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Jimmy entered her view, facing Ruby, and shined his light on her. She was bound and huddled in the corner with a bloody lip, hair matted to her cheeks, but she continued to cry.
“Shut up!”
All she needed was for him to take one more step.
He took two. She jumped forward, slashing the back of his neck with the scalpel.
Grabbing his neck and turning, Jimmy howled in pain, and the light shined directly into her face, blinding her. She lurched forward and drove the scalpel into his eye then yanked it back out.
Jimmy dropped to the ground, releasing his phone, and she snatched it up, using it to see the contents on the floor.
A syringe!
She raced toward it and snatched it as Jimmy dove onto her back, pushing her flat against the cold concrete.
His fist met the back of her already aching head, his weight crushing her bruised body. Cursing and wailing, he punched her again. Spots danced in her eyes, but she grabbed the metal tray and brought it up and over her head, knocking him in the face and off balance. He toppled to the side, and she jammed the syringe into his neck, pushing until nothing was left inside.
He grabbed his neck then slumped onto the floor, still and unmoving. “I think it’s morphine, but I don’t know, which means I don’t know how much time we have.”
The bloody scalpel lay nearby.
Slice his carotid. He deserves it. End him.
Violet snatched the scalpel, gripping it tightly.
Do it.
Something Fiona said to her in a conversation this past August when Violet was frustrated over not finding any leads, when she’d felt suffocated by it, bubbled to the surface of her mind.
When you know you need hope, when you know you need to be saved, you say it. Then you reach out for light in darkness. That’s what I did. It’s really the answer for anyone. But I couldn’t reach out until I recognized that I needed to reach...and then... I found God had already stretched out His arm to meet mine. He grabbed ahold, and He didn’t let go. I’ve been walking in light ever since.
She did need hope. She needed rescuing and saving in many ways. She needed the same light Fiona and Asa walked in.
“Lord, I need You. Not to help me get out of this or to even stop me from doing what I want to do to this monster. I need You for me. Just me,” she whispered.
A warmth enveloped her heart, like a burst of sunlight to a winter night.
End him.
No. She got to choose. Taking the twine he’d bound her with, she used it against him and tied his hands behind his back and his ankles together. No longer was their captor a threat to either of them. She’d disabled him.
“Come on. We’re out of here.”
Out of the basement.
Out of darkness.
She cut Ruby free then they leaned on one another and climbed the stairs into the chapel and out the front door as dawn broke over the horizon.
Into beautiful light.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tuesday, October 24
5:21 a.m.
The cold had frozen Violet’s bare skin that had been exposed from Jimmy cutting her clothing earlier, but inside warmth radiated in her bones. Ruby leaned against her as they trekked arm in arm on the road to civilization.
