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The trunk opened, and brilliant sunshine blinded her. She tried to look around, but all she could see was a dark shadow of Birch, surrounded by bright light—like a halo. She considered telling him she was on friendly terms with an angel of the Lord, just to mess with him, but first things first. “Seriously, Birch, all that matters right now is my bladder. I don’t even care if you kill me at this point. Just let me pee first.”
“Let’s go,” he said and roughly grabbed her arm. Apparently, he was going to pull her out of the trunk by her elbow and let her land on her butt.
She focused on getting her feet out in front of her, aware that she was missing out on more kicking opportunities; it didn’t matter. She hadn’t been joking about her priorities. It felt blessedly cool outside of that blasted trunk, even though it was still hotter than the blazes. Her eyes adjusting, she saw that they were at a decrepit camp beside a lake or pond. She didn’t recognize any of it. “Where are we?”
He pushed her toward the shack. “There’s a bathroom inside. Hurry up. He’ll be here soon.”
She took off running, half expecting the camp to be locked. It wasn’t. She rushed inside, found the bathroom, and then experienced the strongest relief of her life.
“Hurry up!” he barked from the other side of the thin door, as if his lips were pressed against the plywood, before she’d even finished her business.
“I’m going as fast as I can! You don’t have to eavesdrop!”
As she finished, the fear of peeing her pants dissipated and was replaced by the fear of dying. She looked around the tiny bathroom for an escape route that didn’t exist. There was only one window, and it was so tiny she doubted she could’ve pushed Joanna through it. Then she looked around for a weapon. But there was nothing. If there’d been a mirror, she would’ve tried to break it and grab a shard of glass. But there was no mirror.
“Don’t make me come in there and get you,” he growled.
She closed her eyes, said another prayer, and flushed the toilet. Then she reached for the door handle. That’s when she saw a nail sticking out of the wall. It was deeply, but not entirely, embedded. Could she pull it out? She doubted it. But she would try. She reached up, pinched it between her thumb and finger, and pulled.
Nothing.
“Sandra, I’m not kidding around here!”
“Just a second!” she snapped. She frantically wiggled the nail back and forth, and it moved! Not much, but it had moved! With more force this time, she pushed the nail away from her and pulled it back again as she looked around the room for something harder to push with, but there was nothing in this stupid little room except the toilet.
The toilet! She ripped the top of the tank off and then whirled around to push the giant chunk of porcelain against the side of the nail. She felt the nail give and reached up to yank it out.
Then she stared at it, as if she couldn’t believe it was really in her hand. But it was.
Now, what was she going to do with it? Stab him in the eye and run? Was she even capable of such a thing? Images of her children flashed through her mind, and she realized that yes, indeed, she was capable of such a thing. She tucked the nail into her pocket, suddenly grateful that reffing shorts came with a thousand pockets. Birch wasn’t likely to check them all. She had turned to replace the toilet tank cover when she thought better.
She looked down at the odd-shaped object in her hands. This, in itself, was a weapon, wasn’t it?
“That’s it! You’ve got three seconds or I’m knocking that door down!”
Knock the door down? Why? The door didn’t have a lock on it. Couldn’t he just use the handle? His voice sounded farther away, as if he’d backed up to get a running start. Was he going to kick the door down? Frantic, she tried to decide where to stand. There really wasn’t a spot that wasn’t directly in front of the door.
The toilet! She had to stand on the toilet! This toilet just kept getting handier and handier. Trying to be quiet, she climbed up onto the toilet and got ready to leap. She couldn’t even believe what she, Sandra Provost, was about to do. Could she even do it? She was a housewife, for crying out loud. No. She was more than that. She was a daughter of the God of the universe and she was a soccer ref. She could do this. She lifted the toilet tank cover up over her head, and then bent her knees and waited.
The man with the ridiculous first name began to count. “One ... two ...”