What hurts?What does he do?
Obviously, with the gag and all, I couldn’t say that.
“He keeps saying he’s going to let me go though,” she whispered. “Maybe this is why. Maybe he wanted someone new to…” She trailed off, and a moment after the silence set in, a sob escaped her. “I don’t want to be like him.”
I shook and trembled against the ropes, but they were too tight, and the sensation of being pinned in place only made my heart slam harder.
On the verge of panicking, breaths so hard and fast that bringing in air was damn near impossible, I forced myself to stop.
I forced myself to count.
Breathe in for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four. In for four, hold for four, exhale for four.
Once my heart slowed a bit, my eyes sealed shut, and I rested my head on the wall behind me.
Just as I did, a memory flickered through my mind.
“Look at me, Brooklyn,” Dad had said. “You pay attention to everything I do. This has saved my life—it could save yours too.”
I nodded slightly, chest feeling hollow.
“Most people who tie someone up don’t know what the hell they’re doing.” He used his teeth to yank the string in place around his wrists. “It ain’t easy to tie ropes so good someone can’t get outta them. But they’re counting on you not knowing how to get out of them. Especially a pretty girl. So here’s what you gotta do.”
He propped his elbows onto the dirty table, holding his bound wrists upright. He glanced down at them. “See that?”
I shook my head.
“Look at my elbows.” He gestured to them with his eyes. “See how there’s a gap there?”
I nodded.
“That’s how you get out. ‘Cause, see, that gap is your leverage.” He lifted his hands to his face, smacking his elbows together. “Like this is the only way you can really bind someone’s hand together—tying all the way up to the elbows. But no one does that, because it leaves your hands at your mouth. They want your hands down low where you can’t chew at the ropes.
“If they do have them tied up there, that’s what you do. You break your teeth getting through the ropes if you’ve gotta. But that’s probably not what they’re gonna do. So you work with the elbows.”
He jammed them apart, emphasizing the snap. “This hurts. Hurts like a son of a bitch. You’re gonna get rope burn. You might bleed. Hell, you might even break your wrists. But you’re loosening that rope, and that’s what matters.”
I nodded, watching as he snapped his elbows apart, watching slack loosen around his wrists.
“And once you’ve got a little bit of give here,” —he curled his fingertip to the tie that was now midway up his palm— “you start yanking each row of rope off. It might take you a minute, but if you get one hand loose, you can get the other out too.”
Coming back into reality, I did exactly as he had.
I began snapping my elbows back and forth until there was a bit of give. The rough rope left hot blood drizzling to the ground beneath me, but I kept going, hardly feeling the pain.
Just get one hand out. Just one hand, Brooke.
Misty said something else as I clapped my forearms together like some sort of deranged child throwing a temper tantrum, but with each snap of my elbows, I felt the rope slide just a little bit closer up my hands.
Once one line of rope grazed the back of my thumb, my other thumb had enough room to sneak behind it.
And I did.
I hooked my thumb through the rope and yanked upward.
That one row loose gave me the leverage to grab the next, and the one after that, and the one after that.
As my bleeding, aching wrist fell free from the scratchy brown rope, a wave of relief washed through me.