Side by Side

41

When the man Lucy Dockery learned by eavesdropping was Dixie’s father arrived, she had already gathered herself together and had explored the room using the flashlight. She put her fingers over the lens to filter and concentrate the beam into a weak slit of light. While she’d been exploring, Lucy had touched enough to leave her fingerprints in enough places that no matter how well these people cleaned, they’d never erase them all. The door in her room, which she supposed was a required emergency exit, was padlocked.

The windows in the bedroom were covered with overlapping strips of duct tape to seal out all light. The room’s windows had heavy steel-screen shutters on them. She discovered that the lock hasp was being held fast by a several-inches-long, threaded machine bolt. A flat washer prevented the bolt’s head from falling straight through the steel ring. Getting the screen and the window open was a breeze. Lucy wished they had used a large nail, because a nail would have given her a tool, and she’d have been able to use it to put one of Buck’s eyes out, or give him a facial scar to remember her by. The window behind the mattress was very close to the warehouse’s wall, but she was sure that once she got the screen open she could slip out and drop to the ground without Dixie hearing her. She’d found a spray bottle of human scent killer that she could use. Once she got out of the trailer she would have to somehow seal the dogs in their room before they came out. The noise from the TV and the thick layer of dust should help cover her footsteps. If the dogs went into a barking frenzy and alerted Dixie, Lucy would have to defend herself as best she could with whatever she could lay her hands on. She had never heard the dogs bark or even growl, so she figured they were trained not to. She had to neutralize Dixie, Buck, and maybe the twins as well. She knew that she either had to overpower Dixie and get a key to the warehouse door, or neutralize Dixie and lure whoever was outside the warehouse inside so she could get out through the open door. Then she had to make sure they couldn’t get out and chase her to get a head start.

When Dixie’s father arrived, Lucy hid the flashlight under the mattress and curled up on the bed to play possum when he looked into her room. She hoped she looked worse to him than she was. Buck had bruised her up good, but with scalp wounds, bleeding is often disproportional to severity. If she was going to get away, they had to believe she was incapable of escaping.

Lucy was certain her father had the authorities searching for her and Elijah, but she couldn’t depend on help arriving in time, and couldn’t hold out any hope for a rescue.

Seconds after the man closed the door, he and Dixie moved into the kitchen. Lucy slipped off the bed and put her ear close to the base of the door and listened to their conversation. It confirmed what Buck had said about her future prospects, but now she knew they were going to kill Elijah, too. Now she no longer had anything to lose.

She didn’t have until Monday. She had a few hours at best. If Dixie’s father got more of the drug they had used on her, she had to act before he returned with it. Once they dosed her with that again, she would never be able to do anything but lie there unconscious until they. . No. That wasn’t going to happen. At least not the way they planned. She wouldn’t go to her grave quietly or easily.

The makeshift dose that Dixie was going to use on her was a frightening thought, but she’d deal with that when the time came.

She waited for the door to the trailer to close before she sneaked the flashlight back out from under the mattress. Then she turned it on for a moment, slid the window carefully closed, put the flashlight back beneath the mattress, and lay on the bed. She had to make a plan, go through the options one by one.

She forced herself to concentrate, running through a mental list of what she had seen out in the warehouse, and how she could make use of those items for her and Eli’s flight.

She had no idea what was beyond the building’s walls, so once she was outside, she’d have to play it by ear.

Eleven-letter word for exiting hell.

DELIVERANCE