The Face We See

By Mitchell Hoyle

She’d thought it was an old woman.

Now she thought it would be the last mistake of her life.

The car turned sharply, pressing her tied up body into the wall of the trunk. How could she have been so stupid not to see the lie for what it was? The hand shaking on the cane, the liver spotted skin, they were all a lure. And that old woman, if she even was a woman at all, had driven the needle into her neck so quickly it was over before she could scream.

Serves her right for trying to help a fallen senior.

Worst part was nobody would be looking for her anytime soon. Production wouldn’t be expecting her back on the set of Pirate Queen until next week, and her friends… Well, things with her friends hadn’t been the same since the show blew up.

The car hit a bump and the knots around her wrist bore into her back. Grunting with exertion, she shimmied onto her side and began to finger the rope. Clearly whoever tied it knew a thing or two about knotting but nothing about her.

The media had portrayed her as some half-wit starlet who only got her parts because of her looks. An easy target, all things considered. But she’d worked tirelessly for her role as the Pirate Queen, and if there was one thing that character taught her, it was how to recognize a bowline knot, and better yet, how to untie it.