Chapter 10
Ally had left Ingrid alone at the blockhouse in Algeria over three hours ago, on his journey to Gus's complex in search of Tess; to rescue the girl he was responsible for luring under false pretences and ultimately leading to her being trafficked into this mess.
Alone within the fortified walls of the Blockhouse, Ingrid stepped back to allow the surplus rope of the slack tether around her neck, to droop down onto the floor behind the heels of her feet.
With her resin-cuffed hands securely behind her back, she gripped the white cotton cord and walked forward, to test its security by pulling down against where Ally had tied the end of the rope to the top of the iron gate.
Pulling on the rope only served to tighten the knots that secured it so she walked around the gate, into the old ammunition store and sat on the edge of the mattress, which occupied the stone shelf, set into the wall.
Instead of panicking, Ingrid needed to start concentrating on her escape from Ally's captivity and somehow contact her husband Kristofer in Norway.
She looked around for something to cut through the rope but realised that Ally must have taken this into consideration before leaving as she could see nothing resembling cutlery or anything at all with a sharp edge.
Looking at the table and the height of the knotted rope around the top of the gate, she made a calculated judgement in her head, giving her an idea.
Baring the hindrance of her hands behind her, piece by piece, she removed each of the portions of food and the cups of water he'd left her, from the table, down onto the floor.
Then with her back to the table, she dragged it over to the edge of the gate and sat herself on the wooden top. Swinging her legs up onto the table allowed her to cautiously stand up high enough to execute her plan.
The sight of the knotted rope now at eye level gave her enough of an adrenalin rush to overcome the fear of her instability on her feet. Instead, using her teeth she began picking away at the body of the outermost knot.
Perseverance eventually rewarded her with the joy of feeling the trailing end of the rope being easily pulled through the rest of Ally's intertwining cotton artwork.
One down, two to go she thought, looking at the remaining knots.
Steadying her feet again, she moved in for round two. This attempt proved more difficult due to her different angle of attack but she had all the confidence in the world that she could do this.
After a few minutes the rope came loose and with the final knot being on its own, the weight of the rope below overcame the friction of its fibres and untied itself.
Elated at seeing the end of the rope fall to the ground, she crouched down and jumped off the table, nearly landing on one of the bowls of food as she did.
The thought of the danger of smashing one of the bowls hit her with hindsight. Why didn't I just cut through the rope with a piece of broken bowl? She thought. This didn't matter now. She had the freedom to roam around and plan her get away.
Ingrid collected the rope neatly into a coil behind her back and placed it to her side on the mattress where she once again sat.
Sitting down meant that she had to raise her cuffed wrists up into the small of her back slightly, for comfort. This posed the question. Why? Why did she have to lift up her wrists to sit down?
She tried sitting up straight and pressing her hands flat into the mattress, lowering the cuffs down as far as she could, towards the middle of her backside.
Wriggling each arse cheek backwards, in turn, slightly further and higher each time, gave her hope of being able to step through the confines of the cuffs and reduce their restriction by bring them to her front.
She found the strain on the outsides of her wrists bearable, due to the smooth rounded finish the resin mould had created.
Her second attempt adopted a different approach. This time she leaned her shoulders forward and arched her back as far as she could down towards her knees.
If her wrists weren't cuffed behind her, her hands would be touching the floor by now, meaning that this position gave her the maximum amount of slack in her arms.
For her third attempt, she rolled onto her side and bent forward, inching her bare arse back further and further in between her arms; aiming to overcome the threshold of the straight, rigid resin bar, fixed between the cuffs.
Her surprising dexterity proved successful. The feeling of relief when her wrists were free to slide down to the back of her thighs, gave her butterflies in her tummy.
Pressing on with her escapology, she bent her lower left leg back towards her wrists and grabbed hold of her own foot to force it over the cuffs.
"FUCK!" she shouted. "Aghhhhh!"
An instantaneous cramp hit her in the back of her thigh where she'd bent her leg, paralysing her into letting go of her foot, forcing her to roll about the floor in agony.
As the pain eventually subsided, she found herself stuck on the floor, curled up in a fetal position, with her wrists now behind her knees. Her only consolation being that she knew she would be able to get her hands back behind her again if she needed to.
Slowly she worked her right foot and hands towards each other to untie her laces and remove her footwear before her next attempt.
Once all feeling of the cramp had gone, she bent back her right foot and, using her fingers, quite easily assisted it over the cuffs, taking her one step closer to freedom, having her wrists now between her legs.
This triumph encouraged her to immediately repeat the process with her other leg and bring her cuffed wrists out in front of her.
She quickly removed the rope completely from around her neck and let it fall to the floor in a heap.
Addressing her nakedness came next. By reaching for her underwear, stacked on top of her folded jeans, she promptly dressed herself.
When fastening her shoelaces she took time out to properly inspect the unique and unusual resin cuffs that held her wrists so effectively.
Just as Ally had intended, the two oval shaped circles had formed perfectly to the shape of her wrists.
The surplus from the necklace mould had been bandaged up by his careful positioning of the sticky tape, which encouraged it to remain still, had created two horizontal straight bars between the cuffs, which now steadied her wrists rigidly apart.
His addition of the ring going around the horizontal bars using a bangle mould, rattled from side to side as it slid from cuff to cuff between her wrists.
Cutting away the redundant silicone mould had resulted in a gap of four millimetres all the way around, between the outside of her skin and the inside of each cuff, allowing for blood circulation but preventing Ingrid from being able to rotate her wrists within.
Being thankful for small graces, she realised that if Ally had decided to mould the cuffs with her palms facing outermost, she wouldn't have been able to step over the bar and bring her hands to her front as she'd done.
Once her laces were fastened, she stood and headed towards her next hurdle. The main gate.
Climbing the walls would be impossible with her hands immobilised the way they were, meaning that her only means of exit, would be through these two large, daunting wooden gates.