Endings by Linda Richards (e ink manga reader txt) 📕

I turn my attention back to the nightstand closest to me. Nothing in it, but then I get the idea to think about the things that are on top of the nightstand, including the unremarkable lamp that is the room’s only source of light.

The lamp has a flat metal base. The simple shade is held aloft by a thin pole made of the same stuff. I realize I am viewing it as a potential weapon. It is not ideal, but it is all I have. Necessity, mother of invention and so on.

I stretch my arm out as far as I can, but even in that position, I can just rest my fingertips against the cold metal base. This is somehow worse than not being able to touch it at all. Like a tease.

I stretch further, but that really doesn’t do anything but strain my muscles and I have this moment of a frustration so pure, I just want to relax into myself and cry. But I don’t cry, if for no reason beyond the fact that I don’t want to make a sound that might wake or alert him. I don’t even want to disturb the dog. So I take the largest silent breath I can and forge on.

When it occurs to me to use my pillow as a tool to bring the lamp closer to me, it seems so obvious I am at a complete loss to see how I didn’t think of it sooner. The pillow is awkward and not particularly firm, but I finally manage to use it to push the lamp ahead just enough that I can get my fist all the way around that firm, cold base. The simple act fills me with a feeling of pure accomplishment.

Once I have the stalk of the lamp firmly in my grip, I exhale for what feels like the first time in a half hour. The deep breath fills my lungs intoxicatingly. I am perspiring from my exertions and, once again, I feel like crying, but this time in relief. The dog senses my energy and looks up at me. His tail thumps dully on the floor until he subsides back into sleep.

So I lie there for a while, the lamp still in my grasp, but out of sight on the far side of the bed. I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait like that, but I’m presuming it will be a while. Atwater had looked all in: he’ll sleep for hours, and I know I can’t maintain this position for that long. Finally, I think to stash the lamp under the pillow, where I can get to it easily, but where it can’t be seen.

Now I am tired, too, but I don’t dare sleep. I might only get one chance at this, so I know I have to stay ready. Everything is balancing on it. I know what I’m dealing with; I have an idea of the future Atwater has envisioned for me. There is no future at all if I fail. There will be no do-overs and there is no second chance.

Time drags, though I can’t watch it go by. My phone was in my purse with the gun. I can’t see the purse in the room and I don’t know what he’s done with my things. Without my phone, I don’t know what time it is. And without that solid input of information on the passage of time, my mind reels around, reaching fruitlessly for proper information.

Staying there so still, I fight desperately against the stress sleep that keeps trying to claim me while pondering the squirrel brain of mine that’s developed over the last few years, so keyed on my smartphone that I suddenly realize it’s become difficult to think without it. This is the first time I’ve had that thought in a serious way. But after only an hour—or maybe it is two. I can’t tell!—I feel a sort of easing from it. A freeing. The feeling is like a spell breaking. And I laugh to myself. I’d broken the smartphone habit, cold turkey. All it had taken was to have a serial killer chain me to a bed.

After a while, the darkness outside recedes and the hint of light drips through the window. Dawn. But after that, I slip back into a slurry of minutes and hours of enforced peace and it all ceases to make sense again. My new normal.

I journey like this for a long time. Hours. Minutes. Maybe it is even days. Time has ceased to have meaning for me. I fight sleep with everything I have and then, suddenly, everything I have is not enough and it wins. It is not a deep sleep. My worry has kept me skating near the edge of consciousness, ever aware that I have only one move. I am dealing with someone who has actually flayed people. And so much more. If my one gambit fails, I won’t get another try.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

IN THE END, his footsteps on the floorboards are what wake me.

“How did you sleep?” he asks. He sounds like a concerned Airbnb host and I get a ludicrous vision of him making me fresh-squeezed orange juice with maybe a scone and offering up directions and suggestions to the local sights.

“What time is it?”

“Does it matter?”

I realize he is right: it does not.

“It’s funny how we key on things. Time. And the passage of it.” I marvel again at the calm sound of my voice. To my ears, anyway, it sounds clear and strong. The exact opposite of how I feel. I can see he notes the sound, too. He doesn’t arch an eyebrow at me, but the effect on his face is the same. He regards me in silence with an expression I can’t quite make out. It might be admiration, but it might be something else, too. I know I don’t want to overestimate my position, which really couldn’t be much worse. That’s what I