chapter 25

WHEN MY EYES ADJUSTED to the dark, I saw a staircase leading down.

The dungeon, it seemed, was in the basement.

I shut the door behind me and started down the steps. When I reached the bottom, I stopped cold. Cigarette butts littered the floor—I thought about poor Candy’s arm and shivered—but that wasn’t what made me pull up in shock.

There, in the middle of a cinder-block room, tied to a chair, was Ashley.

Her back was to me, her arms bound behind her. I was about to move toward her when I heard a voice say, “I thought you’d been kidnapped, Ashley.”

It was Buddy Ray.

I leaned back into the dark of the stairwell, staying out of sight. I ducked low and peered out. Buddy Ray was in a corner of the room. He sat on a big tool chest closed with a padlock. He smiled at her and shook his head. He was, I couldn’t help but notice, smoking a cigarette.

He also had a knife in his hand.

“Now, I know you ran away from me,” Buddy Ray said, putting on a fake hurt voice. “How do you think that made me feel?”

“Let me go,” Ashley said.

“You ran away. So now you’ll have to be taught a lesson,” Buddy Ray said with that creepy voice of his. He stood up and stepped closer to her. “I need to make sure—very sure—that you never run away from me again.”

I stayed hunched in the dark, wondering what to do here. I was too far away to jump him. He had that knife and could probably call for help.

“It won’t do any good,” Ashley said in a voice that was oddly calm.

Buddy Ray tilted his head. “No?”

“No. Because no matter how much you hurt me, no matter what you do to me, I’ll run again.”

“And I’ll find you again.”

“And I’ll run again. I don’t care if you cut off my legs with that knife. I will keep trying to escape. I don’t belong here.”

Buddy Ray laughed, shaking his head. “You’re wrong, my dear. So very wrong. What, do you think you belong in that happy little high school, wearing your little sweater, holding hands with your handsome new boyfriend? How do you think that new boyfriend would react if he knew the real you?”

That last remark hit home. I saw her stiffen. I wanted to shout out that it wouldn’t matter, that I couldn’t care less what her life had been before.

Buddy Ray spread his arms. “This is where you belong.”

Ashley raised her head and met his eye. “No.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Buddy Ray pointed at the tool chest behind him. “Do you know what’s in that chest over there?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, trying so hard to sound brave.

“Oh, it matters.” Buddy Ray showed her the blade in his hand. “You talk tough now.” He leaned in close so that his mouth was right by her ear. I tensed up, preparing to run and try . . . I don’t know . . . anything, if he touched her. Instead he dropped his voice to a whisper. “But I promise you, Ashley—I swear on all that is holy—that when I unlock that chest, when I’m done with you, you’ll beg me to let you stay here and work for me.”

He started walking back toward the tool chest.

My mouth was too dry to swallow. It was now or never. His back was turned. I was about to sprint out, about to make a move, when the door behind me, the one I had just gone through, began to open. I leaped back up the stairs behind it, finding the only hiding spot in the room.

Someone entered. “Boss?”

I couldn’t see anything. The door was almost pressed against me. If whoever had opened the door pushed back a little more, he would hit me square in the face.

“What?” Buddy Ray snapped. “I’m busy.”

“We kinda got a situation.”

I could hear the ruckus behind him.

“Can’t Derrick handle it?”

“No one knows where he is.”

I heard Buddy Ray sigh. “I won’t be long, princess,” he said.

No reply from Ashley.

Now I could hear him sprinting up the stairs. I closed my eyes, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t see me. He didn’t. He ran through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

I was alone with Ashley, but I was not about to sit there and consider the options. It was pretty simple: free Ashley, get out of here. I had no idea how long Buddy Ray would be gone. It could be just a few seconds.

I ran down to the dungeon. Ashley turned her head and gasped when she saw me. “Mickey?”

“We have to get you out of here.”

“How did you find me?”

“No time for that now.”

Ashley started weeping. I rushed over to her chair, got down on one knee, and was ready to untie her. In the movies, this always seems to take mere seconds, doesn’t it? Like someone had tied up the person the same way you might tie a shoelace. But in real life, that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t the case at all.

Buddy Ray hadn’t tied her with rope. He had used plastic cuffs, wrapping them tightly around her wrists.

I had no idea what to do. I looked around the room for something to cut them with, but there was nothing.

“Mickey?”

“Hang on, I’m just trying to figure out how to free you.”

“You can’t,” she said, her voice defeated.

I didn’t listen to her. “Wriggle your hands,” I said. I tried to work the plastic with my fingers, pushing it down while she wriggled. There was absolutely no give.

“There’s no time,” she said. “You have to save yourself.”

“No,” I said.

“Mickey, he’ll be back any minute. Please go. He’ll just hurt me a little. He won’t want to damage the goods.”

I kept working at the plastic cuff. Useless. I ran over to his dreaded tool chest. I kicked the padlock, but it wouldn’t give. I looked for a crowbar—anything!—but the stark room was totally bare.

Damn!

I tried one more kick. There was no way the padlock was budging. I took out my cell phone. Enough. It was time to take the risk and dial 911.

“No!” Ashley shouted. “If he sees a cop car, he’ll just start killing people.”

It didn’t matter. I had no phone service in this cinder-block dungeon.

So now what?

Tick, tick, tick. How much longer would he be gone?

“Please, Mickey? Just listen to me, okay? There’s no time. You have to go. If he hurts you, if something happens to you, I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

I ran back over to her and took her face in my hands. Ashley looked at me with those beautiful, imploring eyes. “I won’t leave you,” I said to her. “Do you hear me? No matter. I won’t leave you with that monster.”

Tick, tick, tick.

Wait. The plastic cuff was too strong to break. The padlock was too strong to break.

But what about a wooden chair?

“Brace yourself,” I said.

“What?”

I kicked the leg of the chair. Nothing. I kicked it again. The leg started giving way. I kicked it again. The leg cracked. She was still trapped, but now maybe there was some wiggle room. If only we could move fast enough . . .

That was when I saw the door start to open.

Game over.

I knew what would happen now. Buddy Ray would see me. He would be armed with the knife. He would call behind him. Max and the other bouncers would join him as reinforcements.

We had no chance.

If you stopped and calculated the odds, there was no way to survive this.

So I didn’t stop or calculate. Instead I put my head down and charged the door.

I saw no other choice. I ran with as much speed as I could. I had never played American football, but Dad and I watched whenever we could figure out how to get a game on satellite. Dad loved the Jets, which, he said, taught him the meaning of disappointment. So right now, I channeled my inner linebacker blitzing the quarterback. I didn’t know if I would make it in time. I doubted I would. But I gave it everything I had.

Buddy Ray entered the room. He turned, saw me, and said, “What the . . . ?”

But that was all he said.