Katherine awoke on a cold concrete floor, naked. She lay on her back and tried to focus her bleary eyes through the pain in her head. A thin steel cable ran up towards the ceiling, bisecting her vision. A loop in the end of it was tied to a purple climbing rope. The rope was secured to an I-bolt screwed into a ceiling rafter.

She sat up and pain exploded in her jaw. It was then that she remembered. It was then that she knew.

The other end of the cable entered her mouth, passing through the bloody gap where the front two incisors in her lower jaw used to be. It then passed through a fresh wound in the floor of her mouth. It created a loop around her jawbone, and was fastened back onto itself with a square metal bracket.

She was in a basement. The walls were unadorned concrete. The short windows, high on the wall, were taped over with cardboard and a single bare light bulb dangled from the ceiling. The only exit was a closed door, well out of reach.

There was enough slack in the cable that she could lie on the floor. She stood and stretched her hands upward. The knot was over a foot above her reach.

She screamed. The pain in her jaw made her stop. No one came.

She wept. Frustration and futility made her stop. No one came.

She remembered little of her kidnapping and nothing of her captor. She had dim memories of waking tied to a chair; of pliers in front of her face holding what she thought were blood-streaked pearls. They were her teeth. The newspapers in recent weeks had been full of stories about dead girls and a serial killer still at large. Katherine did not know her location, but she knew right where she was. Worse yet, she knew where she was going to end up: floating in a river, naked and dead with her jaw ripped off.

She jumped for the knot, but could not reach it. She tried to climb up the cable. It was too slick and cut her hands. The little light that came through the windows grew dim. The angle of shadow on the wall extended. Night was falling. Katherine doubted she would live to see morning.

She reached up as high as she could and wrapped the cable twice around her left wrist. She pulled, lifting her body off of the floor. The cable cut through the skin of her forearm. Warm blood trickled down. She reached up with her right arm and grasped the knot. She sobbed in relief and pain.

She unwrapped her left arm. The fingers had gone numb. She forced them to grasp the rope. She swung her legs up, and inverted herself. She wrapped her legs around the rope. She couldn’t let go completely with her hands, but they no longer supported her full weight.

It took long, frustrating minutes to untie the knot. Faintly, she heard a car approaching. She increased her efforts. She heard a door opening, then footsteps on the floor above. Someone upstairs, male or at least deep-voiced, spoke or sung to himself. She gritted her teeth and regretted it instantly.

At last, the knot came undone. Katherine dropped to the floor, landing on her back. She tried not to cry out, but failed. The voice upstairs stopped. She heard a faint ring of metal on metal, then footsteps coming down the stairs towards the closed door.

She scrambled to her feet, crossed to the door, and stood beside it, her back to the wall. She stood by the hinges so that when it opened, the door would shield her for a moment. She wrapped the cable around each hand, far enough apart that the resulting loop would fit over a human head.

A deadbolt unlocked. She heard a deep intake of breath. The door opened. A solidly built, brown-haired man stepped through. He took two fast steps into the room, holding a gun out in front of him with both hands.

Katherine dropped the loop of cable over his head and pulled her hands tight. The steel cable slipped neatly under his chin and tightened around his throat. He dropped the gun and reached for her arms. His hands slipped on her bloody skin, fingernails gouging fresh wounds. He threw his weight back, slamming them both into the wall. They rebounded and spun like demented dancers. His wildly flailing arm struck the door, slamming it shut. He fell backwards and Katherine fell with him. They struck the floor side by side like spooning lovers.

She focused her entire being into pulling on the cable. Her hands were cut again, bleeding worse than ever. Her fingers were numb, her were arms rapidly tiring. There was too much life in the man. She did not know if she had the strength in her to snuff it out.

The cable cut thin, red grooves in the side of the man’s neck, but he still was able to breathe in labored gasps of air. He brought a sharp-pointed elbow down into her ribs once and then again. He was too strong.

Katherine lessened the pressure on the cable for a moment, reached forward with one hand, and dragged hooked fingers across his eyes. As he screamed, she brought a knee up into the small of his back. With this new leverage she arched her back and pulled. A hoarse scream of animal rage tore at her throat. The cable sawed through the flesh of her hands and grated on bone. The cable dug deeply into the man’s neck. He gasped soundlessly as his face turned white.

Katherine ignored her maimed hands and pulled. After a few seconds her captor went limp. She kept pulling. She screamed pure rage and pulled until she was sure he was dead.

This time she did not try to stop herself from weeping. It was over. She was safe. She could phone the police or use the man’s car to find help. She was going to live.

Katherine shoved his body off of her and unwrapped the cable from his neck. She stood on rubbery legs and looked down at the man. He was large with a paunch at the waist. He wore black slacks and a charcoal blazer. In front of him lay the pistol. On his belt was a golden badge.

Katherine’s hand flew to her mouth as realization came to her. Bloodied fingers tangled in bloodied cable. A hopeless, sobbing sigh escaped her. She turned, ran to the door, and grasped the knob.

And heard footsteps on the stairs, coming down.