Page 36 of Dancing With Doubt

16

Lincoln

The night was going great, he thought as he walked out to the car, pausing to stare up at the sky. The streetlights made it almost impossible to see the stars, but he knew they were up there, looking down on him. It was one of the things he missed the most when he wasn’t in Cambodia, how well he could see the stars.

His hands were in his pockets, and he felt good. Roxie had revealed one of her secrets to her friends, the biggest one as far as he was concerned. She probably had more secrets than that, but he wouldn’t push her anymore. He had a big one he hadn’t quite revealed yet either.

The time had never seemed right to talk to her about the way her parents died. Bringing up that night caused her pain, crushing pain that wrote itself all over her face whenever it was mentioned. He’d decided to wait until the time was right, for good reason, but if he didn’t tell her soon, he might come to regret it.

The salty scent of the ocean wafted on a cool breeze, the summer smell conflicting with the sensation of winter. Lincoln knew that the people that lived on the coast year-round were probably used to that smell, but he still thought of summer when he smelled it. Smiling at his sudden poetic streak, he started to head for the car, realizing how much time he'd wasted already.

The attendant told him where the car was parked so he had no trouble finding it as he moved through the rows of neatly parked vehicles. He clicked the button in his pocket and reached for the door handle to open the car. He spotted his phone in the center console and frowned. How could he have forgotten it when it was right there?

Roxie’s fine ass getting out of the car flitted through his mind, and the memory of how he’d wanted to get out of the car as quickly as possible to touch that part of her was all the explanation he needed. Yep, she distracted him to no end, but he didn’t mind a bit.

Lincoln started to bend to reach for the phone when a hand wrapped around his face and a cloth covered his mouth and nose. Whoever it was attacking him was shorter than he was and had to reach up to keep the cloth over his face. Lincoln reacted automatically, his elbow flying back, his fingers dragging the keys out of his pocket where they dropped on the ground, but he didn’t notice. He was hoping to crack a rib, but his elbow caught the window instead, shattering the glass all over the ground.

Lincoln grabbed at the arm around his waist, tearing fingers back until the man screamed when they tore out of their joints, but he didn’t let go of Lincoln’s face. Lincoln felt the world going dark, tried to stay in the moment, in the present, but it was getting harder. His foot came down sluggishly on the man’s foot, but it wasn’t forceful enough and resulted only in a groan.

Lincoln’s body wavered as the cloth cut off his air, forcing him to inhale even more of the fumes. He reached out one last time, going for the man’s injured hand, causing him to let go at last, but Lincoln was out before he even hit the ground.

* * *

Lincoln hearda roaring sound as he came back to the world but thought the pain in his head must be causing the noise. His thoughts spun around, trying to figure out where he was. Was he at home?

He tried to move, but his arms were tied behind his back and his feet seemed to be tied up too. He knew he wasn’t at home. Roxie had no reason to tie him up like this and leave him. Sure, she’d tied him up in the playroom, but the rough wall that his face was pressed into wasn’t like anything in the playroom.

Roxie.

The party.

Going out for his phone.

Memories played in his mind as he used the wall to pull himself up to a sitting position. That’s when he figured out the roaring sound wasn’t in his head, it was outside. He must be near the ocean, that was the sound he heard, the rush of waves as a storm came in. He could even smell the unmistakable smell of the sea now, too.

Where the fuck was he?

And who the fuck had gotten the best of him?

Lincoln moved around, trying to get his hands out of the rough rope tied around his wrists. The rope didn’t budge at all, it only chafed his skin as he rubbed his wrists together, trying to force them out of the bonds.

The rope around his feet was a little looser, but try as he might, he couldn’t free his feet either. Fuck, if the guy had used zip ties, he could have worked his way out of those. This might be harder.

Lincoln moved around on the floor, working until he felt as though his shoulders would pop out of their sockets, but he was finally able to roll around enough to get his hands in front of his body at least. Fuck, this was a mess, he decided as he took a break from his escape attempt.

He felt like an idiot for letting this happen. He should have made sure the security team followed them to the restaurant when they left the house. He should have made sure he had his phone. He should have sent someone else to get the phone. He certainly should have been able to take the guy that assaulted him. He didn’t even want to think about what it must have looked like as he rolled around on the floor trying to get his hands under his ass and then his legs through too.

This was not only humiliating, it was also embarrassing. Kai would be on it, though. Lincoln had no doubt about that, at all. Roxie and June were probably about to lose their minds, but that couldn’t be helped. Kai would know what to do to get him back, if Lincoln couldn’t free himself, that was.

With numb fingers, Lincoln tried to work at the rope around his ankles. The rope around his wrists had only grown tighter through his struggles, not looser as he’d hoped. Still, he managed to free his ankles at last and sprang up from the concrete floor. He was a little dizzy for a moment, but the sensation passed.

The space he was in was completely dark. The dark seemed to eat any light, almost like a black hole. Well, what he read black holes were like, darker than dark, a void that made no sense, but was there, nonetheless. He started to walk with the wall against his right shoulder. It wasn’t a huge room, but big enough. Probably a storage space, since there were no windows at all.

Lincoln had hoped there were windows and that they were just covered. Without a way out, he wouldn’t be able to escape. He kept walking until he stumbled. The wall had changed. Holding his hands out in front of his body, he felt the structure and frowned. It was metal with grooves and then solid pieces jutting out from the grooves. Like a security shutter in a storage building.

Okay, he didn’t know exactly where he was on a map, but he did know what he was in, a storage building. That was something anyway.

Weren’t they notorious for having shitty locks? Nathan felt along the bottom of the shutter but then realized it was pointless. The lock was outside, a padlock most likely.