Ryan Westfield - Final Panic

But it was gone.

Of course it was gone.

They’d have to have been idiots to leave her with her weapon.

But then again, they’d left her unsupervised.

Her mind was still foggy, and she suddenly realized that all she’d been doing for minutes now was looking around and planning. She hadn’t moved a muscle, except to reach for her Glock.

She was in a strange position, lying on her side on the ground.

She went to move, trying to uncurl her legs so that she could stand up.

Only to find that they were bound together. Tightly.

She looked down, craning her head down awkwardly.

Her ankles were bound together, as well as her thighs.

It wasn’t rope that bound her. Instead, there were jumper cables.

Great. Just great. They’d be tougher to break. Tougher to saw through.

But her hands were free.

She realized it all of a sudden. After all, she’d reached for her absent Glock just now. Her mind was still a mess of fog, the pieces of reality fitting together strangely, as if everything was desynchronized.

That had been with her right arm.

Her left arm was trapped underneath her body, and she realized that she couldn’t feel it at all.

She tried to keep calm.

Getting worried about her arm would do her no good. It would just make her less effective.

And if there’d ever been a time when she needed to be effective, it was now.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t think clearly.

So she’d have to take things slow. Proceed item by item. Take things one at a time. Calm and measured.

OK. She was doing it.

She needed that arm. She’d get it to work.

She knew the clock was ticking. The motorcycle men might come back at any minute. But she still needed to proceed as calmly as she could.

Her left arm was probably just asleep. It had been stuck underneath her body for who knew how long.

Jessica tried to shift her weight off her arm.

But it was hard to move with her legs bound together.

The best she could do was wriggle her body around until she flopped down on her stomach. Her face pressed uncomfortably into the dirt.

Her left arm hung uselessly there. But at least it was free.

It was only a matter of time now before she started to regain feeling in it.

She knew she’d have to wait. She knew she couldn’t let herself get overcome with anxiety.

A minute passed.

Then another.

It felt like an eternity.

But, sure enough, she started to feel the painfully intense sensation of pins and needles creeping over her left arm.

It wasn’t long after that, that she was able to move it.

Now she had both arms at her disposal.

She pushed herself up off the dirt and got her legs around to her front so that she could reach down to untie the cables.

The motorcycle men had tied tight, complicated knots.

But they were still nothing more than knots.

What had they been thinking?

Had they been planning on her simply not waking up?

Or maybe they hadn’t been expected to be away for so long.

Jessica worked methodically and carefully.

In just another couple of minutes, she had the knots undone.

She stood up shakily, her legs in pain from the tight cords.

It was then that she heard the laughter.

Laughter coming from behind her.

Raucous laughter.

Cruel laughter.

She spun around.

The two motorcycle men were there, emerging from behind the trees where they’d been hiding.

They walked towards her.

One held a gun. Pointed right at her.

There was a vicious smile on his face.

“I told you that’d be hilarious.”

“It was even better than I thought it’d be.”

“Shit, we should do this with everyone we get.”

“The best part is when they think they’ve gotten away.”

“Definitely the best.”

Jessica’s heart was pounding. Her body was telling her to run. She was entering panic again.

But they’d just shoot her.

There was no point in running.

Slowly, she raised her hands into the air. She was frozen in place, her feet firmly planted on the ground.

Rob didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t have the slightest idea.

The Subaru engine was whining terribly, the tachometer pushing into the red zone.

He was forgetting to shift. And he knew that wasn’t good. He was wasting gas. Putting unnecessary strain on the small four-cylinder engine.

But his mind was a nexus of panic and focus. All he could think about was getting to Jessica. Rescuing her. Fighting with everything he had.

He was aware that he wasn’t approaching this rationally. He wasn’t acting the way Jim would have acted.

Jim would have taken a mental step back from the situation, evaluated his options, and proceeded calmly and diligently along the best route.

Instead, Rob felt like he was just plowing on full steam ahead without really considering the consequences.

After all, what happened when he ran out of gas?

What happened when he found himself stranded, unsure of how to get back?

What happened if he crashed? After all, he was driving erratically.

He was doing everything wrong. There were a thousand errors he could potentially make. And they were all more likely in his current mental state.

And, still, there was no sign of Jessica.

There was no sign of anyone.

All he knew was that he was heading southwest. Well, he didn’t even know that for sure. It was just his best guess.

Rob hadn’t spent much time outside the greater Rochester area. Aside from a couple of trips to New York City when he was younger, and a few school field trips, he’d barely seen what was beyond his immediate surroundings.

And before now, he’d never seen a problem with that. He’d figured that everything was pretty much the same everywhere. He’d figured that if he’d been to New York City, where he’d been shocked by the rudeness of the people and the speed with which the organized chaos moved, he’d pretty much seen it all.

Now he was wishing he’d at least glanced at a few maps. Or spent a little time with one of those web pages that showed you an area’s topographical features.

Rob was out of his element.

Pine trees rushed by as he drove along at a brisk eighty-five miles per hour.

His eyes were constantly moving, scanning the road for any sign of a motorcycle.

But what was he going to find?

The riders were long gone. Jessica was long gone.

It wasn’t as if they’d leave behind a calling card. It wasn’t as if they’d leave behind some item that was immediately recognizable as belonging to them, like a motorcycle helmet or a pair of leather saddle bags.

For the first time since he’d sped away from the lake house, Rob seriously considered turning around.

After all, had he even done the responsible thing? He’d left Aly there, protected only by her uncle. And Jordan certainly wasn’t someone you could rely on. Not in a life-or-death situation.

He’d done what he’d thought was best, and now he was second-guessing himself.

It had been an impossible call.

After all, he’d known in that instant, as he’d watched the motorcycles speeding away, that there was no getting Jessica back once she was gone.

It was a one in a million chance she’d return. And it’d be all up to her. She’d have to escape herself. Then find her way back. Without any gear. Without a map. Without knowing where she was.

Jessica was capable. More so than Rob. More so than a lot of people. But that didn’t mean she’d be able to escape her captors.

Especially not with a blow to the head.

Rob was panicking. His breathing was ragged. His thoughts were going every which way.