I don’t want to alert Dixon by sitting up, so I feel around with my legs and arms.
Nothing. There isn’t a single thing back here that I can use against him.
My eyes fly open when the truck rolls to a stop. No, it’s too soon. I haven’t had time to prepare.
I have nothing. Nothing but my limbs and a will to live. That’s what it’s going to come down to, right? Why would he have brought me all the way out here to the woods?
The truck door creaks open. My shaking hands ball into fists. I close my eyes, pretend that whatever the hell he put me to sleep with is still working.
A pulling, ripping sound fills the quiet mountain air. I haven’t heard it in years, and yet my brain knows it immediately. Duct tape.
I fly up onto my feet and jump from the truck, landing unevenly on the dirt and falling to my knees.
“What the fuck?” I hear the shout from the other side of the truck.
I pop up, ignoring the stinging in my knees, and run. A cloud has covered the moon and it’s pitch black. I stay on the road, because I know I won’t make it in the trees. The land is too foreign, and I’m not wearing shoes.
I hear him behind me. His exhalations mix with my own. He is close. In mere seconds he will overtake me, but I can’t stop.
He tackles me from behind, and we both fall, rolling off the road into the dirt and pine brush. The taste of earth covers my tongue and I fight, twisting and turning, kicking and screaming.
“Shut the fuck up,” Dixon hisses in my ear, locking his arms around me and crushing my arms to my body. I kick and throw my head back, connecting. I yelp in pain, but so does Dixon. Something wet hits my neck, and my stomach lurches when I realize it must be blood.
It makes him mad. He tightens his grip around me, struggles to stand, and turn so his side is pressed to mine. I can still kick, but now I cannot kick him. I try, but my legs swing through nothing but air. He drags me this way back up the dirt road.
“Why?” I ask, but Dixon doesn’t answer.
I begin to cry.
He drags me to his open truck door, reaches in, and places the soft cloth back over my mouth.
Again.
It happened again.
But now, everything hurts, not just my head. And I’m not moving. I’m not in the truck.
I blink my eyes open. I’m sitting on a floor. I’m propped against a wall and a chair, but I’m outside. Cool air skims my face. Things are coming into focus now. The trees swaying in the breeze, the railing of a porch, the three steps down to solid ground. The porch is surrounded by a semi-circle of twenty-five feet of flat, open land, and then the woods begin. Perhaps the open land continues farther, but from my position I can’t see.
My wrists are duct taped, and so are my ankles.
Dixon is nowhere to be seen, but I can feel him lurking somewhere. Maybe he is watching me, enjoying the show as I wake and try to understand where I am.
The same fire that filled me when I awoke in the truck fills me once more. I refuse to go down without giving it my all. My gaze darts around, trying desperately to see the darkened shapes, find anything sharp I can rub the duct tape across. I just need to free my legs, so I can run.
I scoot a few inches on my bottom, glancing back at the house to see if my movement was noticed. When nothing happens, I do it again. And again, until I’m close to the railing. Now that I’m closer, I see the wood is old, and I’m hoping somewhere along its length will be a jagged piece. My fingers run along, and I keep scooting, desperately hoping to find what I’m looking for. I’m so intent on my task that the metallic slam of the screen door sends a terrified screech up my throat and into the tense night air.
All my hope disappears as I listen to his lazy walk over to me.
“Have to hand it to you, you’re quite the pistol,” Dixon says, gripping under my arms. He pulls me back, but instead of putting me back in the place where I woke up, he leaves me front and center on the porch.
“Get