Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [259]
Tess’s eyes searched and found what looked like a door. It was difficult to tell. The wood blended in with the rest of the shack. Only a couple of rusted hinges and a keyhole gave it away. Of course, it would be locked, maybe even bolted from the outside, but she needed to make an attempt.
She sat up slowly and waited. Again, the nausea sent her head to the pillow.
“Damn it!” she shouted, and immediately regretted it. What if he was watching, listening?
She needed to concentrate. She could do this. After all, how many hangovers had she survived? But her surroundings only added to her vulnerability. Why was he doing this? What did he want from her? Had he mistaken her for someone else? A fresh panic began to crawl in her stomach. She couldn’t think about his intentions now or about him. She couldn’t think about how she got here. She wouldn’t think about any of it or it would immobilize her exactly like the contents of that syringe.
She rolled onto her side to assuage the nausea. A sharp pain pierced her side, and for a brief moment she thought she had rolled onto a spike. But there was nothing there, only the hard, lumpy mattress. She moved her fingers up under her blouse, noticing the hem had already been pulled out from her trouser’s waistband. A button was missing and the rest were off a buttonhole.
“No, stop it,” she scolded herself in a whispered rush.
She had to focus. She couldn’t think about what he may have done while she had been unconscious. She needed to check and see if she was okay.
Her fingers found no open wound, no sticky blood, but she was almost certain one of her ribs had been broken or badly bruised. Unfortunately, her past afforded her the knowledge of what broken ribs felt like. Carefully, her fingers probed the area under her breasts while she bit down on her lower lip. Despite the stabbing pain, she guessed bruised, not broken. That was good. She could function just fine with bruised ribs. Broken could sometimes puncture a lung. Another piece of trivia she wished she didn’t know firsthand.
She slipped a foot out from under the covers and dangled it close to the floor. She was barefoot. What had he done with her shoes and stockings? Again, she glanced around the room. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, though her vision remained a bit off focus and her contact lenses felt gritty. It didn’t matter. There was nothing more to see in the shack.
She let her toes and the ball of her foot touch the floor. It was colder than she expected, but she kept the foot there, forcing her body to grow accustomed to the change in temperature before she tried to stand up. The air in the shack felt damp and chilly.
Then she heard the beginning tap-tap-tap, soft against the roof. The sound of rain had usually been a comfort to her. Now she frantically wondered how badly the rotted roof leaked and felt a new chill. She knew the bucket in the corner hadn’t been placed there for leaks. Instead, it was meant to accommodate her. He obviously intended to keep her here for a while. The thought reawakened the fear.
She pushed herself out of the cot and stood with both feet flat on the cold floorboards while she bent at the waist and held on to the bed. Again, she bit her lip, ignoring the taste of blood, fighting the urge to vomit and waiting for the room to stop spinning.
Her pulse quickened. The sound inside her head hummed like wind in a tunnel. She tried to concentrate on the tap-tap-tapping of the rain. Maybe she could find some level of comfort, some level of sanity, in the rain’s natural and familiar rhythm. A sudden rumble of thunder startled