Page 51 of Be Courageous
With the silhouette of her captor filling the opening door and his shout of warning abrading her ears, Ruby threw herself headfirst out the opening, diving into the darkness. More than halfway out, her upper thighs caught on the windowsill.
For a terrible second, she hung suspended, clutching her purse as the strap slipped. Her captor had grasped her legs while the ground outside was just feet away.Good thing I’m on the first floor.
With a mighty kick, Ruby freed herself. Her captor’s grunt of pain mingled with her own as she toppled onto the hard ground, hands outstretched to break her fall. To keep from striking her head on the frozen soil, she tucked her chin, rounded her spine, and rolled just like she’d done in gymnastics as a child.
To her amazement, she came right up on her feet, losing her purse in the process. No time to pick it up now. Injured wrist tucked close, she ran blindly into the darkness, only to discover that the shadows in front of her were the pointy ends of many branches.
Ruby squeezed her eyes shut and pushed blindly into them. They clawed at her clothing and her hair, yet she escaped unscathed out the other side.
The earth rose sharply under her pumps, forcing her to ascend a densely wooded slope, one with unseen boulders that jutted out of the earth. One such boulder tripped her. She fell to her knees on a bed of pine needles, pain lancing her wrist anew, and struggled up again.
Behind her, she could hear a door slamming and the tramping of feet.
As expected, her captor was coming after her. He’d seen which direction she was fleeing. The beam of a flashlight strafed the darkness.
Hide!She cast about for a bush to squirm beneath. There wasn’t any underbrush in sight. As he neared her, she darted behind the wide trunk of a tree and froze.
He slowed, breathing heavily as he panned the light around.
Ruby tried to stop panting. She could hear Tony in her head, teaching her how to breathe the way Navy SEALs did—“Inhale for the count of three, through the mouth, hold for one second, then slowly exhale.”But her chest convulsed in fear, turning her exhalation into a sob.
The light grew brighter. On the other side of the tree, twigs snapped under her captor’s heels.Run!But she was frozen in fear.
“Thought you could get away?” Her captor pounced without warning.
She screamed.
“Quiet!”
The slap came out of nowhere, sobering her with its force.
Holding his phone between his teeth, the man spun her around and prodded her back in the direction of the house. “You want to get me in trouble.” His accented English was as foreign as this bizarre situation.
Ruby played the last card left to her. “Whatever Katz is paying you, my husband will double it.”
“I don’t know who’s payin’ me, and I don’t care.”
“He’s the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, Lennard Katz.”
“Quiet. I don’t want to know. I just do what I’m told.”
“Then you’re just a puppet.”
“I said,quiet!” He gave her a push that sent her plowing face-first into the nearest tree trunk. Her injured wrist throbbed as she caught herself. Rough bark abraded her cheek, leaving it stinging.
Her captor jerked her back against his side. “You gonna hurt yourself, and I’ll get the blame.” He grabbed her by the hair and led her downhill toward the house.
The telling words seeped into Ruby’s consciousness. Wait, he would get into trouble for hurting her? Relief edged aside her despair.
Well, that was reassuring…or was it? He might be selling her to human traffickers.
The log cabin came into view, gilded by moonlight and resembling something a seasonal hunter might use. No other structures were in sight—no signs of other people anywhere.
He shoved her through the open door into warmth, kicked it shut behind them, then drew her toward the refrigerator. “Don’t move.” With a warning glare, he released her to open the black plastic case inside.
Ruby touched a finger to her stinging face and discovered she was bleeding.
When he turned around, her captor was sucking clear liquid from a capsule into a syringe.