He'll come through

Chapter 4 - we gotta get out of this place

Her head didn’t just hurt, it throbbed like hell. Lilah fought to open her eyes and felt as though she were blinded. In stages she opened first the easy right eyelid, then the heavy non-functional left one. She was slumped against Quinn, unless there was another huge wall of muscle in the same room. His head was on hers, and from the regular breath sounds, she figured he was asleep, though knowing that he was some sort of adult Boy Scout, he would have one eye open.  

“Quinn?” she wriggled under him and he lifted his head from hers.  

“You ok Blondie? I’m so glad you’re awake!” the relief on his face was genuine and her anger immediately softened.  

The room was dark; a single shaft of moonlight cutting across the room from the window in front of them, despite that she could still make out his features.  

“I was worried girl; you’ve been out of it for ages.”  

“What time is it?” she tried to move, every inch of her body hurt she wanted to stretch her arms, her legs, never before had she had such a desire to just stand up. She swore if she got through this she’d not forget how restriction like this felt, that she’d never take her freedom both physical and mental for granted.  

He shrugged, “I think it was about midnight when I fell asleep, though that wasn’t long ago.”  

She dreaded asking questions as the possible answers scared her, but she had to know if they were getting out of here. “Have they been back? Is Gavin finding the money?! "  

He shook his head slowly, “seems lover boy is either jealous of you being with a man, or doesn’t give a shit!”   She at least had the decency to blush at his quip, but then the defence was there again, “he knows I’d be alone, he probably doesn’t believe it’s me. I expect they’ll make me talk to him tomorrow to make sure.”  

Quinn shook his head, “if he had the slightest thought that you were kidnapped here, being held hostage in a place where people are recovering from such unrest, where it's dog eat dog, he’d NEVER leave you to them, there’d be no time for doubt. He should be here, now, sorting this.”  

Lilah sighed, “You don’t know anything about him....” even she knew this was a weak line of defence.  

“Listen to yourself Delilah! We are tied to bloody chairs in the middle of nowhere because your prick boyfriend boss won’t pay a ransom because he’s probably jealous of you being with another man! If he loves you so much, where is he? Where are the helicopters? The police? The SAS? Someone, anyone!! You are so out of touch.”  

They sat in silence for a while, arguing was pointless, but Quinn was right, if he antagonised her she seemed to pull herself together, angry was much better to handle than upset.  

“What are you doing?” she asked as she finally noticed he was wriggling, constantly.  

“If we’re going to get out of here then we need to at least get free. There’s only one guy here I think, the others have driven off. Our only chance to make a move is if there’s only one man here, we can try to overpower him. I just need to get these bloody ropes off my wrists.”  

She watched as he wriggled and writhed, “so if you get the rope off what then?”  

He paused and in a show of exasperation blew his hair out of his eyes, “recce the room, look for a weapon, we need a vehicle, a means of escape....”  

Then with a grunt he actually felt the ropes at his wrist give after numerous hours of friction against the chair. Bringing his arms around, he tentatively wriggled his shoulders.