Survival Instinct (Book 5): Social Instinct

by Stittle, Kristal

  It got dark and still they walked. Dakota could barely see anything, but she still tried to figure out where they were. It was hard, especially since she had to focus on keeping her breathing slow and even. She feared something was going to pop despite her holding still. With every footstep she was jostled, and she imagined her tendons creaking and groaning like the hull of the submarine.

  She wished Misha had made it back. He and his dogs would be able to track her, using the scent from her hat, which had been left behind. Maybe Barrel and Spring could do it? Would they understand a complicated command like that, given by someone who wasn’t their master? Dakota knew that Spring was good at catching rats, so maybe she could be equally good at finding people. Maybe one of the other dogs from the container yard could follow the scent trail? It was a hope to hold onto.

  The pain was too much to fall asleep, but Dakota had the awful feeling that she had passed out from it for a little while. She had definitely stopped paying attention to where they were going for a length of time she couldn’t determine. She wanted to curse, but the gag prevented it.

  She wondered how the men who had taken her could see where they were headed. They didn’t have any sort of light source, and yet they hadn’t tripped over anything or walked into any walls. When they finally entered a building, the only way Dakota could tell was when the air went still and stale, and the quiet shuffle of feet took on a bit of an echo. Whatever building they were in was dark, until a door was opened and a flood of light spilled forth. Dakota blinked, her eyes unaccustomed to the bright, and then she was dumped in a corner, facing the wall. Elijah was placed beside her, bound more loosely than she was but still unconscious. She was very worried about him. Having spent so much time around Cameron and Riley, she knew that being hit unconscious for even a few seconds was dangerous, and Elijah had been out for many minutes. It might have even been an hour for all Dakota knew. He could have brain damage. He could be a vegetable.

  “Only two?” a voice asked from somewhere behind Dakota.

  “There were five more, but they ran off. That one warned them.”

  “And you let them escape?” Anger simmered in the voice. “They’ll have warned the whole community by now.”

  “What were we supposed to do? Run them down? They were fast kids, and they weren’t unarmed. That one was carrying a rifle, the other had this bag of rocks, and they both had knives. So what was I supposed to do? Shoot the ones running away? It’s not like I had a silencer.”

  “They’ll be looking for us now.”

  “Settle down,” a new voice calmed. “They can’t find us. And besides, a search party means a small group of people outside that wall of theirs. They’ll be easy to pick off.”

  Dakota’s heart jumped. She hadn’t imagined that these people would attack the search party. She had to escape, and if she was going to do that, she needed to know what was going on. She needed to see more than a dusty baseboard. Using mostly her thighs, she was able to start squirming herself around. For the first time in her life, she wished for smaller breasts, as they kept getting painfully crushed beneath her. She bit down hard on the gag to push through the pain until she had turned enough to see the room without having to crane her neck.

  The first thing she made note of was the light bulb hooked up to a car battery. It wasn’t shaded at all, just a bright point of light, like a small star. The next thing she looked for, she didn’t find. There were no windows in that room, meaning the light couldn’t be seen from outside. She should have expected that. Finally looking at the people around the light, she realized there were more than she had anticipated. Along with the two men, still half dressed as zombies, there were at least a dozen others. They were all so quiet, so still, that she had had no idea. It was possible that there were even more she couldn’t see, hidden behind the others or behind the boxes in the room, or maybe even guarding outside somewhere. Studying the collection of men and women, Dakota was able to determine how her captors had moved so easily through the night: a pair of night vision goggles sat on the floor beside them. If Dakota did manage to escape, stealing those would be a great help to her, and a hindrance to them. Of course, there were a lot more steps to figure out first.

  “The girl is looking at us,” the calming man spoke. Dakota hadn’t even seen him glance over at her; they all seemed to be ignoring her and Elijah.

  One of the false zombies got up and spun her back around to face the wall. She then had a blindfold tied over her eyes. For the first time, she wondered what these people planned to do with her. Was she going to be tortured? Was she bait or a bargaining chip to be used against those at the container yard? Was she going to be eaten? Her muscles contracted with fear. Was she going to be raped?

  Her captors weren’t talking. There were no plans for her to overhear. They must have decided everything in advanced. Her breath started to come in short, rapid bursts. She couldn’t get enough air around the gag. She was suffocating.

  Someone in the room sighed, and then a knee was placed on her back.

  “Scream if you want. No one other than us will hear you,” a stream of hot breath whispered in her ear as the gag was removed.

  Dakota refused to scream. She was terrified, but she refused to let these bastards know it, whoever they were.

  “Check that the other one isn’t dead,” requested a voice not yet heard before.

  “Still has a pulse,” was reported from beside Dakota.

  So Elijah was still breathing. That was something.

  “How hard did you hit him?”

  “Pretty hard. He had this rifle.”

  “We’ll find a use for him, even if he never wakes up,” the calm voice insisted. Dakota was beginning to think that that one was the leader.

  She sensed more than physically felt when the person who had removed her gag went away. Blindfolded, she carefully scooted herself sideways until she bumped into Elijah. The warmth of his skin was reassuring, and if she bent her head toward him, she could make out his breathing.

  What was she supposed to do next? She knew the location of one door, but not if there was a second. She had no idea how to get out of her bindings. With the blindfold on, she could no longer even be certain when the light was turned off, when her captors decided to sleep. Maybe it wouldn’t be turned off. Maybe the reason they were so quiet was because some of them were already sleeping. It seemed logical that they would take shifts, especially now that they had hostages. It all seemed so hopeless that Dakota wanted to cry.

  And then she felt it; a gentle pressure against her arm. It slackened off, and then eased on again. Elijah was pressing his arm against hers. He was awake! Dakota returned the pressure, hoping she was being slow and casual enough for it to go unnoticed by the gathering behind her.

  When Elijah next pressed his arm against her, he did so in a sort of pattern. It took Dakota a minute, but she eventually realized that he was using Morse code. Bronislav had taught her some on the submarine, but she hadn’t been able to memorize the whole thing during that time, not with everything else he had been teaching her about bulk heads and bilge pumps and ballast. She only knew how to signal SOS, and there wasn’t much she could say with only two letters.

  “No,” she dared to whisper as quietly as she could, hoping that Elijah understood that she meant she didn’t understand. She then sniffled loudly, hoping that if anyone had heard anything, they would have just put it down to her crying.

  Elijah stopped using Morse. He pressed his arm against hers one last, lingering time, and then stopped all together. He had understood.

  The fact that Elijah was awake was a great development. Dakota felt a flood of relief at not being alone. She wondered how long he had been awake. Was it just recently, or had he been deliberately faking it for a while? If he could keep faking it, that might be good for them. But this also meant that it was up to Dakota to learn more about their situation, and the only way she could think to do that was to talk to their captors. What could she p
ossibly say?

  “What happens when I have to pee?” she finally spoke after a lot of thought.

  “No one here cares if you piss your pants,” came the reply.

  “I’m here, and I care,” Dakota retorted. This got no answer, so she went on. “What do you plan to do with us?” Silence. “Will we be fed at all?” Beyond her first question, no one would answer her. Maybe she just needed to think of the right question? But what could that be?

  While Dakota thought, she wriggled around a little bit, trying to find a position that was even remotely more comfortable. The bindings had dug into her wrists, which weren’t protected by any clothing like her ankles were. She wondered if she was bleeding.

  “Do I have to stay like this the whole time? It hurts.” Dakota didn’t need to fake the whine that invaded her voice. She felt weak for doing it.

  No one voiced an answer, but someone did kneel down beside her. She flinched at the touch of their knees against her arm and side. But then the bindings were removed. Her arms and legs flopped free. A series of pins and needles shot all through her limbs, the pain rendering her helpless. Her legs were tied back together first, both around the ankles and the thighs. Her wrists were then bound to her own belt loops, although the rope was a little looser this time so that it wasn’t digging in. A single rope was used for her hands, with the knot tied together at the small of her back where she had no hope of reaching it.

  When the person left her side, Dakota relaxed her muscles. Freya had taught her that if she was going to be tied up, to flex all her muscles, so that when she went limp later, the bindings would be looser. They were definitely looser around her thighs, but that wasn’t much help. She pulled at her hands, but that only hurt her wrists some more.

  “Am I allowed to roll onto my back?” Dakota asked. When she didn’t get an answer, she thought that meant that it would be okay. Leveraging with her toes, she managed to roll her body over, briefly crushing her arm. The knot at her back was uncomfortable, but she still felt better than she had on her stomach. The motion had moved her away from Elijah, so she wriggled until she was back beside him. She realized that she would be able to sit up if she wanted to, could even prop herself up against the wall, but for now she wanted to just lie on her back and think. The uncomfortable knot should help keep her from falling asleep. But she was wrong about that. With the adrenaline worn off, and dinner missed, her body was wiped out. It had no fuel to sustain itself. Within the dark confines of the blindfold, Dakota didn’t have a choice when it came to drifting off.

  ***

  There was no passage of time within the dark confines of the blindfold, but something had happened while Dakota was out. She could hear the flurry of activity within the room, and Elijah was once more pressing his arm against hers. She pressed back, letting him know that she was awake. She then raised herself up into a sitting position in order to better listen to what was going on.

  No one was speaking, not in a voice that Dakota could make out. There was some whispering, but it was all too low and too distant for the words to reach her. She had to see what was going on.

  Scooting back down onto her back, she started to rub her head against the ridge of the baseboard, trying to get it to push up on the blindfold. A couple of times it moved up only to fall back into place again, but she eventually managed to get it to stay up enough for her to peer beneath the fringe of the fabric. Lying with her head on a slight angle, her eyes pointed downward, Dakota was able to somewhat see. The exposed light bulb was still glowing brightly. Bodies scurried about here and there, gathering things up. Several people were leaving through the door. Dakota wished she could see what was out there, but the door swung the wrong way, blocking her limited view. The last six bunched together, had a brief, whispered conversation, and then three of them left with the others, so only three of them remained. Dakota peered around the room, but didn’t think there was anyone else. Only three people were left to watch over them. That was certainly better odds if Dakota could figure out what to do.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, figuring they had already seen her sit up and knew that she was awake.

  One of the three strode over and grabbed her by her shirt. Dakota squealed as she was hoisted partly off the floor.

  “If those fucks come in here, you die first,” the man with rotten teeth hissed at her. He then released her shirt. She winced as her head bounced off the floor.

  Those fucks? Dakota’s heart hammered against her rib cage. Surely he must have been referring to a search party, right? People were looking for her and they were close. Closer than these people thought they would get. It had to be that, didn’t it? Who else could the man be referring to?

  Dakota’s mind whirled. If she and Elijah were going to escape on their own, now was the best chance they were ever going to get. But how were they going to do that?

  Think, Dakota commanded herself. What would Freya do? She’d probably take things one step at a time. Break down the problem into smaller parts. What was the first thing Dakota needed? To be free of her bonds. So how could she go about doing that?

  With her limited field of vision, Dakota scanned the area for anything sharp, but there was nothing near the corner where she and Elijah were located. A woman sat near them, a bit to the left, her back to them as she watched the door. The man with the bad teeth was sitting on a mouldy cardboard box across the room, sharpening a knife with an awful scrape, scrape, scrape. The third man couldn’t be seen, so Dakota guessed there was a way around the shelving laden with more boxes off to her right. None of them were directly watching the captives.

  Scooting over to Elijah, she stuck out her hand like an awkward flipper and grabbed the highest point on his arm that she could reach. Shifting away from him, she tried to roll Elijah onto his side, which was easier said than done.

  “Hey, what are you doing over there?” the man with rotten teeth had reacted to the movement.

  “Making sure he gets some blood flow into his hands and feet.” Dakota impressed herself with how quickly she had come up with an excuse. “I saw how you had him tied up earlier. Gravity will have been draining the blood from his limbs.”

  “Your friend’s never going to wake up, so I don’t know why you’re bothering.”

  “Shut up!” Dakota dug out her fright, hoping that it overlaid her voice more than her anger did. She wanted them to keep thinking that she and Elijah were completely helpless. Which for all she knew, they were.

  The man watched Dakota struggle for a while, and then returned to sharpening his knife. Dakota patted Elijah twice, trying to tell him to help her. Whether he did or not, she couldn’t tell, but he ended up awkwardly on his side, with most of his left arm trapped underneath him. Dakota sat still for a while, watching the man with the bad teeth. When she was certain he was paying more attention to his knife than he was to them, she used her hand to locate the knot holding Elijah’s wrists and ankles together. Her fingers explored the rope, sussing out what kind of knot it was. In that moment she was very grateful for Brunt’s teachings. She might not have always remembered the names of knots, but her fingers were attuned to mapping out the curves and she was able to figure out how the rope was twisted and threaded around itself. She found the first coil she needed to pull on and began tugging at it with her fingers. She wished she could use more than just her left hand. The knot was tight, but Dakota was determined.

  When the first twist was freed, Dakota felt her chest swell. She checked on the man again, but he still wasn’t paying attention. Before she could pull free the next loop, easier now with that little bit of looseness, he finished with his knife and put it away. Dakota froze once more, a dread of certainty that she would now be caught making the blood pump hard and loud in her ears. But the man didn’t care about her or Elijah. He leaned back on the boxes and closed his eyes. Completely out of everyone’s line of sight, Dakota worked faster.

  When Elijah’s bindings sprang free, Dakota had to bite her tongue to k
eep from cheering. He rolled slowly back onto his stomach, lowering his limbs and no doubt feeling the painful tingles that Dakota had experienced. He had no blindfold and was quite capable of seeing the people around the room. As Dakota watched, he pushed himself up into a crouch, lifting his feet high when he moved them to prevent any scraping on the concrete floor. She stayed still to do the same, and so could no longer see Elijah’s face when he stood up. Their escape was in his hands now. She wished she knew what he had been trying to tell her in Morse.

  Elijah’s feet moved with slow, deliberate strides toward their nearest captor: the woman sitting on the box facing the door. Dakota could see Elijah’s plan just before he executed it and wanted to tell him not to do it, but to say anything now would give him even less of a chance than he already had.

  On the back of the woman’s belt was a k-bar knife. Elijah’s hand reached for it. He hesitated for only a second, when his hand was mere inches away. And then he grabbed it and all hell broke loose.

  Elijah was fast. So fast that Dakota briefly wondered if he had done this before. The knife was up and out of the holster and into the woman’s neck before she could even turn around or cry out. Blood sprayed across the room as a major artery was sliced open, some of it landing on the bare light bulb with a sizzle, and turning half the room red.

  The man with the bad teeth had opened his eyes and jumped up from his boxes, taking in everything at a glance before rushing at Elijah. But there was a third man. Dakota didn’t know if Elijah had seen that a third person had stayed behind, that he was just beyond the shelves somewhere.

  As the man with bad teeth roared at Elijah, Dakota rolled about until she was on her knees and then up on her feet. At multiple times during this action she nearly lost her balance, which would probably have been the end for both her and Elijah. But she got upright, and as the third man came around the shelving unit, Dakota sprang, throwing her whole body. Both men were too far away for Dakota to hit either of them, but the light bulb wasn’t.