Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(66)

But Griffin’s fingers weren’t working as eagerly on my knots as mine were on his.

After I finished telling him all about how our mutual acquaintance Bobby Aaron had dropped all his classes except one and would be back in the fall, starting his seventh year at school, Griffin sighed. “I’m not going to be able to get this untied.”

“But we’ve barely even started trying,” I said.

“My fingers are too big and the knots are too small.”

“Keep trying.” My fingers were busy at his knots. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought that I was definitely making progress.

Griffin’s fingers brushed the insides of my wrists. They went still. “When he cut off your clothes... I thought he was going to rape you in front of me. I-I thought...”

I stopped working at the knots too. I had been afraid as well. And if that had happened, it I’d been violated that way, would I have been able to function afterwards? I couldn’t think about it. “He didn’t.”

“I couldn’t get away from them,” he said. “There you were, right there, so close. I could see you were afraid, and I couldn’t—”

“Baby, I don’t blame you. I’m okay. Let’s concentrate on the knots, all right?” I picked at a particularly stubborn one with my fingernail.

“That’s what he does to me,” said Griffin. “He makes me helpless.”

“You aren’t helpless,” I said. “You can untie me. We can get out of here.”

But Griffin didn’t move. “He’s going to kill us both. He’s going to kill you, and he’s going to make me watch.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not what’s going to happen. We’re going to get free.” And, as if to punctuate my point, I loosened the knot on Griffin’s wrist. Two tugs, and he was untied. “See?”

“You did it.” He was amazed.

I could hear him shifting behind me, turning so that he was facing the knots. He started to work on the knots at my wrists again.

We were both quiet for a bit. I wished I could help him, but I couldn’t reach my own knots. I chewed on my lip, trying not to make any noise when he pulled on the rope, and it bit painfully into my skin.

He worked at it for a long time.

Outside, we could see that it was getting darker. Night was coming. It made the basement even gloomier.

“Doll, I can’t,” he finally said.

“Well, maybe if you could get your feet untied, then you could find something in the basement that you could use to cut me free?”

“Maybe.” I heard him shift again.

And then the basement door opened.

We could hear the sounds of several people on the steps, and then Marcel and two of the men came into view. One of the men was carrying a drill. The other held several packages of padlocks.

They went to work installing them on the outside of the basement door.

Marcel came over to us, brandishing his switchblade. He cut the ropes holding me. When he noticed that Griffin’s hands were free, he laughed.

Apparently, he’d only intended to tie us up until he could secure the basement door. With the padlocks on the outside, ropes were no longer necessary.

Marcel cupped Griffin’s face with one hand. “Might as well f*ck her while you’ve got the chance, huh?”

Griffin lunged for Marcel, but when he moved he dislodged his blanket.

Marcel sneered. “Gonna wrestle me naked, Griffin?”

Griffin gathered the blanket around himself.

Still laughing, Marcel backed away.

He and the men retreated to the top of the house.

We could hear them tramping around upstairs, laughing and talking.

“Why did he take our clothes?” I said.

“Because people feel vulnerable without them,” said Griffin. He leaned up against the concrete wall, closing his eyes. “Fuck it, we are vulnerable.”

I wrapped the blanket tight around me and tiptoed over to the basement door. It was a wooden door with four small panels of glass set in its center. I rubbed at the grimy window, trying to get a look at the three padlocks they’d installed outside.

“It’s not going to work, doll.”

“What if we broke the window?”

“How are we going to get those padlocks off?”

He was probably right. The panes of glass were too small for us to wriggle through. That door wasn’t the way out. I climbed the steps instead and tried the door there. Near as I could tell, there wasn’t a padlock on the other side of it, but it was locked as well. There was something about this door that Naomi had told me. What was it? I rattled the knob, trying to force the answer from my brain.

But I couldn’t remember, so I came back downstairs.

Wrapping my blanket tight around me, I curled up next to Griffin, holding onto him tightly. He didn’t hold me back.

*

Marcel seemed to think it would be fine for us to use the grate in the basement for a bathroom. The hose was down there too, so at least I could rinse the smell away. But it was disgusting and barbaric. I was going to kill this man. But first I had to get Griffin away before Marcel shattered him completely.

I seemed to have stopped bleeding. I supposed that was another gift from the serum, because I was pretty sure that a miscarriage, even one as early as mine, should last longer than a couple of days. I was glad, because it was easier to deal with everything without having the inconvenience and pain of the blood. It was also good not to have the constant reminder of what I’d lost.