CHAPTER

46

ANNABELLE WAS DOING the breast stroke in her mind, struggling to emerge from the mental bog where syrupy, undulating waves seethed all around her. But her numb, cold limbs wouldn’t move. Her fingers and toes didn’t seem to respond when she tried to wiggle them. And then she remembered.

You’re just as lovely as your sister was.

She would have panicked, but she was incapable because her brain was misfiring, veering off in strange and crazy places, ugly places. And she couldn’t remember anything about how she’d gotten here. Maybe she was dead already and this was Hell, a place she’d never believed in until now.

But then she felt the very real, searing pain in her wrists and ankles where the manacles bit into her flesh, where she’d rubbed it raw struggling; became aware of the agonizing thud of a demon’s kettledrum between her temples; tasted the foulness of a parched mouth. She was very much alive.

But how long will that last?

She tried to bring her thoughts into focus. They wavered in and out, but somewhere deep in the back of her foggy mind, there was a tiny dim beacon, a miniature lighthouse flashing a signal, and that signal told her to get her bearings, assess the situation, and find a way to GET OUT.

But how? She was bound and gagged, blindfolded and helpless. She’d been drugged, kidnapped, and taken prisoner by the same sick monster who’d tortured her sister before he’d suffocated her. And she was next. Keep it in the family.

She thought of all the tired, inspirational maxims, like “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” and “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Whatever mindless optimists had come up with those saccharine slogans had obviously never been confined to a torture chamber.

Focus. Keep yourself alive.

She had to pay attention to the lighthouse beacon. It was all she had.

She tried to open up her senses and create a mental image of her surroundings. The first thing she noticed was that the room was very quiet, so quiet that even her breathing and whimpers sounded flat, muffled. It was a soundproofed room, she realized, and felt something go hollow inside.

It was warm and smelled like sandalwood. Or maybe the scent was earth and this was her crypt. It was dark enough to be one—even blindfolded, she registered the absence of light. She was lying on something soft and her head was slightly elevated—a bed?

Because she couldn’t move, couldn’t use her hands or feet to explore, couldn’t even shout to gauge the size of the room, her mental imaging was halted, and most of her hope along with it. All she could do now was stop struggling, save her strength, and wait for an opportunity. Or try to create one when he came back. And he would be back, that much she knew.