How we cite our quotes: (Section Break.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I made a sort of choking noise. As far as I could see, there was nothing. There was only flat, continuous brown land leading out to the horizon. Sand and more sand, with tussocks of small scrubby bushes standing up like surprises and the occasional leafless tree. The land was dead and thirsty. I was in nowhere. (4.14)
Getting abducted from an airport is bad enough. Finding out that you've been exiled to the middle of who-knows-where is worse. This has to be terrifying.
Quote #2
"Will you let me go, out back?"
You shook your head. "There's nothing to escape to," you said. "I've told you. It's a wilderness." (7.16-17)
Being kidnapped and held in the wilderness doesn't just mean total isolation. It means there's nowhere to run to, baby … nowhere to hide. (Sorry, but we love us some cheesy '60s girl groups.)
Quote #3
Other times I heard nothing. I strained my ears for the roar of an engine, a car or an airplane howling toward me. I found myself longing for a highway. But there was never anything. It was amazing how quiet it was. I wasn't used to it. I even spent a day or two thinking I had hearing damage. It was as if all the sounds I was used to had disappeared from the world. (12.3)
The really scary part about all this is that Gemma is surrounded by evidence that, with the exception of her captor, she is completely alone. The silence described here has to be terrifying after spending her entire life in a city.