Aleatory

Chapter 10 | Reagan

My mouth tasted like cotton.

I blinked. Black. What was going on?

"You guys?" I said, except that's not what I said. "Ooo ai?"

Nobody answered. I gritted my teeth, feeling them sink into soft cloth. My mouth tasted like ...my mouth was full of cotton. No. I tried to move my tongue. It was a gag.

I could feel my heart rate picking up.

Breathe, Reagan. Panicking was just going to screw me over even worse than I already was.

I closed my eyes again, not that it made much difference, and tried to think. There had to be clues as to where I was. Focus. Go methodically.

Vision was out. But my eyes were uncovered, which meant – what? That, whatever was going on, it probably wasn't that threatening, right? Or I had just gone blind. But I'd have been able to feel...something...if that was true, probably. Probably. They didn't feel damaged. Unless that would kick in later...no. No, that was ridiculous. My eyes were fine. There were plenty of reasons why someone would gag me and leave my eyes...like it just didn't matter what I saw because...

Shut up, shut up. Moving on.

For one, something was definitely...vibrating. Underneath me. So there was that. It was a car, right? Or a truck? But if it was so dark in here, then I must be in the back, which meant, stay calm Reagan, which meant I had been kidnapped, probably. Okay. Okay. Deep breaths. I'd read about what to do in these situations, I'd be fine. Fine! All I had to do was -

What could I do? Lying in the trunk of a car. Think.

Kick out the rear lights. The tail lights.

That was it! Kick out the lights and wave through them and somebody on this road would see and everything would be fine. Sure, my limbs felt kind of dead right now - actually, they didn't feel like anything other than blocks of wood. No problem, I'd been lying on them for a while, I just had to stretch them out a little and...

They weren't moving. Were they? Oh god. I tried to kick out again. Nothing.

My throat was closing up. I'd heard of this. Phantom limbs, when people's arms and legs and stiff got cut off they still felt like they were attached and moveable and everything but they weren't oh my god oh my –

I gagged against the cloth stuffed in my mouth and tried one more time to wiggle my fingers.

Something scratched my back.

I froze.

The scratching stopped.

Oh, thank god. I moved them again, where they were lying underneath me, there it was, I was fine, still in one piece. Jesus.

Okay, okay. Escape now, relief later. I could do this. I could do it. Come on.

I dropped my head back down and pushed all my strength into it, pushing my right leg outwards towards where the lights should be.

Something cut into my knee.

Rope. It was rope.

Oh. This was why I couldn't move. Or feel anything. It was cutting off my circulation. They'd tied it around my wrists, my legs...I couldn't kick. I could barely move. I couldn't do anything. This was it. This was it.

Breathe, Reagan.

I started screaming.

I don't know how long it took. Or what else happened. Or what was going on the background. I don't know.