Two more days passed. We were given tiny portions of food and water. Cal and I had come up with a plan to use the "bathroom". While one of us sat on the toilet, the other one would stand to block her from view. It wasn’t much, but it helped a little. The guys at least were respectful enough to look away and not make any comments to us about it.

Aaron grew frustrated. He had expected to come up with an escape plan by then and now that days had passed, his patience had grown thin. Grant tried to keep him calm and focused, but it was obvious Aaron was getting more and more agitated.

"This is ridiculous!" he yelled.

Will looked over and smirked. "Keep it down," he warned.

Aaron looked at him. "Don’t tell me what to do."

"I just did," Will barked.

Aaron finished his water bottle and threw it across the room, hitting the wall directly above me. I jumped and watched it bounce across the floor. Grant looked at me and was about to say something, but wasn’t fast enough.

"Pick it up," Will told Aaron. "Pick up your water bottle. This ain’t your house. You wanna throw trash, do it when you do your big escape and go back home. But don’t do it here."

Aaron laughed angrily. "I’m not picking it up. Like this place is some pristine castle? Ha! Deal with it."

Grant reached out and touched Aaron’s shoulder to pull him back, but he aggressively shook him off. Grant flinched.

"Don’t touch me!" Aaron shouted.

Grant put his hands up. "Whoa, man. Just trying to-"

Grant stopped at the sound of movement upstairs. The lack of food and sleep had gotten to all of us. We were tired and cranky, angry to be in that basement with nothing but each other.

We heard Gina at the keypad and she pulled open the door. She stood there carrying a tray.

Will was clearly fuming as he sat staring right at Aaron. Grant sat still, staring at his feet.
Cal and I did what we had come to always do; sit next to each other in silence and not make eye contact with Gina.

"Whose water bottle is that?" Gina asked, pointing to Aaron’s empty plastic bottle he’d thrown.

"Whose is it?!" she shouted.

"It’s mine, you crazy psycho," Aaron spat.

Cal and I both looked up, wide eyed.

"Pick it up!" she ordered.

"You pick it up!" Aaron shouted back.

Will’s face turned beet red and he his jaw got tight. He squeezed his fists so his knuckles turned white. We all knew we weren’t allowed to speak a word, but Will looked as though he was about to explode.

Gina took a step in a bit closer. She looked at Aaron and laughed, throwing her head back.

"You all have him to thank," she told us, gesturing to Aaron. "See this tray?"

She tossed the entire tray through the door and it hit a wall and fell all over the floor. Will made a low grunting noise. Grant mouthed ‘no’ to Will. Cal covered her face with her hands and I sat there trembling. Our food was gone, just like that. Gina turned and locked the door and we heard her stomp up the stairs.

"Dude, what the heck?" Grant shouted.

"Screw her!" Aaron yelled back. "I can’t do this anymore! This is crazy!"

"You moron!" Will screamed. "Any food we were getting is now out there on the floor because of YOU!"

"Because of me?!" Aaron barked. "You’re here because of you. You flew here and got in the truck with Dean. We all did. We’re all at fault for getting ourselves here. And your food? Ha! That wasn’t food. It’s slop!"

"Well, that slop was all we were getting, Aaron," Grant added.

Aaron turned towards him. "Now you’re blaming me, too? I thought you were on my side."

"There are no sides. We’re all in this together, man," Grant told him.
"Nah," Aaron shook his head. "We’re not. I’m not in this with any of you. I’m getting out, with or without you guys."

"I think everyone should calm down," I said quietly.

"I think you should shut your mouth!" Aaron spat.

"Hey, not cool. Not to the girls, okay?" Grant said.

"We’d have food if you had picked up your trash, like I asked!" Will shouted.

We heard footsteps upstairs again.

"She’s back!" I said, making them stop.

Gina unlocked the door and slid it open. We all looked up, wondering why she was back. Then we saw Dean standing behind her.

Dean came from behind Gina and stepped towards us. He had something in his hand. As he stepped into the light, I could tell it was a baton. It reminded me of those billy clubs that police carried. In one fast swoop, he struck Aaron across the back. Aaron made a sound as though the air had gone out of him and he fell to the ground. He immediately tried to get up, but Dean hit him again.

Cal yelped and hid her face in her hands and started to whimper. Grant backed away, his eyes wide. I quickly crawled closer to Cal. Aaron coughed and gasped for breath before turning to look at Dean. I closed my eyes before he got struck again. I didn’t want to see any more. Even as I covered my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, I could still hear Dean beating Aaron.

When it was over, Gina wore a wicked smile on her face. Dean straightened himself up and Gina grabbed him, giving him a big, mouthy kiss. Cal had looked up, but then turned away in disgust. I tried to not let my emotions show, but I couldn’t help it. Tears welled in my eyes as I got a sight of Aaron.

Will remained seated, a strange look of satisfaction on his face. As soon as Gina and Dean left, Grant rushed over to assess Aaron. His right eye was swollen shut, his nose bloody, and he was barely awake.

"Dean’s a coward!" Grant shouted. "He hit him with that club first and then punched him. That’s not a fair fight."

None of this was fair, I thought. Aaron groaned in pain and Grant did his best to calm him down. He grabbed his water bottle and helped him drink it. I silently cried to myself, wiping my tears off my cheeks. Aaron coughed and then held his ribs, groaning in pain. I’d never seen anything like that before. Besides movies or TV, I had never experienced real violence. Even fights at school, which rarely happened, got broken up immediately. I hadn’t ever witnessed someone getting beaten up like what Dean did to Aaron. I couldn’t get it out of my mind as I watched Aaron lay there in pain. Even when I closed my eyes, I’d hear the sounds of Dean beating him again in my head. Cal was hysterical and beyond frightened. It took three days until Aaron seemed to feel well enough to move around. I wondered if he had any broken ribs, but didn’t dare ask him.

Gina had come in the day before with bottles of water. She seemed to only be dropping water off to us so she could get a close look at how Aaron was doing. She came in again that morning to drop off food and more water. We were all so disgusted by her after what happened to Aaron that we wouldn’t look at her. But this time, I did look. I needed to look and find details.

As soon as she’d left, I made eye contact with Grant. He raised an eyebrow.

"The keys," I said to him. "If we get them, we’re free."

"How’re you going to get the keys, sweetheart? Huh?" Will asked. "You wanna end up like big mouth over here?" He nodded at Aaron.

Aaron tried to say something back to him, but was in too much pain to bother.

I looked at Aaron and then back at Grant. We locked eyes.

"When she comes in here," I said. "She’s never close enough within our reach, right?"

"Right. She only comes in a few steps," Grant confirmed.

"Not just a few steps," I told him. "She walks up to a specific point. There." I pointed at the floor. Grant followed with his eyes.

"When Dean came and..." I looked at Aaron. "Well, when Dean came in, I noticed he stopped at the same spot Gina always does. I mean, until he came in further. But, before that? He knew where to stop. Gina does the same thing."

"Okay, so you think they know exactly where to stop before they’d be close enough for us to touch them? Like a certain number of steps or something?" Grant asked.

Aaron opened his eyes and was listening. Cal turned to hear me also.

"They stop on that mark," I told them, pointing to a tiny scratch mark on the floor.

"I don’t see anything," Cal said squinting.

Grant’s eyes grazed across the floor.

"I see it. Right there!" Grant looked up.

I nodded. “Can we get rid of it?”

"You want to erase the scratch in the floor?" Will chuckled.

"No," I rolled my eyes. "We can’t get rid of a scratch in the floor that we can’t even reach."

"Well then, your plan is brilliant so far," Will huffed.

"We make a new scratch," I said to Grant. "Closer to us. Aaron is probably the closest to the door besides you, Grant."
"So you want me to make a new scratch?" Grant asked.

"Aaron," I said in a soft tone. "How tall are you?"

"Six three," he answered in a raspy voice.

Grant and I looked at each other again. His eyes lit up.

"That’s taller than Gina and Dean probably expected, isn’t it?" Grant smiled.

I nodded. "I bet it is. If we can make a scratch in the floor just a little closer to us? Aaron could reach her."

Grant clapped his hands together. "That’s it! Ryleigh, that’s it! That’s the plan!"

I smiled. "It’s worth a try."

"Let’s say it works," Cal added. "What about Dean?"

"He’ll be at the main cabin, right?" Grant asked.

I shrugged. "I’d guess so."

"And when Gina doesn’t come back?" he asked.

"He’ll come looking for her probably," I answered quietly.

"I’ll take care of him," Will blurted.

"We have to wait until Aaron’s well enough to do this," Cal said.

"I’m fine," Aaron hissed. "You make it so Gina gets close enough and I’ll take her down."  

"We need to make a new scratch in the floor. Let’s see how far Aaron can reach," I directed.

Grant helped Aaron determine how far he could reach and where Gina would have to walk to in order for him to be close enough to her. It wasn’t too far from where the scratch in the floor currently was. Aaron placed a water bottle cap on the floor to mark the new spot.

"Now we need a way to scratch the floor," I told them.

Gina and Dean had taken the guys’ belts. We didn’t have anything in our pockets either.

"There’s nothing!" Cal cried.

"The toilet!" I shouted.

Grant jumped up and got to it just before I did. We searched the whole thing until he found a small screw.

"I’ll have to unscrew it. I don’t think it’ll make a difference considering this thing is falling apart anyway," he said and started to get the screw out.

As soon as he got it, he handed it over to Aaron so he could start scraping it against the floor to make a new line. Aaron moved slowly, stretching out.

"It’s pretty deep, so make it match that one. Then when you’re done, make a few more, but smaller, and scatter them around. Just so she won’t notice there are two lines, you know?" Grant suggested.

I nodded. We finally had a plan.

Next Chapter: Nine