surroundings.
Agency protocol dictated she should immediately seek cover and scan the surroundings for any witnesses to her arrival. There was the effect on the local population to consider; witnesses would have seen a woman appear out of thin air and fall into the river. But Isabella was not thinking of protocol as she sat in the grass, a puddle forming around her rear end.
Isabella looked all around herself, and was greeted with grass as far as she could see. If this was Brussels, which she doubted, it was not in the 20 th century. No one was there, and assuming she could find shelter, this would be a good place to wait out the forty-eight hours until she could activate her emergency beacon. She didn’t know what the hell Cody had done, but she was going to kill him when she got back.
Pulling the crucifix from under her dress, her teeth chattered as she pushed down on Christ’s feet. Normally, when a traveler did this, she would hear a soft female voice cheerfully greet her with the date, location, and how many hours remained before retrieval.
But Isabella did not hear the familiar, reassuring message. The anticipated female voice she had heard so many times did not come forth to comfort her. What she heard instead sent a shiver of dread through her body, and her stomach once again felt a drop.
“Hello Izzy. I bet you’re wondering where you are. Well, I’ll be nice and tell you. You are in your own personal Hell. That Papist trinket you’re holding doesn’t have anything in it except this recording. No pulse generator, no emergency beacon. You do not exist outside of time, and you can never come back. You are now officially Lost, and you will never see America again. This is your home now, and the best you can hope for is to die quickly of hypothermia. But given the ethnic groups in your immediate area, I doubt you’ll be so lucky.”
There was a pause, but she could still hear him breathing.
“I hope you’ve been giving that ass of yours a lot of practice with your little boyfriend. Because it’s going to get quite a workout when they find you.” He gave a high pitched laugh. “And don’t worry, honey. I’ll take care of the house.”
The recording ended. Isabella sat still, staring down at the crucifix that had pronounced her doom. There were no thoughts going through her mind, but as she sat in her daze, her breathing became very audible.
“Oh my God.” She knew what he had done to her. “Oh my God.” He had pretended; he had been planning this all along. He had set up everything to do this to her. He had murdered her.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” The blasphemous screams vaulted hysterically from her mouth unbidden and uncontrolled. She had no capacity to see his wrath coming toward her, but now it was upon her and she could think of nothing except her impending death.
She did not feel the rain, nor did she feel her own voice cracking under the strain of her screams. She felt only her ragged gasping breaths and the slow feelings of pins and needles creeping into her hands and feet. She looked out into the vast infinity of empty pasture, her vision shrinking into a tunnel, and finally the screaming stopped. She fell back into the saturated grass and, before unconsciousness overtook her, she prayed Etienne’s stated possibility of hypothermia would come true.
The chill of the breeze woke her. Still damp and miserable from her fall into the river, Isabella squinted dully at the grey sky above her, a sense of calm returning to her. She had been schooled well at Coronado. Now recovered, the beginnings of a plan sprouted in her mind. Etienne would not get the last laugh; she was going to live through this.
The rain had stopped, but the clouds made it impossible for her to determine the time of day. Still lying on her back, she contemplated her course of action. As water was of paramount importance, she must travel along
Agency protocol dictated she should immediately seek cover and scan the surroundings for any witnesses to her arrival. There was the effect on the local population to consider; witnesses would have seen a woman appear out of thin air and fall into the river. But Isabella was not thinking of protocol as she sat in the grass, a puddle forming around her rear end.
Isabella looked all around herself, and was greeted with grass as far as she could see. If this was Brussels, which she doubted, it was not in the 20 th century. No one was there, and assuming she could find shelter, this would be a good place to wait out the forty-eight hours until she could activate her emergency beacon. She didn’t know what the hell Cody had done, but she was going to kill him when she got back.
Pulling the crucifix from under her dress, her teeth chattered as she pushed down on Christ’s feet. Normally, when a traveler did this, she would hear a soft female voice cheerfully greet her with the date, location, and how many hours remained before retrieval.
But Isabella did not hear the familiar, reassuring message. The anticipated female voice she had heard so many times did not come forth to comfort her. What she heard instead sent a shiver of dread through her body, and her stomach once again felt a drop.
“Hello Izzy. I bet you’re wondering where you are. Well, I’ll be nice and tell you. You are in your own personal Hell. That Papist trinket you’re holding doesn’t have anything in it except this recording. No pulse generator, no emergency beacon. You do not exist outside of time, and you can never come back. You are now officially Lost, and you will never see America again. This is your home now, and the best you can hope for is to die quickly of hypothermia. But given the ethnic groups in your immediate area, I doubt you’ll be so lucky.”
There was a pause, but she could still hear him breathing.
“I hope you’ve been giving that ass of yours a lot of practice with your little boyfriend. Because it’s going to get quite a workout when they find you.” He gave a high pitched laugh. “And don’t worry, honey. I’ll take care of the house.”
The recording ended. Isabella sat still, staring down at the crucifix that had pronounced her doom. There were no thoughts going through her mind, but as she sat in her daze, her breathing became very audible.
“Oh my God.” She knew what he had done to her. “Oh my God.” He had pretended; he had been planning this all along. He had set up everything to do this to her. He had murdered her.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” The blasphemous screams vaulted hysterically from her mouth unbidden and uncontrolled. She had no capacity to see his wrath coming toward her, but now it was upon her and she could think of nothing except her impending death.
She did not feel the rain, nor did she feel her own voice cracking under the strain of her screams. She felt only her ragged gasping breaths and the slow feelings of pins and needles creeping into her hands and feet. She looked out into the vast infinity of empty pasture, her vision shrinking into a tunnel, and finally the screaming stopped. She fell back into the saturated grass and, before unconsciousness overtook her, she prayed Etienne’s stated possibility of hypothermia would come true.
The chill of the breeze woke her. Still damp and miserable from her fall into the river, Isabella squinted dully at the grey sky above her, a sense of calm returning to her. She had been schooled well at Coronado. Now recovered, the beginnings of a plan sprouted in her mind. Etienne would not get the last laugh; she was going to live through this.
The rain had stopped, but the clouds made it impossible for her to determine the time of day. Still lying on her back, she contemplated her course of action. As water was of paramount importance, she must travel along
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