Page 4 of Lion’s Den

The pressure on her throat finally eased, allowing her to draw in ragged breaths as he resumed stroking her neck with his finger.

He reminded her of a serpent. Sly and cold. Sedona backed away as far as she could, which turned out to be almost nothing. The chair was hard and unforgiving, leaving her no room to move away from Serpent’s touch.

“Hey,” another man yelled. “We’ve got an idea. Come see what you think of it.”

Serpent sighed. “Duty calls.” She could feel him bend closer. A split second later, his mouth brushed hers. “Soon, we’ll get better acquainted, kitty.”

Yuck. His kiss felt wrong. Poisonous. She didn’t want his touch anywhere on her body.

The second the door closed, and her prison had returned to silence, Sedona tested her bonds. Flexible and thin. Zip ties. Her friends, the Montgomery brothers, talked about them being easy to break if you knew what to do, but they hadn’t shared the secret with her.

Sedona considered her options. First, nothing good would happen if she didn’t free herself from this chair. Second, she must have a blindfold on because Serpent didn’t have a problem seeing or touching her.

Sedona shuddered, her stomach churning again. She couldn’t give in to panic. One step at a time was the way to keep panic at bay. So, step one was to find out if she could stand up with her wrists secured to the chair.

She drew in a few deep breaths, gathered her energy, rocked herself forward, and discovered how awkward it was to stand up with a chair attached to her back. Sedona spread her feet wider than normal and slowly inched backward. Forward meant moving toward Serpent and his friends. Since that was the last thing she wanted, backward made sense.

After an eternity, the chair hit an obstacle. Time to find out if the obstacle would help her get rid of this chair.

In the other room, the men’s voices rose. Although still muffled, she made out a few keywords like problem, dead, second, and money. Who would want to kidnap an overworked and underpaid kindergarten teacher?

Still unable to see anything, Sedona turned and shuffled forward, wishing at least her hands were untied. Hoping she wouldn’t end up with a black eye, she continued forward until her face smacked against the wall.

She flinched. That hurt. Guess she might have a black eye, anyway. Sedona inched to the right, letting her face lightly skim the wall until the wall became a doorway.

Did it lead to a bathroom or a closet? She didn’t care, except this door frame was rough and had the perfect edge to rub the zip ties along its surface.

She stopped. Wait. Would she have to get rid of the chair first? Maybe not. All she needed was enough room to rub the zip ties against the door frame.

Sedona turned her body and the chair to the right, felt for the corner edge, and rubbed the zip tie against the rough wood. Over and over she scraped the flimsy plastic along the door frame and prayed. Hard.

A few minutes later, the zip tie holding one of Sedona’s wrists to the chair loosened. She rubbed harder and faster, gritting her teeth as splinters tore her skin. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but freeing herself fast. Finally, her wrist broke free from the chair.

Sedona shifted her weight to keep the chair from thumping against the floor. She yanked the blindfold off her head, then turned herself and the chair around and went to work on the other zip tie keeping her bound to the chair.

“Come on, come on,” she whispered. “Break already. I’ve got to get out of here.” Faster and faster she rubbed, pulling her wrist as far away from the chair as she could. After a few more seconds of scrubbing her restraint against the rough wood of the door frame, the zip tie broke.

She was just fast enough to shove the chair against the wall instead of letting it fall to the floor. That would have brought Serpent and his buddies into the room for sure.

Sedona set the chair on the floor and looked around the room, searching for a way out of this mess. She did not want to be here when Serpent returned. He gave her the creeps.

She frowned, staring at the blue tarp spread out where she had been tied to the chair. A chair on top of a tarp couldn’t mean anything good. That tarp was another excellent reason to find an escape route.

A quick check of the windows told her someone had installed bars on the outside, so that only left the door.

She checked. Locked. Panic swelled in her gut. This escape plan had holes big enough to drive a semi through. The windows and doors were out.

Sedona turned again, this time toward the bathroom. She hurried inside and noticed a smaller window above the toilet. This one didn’t have bars.

Now to figure out whether the window was locked or screwed shut. If the window was locked with a standard lock, she could unlock the latch and escape. If it was the latter, she was toast because a handy screwdriver wasn’t part of her everyday dress code, although that might change after tonight.

Hoping for the best, she gripped the window lock and twisted it. She stared. The locking mechanism worked, and she didn’t see a screw in the wrong place. If the window wasn’t too swollen to raise, she could be out of here in seconds.

She’d have to hurry because someone was bound to hear any noise she made in here. If she had to guess, the odds of her escaping were 70 to 30 against.

Sedona gritted her teeth. She must try. She refused to lounge around like a house cat, waiting to be petted.

With the seconds until Serpent returned ticking away in her head, she put some muscle into shoving the window up. The window groaned as she shoved, causing sweat to pop out on her body. No way those boys in the other room couldn’t hear that.