tell them to get help. You have to go tell them right now." But Michael's voice sounds hollow, like he knows in his heart that Jacob is right, pleading with their captors will be useless.
Veronica kneels next to Diane and examines her closely. The wounds on her back have clotted, blood loss couldn't have been that severe. She doesn't look dehydrated. Marathon runners sometimes die from hyponatremia, the opposite of dehydration, but that's clearly not the problem either.
"She's in shock," Veronica says. "Does she have a heart condition?"
Michael shakes his head. "No. Always been healthy as a horse."
"Then it's probably not cardiogenic. Just psychological shock and exhaustion. I think she'll be better once she rests."
Better but not healed, Veronica doesn't say; psychological shock often leads to post-traumatic stress disorder, and she has a nasty feeling there will be plenty more trauma to come before any of them get out of this.
"Are you a doctor?" Judy asks.
"A nurse. I used to work in an ER."
Michael seems reassured. Veronica doesn't tell him she hasn't practiced for seven years.
A figure breaks through the curtain of the waterfall, a strong man carrying a woven thatch basket strapped to his back. The cave fills with clanking noises as the basket is emptied. The one-eyed man takes a length of chain in his hands, stands, and turns towards the captives. He is smiling. Veronica shivers.
* * *
They start with Derek. First they take his shoes, watch, belt, and camera, his little day pack, and everything in his pockets. Then they wrap a length of chain tightly around his ankle, seal it with a small steel padlock, and run the other end through the fist-sized natural hole in an oblong rock the size of a watermelon. Susan is next to be stripped of her possessions, which are piled with Derek's near the waterfall. Both the chains looped through the anchor rock are fastened to a large padlock, its hasp almost too big for the fingernail-sized links. The locks and chains are rusting but solid.
Veronica is next. She rises to her feet as the one-eyed man approaches, tries to be cooperative. She doesn't resist as he searches her roughly, not even when his hands squeeze and linger on her breasts and crotch. She tells herself at least he's only touching her through her clothes. She tries to pretend she isn't really there, that this is happening to someone else. Her pockets are emptied. Her second Snickers bar is taken. She wishes she and Derek had eaten it instead of saving it for the others.The cigarettes in her cargo pants are soaked, useless, and Veronica feels a sudden and powerful pang of regret that she hadn't smoked them. She would maim for a cigarette right now.
When he removes her belt he discovers the Celtic knot tattooed onto the small of her back, and traces its lines with his rough fingers. She stands motionless until he begins to probe beneath her waistband, then she pulls away and turns around, ready to shout and fight back at last - but he is already crouching before her, wrapping a chain around her left ankle, pulling it tight, locking it with one of the little steel locks. It won't impede circulation, but she knows it will chafe her skin raw, and there's no way she will get her foot loose. The other end of the chain, which is about twenty feet long, joins Derek's and Susan's chains on the big padlock. Veronica sits back down on her rock and stares dully at her new chain anklet. At least they have all been chained together, they will not be dragged away one by one. It is thin consolation.
Soon they have all been attached to the anchor rock, and the big chromed padlock is snapped shut. No key is in evidence. Veronica is thirsty again, and desperately hungry. She watches as all their possessions are collected in two jute sacks. At least she managed to hide Derek's Leatherman. That's something. Maybe Derek can pick or smash the lock and lead them all to escape. Maybe he's Superman and he can just fly them all out of here.
The one-eyed man produces his panga, and everyone tenses; but he uses it only to cut free their arms. The relief is acute. Her shoulders still feel wrenched in their sockets, and her hands are still full of weirdly damped sensations, but Veronica thinks, as she flexes her wrists, that maybe the damage isn't permanent after all. It feels