Below Zero by Eva Hudson

Author:Eva Hudson [Hudson, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkubator Books
Published: 2019-08-05T22:00:00+00:00

25

Ingrid thumped hard on the dividing wall.

“Get in here,” she yelled. “Now!”

All she could hear was the kid’s voice. It sounded like he was mimicking her. The kidnappers were silent.

“Get in here. We need help.”

She didn’t have the strength to shout louder.

“Can you hear me? Get in here!”

Ingrid knelt down, the beam of light from the other side hitting her in the chest, and took Jens’s wrist in her hand, her index and middle fingers pressing hard against his radial artery. The pulse was weak and slow. Too slow. It wouldn’t be long before it was undetectable, before there was no blood left in his extremities at all. His lips were blue.

“Come on,” she shouted. “Now! He’s fucking dying in here.”

There were sounds of movement from the other side of the wall. Footsteps, chatter, the opening and closing of cupboards, the boy’s voice—she couldn’t tell if he was talking to her or the kidnappers—followed by the sound of something metallic being dragged across the floor.

The floor.

Ingrid looked at the loosened floorboards. The jimmied ends were an inch or two proud. If the kidnappers saw them, her chance to escape would dissolve like sugar in boiling water. She looked down at Jens, then back at the loosened boards. The best thing she could do for him was preserve her means of escape. She pushed herself to standing, took three steps over to the floorboards and stood on them, pressing the wrenched nails back into the joists below. She consoled herself with the knowledge that they’d be easier to loosen the next time.

The first bolt was scraped open, then the second. Ingrid returned to Jens, kneeling beside him.

“Hey, Jens, hang in there. I’m going to get you help.”

He was unresponsive, his jaw falling slack as his head lolled to one side.

The door was pushed open and Ingrid flinched when a fierce wind knifed its way inside. She turned to see Mohammed and the short man, who was holding a semi-automatic carbine in front of his chest.

“What have you done to him?” Mohammed said.

“Shut the damned door. You have a heater next door, right?”

Both men looked confused. She repeated herself, slowly. “A heater?” She mimed rubbing her hands together.

The two men glanced at each other, clearly suspicious.

“Look at him!” she shouted. “He will die. You need to take him next door.”

“Die?” Mohammed said.

Ingrid got to her feet and marched toward the door. The short man aimed the carbine at her chest.

“Then you close the damn door!” She knelt back down beside Jens and started to rub his arms. “You need to get him warm. He has hypothermia. Do you know what that is?”

The short man shook his head.

“Come here.”

Neither of them moved.

“Come here!”

They shuffled over, the short man still keeping both hands on his weapon, and peered down at Jens.

“See his lips?” Ingrid asked. “They’re blue.” She wasn’t sure if they understood everything she was saying. “You need to pick him up, take him next door. Get him warm.” She forced her bound hands under Jens’s right shoulder.

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