“What? Why?” Hope turned to her, confused.
“It’s him. He did this to us.” It was the only thing that made sense. Chance hadn’t woken up in here with them. He obviously had a key to the door since Hope had said it was locked. He didn’t appear to be fighting off the effects of being drugged, and he was the only other person there in the last thing she could recall besides Aggie. Summer prayed that Aggie was safely back at home and that Chance hadn’t killed her. If Aggie was safe, she could tell the cops what had happened. Provided she could remember enough to tell them something useful.
“That’s ridiculous,” Hope said. “He came to rescue us.”
If she could shake some sense into her friend, she would. Instead, Summer darted to the kitchen intending to search for a knife.
“Chance, tell her she’s wrong.”
Summer didn’t care what he claimed, she knew he was the one who had abducted them.
“Chance?”
She rifled through another drawer, but there was nothing useful in any of them.
“Chance, tell her. Please,” Hope whimpered.
“Chance is gone. I’m here now,” said a sinister voice that both sounded like Chance and did not.
“What's wrong with you? Why are you doing this? It isn’t funny. Stop now. Please,” Hope begged.
Instead of answering, Chance wrapped a hand around Hope’s wrist and dragged her back to the bed. Her friend didn’t fight back, just stared at Chance, stunned. He snapped a cuff around her wrist, then secured the other end to one of the metal rails in the wrought iron bed.
Summer was torn. She didn’t know if she should try and run and get help, hoping that Chance wouldn’t hurt Hope, or if she should try to fight him. Either way, she wasn't very confident that she would be successful. She still hadn’t completely fought off the drug’s effects, and Chance was more than twice her size.
When he straightened and took a menacing step toward her, Summer screamed and tried to dart around him to get to the door. He blocked her easily and wrapped an arm around her waist. She may still be partially under the influence of whatever he had given her to incapacitate her and get her here, but that didn’t stop her from fighting with every bit of strength she possessed.
Her attempts to fight him didn’t seem to faze him at all, and he carried her toward the box she had just been looking at.
Was he going to put her inside it?
Summer didn’t think she could take that.
Her struggles intensified. She kicked, scratched, clawed, anything to get out of Chance’s arms and away from this cabin.
It didn’t do any good.
Chance merely shoved her into the box.
She didn’t give up. She couldn’t. She had to get out, she wasn't going to die in there.
When Chance released her, she tried to clamber out.
Her left arm was halfway out when he brought down the lid.
She heard the bone snap before she felt the tidal wave of pain crash down upon her.
“Be a good girl, don’t scream. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it,” he repeated as he slammed the lid of the box on her arm over and over again.
When he stopped, her broken arm slid limply down into the box with the rest of her and Chance closed the lid and locked it.
She was trapped.
Her arm hurt so badly she could barely breathe.
Summer fought back screams of agony, she didn’t want to make Chance angry, she didn’t know what he’d do. Instead, silent tears streamed down her face, and she tried desperately to breathe through the pain.
* * * * *