago, just because she’d wanted to do something different.
Huh.
She’d been climbing for what felt like hours when she came upon the body. Wide eyes, frozen open and in terror, stared back at her. The unnatural angle of his thick neck assured her he was no longer a threat.
She’d never seen a dead body in its natural state before. It looked different than the prepared corpses she’d seen at wakes and viewings, and surprisingly, it wasn’t as creepy without the makeup.
She forced herself to search his pockets for something, anything, that might be useful and came up empty. No phone. No keys. No wallet or identification.The other guy—the one who had ass-over-ended it with her down the slope—must have taken the keys and phone with him when he continued his journey downward, presumably to the bottom of the ravine.
She couldn’t waste time worrying about that, however. The guy before her could still prove useful. He had clothes. And shoes.
Swallowing her revulsion, she set her mind to the task, telling herself it was a matter of survival. If she wanted to make it out of this alive, bare feet and tattered shorts and a tank top weren’t going to cut it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NICK
Nick checked his phone. Seven p.m. Time for Corinne’s dance class.
He hadn’t seen her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t around. Just that she was avoiding him, like she’d said.
Yeah, good luck with that, he thought grimly. Because as good of an idea as that sounded, it wasn’t really working for him. She was on his mind all the time. The image of that look in her eyes when she’d asked him to go was burned in his brain.
In doing what he’d thought was right, he’d hurt her. Worse, he’d done it at a time when the last thingshe needed was another slice of crap on the shit sandwich life was shoving in her face. Because losing her job and her home wasn’t enough, he’d had to tell her that the epic sex they’d had was nothing but an error in judgment—and a regretful one at that.
He really was a dick sometimes and probably the last person she wanted to see, but that wasn’t going to stop him because, as he’d already established, he was an asshole.
He moved down the hallway toward the cluster of multipurpose rooms, his hopes rising when the muted thump of bass grew louder. He’d just take a quick look, assure himself that she was fine, and keep going.
