Mud Vein(4)

“Senna?” I hear my name. I look back at his face. Any minute I expect to wake from this nightmare. I will be in my own bed, underneath my white comforter, wearing my own pajamas.

“Senna,” he chokes. “Cut me loose … please…”

I hesitate.

“Senna,” he says again. “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s me.”

He leans his head back against the pillow and closes his eyes like he can’t stand the pain.

I hold the knife tightly and chop at the white fabric that is binding his arms. I can barely breathe—never mind see. I slice his skin with the tip of the knife. He flinches, but doesn’t make a sound. I watch his blood pool in fascination before it streams down his arm.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “My hands are shaking. I can’t—”

“It’s all right, Senna. Take your time.”

Funny, I think. He’s the one tied up and he’s reassuring me.

I make it through his other hand binding, and he takes the knife from me, cutting his own legs free. I silently panic. I shouldn’t have handed over my knife. He could be … he could be the one…

It doesn’t make sense.

When he’s through, he springs off the bed, massaging his wrists. I take a step away from him … toward the door. The only thing he has on is a thin pair of pajama pants. Someone put those on him too, I think.

And then I say his name in my mind: Isaac Asterholder.

When he looks at me he narrows his eyes. “Is anyone else here? Have you seen—”

“No,” I cut him off. “I don’t think anyone is here.”

He immediately makes for the door. I flinch as he passes me. I want my knife. I linger in the doorway, not sure what to trust. Then I follow him. He searches the rooms while I cradle my wrist. If someone attacks us, he will be their first target. I need something sharp to hold in my hand. We descend the stairs and Isaac tries the front door, yanks hard when it won’t open, slams his fist against the wood and swears. I see him eye the keypad, but he doesn’t touch it. A keypad on the inside of the house. Whoever put us here gave us the option of getting out.

After he’s made a thorough search of both floors, he looks for something to break a window.

“We could both lift the bench,” I offer, motioning toward the heavy wooden table in the kitchen. Isaac rubs his temples.

“Okay,” he says. But when we try to lift it, we find that there are smooth, bronze bolts locking it to the floor. He checks the rest of the furniture. It’s all the same. Anything heavy enough to break a window is bolted to the floor.

“We need to get out,” I insist. “There may be tools to lift those bolts. We can find help before whoever brought us here comes back. There has to be something near here, somewhere we can go…”

He turns toward me suddenly angry. “Senna, do you really think that someone would go through all the trouble to abduct us, lock us in a house and then make it easy to get away?”

I open and close my mouth. Abducted. We’d been abducted.

“I don’t know,” I say. “But we have to at least try!”

He’s opening and closing drawers, rifling through their contents. He swings open the fridge and his face visibly pales.

“What? What is it?” I rush forward to see what he’s seeing. The refrigerator is large, industrial-sized. Every shelf is stocked without an inch of space to spare. The freezer is the same: meat, vegetables, ice cream, cans of frozen juice. My head spins as I take it all in. There is enough food for months. I grab a large can of tomatoes and throw it at the window as hard as I can. I throw it with my left hand, but fear propels it forward at an impressive speed. It hits the window with a muted thud, and drops to the counter, rolling backward toward the floor. We stare at it, dented on one side, for several minutes before Isaac bends to pick it up. He tries, pulling his arm back like a pitcher and letting it shoot from his fingertips. This time the thud is louder, but the result the same. I run back to the front door, throwing myself at the handle. I scream, slamming my fists against the wood, ignoring the searing pain in my injured hand. I need to feel pain, I want to. I pound and kick for a solid minute before I feel Isaac’s hands on my arms. He pulls me away.

“Senna! Senna!” He shakes me. I stare up at him, my breath coming quickly. He must see something in my eyes, because he wraps me in a hug. I shiver against his warmth until he pulls away from me.

“Let me see your wrist,” he says gently. I hold it out to him, flinching as he pokes at it gently with his cold fingertips. He nods in approval at my makeshift sling. “It’s a sprain,” he says. “Did you have it before you woke up?”

I shake my head. “I fell … upstairs.”

“Where did you wake up?”

I tell him about the room at the top of the ladder, how I found the key.

“I think I was drugged.”

He nods. “Yes, we both were. Let’s go take a look at this room. Also, if there is power, there should be heat. We need to find the thermostat.”

We make our way back up the stairs.

I look at his face. His dark eyes look bleary like he’s coming down from a high—except he doesn’t take drugs. Not even for a headache. I know a lot about this man. That’s what’s shocking me the most. Why am I here? Why am I here with him?