Page 33 of Booked for Kidnapping

I’d heard the lecture a few too many times.

Weight without support could finish my foot off and lead to an amputation.

While I needed to pee, I also needed an intact foot, and my captors hadn’t felt I needed a cane to get around. I had been able to manage without a cane for both the cast and the boot, which had offered the appropriate support. The note had promised the cast would support my foot, although I needed to keep it dry. I had.

The note hadn’t been a lie.

Mountainous stacks of new books waited for me, something I would appreciate, assuming I could make it to the bathroom without inflicting permanent injury upon myself. Bracing for the burning, stabbing pain of testing my luck, I rested my toe on the cold floor.

Nothing happened, not even a twinge. I wiggled my toes, and outside of the soreness of my foot having been cramped in a cast for a long time, I escaped discomfort.

I held the position for at least two minutes before I applied more pressure, placing the ball of my foot onto the ground. The one time I’d been instructed to do the exercise, it’d been done in a controlled environment to make certain I understood the problems I faced in the future.

None of the throbbing agony I expected came. As so many of the damaged bones were near the ball of my foot, it should have hurt.

I should have been crying the instant I’d tried to put any weight on my unsupported toe.

Clutching the pipe in a white-knuckled grip, I lowered the rest of my foot down, flinching when my heel touched the concrete.

I’d been kidnapped by miracle workers wielding the sort of magic I’d spent years dreaming about. While my muscles ached, I dodged the expected pain. I eased my full weight onto my foot. The ache grew to an odd soreness, dull and bearable. I’d been told I’d one day experience being sore, but not for years, not until after the damaged bones in my foot were able to support my weight and my battered, torn, and otherwise abused muscles had a chance to heal.

It should have taken numerous operations for that to happen due to the shattered state of the bones and joints.

How long had I waited in the basement to find some way to escape?

I’d given up on the idea of being rescued.

It took me a long time to work up the courage to take my first true step, and I leaned against the wall in fear of the pain I expected. The soreness bothered me, but as it counted more as an ache rather than true pain, I made myself walk to the bathroom and begin the progress of setting up a bubble bath where I’d read a book—and attempt to check on my foot with my uncooperative, scrambled magic.

A pair of flats waited beside the pile of clean clothes, along with a pair of sneakers, and I wasted at least ten minutes trying to remember what it was like to wear a normal pair of shoes rather than tossing the unneeded right one. Shaking my head, I forced my attention back to the more important matter, which involved attempting to use my magic on myself. I expected to be thwarted thanks to the mystery cocktail they used trying to contain me—or heal my foot. Or both.

I removed the bracelet designed to control my exsanguination abilities. While I was rustier than I liked at using my magic, I was able to detect they’d somehow cured my foot of the lingering infection, and while there was a minor amount of inflammation due to the persistent injury, a single ibuprofen could handle it, assuming I could get my hands on the drug.

Rather than read one of the books, I spent my entire bath puzzling over why anyone would, outside of my inner circle of family and friends, want to heal my foot. Who? Why?

How?

The how would bother me later, sometime after I figured out the who or why. I could see Bradley pulling some form of stunt if he thought I could have a functional foot in a short period of time. However, I couldn’t see him—or anyone in his family—locking me in isolation for an extended period of time.

I could only assume I’d been living in the concrete room with its sole bathroom for at least several weeks if not several months. Scars didn’t form overnight, not without a lot of magic backing it, and I’d been on a full regime of antibiotics, something that typically lasted at least ten days but could extend for up to a month. That I’d lost count of meals led me to believe I’d been held captive for months.

I resented having lost even more of my life to bullshit. At least the first round of bullshit I’d controlled—to a point. Had I been given a choice, we would have all walked away from that crash. I’d emerged the victor.

Bradley had walked away.

No, the more I thought about it, the less I believed he could have had anything to do with my imprisonment. Aware the bathroom had undergone some illusionary alterations, for all I knew, I could have been in an apartment, one disguised as some barren basement. Or a house. Or an abandoned office at the top of some skyscraper. Or in some barn deep in the country. I’d seen studio apartments without actual kitchens plenty of times. All it would take was installing a wall, adding some pipes, a layer of concrete, and some paint to create my cell.

Alternatively, a damned good illusion to trick me into believing I dealt with concrete instead of wood or carpet. I could have also been tricked into believing that there was no kitchen.

After having given them the slip once, my parents might lock me in a room for the rest of my life, but they would demand daily visitations. My mother would, given her way, bar me from ever eating out of a take-out container ever again, eliminating them from my list of suspects.

She couldn’t bear the thought of spanking me. There was no way my mother would condone isolation. While my father had no problems dishing out appropriate punishments whenever I endangered my life, he rarely used any form of isolation as a punishment tool, as my introverted self often viewed it as a reward.

Had the culprit known me, the take-out containers would have contained my favorite Chinese food at least once a day, with the rare appearance of Thai to offer some variety. I assumed my kidnappers had worked with limited ideas of what I enjoyed eating, although they’d been educated on how to keep a librarian somewhat amused and questionably sane during long-term imprisonment.

Captivity with daily offerings of Chinese food would have limited my desire to bust out somewhat, not that my desire to escape helped me accomplish anything.

Annoyed over how one magic trick had done such a good job of holding me prisoner, I got out of the bath, dried off, inched my way around the bathroom, taking care with each step. Once confident I would pay in soreness rather than pain, I stood straight without the help of the wall.