“Pull yourself together!” Zoe ordered and started cutting her sister’s hands free with the scissors. Her fingers cramped and she, too, was shaking, but she forced the bloody blades open and closed, then sawed with them as Chloe stared in horror. “Come on, come on,” Zoe ordered herself, and shot a glance at the motionless blob that was their abductor. The cords were tough, and part of her longed to crumple into a pile like her sister, but adrenaline and fear spurred her on.

And Chloe was no help at all. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” she chanted, her eyes wild and teary. “Oh, no . . . no, no!” She began to pant, gasping for breath.

“Shit.” Zoe winced, working one prong of the scissors into the coils of a fat knot.

The cord over Chloe’s wrists weakened and finally gave. “Come on, help me with your ankles,” Zoe ordered, but Chloe was shivering and wild-eyed, panting and damned useless.

“Chloe!” Zoe gave her twin a sharp shake, then worked at the ropes around her twin’s ankles. “Come on. We have to get out of here. Now!”

“No. Oh, God. He . . . he!” She was staring petrified over Zoe’s shoulder, and for a split second Zoe thought the freak had awakened and was dragging himself up to pounce again. A quick look confirmed he was still unmoving. Hopefully dead.

Still, her twin was frozen in place. “I . . . I can’t . . . he . . .”

“Stop it!” Zoe ordered.

“I . . . I . . . I can’t.” Chloe sobbed, staring at the naked man prone on the floor, blood still pumping in a dark pool blooming around his body. “I—”

Slap! Zoe swatted her twin on the cheek.

“Ow!”

“You can and you will,” Zoe insisted, finally untying the rope around Chloe’s ankles.

As Chloe started unwinding the cord from her neck and kicking her feet free, Zoe spied a ladder propped upward, extending through a hole in the ceiling.

Zoe pulled Chloe to her feet. “Come on, let’s go!” Even in the garish half-light she could see a red welt rising on her sister’s cheek. Zoe didn’t have time to care. Served the ninny right. Propelling her sister toward the ladder, she took one last look at the freak still bleeding out. “Get going!” she commanded. “Up!”

“Geez, you didn’t have to hit me.” Chloe was rubbing the red spot above her jaw.

“Yeah, I did. Now! Up, damn it. Climb!” What was wrong with her twin?

With maddening slowness, Chloe began the climb up the teetering ladder. Come on, come on, come on! Zoe mentally urged, right on her sister’s heels. Impatient, she pushed her upward on the unsteady rungs. As Chloe reached the top, the great unknown, Zoe heard a pained groan come from behind them, an ugly noise rising from the shadows.

Her heart sank.

The freak wasn’t dead.

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3