She crawled through the mud, using her knees and elbows, until she reached a half-rotten tree trunk on the bank. This didn’t offer great shelter, but it gave him the necessary time to think and organize his survival ideas. The helicopter had left, but she couldn’t consider herself safe because men like Coyle left nothing behind.
They invented a history of escape during the transportation to clone the record without any subsisting trace of their crime. She looked at her handcuffs, trying to find a way to get rid of them despite the lancinating pain that numbed her hands and fingers. She notices a jagged twig half buried in the vase and undertakes to use it as a makeshift lever.
She wedged the end of the branch into the chain of handcuffs and twisted all her remaining strength in her exhausted body. The wood cracked, slamming into her palm, but she didn’t stop, her breathing becoming a raucous hiss in the silence. She encouraged herself in a low voice, repeating that she had to succeed, that her life totally depended on this precise and crucial moment.
Finally, the metal bends just enough so she can free her right wrist in a crack dry and saving for her. She haled, looking at her torn and bleeding skin, but she felt no pain, only an immense feeling of immediate release. Using the same branch, she forced the second lock until the handcuffs finally fell heavily into the black sludge.
The metallic sound slamming into the vase resonates as the first act of his regained freedom after this deadly ordeal. She remained sitting there for a moment, shaking, no longer physically hindered but knowing that danger was still all around her. She didn’t know where the north was, but she suddenly glimpsed a wavering luck through the thickness of the trees.
It was maybe a house, a boat or simply a fragile hope that she decided to pursue despite her total and physical exhaustion. She rose with difficulty, every step sinking into the sticky mud that seemed to want to hold her prisoner of the gloomy bayou. The moisture weighed on her lungs and the mosquitoes began to attack her, but she didn’t feel anything at all anymore.
She walked because movement meant life and she refused to become an immobile victim in this wild obscurity. Not to lose her head, she started talking to herself in a low voice, rhythming her steps with challenging words. She repeated that they believed her dead, but that she was always there, her voice becoming louder with each mental repetition.
Hours passed, the moon descended on the horizon and her soaked robes clung to her skin like a second icy envelope. She wobbled over roots, fell several times and grabbed her knees, but the image of Coyle’s smile cheered her on. Every fall became fuel for his anger and his iron will to go out and testify against these men.
When the light became clearer, revealing the lantern of a fishing boat, his body was no more than a mass of pain. She forced herself forward, praying it wouldn’t be a new trap stretched by her pursuers in the night. Two elderly men stood near a bark, laughing softly before their laughter instantly died at the sight of it thus surfacing.
One of them murmured a prayer, asking the Lord what had happened to him as his appearance was terrifying and broken by the ordeal. Danielle collapses on the cliff before she can even explain her situation, her forces finally abandoning her in front of these unexpected rescuers. The oldest rushed towards her, asking if she could hear him and if he could do anything to help.
She coughed, trying to speak for help, her voice nothing more than a murmur broken by exhaustion and terror. He noticed his bleeding wrists, ecchymoses and torn clothes, screaming at his companion to fetch a flashlight immediately. They understood that she was seriously injured and needed to be rushed to a hospital for treatment and protection.
They lifted it delicately for storage in the boat, wrapping it in an old tarpaulin to warm it up a bit during the voyage. While the engine started, Danielle opened her eyes and begged not to call the police for the time being. The old man shouted confused, but she insisted, explaining in a broken voice that it was precisely the police who had tried.
This revelation glazed them over, and they exchanged an uneasy look wondering what history they had just set foot into. The dirty engine, fending the murky waters of the bayou, while Danielle clung to the edge of the boat, trembling all over her body. The wind fr
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