She hung there for a moment, catching her breath, allowing her heart to slow until she could hear anything besides herself in her own ears. The room was still. There was still the quiet hum of a computer fan, somewhere tucked away and powering the monstrous apparatus, and the occasional plop of a drip of water, running down her shoulder, neck and ear to fall back into the pool below. Just breathing, she was the loudest thing there.
She tested her bonds one more time: slowly, now, without James to distract her or her own overwhelming panic to make her wild. She couldn't budge them any more than before. But trying to pull at each individual tie, one at a time, made them seem less impossible. They were tough, but they were just plastic, not magic.
Katie thought about it. For all his pretern
