Chapter Five
She can’t get comfortable. With her wrists bound behind her back, no position offers relief, and anytime she finds one better than another, the violent motion of the vehicle throws her out of it. Her shoulders burn and her mouth aches to be free of the putrid rag filling it. The boxer shorts she was wearing when he came are soaked and soiled.
She wonders if the ride will ever end. Death would mean sweet release from the pain, the terror, but she can’t will herself into its embrace and she doesn’t have the ability or resources to take her own life. Instead, she prays for salvation, for rescue, but if her prayers are answered, it’s not in the concrete, nonmetaphorical way she needs at the moment.
Someone else, she tells herself, would have paid attention from the beginning, kept track of the twists and turns, the time elapsed, so that she might someday direct authorities back to wherever it was she was being taken. Not her, though. She was unconscious at the beginning, and when she woke up, all she could think about was her family and her own physical discomfort. She had heard gunshots, back at home, after the guy came into her room and slapped a wet rag over her face. Almost instantly she felt woozy, disoriented, and he tied a rope around her and carried her out of the house, into the truck. She tried to fight, to stay awake, especially when she heard the shots, but then she was out.
Her father owns a rifle, in case, he says, anything bothers the livestock. She only remembers it being loaded once during her lifetime, when she was eight or nine, which means the shots she had heard were almost certainly fired by her attacker. She can’t assume he left anyone alive at home, although she hopes with all of her might that she’s wrong.
Once she had awakened, she had no idea how long they’d been driving and she couldn’t see outside to watch for landmarks. She thinks about trying to, a couple of times, dismissing it each time as too late; then the bolts of pain shoot through her body and the humiliation of her circumstances send shame rushing through her and she forgets all about it for another minute or hour.
By the time the vehicle stops, she has fallen asleep. She dreams of a bird, trying to fly, but its wings have been matted with thick oil and all it can manage is useless fluttering. When the rear door opens and light streams in—light she can’t see but can only sense through the blindfold for just a fraction of a second—she thinks she is home in her own bed.
But then she remembers.