Warren glared at her. "Is that the best you could come up with? I don't even go to movies, and I know that you wouldn't have a check already."

"It's coming. Direct deposit. I'll have the money any minute now."

"Just shut up, all right? Don't talk to me. You're being put out of your misery, so if anything you should be grateful."

He climbed to the top of the ladder.

* * *

It took a moment for Olivia to feel scared.

Her eyes wouldn't quite focus, though she realized that he had a knife, and though she wanted nothing more than to be free of this prison she wasn't ready to die. She wanted to be rescued. Somebody should have rescued her by now. Somebody should have kicked down the door.

Olivia wanted to move her head away from the blade, but she couldn't make her neck work. Nor could she speak to beg him to stop.

She couldn't feel anything.

Had he started killing her yet?

Then she felt a sharp sting in her left ear. He'd shoved the knife in, deep enough to hurt, deep enough to make her bleed, but not deep enough to kill her. She didn't know if he was purposely drawing it out to scare her, or if he was hesitating because he didn't want to go through with it.

She hoped he didn't kill her.

Even if she died in this cage, she didn't want to die now.

A sudden intense pain. And then nothing.

* * *

Gertie screamed.

Some blood dribbled onto the cement floor—not much—and then Warren climbed down the ladder. He moved it over to Gertie's cage.

There was no way she could fight him off. But she was damn well going to try. Getting slashed up by him would be a much worse way to go than simply letting him shove a blade into her brain, but she didn't care. She was going to resist this asshole until she was free or until she was dead.

Warren climbed up the ladder.

"Get the hell away from me," Gertie told him.

"Don't resist. It'll be a lot worse for you if you resist."

"Then it'll have to be a lot worse for me."

She kicked at the ladder. He slammed the knife into her upper thigh, plunging in deep. Gertie cried out in pain, then cried out again as he wrenched the knife free. He held up the bloody blade.

"Do not make this difficult," he said, spittle flying from his mouth.

Gertie kicked at the ladder with her other leg. He plunged the blade into that leg, yanked it out, then stabbed her again in the same spot.

"What the fuck is the matter with you?" he asked. "You lucked out by having her show up! Do you really want to go through the hell on earth that the other women suffered? Are you that stupid?"

She heard a patter as drops of her blood hit the floor.