She felt movement in front of her and hurled herself forward, her chin tucked in, head-butting. She hit a glancing blow to something, and heard the whoosh of exhaled breath, but kept flying forward and landed on the ground, solidly on her face. She didn’t have time to recover before her whole body convulsed, twitching, a thousand tiny stars lighting up behind her closed eyes as consciousness winked out.
She woke up in steps, her brain responding to thumping pain signals. She opened eyes gummy with dried tears. The light was dim. The blue tarp overhead flapped a little. She couldn’t hear anything but the tinkling of the nearby stream.
An icy calm settled over her. He’s going to kill me. I’ll just have to kill him first.
She was inside a cheap nylon sleeping bag, naked. Her hands were cuffed in front. Her feet were loose, but she felt the pinch of something on her ankle. She reached down to feel another handcuff, this one clipped around her ankle, attached to a steel tie-out cable threaded through the zipper of the sleeping bag, trailing out into the bushes.
She lay in the same dilapidated shelter she’d helped clear out. The crime techs had left it there, the landowner’s problem to deal with. Instead of pockmarked dirt, he’d covered the ground with a large musty-smelling carpet fragment. An ice chest was nearby and a battery-operated lantern hung from the supporting pole in the middle. Late afternoon sun slanted through the trees.
She’d been unconscious all day.
She sat up and took inventory of her injuries, feeling the welts where the Taser had hit her in the neck and back, her bruised face. Worst was the wrist, throbbing a protest with each beat of her heart.
She had to pee, and crawled out of the sleeping bag and relieved herself behind a bush. There was another welt on her thigh-probably an injection site. No other reason she would’ve been out all day.
Lei then explored the length of the cable tie-out. It ended looped around the sturdy trunk of a christmasberry bush. It was too short for her to move beyond the screening growth. Branches within her reach had been trimmed back with a machete so there were no dangling or handy branches, and the big pile of potentially useful trash was gone, removed in the search for evidence. There weren’t even any handy rocks. The site was isolated, an empty acreage at the end of a cul-de-sac on a large, undeveloped tract of land. It was pretty smart of him to use it again, no one would anticipate that.
Her clothes were folded next to the ice chest. There was no way to get her pants back on with the cable attached to her foot, and with hands cuffed she couldn’t put her bra or shirt back on either. He’s done this before, she thought. He knows he has to take the clothes off before putting restraints on or he can’t get them off later. The thought of Mary’s ordeal chilled her, somehow made worse by this final confirmation that her stalker was the killer they’d been searching for.
Lei flipped up the lid, looking for something to use as a weapon. Inside was a bag of ice and a six-pack of water bottles. She was parched, her throat scratchy from the gag. She picked up one of the water bottles, inspecting it. It had a tiny puncture mark in the neck. She looked at the rest of them. They all did. Maybe this was how he administered the Rohypnol.
He didn’t seem interested in fighting her, more in keeping her subdued.
A plan began forming. She took two of the water bottles and emptied the water out near a plant where it wouldn’t show. The bag of ice was closed with a large, crimped steel staple. She had to use both hands to pull it open-difficult with her broken wrist. The thick staple wire, unfolded, could make a weapon.
Lei popped several ice cubes into her mouth, crunching them-the coolness soothing on her raw throat-and unzipped the sleeping bag off the tie-out cable to increase her mobility. She rearranged the sleeping bag the way it had been, only now with the cable pulled tighter so it looked like it went into the bottom of the bag as before, but now it came in through the top, forming a loop. She got in and set the empty water bottles beside her and chewed ice until her thirst was quenched.
She’d fallen asleep, a fitful stupor, when the growl of an engine startled her awake. The black tracery of branches against a glowing grey sky heralded nightfall. Showtime.
Lei put her cuffed hands above her head and closed her eyes, a picture of unconscious submission, the staple wire concealed between her fingers. She waited as she heard the muffled thump of the car door slam, the swish and crunch of his approaching footsteps. They slowed as he approached her.
She felt him staring down at her. She kept her breath slow and even. He prodded her with his foot. She remained limp. She felt him pick up the water bottle from beside her, heard the swish of remaining droplets as he shook it.
“Stupid bitch,” he said, in that almost-familiar voice. “You were too easy. I don’t know what he sees in you.”
Light glowed against her eyelids as he turned on the lantern. She heard more rustling, what sounded like a paper bag. She cracked her eyes but in the dim light of the lantern she could only make out his silhouette: not too tall. He took out a sandwich and put it in the cooler. Through the screen of her lashes she watched him get a camera out of his backpack. She closed her eyes as he loomed over her, unzipping the sleeping bag, the camera clicking periodically.
It seemed like forever before she heard the rustle of his clothing coming off, the thud of his shoes as they hit the ground. Her heart beat like a drum-hollow, frantic. She controlled her breathing with difficulty, then suddenly felt herself slipping away to that other place, rising above her body to somewhere in the top of the shelter looking down. She saw the pale, muscular length of his body as he knelt beside her. His head was dark, and she realized he was wearing a ski mask.
His fingers, warm and rough at the same time, moved softly over her breast. She continued to breathe deeply, slowly as her hand palmed the wire between her fingers, curling as if in slumber.
He gently pried her legs apart. He’ll see the cable, she thought, but he didn’t appear to notice the shadow of the cable running beside and underneath her.
From her mental vantage point above, she watched the exploration of her body. He stroked her thighs, licking the bowl of her navel, the feathery touch of his fingers making her nipples perk involuntarily. He made a low growling noise, moving up her, tonguing and sucking, spreading her legs further apart with his knee. Every now and then, he would stop, pick up the camera and take a picture.
He leaned over, setting the camera down above her shoulder.
Now!
Arching upward she struck, aiming the wire into his eye. There was a strange popping sound as she sunk it deep, followed by her thumb. He screamed, high and thin, and she tossed the loop of cable around his neck. He tried to rear back but she pulled him in to her breast, pulling the crossed cable tighter and tighter as far as her cuffed hands could go, kicking downward on the other end attached to her ankle.
He coughed, fighting for air, and punched at her face and body. She scissored her legs around his waist, pulling him further down so he couldn’t get leverage, redoubling her efforts to pull on the cable. He flailed, rearing back, and then headbutted her in the chin. Her mouth filled with blood.
He thrust forward, gaining a breath as he sank his teeth into her collarbone. Lei screamed but didn’t let go. He threw himself to the side and rolled, trying to lose her, but now she was on top. She heaved backward on the cable, pulling in the slack from his movement. She pulled and kicked with the leg clipped to the cable: pulled and kicked, pulled and kicked, her hands becoming slippery.
His fingers clawed at his neck, scrabbling for a hold. He bucked and heaved, but she hung on with all she had, hearing a fierce low growling that came from her own throat.
His face was hidden behind the knit of the mask but for the wire rising out of the weeping, ruined eye. His heels drummed on the ground, his chest slippery with their shared blood. He bucked feebly. She felt the deep shudders of his dying body between her thighs.