First message
She was just walking home.
Then came a cloth over her face, someone’s arms around her from behind, a car door and distant voice somewhere above her.
“I have his daughter. He’ll talk. Give him a day,” a man’s voice said.
She laughed from the back seat, her wrists bound behind her back.
“His daughter? He stopped needing me the day I was born. We haven’t spoken in ten years.”
The driver didn’t answer.
Then came sleep, long roads and scattered fragments of memory.
During the first day she still fought. She yelled, threatened, tried to escape every chance she got.
He would silently show her the pistol at his side and return to reading.
Reading.
While she was locked inside a house in the middle of a Canadian forest.
Why Canada?
The question drove her insane. She paced from wall to wall, measured every room, checked every window. He read books, brought her meals and answered almost nothing.
At least he could cook.
That much she had to admit.
Three days passed in a blur of exhaustion, unanswered questions and cigarette smoke. He spent most of his time reading, smoking or watching the forest through the windows as if none of this bothered him in the slightest.
“Stop pacing like a bird in a cage. You’re not going anywhere,” he said calmly, finally looking up from his book.
She crossed her arms and dropped onto the couch with a glare.