Finding Maisie

Finding Maisie: Chapter 12

Finding Maisie

Chapter 12

I felt my body waking up, gaining feeling in my stiff limbs. I could tell I was lying on a hard surface, that was evident from the ache of my bones and coldness of my skin. My head was in an explosion of pain on one side, the side that I had fallen on. With my eyes still closed I tried to sit up but something rough was bound around my wrists making it impossible to move. My eyes flew open and I looked to where I was. A small concrete room was what I saw. There were no windows and the floor and walls were made from plain grey cement and bricks. My hands had been tied around a pipe to keep me immobile.

Something about the room seemed eerily familiar. It looked like the room I had been in when I was at the warehouse. The place where I found Maisie's ring and met the man who was working with the abductor.

The steel door was closed and obviously locked. If I somehow got my arms free from the rope then the abductor would make sure I couldn't escape.

I tried to wriggle my hands free from the rope as I knew screaming would do me no good whatsoever. My only hope now was Alan, I thought, and I didn't even know if he was alive. Alan had let me go outside the woods and then I had heard a gunshot. I hadn't seen where it was fired.

I tried with my teeth to untie the rope. I pulled on the rough material until it felt like my teeth were going to break; the knot was too tight.

Following the line of the pipe, I looked to where it led. The pipe twisted upwards and into the ceiling, but as I examined it I saw that it had broken after the bend. Part of the pipe had fallen leaving a sharp metal edge in its place. If I rubbed the rope against the edge for long enough then, hopefully, it would break.

I manoeuvred my hands along the pipe with difficulty from how tightly tied they were. I pulled them past the bend and up to where the pipe had cracked. I moved the rope against the sharp edge and pulled my hands apart in different directions. I could feel the fibres in the rope breaking. I continued to saw it onto the edge until all the rope had broken. My hands were free.

I didn't waste time and ran straight to the door. As I pulled down the handle, of course, the door didn't move forward. It had been locked.

There was nothing in the room that could help me unlock it. A sense of claustrophobia doomed over me. I had never been claustrophobic before but I couldn't help it in this situation. I was locked in a room with no windows, no food, only a flickering light to see and no knowledge of when I could get out. I couldn't help but begin to panic about being in a confined space.

I walked to the corner and sat down against the wall. This room was looking smaller by the second. I rested my head against the wall and looked to the ceiling. Something caught my attention. There was a key attached to some string dangling from the top of the room.

I jumped up and stretched my arm for the key. However, the ceiling was too high up and I could not reach it. I then realised that the abductor must be playing a game of escape. He would leave ways to escape and I would have to find them. I didn't know why he had to do all this; wouldn't it be easier if the abductor just killed me and got it over with?

Looking at the pipe, I realised that it may give me the leverage I needed to reach the key. I steadied my feet on the metal and reached my arm up. The tops of my fingers just grazed the key. I had to stretch up even more but I could already feel the metal underneath begin to dip. It was too old and rusted to hold my weight for long.

I tiptoed on my feet and was finally able to pull the key down from the ceiling. However, the pipe was not able to stay strong for much longer and broke beneath my feet. I stumbled forward and bit my lip as I crashed into the wall. It stung and I felt my skin rip. Feeling my lip, warm blood trickled onto my finger. Despite the stinging sensation, I ignored it. I had much more important things to consider. I had to get out of here and go back to Callum before they decided to do anything more to him.