Brooke sat on the edge of the mattress and took in her surroundings. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but to sit there and wait to die couldn’t be her only option. She had to find a way out. Christian was certain that all she needed to do was wait patiently, and the local police would swoop in to save the day. Should she heed that advice? Had Sandra heeded that advice? If so, it hadn’t done her much good.
Besides, patiently waiting wasn’t her strongest character trait. She considered herself a woman of action. Her belief? If you want to accomplish anything, you can’t sit on your butt and wait on others to do it for you. Of course, by that reasoning, she needed to do something other than sit on her own ass.
She let her gaze travel the room again, her focus narrowed on any form of escape route. The only apparent avenue of escape was either the door—bolted—or the window, which was far too high for her to reach.
“Argh,” she exclaimed loudly, standing and pacing the room. She smacked the wall in frustrated anger, and then shook her hand as the tingling vibration shot up her arm. “Damn it all to hell and back, there has to be a way out of here.” She bent at the waist, placed her hands on her knees and drew in deep, relaxing breaths. When her nerves were calm again, she stood and spun in a slow circle, doing another sweep of the room, slowly taking in every detail. One of the things that registered was that the room really wasn’t as large as it seemed; the expanse more illusory minus the absence of furnishings. The only things in the room were a bed, a toilet, and a refrigerator. As old as those items were, it was readily apparent that this particular place had been abandoned long ago, and obviously wasn’t part of the overhaul being done on warehouses throughout the city…at least not currently. She scanned the room again, and her gaze stopped at the refrigerator.
“Could that be a solution?” she murmured and then walked over to it, turned, and tried to gauge how far it was to the space beneath the window. It was on the other side of the room, which didn’t seem that far, but visual distance was subjective because variables played a huge factor in whether she would be able to move it at all. Fifteen feet could easily feel like a hundred feet if conditions worked against her. The first thing that crossed her mind was weight. There was not only her weight to consider but the weight of the fridge. It was an older, heavier model. Not constructed from lightweight fiberglass, like today’s refrigerators. Friction was another factor for making the distance less reachable with ease. The floor was not a smooth, glassy surface on which something might glide easily across; rather, it was a pitted and bumpy concrete floor that could cause all sorts of grief when trying to move a large, unwieldy item; and on closer examination, it appeared as if there were sections of oily residue as if this had housed automobiles at one point. That could prove slick and treacherous.
Still, she’d examined all other options and this appeared her only one. She started by trying to psyche herself up, “Okay girl, you did not spend all of those evenings at the gym for nothing. You may be petite but you are also strong and capable.”
She drew in a deep, cleansing breath again and let it out with a whoosh, pulled her brunette hair up and looped it in a knot. She wished she had a hair tie but knotting her hair was better than having it fall into her face continually while she worked. Next, she placed her hands on each side of the fridge. With a loud grunt, she gave a mighty pull.
It didn’t move.
“Oh, no you don’t!” she muttered angrily, “You happen to be the only thing available to reach my only avenue of escape, so you bloody well better move!”
She put her shoulder against the side of green, antiquated Kenmore and, using every muscle from shoulder to toes, emitted a great grunt of effort. It tipped slightly, threatening to overturn. She sighed loudly and stepped back to reassess.
“Okay, brute strength isn’t going to get the job done,” she ruminated, abstractly swiping rusted flakes from her shirt; and then a memory of her childhood moved to the forefront of her mind; an image of her father moving their refrigerator. He didn’t use brute strength, rather rocked the fridge back and forth.
“Okay, so then let’s try that,” she said to herself. She stretched her hands out and grasped each side, then pushed one side and then the other. It wasn’t necessarily the easiest thing, but it was working. Slowly, inch-by-aggravatingly-slow-inch, the refrigerator wobbled, shook, but moved closer to the opposite wall.