Heartsick

CHAPTER 43

Susan awoke with a start to the smell of gasoline. The odor was so strong that it reached down through the ocean she was under, grabbed her by the hair, and dragged her to the surface of her consciousness. She came to with a start, but it was so dark that it took her a few moments to realize that her eyes were open. Her hands and feet were bound. She sat up and hit her head on something hard just above her. The impact sent a shock wave of pain through her skull and she sank back down into a lying position.

“Paul?” she said. Her voice came out in a whimper.

The room lurched. Susan was caught off balance and rolled back against a wall. It wasn’t so much the lurching room that tipped her off as the thud her body made against the fiberglass. A boat. She was on a boat.

It was then that she panicked.

She started to scream. She used her bound hands and feet to bang on the fiberglass. She found strength she didn’t know she had. “I’m down here,” she shrieked. “Help me. Someone.”

“Susan.”

She froze and every hair on her body stood up. He was down there. With her. In the dark.

“Susan.” His disembodied voice was strained and brutal. “You need to be quiet.”

“Let me go, Paul,” she pleaded into the darkness.

She felt him fumble for her and she forced herself not to cringe under his touch as his hand found her leg and moved up her thigh and stopped. He was right next to her. His breath was hot against her face.

“I thought we’d spend some time together,” he said, and his voice caught. “Like you said, I barely know you.”