Panic overwhelmed her for a few moments, but quickly wore her out. She lay still on the stinking garbage, trying to think.

She had never been a brave person. She had never had a sense of adventure. She had never had the nerve to live life on the edge of disaster. Marissa had been the owner of those qualities, but Marissa was dead. Marissa couldn’t coax her through this, goad her into action, dare her to go beyond her limits. Yet that was what she needed if she wanted to have any hope of living through this.

The first thing she needed to do was sit up so she could better view her surroundings.

On the count of three ...

With her right hand behind her head, she blew out a breath and tried a sit-up.

It felt like someone was trying to ram a hot iron rod through her left shoulder. Gina cried out, fell back the few inches she had managed to raise her shoulders. This was what she got for ignoring her gym membership.

Do it again. On the count of three ...

Like a weightlifter straining to push the barbell over his head, she shouted as she fought for it. Her head was pounding with the physical struggle, her blood pressure spiking.

Fight for it! Fight for it!

The voice urging her on was Marissa’s.

Gina screamed out. Colors exploded behind her eyelids, squeezed shut against the strain. And then she was sitting up—dizzy, sweating, nauseous, weak, but she was sitting. She pulled up her good left leg, wrapped her good arm around it and pressed her cheek against her knee. She was shaking from the effort.

Damn you, Marissa. This is all your fault.

You went along with it, G.

No one was supposed to get hurt.

It didn’t matter now.

Gina took another look around her prison. She had never been in a well before. She was a city girl. She wouldn’t have even known what a well was if not for television and the movies.

There were serious cracks in the walls, and places where the concrete had fallen away completely. To her right was a series of iron rungs leading up to the top. It would have been an easy way out if she had two arms and two legs. To climb that high in the state she was in ... How could she? She had almost passed out just trying to sit up.