“Hello? Can someone help me? Please? I’m in the mine!”
There was no answer; calling out seemed futile. The guy who’d stopped before was gone.
Her throat too raw to continue, she got to her feet and made another attempt to climb. She had to save herself before it grew any darker. But she slipped and slid down on her aching bottom. Nothing worked. The walls were irregular and too steep, and the pile of broken and fallen beams, jutting out in all directions, gave her slivers when she tried to use it for support.
What now? she asked herself. The person who’d thrown her down here had only beaten her enough to get her to comply with his demands. He hadn’t raped her. But the moment she dropped her guard or became too distraught, the memories of what it’d been like that other time—the night of the party—washed over her, lapping higher and higher, like the incoming tide, until her mind was saturated with the past and she felt no different than the terrified girl she’d been at sixteen.
It was the smell, she decided. The smell conjured up that night as vividly as though she’d just lived it.
Sweet sixteen and never been kissed, one of them had breathed in her ear.
Hugging herself, she began to rock. She was shaking so hard she could hear her teeth chattering but couldn’t stop. Was she in shock?
Would she even think of shock if she were?
Either way, she had a black eye. There was little doubt about that. Her face throbbed where she’d been struck, full-on, by a man’s fist. She’d broken a couple of fingernails trying to fend him off. She could tell those fingers were bleeding. All the digging to create handholds or footholds or find crevices that might lead out hadn’t helped. She guessed the scratches on her arms and legs from the many tumbles she’d taken were bleeding, too, but she couldn’t see whether that was really the case. Not anymore. The light filtering through the opening was almost gone.
Would she have to spend another night in this place?
The prospect of that, of the cold and the rats and the fear of flooding, made her rock faster, back and forth, back and forth. It hurt to move, but she had to concentrate on something or she’d go crazy.
“You—you are powerful. You are...c-capable. You can overcome.” This kind of self-talk had fostered the determination that had carried her through the long hours so far, close to seventeen if her guess was accurate. It was at least 3:00 a.m. when she’d been dragged from her bed, wasn’t it?
She wasn’t sure exactly. She only knew that, after two and a half days of being “home” to take care of Gran, she’d been awakened by a man who whispered that he’d “stab the old lady” if she screamed or tried to escape; and that was all he had to say. She’d do anything to protect her grandmother Milly, even relive the nightmare of fifteen years ago. But he’d simply issued a terse warning telling her he’d kill her if she ever talked about that graduation party and then threw her down the mine shaft.
It was a miracle she hadn’t been more badly hurt. The demolition they’d done after Cody’s death had felled most of the support beams, sealing off some of the deeper crevices, or she might have fallen much farther.
“Hey, you still down there?”
Her heart lifted with hope. The man she’d heard before was back!
“I’m here!” she called. “C-can you help me? You have t-to help me. I don’t want to spend another night in here.”
“Another night? God, what happened to you?” he said, but she could tell he was busy and not waiting for an answer. He’d probably ask again once the pressure was off. For now, he seemed focused on the task at hand.
Closing her eyes, Adelaide tilted her head back and let the tears she’d refused to shed roll down her cheeks. She’d made it through another traumatic experience. The boys from Whiskey Creek hadn’t broken her yet. She’d survived. Again.
“I have a rope. Do you have the strength to hang on to it long enough for me to haul you up?”
If she tried, she’d fall. Not only was she battered and bruised, she’d had barely three hours of sleep before being abducted. Dressed in the shirt and panties she’d worn to bed, she was shivering violently. And she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in over a day.
She wanted to be brave, to say she could do whatever getting out required, but she felt as helpless as a baby. It’d taken everything she had just to stave off the panic and despair. Now that someone had arrived, now that she had support, the adrenaline that’d kept her going left her drained.
“I...don’t think so,” she admitted.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “I won’t leave you again. I’ll stay here all night if necessary, okay, Addy?”
She hadn’t realized her emotions were that apparent. She wished she could maintain a stiff upper lip, at least until she got home and could fall apart in private. But she had no more reserves of any kind.
Fortunately, the gentleness in his voice and the commitment behind those words made her feel as if he’d wrapped a warm blanket around her shoulders. “I—I appreciate that,” she stammered, and meant it.
“I’m going to make a loop. All you have to do is slip it over your head and down under your butt. Can you do that?”
She was still conscious. She had to be capable of doing that much. “I’ll try.”
It was now completely dark. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, let alone the end of a rope coming toward her, but he had a flashlight that illuminated the area above her head. “Do you see it?”
“Yes,” she responded when it nearly hit her in the face.
“Great. That’s the first step. Put it on. I’ll wrap this end around a tree so I can keep from falling in with you if I lose my footing. Then I’ll start bringing you up.”
He hadn’t asked how much she weighed, how her size compared to his. He was a guy; he expected to be bigger. But not all guys were. At six feet, she was taller than most women and a good number of men, too. Although she’d always been thin, she wasn’t convinced he’d have the strength to raise her.
Should she tell him the job might be more difficult than he expected and risk having him decide to go for help instead?
No. She couldn’t wait another second. Maybe he’d drop her on the ascent, but if this was her only hope of getting out now, she was taking that chance.
After wiping her tears, she did as he instructed. “Ready.”