Twenty-Eight

After binding and masking her, Jason’s sounds fade; Pip hears a door, a car, and concludes he has left, recalling the DT Killer’s routine of leaving victims alone. Panic surges as her taped face and blocked nose threaten suffocation. She forces slower breaths, terrified that Jason will return to finish the job.

Pip steadies herself through an imagined conversation with Ravi, who urges her to plan. She assesses her restraints: wrists taped to the front pole of a metal shelving unit, ankles bound, eyes and ears taped. Feeling for options, she identifies the shelf–pole junction that likely holds a screw she could use to cut her tape.

To reach it, Pip presses back until part of the wrist tape unsticks from the pole, allowing limited vertical movement. She lowers her hands to the lower shelf, finds the nut beneath, and painstakingly twists it with two fingers, quarter-turn by quarter-turn, over several agonizing minutes until the nut finally drops free.

Pip pushes the screw back through, then grips its head from the front. As she pulls it out, the unsupported shelf tilts forward and a heavy container bumps her shoulder. She flinches and loses her grip; the screw falls and rolls away into the darkness, jeopardizing her plan as time runs out before Jason’s return.