‘I think so.’ Addis was already shifting her weight as nerves comingled with hope at the thought of escaping before they suffered the same fate as her parents. Yet, despite her resolve to stay strong, her mother’s still form and her father’s shattered skull, his mutilated body, the lake of blood that had littered the kitchen floor flashed in her mind, and several seconds ticked by before it registered that the mewling howls echoing around them were coming from a dark cavernous abyss within her chest. Her parents couldn’t be gone, especially not her dad; he just couldn’t. It wasn’t possible. How could she be a daddy’s girl without a daddy?

This time, it was Emerson who tried to soothe her.

Five seconds or five hours later, the ache deep inside subsided to a dull throb, and she dropped her head onto her raised knees. ‘God, Em, the last thing I said to my mom was that she was a delusional nutjob who needed some serious psychiatric help.’ She struggled for air to breathe through the pain of repeating those words out loud.

‘Addis, stop! You couldn’t have known what was going to happen. And let’s be honest, your mom was always accusing you of stupid shit. That doesn’t mean she deserved to die the way she did, but you can’t own this guilt. Besides, we can deal with that later, after we get out of here. But we’ll do it together, just like we do everything else. Right now, you have to keep it together. Do you hear me?’ Emerson’s sharp tone bit through the devastation and despair, but it did nothing to erase the truth of what Addis’s future held – death or loneliness.

As Emerson struggled to untie her hands, Addis saw something glint in the trickle of light coming in through the hole, and she twisted in an effort to see what it was. ‘Wait,’ she whispered, kicking her leg out to try and drag the object closer.

‘What are you doing?’ Em asked.

Addis’s response was a series of grunts as she maneuvered the object enough to lean over and pick it up. Her heart raced as she held it in her palm, running her thumb carefully over the pointed, sharp edge. ‘I think it’s a piece of glass or broken pottery. Maybe we can use it to try to saw through these ropes.’ The possibility of escape edged closer than she’d allowed herself to hope.

However, her tiny drop of optimism was short-lived when the hair-raising sound of grinding gears reached her ears. A wave of nausea gurgled up her esophagus, their aid to freedom slipping from her hand as the vehicle’s approach grew closer.

Chapter Twelve

Friday, October 4

A woman in a dusty rose A-line dress and with long, wavy mahogany hair pulled up into a high ponytail answered the door.