The air in the room didn't just smell bad, it smelled ancient. It was the kind of thick, cloying stinking odor that usually accompanies stagnant water, long-forgotten rot, and the damp, weeping walls of a basement that had never seen the sun. Amara's consciousness came back in jagged, painful increments. She wasn't in the trunk anymore, but the silence that replaced it was infinitely more terrifying.
She was cinched into a heavy, rusted metal chair that felt like it had been bolted to the center of the universe. Her wrists and ankles were bound with something that felt unforgiving, thick plastic zip-ties or maybe nylon cord, pulled so tight that her hands had long since faded into a distant, tingly numbness. She tried to wiggle her fingers, but the signal was lost somewhere near her elbows.
Then there was the tape.
