Jamie's been hitting me for so long that I don't feel anything until he stops. Now I've got this mixture of blood and snot and spit dripping down to my chin, and I almost puke when I feel it running across my lips; then I think about vomit mixing in with all of it and I decide to hold it back. My eyes are almost entirely swollen shut but I see Jamie wringing out his hands and rubbing his knuckles, so I know he's not done, just taking a break, and as soon as he sees me looking up he slugs me right in the eye, hard. As I'm doing my best impersonation of someone reeling back, he nails me in stomach and that vomit I was holding back is in my mouth. I cough some of it out with some of the blood and snot, then swallow the rest.
Every few minutes, just from instinct, I'll jerk my arms and the straps scrape a little more of my skin off; I think I'm almost down to bone now. I try thinking, but it barely works: my mind's a cloud, no thought will settle in or let me focus on it. I'm thinking in blurs and syllables, and every time I almost finish completing a thought Jamie hits me again and I'm back to just smudges and wavy lines. This happens around ten times before I finally can lock on to what I've been trying to figure out for awhile: 30 minutes. Or at least that's my best guess. In 30 minutes Doug's on a plane and Jamie can't stop us, can't stop Doug, can't stop anything. Thirty more minutes and he'll let me go or kill me, and I don't care anymore. Just thirty more minutes and a bag's on a plane and everything is gonna just stop. Everything.
