To understand your fear is the beginning of really seeing.
—BRUCE LEE
With a groan, I tried to open my eyes. I felt my eyebrows rise and my lids faintly flutter, but they were so heavy it was all I could do to finally crack them open. It didn’t make much difference. Wherever I was, it was nearly as dark as it was behind my eyelids.
I also had the worst headache of my life. Each heartbeat made the pain expand and contract.
What was happening?
When I tried to raise my head, it felt as heavy as a bowling ball. And just as empty. I let it fall back.
Time passed. All I was capable of was existing. But slowly my consciousness began to reassert itself.
Where was I? I took inventory. I was sprawled in an awkward twist, not quite facedown. Whatever I was on was cold and unyielding, vibrating faintly. My breathing seemed too shallow, fast and panting.
Something was clearly wrong. But I couldn’t fill in the blank of what it was.
I started to push myself up. But my wrists were bound together. I slumped back down. Slowly, I considered the possibilities. Not handcuffs. Not rope. Something wide that pulled at the hairs on my wrists.
Duct tape.
Memories slowly came back. Going up the stairs, my thoughts preoccupied with Daniel. The old white van squatting in the corner of the parking lot. The rough hand grabbing me from behind.
And I had done nothing to stop it, except for my pathetic attempt to scream. I had kept on second-guessing myself right up to the point where I had stiffened and fallen. Had he injected me with drugs? I remembered feeling stings.
Now here I was. In the back of that white van. Underneath me the metal floor was vibrating from the hum of the motor. The man who had hit me had to be driving it.
He must have gathered me up and then dropped me inside his van. I tried to remember his voice. Had I heard it before? Had it belonged to someone I knew? He had smelled like motor oil and cigarettes.
He had smelled like Tim.
But Tim didn’t currently have a car, let alone a van. So the man must be a stranger.
That seemed even more frightening. If he was anonymous to me, that meant I was to him as well. Anonymous meant disposable.
But the familiar way he smelled. Could Tim have borrowed one of the dozen or so cars that were always at the shop, waiting for repair?
And whether it was Tim or a stranger, what should I do now?
Don’t move, a voice whispered inside me. Make yourself still and small. Maybe that way you won’t get hurt any worse. The longer he doesn’t notice you’re awake, the longer he doesn’t think about you, the better.
But that was a lie my fear was telling me.
The only reason this man was taking me someplace was that the new location would be better for him.
Better for him, but not for me. And with every passing second, we were rushing farther away from where anyone would think to look for me.
So I had to cut this trip short before the van stopped and whatever he had planned for me started.
The van wasn’t varying in speed, wasn’t stopping and accelerating, like it would for lights and stop signs on city streets. Were we on the freeway? It didn’t feel like we were going that fast, but I couldn’t be sure. How long had I been unconscious? How far away were we from the dojo? Did anyone even know I was missing?
I could not keep lying here on the way to my doom.
My body felt disconnected from my brain. It was like my thoughts were taking place in a different world than the one in which I lay.
I scanned the space through the crack between my upper and lower lids, looking for anything that might help me. Slowly, I figured out that I was facing the back door of the windowless van. When I realized my attacker couldn’t see my eyes, I opened them wider. My feet were closest to the back of the van, my head farthest away.
And in the middle of the rear of the van, a line of silver about six inches long.
A handle!
If I could get to it and open it, then I could escape. We were on a road. A road meant other people. People driving on the road. People living in houses next to it.
People who could save me. Even if they didn’t want to get involved, they would probably still call 9-1-1 if they saw a duct-taped girl escaping from a white van.
But I hadn’t heard any other cars pass. Maybe the rumble of the van’s engine masked them. Or maybe by now we were way out in the country.
Even if there was no one around to help me, I could still run away. I could hide. All I had to do was get out.
But how? If I got to my knees, once I opened the door, I would just fall out face-first. I needed to keep my legs in front of me. Maybe I could even manage to land on my feet. I imagined the shock of landing, how I would take giant, staggering steps, somehow staying balanced. How I would run away in the dark before my attacker even knew I was gone.
Daniel and some of the other high-ranking belts could do standing rolls. They tucked their heads and somersaulted in midair, and when they landed on the mat, they rolled diagonally from one shoulder across the back to the opposite hip. Their heads never even touched the ground. I had always been too scared to try it from standing, but had done a modified version from my knees.
Whatever move I tried, I needed to be as close to the door as possible. Even if my captor was watching in the rearview mirror, he couldn’t keep his eyes on me all the time. Plus the back of the van was nearly pitch-black. The only reason I could see was that my eyes had adjusted. He was watching a road lit by his headlights.
Holding my breath, I moved my feet a few inches closer to the door. Nothing happened. He didn’t shout or step on the brakes. I scooted my butt closer to my heels. I counted to sixty and then repeated the process, worming myself a few inches closer to the handle. But I couldn’t afford to be too slow. What if he was almost where he was going?
I sucked in a deep breath. Here I went. I pulled my arm under my side. I got up on my elbow and then pushed myself off the edges of my bound hands. I reached for the handle.
And missed. I fell back onto my shoulder, biting my lip to keep from screaming in pain and frustration.
Again. I had to be quick. Arm, elbow, hands, reach.
A shout behind me spurred me on. The fingers of my right hand curled around the handle.
It refused to move.
Despair flooded me even as I tried the other direction.
Suddenly the handle twisted and the door flew open into empty space. The cold night rushed in. Now I could smell how close the air was in the van, how it stank of fear. Maybe even of death. That thought spurred me on.
I leapt into the dark.