The Rope: An Anna Pigeon Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

strap. It was heavy, nearly full. Thirst made unbearable by this promise of water, Anna jammed it between her thighs and awkwardly unscrewed the cap with her right hand. A bit slopped out, and she groaned at the waste and the luxury. Carefully curling it against her chest, lest it be too heavy to hold one-handed, she bent her head, locked her mouth around its metal lips, and drank deeply.
    For a moment she felt good, almost giddy with relief. She drank a second time, then screwed the metal cap back on tightly. Her captor had left water for her. That meant he didn’t want her to die.
    Didn’t want her to die yet.
    If he wanted her alive, that meant he’d be coming back.
    Daylight was nearly gone. Night was when predators hunted; at least the cats in New York hunted at night, as did the thugs for the most part. Would her predator make his appearance soon? Hours by herself to look forward to, with only her mind to play with and rocks to keep her company. She was beginning to understand why solitary confinement was such an effective punishment. She wanted her abductor to come even as she feared it. At least, after he came, she would know how frightened to be.
    The sky turned from blue to gray to black so absolute the circular walls of her jar seemed to glow in contrast. Stars, bright enough Anna mistook the first for an airplane, pierced the inky eye high above. Clear and sharp, they seemed no more than a hundred feet from the sand and, paradoxically, incomprehensibly far from earth.
    Cool air poured into the hole, welcome at first, then chilling. Silence settled like concrete as she strained to hear the approach of a car engine or a footstep, the stealthy scratch of boots on rock.
    Lethargy claimed her. Stars became supernovas, then blurred. Her bladder emptied, yet she hadn’t the energy to move to clean sand. Fragments of thought bloomed, and in the blooms were serpents of color. Her shoulder no longer hurt, and the pain in her head hid behind a curtain of thick felt. Legs and arms were leaden, too heavy to move.
    The water in the canteen was drugged.
    When the monster came she would be unconscious, helpless, as she must have been when he’d taken her clothes and pack and wristwatch. She’d been drugged then, too; she should have known it from the hangover, the amnesia, the way her mind wouldn’t work, drugged and stripped naked and hurt, smashed on the head, her arm dragged from its socket. Had she fought back?
    Pushed by terror, the torpor receded a few inches. It was only a short reprieve. A night blacker than the one above was coming to claim her. She roused herself enough to scream. The breathy uhhn didn’t get more than a foot from her lips.
    She cried, then stopped. Yelled weakly, then quit.
    Inner darkness pooled with that outside her skin. Soon she would drown in it.
    “What the hell.” Her words were slurred and her head heavy with stupidity as she fought to her knees. No light, she found her way by touch. Using her good hand, she laid the knuckles of her useless arm’s hand on the sand palm up. “Gravity sucks,” she mumbled as her body swayed, threatening to topple her. Inch by inch she eased her left knee sideways until it was in the middle of the palm.
    “Shit, shit, shit,” she whispered and, with what strength she had left, jerked upward. An agony of pain cut through the drug haze as she heard bones grind and snap and settle. Clutching her arm to her, she fell back moaning. After a minute agony dispersed, leaving behind soreness and a wild itching as blood moved through her veins into her fingers. Either she’d resocketed the bone or the drug was masking the consequences of the attempt. Chemical darkness clogged her eyes. Like a puppy, she curled up. She wanted to pray but wouldn’t let herself.
    The Bastard didn’t exist and didn’t deserve to hear from her anytime soon.

SIX
    Long after the Candors and Heckle and Jeckle, as Regis dubbed them, had gone to bed, Jenny sat on her porch and