February 24th
1:00 A.M.
“Summer?”
“Yeah,” she replied sleepily, forcing her heavy eyes open. She was getting cold, and she had started to shake. Every tremble sent pain zigzagging up and down her body, but she couldn’t stop shivering. She was going into shock. If it wasn't for Luke rousing her every couple of minutes, she would have passed out already.
“Stay awake, okay,” he told her. “You have to stay with me.”
“I'm trying.”
“I know you are, and I know it’s hard, but you can't sleep. Hope?”
“I'm awake,” Hope said.
Her friend had finally crawled out of her drug-induced haze a couple of hours ago. Summer had been so relieved. Although she wished that Hope had been able to flee, and that Luke had never been caught and dragged into this, it was nice to not be alone.
“Are you sure you can't get free again?” Luke asked Hope for what had to be the hundredth time.
“I'm sure. He handcuffed me to a different bar and this one won't budge at all.”
“Keep trying to work it. If one came loose, then another one could too. The bed looks old, it’s probably rusted. You should be able to break another one.”
“Maybe if I had all day, but we don’t know when Chance is going to come back.”
“Don’t worry about that, just keep trying.”
Luke and Hope’s voices grew hazy and distant as her eyelids longed to fall closed. It would be so nice to let herself fall into the blackness. It would be peaceful and quiet, and she wouldn’t be in pain any longer. If it were only her, she would have let go already, but she couldn’t do that to Luke. It would worry him if she passed out, so she fought with every bit of strength she had left to remain conscious.
“Summer.”
The sharp voice pricked her mind, and she realized that she must have fainted.
“Summer.”
“Here,” she managed.
“Okay.” She could hear the relief in his voice. “You didn’t answer me, you passed out. You have to stay with me, honey. I know how hard it is, but you have to keep fighting. Don’t give up on me.”
“I won't,” she promised. “When Chance comes back you have to try talking to him again, Hope.”
“It didn’t work last time.”
“No, but it almost did, you were getting through to him. I think he’s trying. He doesn’t want to hurt you, but he can't control his impulses.”
“I can't believe he didn’t tell me,” Hope said quietly. “Maybe if he had told me he had a brain tumor, none of this would have happened.”
“Maybe it was inoperable, and he didn’t want you to worry,” Luke suggested.
“Maybe,” Hope agreed. “But he still could have told me. We would have worked through it together. And if I’d known, I would have been looking out for any changes in his behavior.”
“Just talk to him, try to get through to him, try to convince him to let us go, that he needs help,” she said. “It’s our only hope of making it out of this alive.”
“I’ll try, I’ll do what I can, but I don’t think it’s going to work. He’s too far gone. I can't believe just forty-eight hours ago I was engaged, with a new house, and so excited about the future, and now …” Hope trailed off.
Summer couldn’t believe it either. Forty-eight hours ago, she too had been excited about the future. Everything had looked so bright. She had Luke, she was working on letting go of the past, she had hope that one day she might end up happily married and planning a family of her own just like her friends.
And now …