A Lesson Before Dying

Chapter Five

I start to regain consciousness once the coldness of the floor starts to seep into my skin. But why can I feel so much of the floor? Where are my clothes? I jolt upright and see the chain around my ankle to prevent me from going anywhere. I look around the room to see if there is anything I can use to escape. But the room is completely cleaned of its contents from before. And then I look down at myself. I have no shoes, no pants, and no sweatshirt. All I am in is my underwear and a tank top. I am still groggy and trying to comprehend all that has happened but before I know it someone rushes in with a huge A/C deal and another person comes in with a bucket...or two...full of what I am assuming to be water. They turn on the A/C and dump the buckets of water on me. As if this room wasn't cold enough already. They walk out to who knows where soon after and I am left in this shitty cold and dark room. Alone.

~ A Week Later ~

I am curled up against one of the walls just trying to keep myself warm away from the A/C. But of course, my body is shutting down by the minutes. I have been tortured in any way you can possibly think of and I feel myself starting to slip away. Someone come save me. Please. It's all I can do. Hope. Plead for them to let me go or have someone kill those guys and save me. None of them get close enough to me to hurt them in the slightest. So that is off the table. But this is what someone wants of my life. I just have to live it down. As I am about to drift off to sleep the man comes in and within seconds he has strode over to me and starts beating me to Hell. I have been in here for at least a week, I don't know how much more of this I can take. I need someone to help me get out of this forsaken place. And almost just after I say it, like someone has been hearing my cries for help, there are gunshots outside and people screaming several things. The man beating me stops and tells me to shut up as he walks out the door. I know for a fact, never to be seen again. I've been working the chain off the wall ever so slightly day by day so now, I stand up as best as I can and jerk my leg away from the wall tearing the chain out of it. I let out a satisfied sigh. I'm free. I walk as fast as I can out the door, grabbing a gun from a dead body besides my feet and continue on. This place is a maze but all I can do is try to find the way out hopefully running into my rescuer on the way. And sure enough, I do run into someone. We both have our guns raised at each other, unsure who the other is. But then he says my name.

"Blake." Just hearing the sound of it rolling off his tongue reminds me of someone I met a while ago. But I can hardly see his face.

"Who are you? Are you here to kill me or get me the hell out of here?" I respond, only slightly putting my gun down. He drops his to the floor and kicks it towards me and I kick it back behind me. I give him a weary look but then set mine too. Kicking it away.

"I am here to get you out. I was the one that called your phone the night you got taken. I was the one standing at that motel I told you to run to. I tried to get you before they could. But I failed. And I'm sorry. But I'm here now and we don't have much time.

"Where are we going to go?" I ask, confusion laced in my voice. I have never left Chicago.

"A long fucking way from here." He puts his jacket on me and takes my hand before we run out the doors to his car. Going somewhere better. In hiding. But safe from these horrible men.