She gives a couple trial tugs on her foot, and sighs in frustration. She’ll get no more than a couple inches of runway before impact, but she thinks it’ll be enough.
It has to be.
Letting out a quick breath, Jessie kicks down, her right heel driving straight into the bed knob. There’s a crack, and she thinks maybe it cocked a little. Quickly, she repeats the kicking motion and this time the knob vanishes, followed by the bump-bump of the knob bouncing on the hardwood floor. Her foot, having passed through the space previously occupied by the bed knob, kicks into air, scraping her ankle along the splintered wood of the broken bedframe. She hisses in pain, but follows it with a breath of ecstasy, relishing the feeling of freedom on the right side of her body. Twisting onto her side, she kicks at the other knob, this time with the full thrust of her freed leg. It snaps off on the first try.
Her heart racing, Jessie has the unnerving feeling that time is of the essence, that her window of freedom is closing. She sits up, claws at the thin rope dangling from her wrists and throws it aside, then pulls it from each ankle. Part of her is surprised at how poorly secured she was, and then thinks of the vomit on her pillow.
They think I’m still out. Whatever they gave me, however they drugged me, I puked it up. I ….
A chill runs through her as she looks again toward the door. The voices of men in the hallway. The opening door down the hall, in the direction of her friend’s room.
Blake.
Jessie rolls from the bed, fights off a wave of lightheadedness, and staggers across the room. She takes a steadying breath, listening … then slowly twists the handle and cracks open the door.
The hallway is dim, but she can make out two doors near the end of the hall to her right. Between them sits a moonlit window. The door on the opposite side is Brad’s room. The one sharing a wall with her own is the bedroom Blake had chosen.
Both doors are open.
Jessie hears a noise to her left and flinches. She looks toward the sound, clocks the banister between her and the stairs, and two more doors. One, she knows, is the bathroom. The other is the room where Tom was sleeping. Both are closed.
What’s happening here?
A sudden noise pulls her attention back to the right, toward the hallway’s dead end. On bare feet she walks softly, one hand rubbing the wrist of the opposite arm, where the tight, thin rope has abraded her skin. She hears what sounds like…whimpers. The sound a woman might make if a hand is pressed against her mouth. It’s followed by what she can only think of as sounds of a struggle: the jerking scrape of furniture, panting breaths, a hard slap, a grunt.
Jessie takes a few more steps, the noises coming from Blake’s open doorway broken only by the sound of her own pounding heart.
There’s a moment of quiet and Jessie instinctively stops, waiting. Then, a second later: “Ow! Damn it, you bitch!”
Then Jessie hears Blake. She’s crying, straining against someone. Jessie takes three quick steps and pushes open the door.
Blake is on the bed. From what Jessie can see in the dim light, she’s naked, legs splayed, ankles tied to tall bed posts. Jessie’s not sure if Blake’s hands are tied, but she knows at least one is free because it’s reaching upwards, wrist held tightly by the man on top of her.
Brad.
Like Blake, he’s also naked, except for a pair of boxer briefs, luminous white against his tanned legs and back.
Jessie breaks from her shock, slowly coming to terms with how dangerous the situation is. She looks around the room for something to use as a weapon, fighting the slow, thick responses of her brain, aftereffects of whatever drug Brad slipped into her drink. She doesn’t spot anything obvious but notices a small antique table against the adjacent wall. She imagines lifting it high and crashing it down onto Brad’s fucking skull ….
A door creaks behind her. Jessie spins in time to see the bathroom door opening. Trapped, she has no choice but to step deeper into the bedroom. She presses her back to the wall behind the door, praying she’s lost in shadow.
A few moments later, Tom enters. He walks casually over to the bed. Jessie hears him chuckle. “You need help, man?”
“Fuck you, this chick is strong.”
“Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to play with your food?”
“I know, I know,” Brad says, breathless from struggling with Blake. “But I kind of like this one.”
Jessie notices that Brad has one hand over Blake’s mouth, the other gripping her wrist for all he’s worth as she struggles to gouge out his eyes.
“Yeah, I gotta shut her up. We don’t want Jess waking up. At least not yet.”
Tom nods, then pulls something free from his belt. Jessie strains to see—a flash of metal catches moonlight. Eyes wide with terror, Blake turns her head toward Tom. For a moment, Jessie thinks maybe she spots her standing beside the open door, a phantom of a best friend stuck in helpless shadow.
Then Tom punches Blake in the side. Pulls back, punches her again.
No … not punches, Jessie thinks, the shock rising like a wave, dousing her slow wits, her disrupted logic. Not punching.
Stabbing.
“Jesus, dude! I wasn’t done,” Brad snaps, a petulant toddler, his hand still clamped over Blake’s mouth as she screams into his palm, her eyes fluttering as the mattress beneath her turns black with blood.
Tom takes a step back, like he’s winding up, then plunges the bloody knife down into Blake’s chest. There’s an audible snap, like the breaking of bone, as it enters her heart.
Not thinking, not caring, Jessie steps out of the shadows. “Stop!”
Both men turn to look at her. Tom, his pale face spattered with Blake’s blood, stares wide-eyed, mouth hung open in an almost comical pose of stunned disbelief. Brad, twisted awkwardly while still straddling Jessie’s best friend, scowls at her, his black eyes filled with fury.
“Hey,” Tom says, shockingly genial, lifting the hand not holding the knife in a sort of pathetic wave. “You’re up.”
Jessie’s brain registers pieces of the scene, split-second moments that coincide with the pounding of her heart.
… thump …
Blake’s blank, empty eyes, staring at the ceiling.
… thump …
