Creep - Jennifer Hillier [93]
As if she was going to be here awhile.
She watched him from the bed. His body was relaxed and unmoving, his nostrils flaring in and out in rhythm with his snoring. The butt of the gun poked out about three inches from the top of his jeans, covered slightly by his T-shirt, which had pulled up to reveal the brown patch of hair that trailed from his belly button to his crotch.
Her captor was asleep.
Her mind flooded with possibilities.
If she was jackrabbit quick, she could have the gun out and pointed at him before he was fully awake. She could keep it trained at his head, as he’d done with her so many times, and she could make him tell her what the code was to get out of this room. With a gun to his temple, surely he’d give it to her.
But what if he refused? Sheila frowned. Of course he’d refuse. Should she shoot him in the leg? The arm? Leave him immobilized on the sofa, writhing in pain? He’d have to tell her then, wouldn’t he?
She swung her legs silently over the edge of the bed, her mind made up, then stopped as another thought occurred to her.
How many bullets were in a gun that size? Was it fully loaded? Was there some kind of safety mechanism she had to turn off before it would fire? She cursed herself for not taking Morris up on his offer to teach her how to shoot a gun. Then again, Morris had hunting rifles, which probably didn’t work the same way at all. Was she supposed to just point and pull the trigger? What if she missed? Did the gun reload automatically or would she have to do something to . . . chamber it? Was that even the right word?
The questions swirled around her head like ingredients in a recipe doomed to fail. The longer she stared at Ethan’s motionless body, the more desperate she felt to make a move, but she couldn’t decide if the risk was worth it. What if he came at her? She wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet between his eyes. Assuming she could hit her target.
Then what? With Ethan dead and no code to get past the door, what next? The gun looked so small and the door was heavy—she had banged on it plenty of times when he wasn’t around. It felt thick and impenetrable. Could bullets that small blast through it? If they couldn’t, she’d be stuck down here with his dead and rotting body. Oh, God. She’d die a slow, painful death from starvation because nobody knew where she was. Hell, she didn’t know where she was.
Unless . . . unless there was a phone in Ethan’s bag somewhere. She had never seen one, but that didn’t mean one didn’t exist. Her own phone might be in there. Wherever this place was, it had cell phone reception—he had made her call Morris’s answering machine from her BlackBerry and the message had gone through just fine.
Yes, it was definitely worth the risk.
She planted her bare feet on the floor and stood up. She eased toward Ethan, afraid to breathe.
Three steps in, he opened his eyes.
“Don’t even think about it.”
His voice was perfectly clear. His hand moved to the butt of the gun. Her heart sank. “What are you talking about?” she said, backtracking. “I was going to the bathroom.”
He sat up slowly, never taking his eyes off her. “Don’t fuck with me, Sheila. You should see the look on your face. You were going for the gun, weren’t you?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t even know how to use it.”
He took the gun out of his waistband and rested it on his thigh, keeping his finger on the trigger. “I thought things were better between us. Why do you want to fuck that up?”
“Okay.” She relented immediately. Ethan’s face was pink with anger and this was not the time to play stupid. “Okay, I was looking at it. It makes me nervous, Ethan. It scares me.”
“I thought we were building trust. This really disappoints me.” His bleary eyes were sad.
Sheila stood her ground. “Trust? You want to build trust? You can start by getting rid of that thing. What do you need it for? I can’t overpower you, and