by Karin, Anya
"Guys? We talking about the same thing?"
"Yeah. You know. The guys. The fun...guys?" Alyssa laughed in the same way a comedian who meant to bomb laughs.
"Very good Lyssie," her dad grinned. "Very good. Keep your day job, alright?"
Chapter Twelve
Crunch.
Crunch-crunch.
Alyssa looked back. Nothing. Not a soul.
"What was that? Is someone back there?"
She took another step, bent down and plucked one of the tiny, sweet, yellow mushrooms she loved and put it in her satchel. The whole process came back to her as soon as she stepped into the woods, like she hadn't been four years away from the mushrooms.
"Let's see," she said, peeking inside the leather bag. "Fourteen, fifteen – oh that's a big one, that'll be worth something – sixteen. Good day so far, Lys. Find a few more of these and you can take an early trip to the market."
Kicking a rotten stump, she stooped to inspect the hole punched in the side. Sometimes the hard, warty fungus managed to live in softened wood. No such luck. When she kicked a log a bit to the left, her toes thumped against hard wood, she yelped and grabbed her foot.
Crunch.
That time, it was off behind her. Out here, so deep in the woods, it was often hard to see much farther than a few feet. Whatever was behind her – and it could be anything – probably wasn't dangerous. As far as she knew, there weren't any horribly frightening animals out at this time of day. Still, something about the slow, plodding sound and the cracking twigs sent a chill up her back.
"Who's there? I'm sorry if I've wandered somewhere I shouldn't." She said, again straining to see anything at all in the direction from which the noise came.
Doing this as a girl, never once had she been caught, although she and her friends had a half-million excuses planned out should it ever happen. These woods – her favorite place since she was a child – were bought a long time before she was a glimmer in her parent's eye by Preston Webb's father, an oil tycoon from out west. As far as she knew, no one patrolled the forest, but there were always armed guards on the oil fields. Stern looking men, and although they didn't appear to be armed, they must have been.
Again satisfied that no one was lurking, and convinced that it must be just a curious animal, probably an armadillo because that was the most harmless thing she could imagine, Alyssa bent down and pushed some leaves aside.
"Oh!" She cried. "Another good one, a big bolete."
Squeezing the top between her fingers, Alyssa inhaled the earthy, vaguely sweet scent that told her she had the right sort of mushroom. They looked distinctive, but the only way to be sure was the smell. Dropping it in her satchel, she went to the next promising looking log.
Crrrrrunch.
"Okay that was loud." She shot a glance in the direction from which the noise came. "Who's there? I know that wasn't an armadillo or a rabbit. Unless it was a hundred pound bunny, someone's watching me."
No response. A dim, stultifying silence enveloped Alyssa, replacing the comfort she normally found out here in the warm, calm, breezeless forest.
"Who is out there?" She demanded again. "I haven't done anything wrong! Stop scaring me! I'm just out here looking for mushrooms, what's so wrong with that?"
For the first time, she began to think he was right about the mushrooms not being worth the risk. Something about the sound made her acutely uneasy. As a kid, she never so much as heard a footstep out here unless it belonged to Preston's dad. Right now though, something was wrong. Her thoughts turned to the ghastly man who accompanied Preston to her house, Gadsen, she thought his name was, although she couldn't quite remember.
Still, she saw nothing. No one answered her calls, and since the last one, there had been no other sounds. Maybe, she thought, it was all in her imagination.
Taking a step to the west toward home and the village and to the path out of the woods, Lys heard another crunch, then another and another. Her knees went weak and she fell down, imagining all the terrible possibilities.
"Are you men? What's happening? Are there monsters in the woods waiting to snatch me up and eat me?" No matter that it made no sense, and that Lys very well knew monsters didn't exist, every horrific thing she could imagine flooded through her mind.
Snap!
A twig broke just past the edge of her vision. She wished that the woods weren't so damnably deep and took a deep breath as she got back to her feet.
"Please!" She said, although not sure to whom she spoke. "Please just come out and stop scaring me. If I'm doing something wrong by being here, I'm sorry!"
Looking left, then right, another series of breaking twigs and heavy footsteps surrounded her. She counted four, maybe five different sources for the sound. Underneath her shirt, tucked into her belt, Lyssa closed her fist around the handle of a small knife. It was better suited for digging succulent mushroom stems out of logs, but in a pinch, it would certainly stab.
"Hello?" She once again started to think maybe the whole thing was her imagination. That there was no one in the woods, and the sound was made by a fox or some other cute, forest animal.
Behind her, there was another footstep. Lighter and quiet, but still a footstep. She didn't dare turn around, although she considered a quick spin and a knife slash, but she had no idea where to cut.
A hand closed on her shoulder.
Cold, horrible chills shot down Alyssa's arm and prickled the flesh on her neck.
She let out a yelp and her better sense took control. Just as the fingers clamped down, Lys kicked backwards, her heel finding a knee. She darted forward, clutching her knife in her hand and swinging her mushroom pack in a wide arc around her head as someone stepped out from the green wall to her left and tried to grab her where she had just dislodged the first hand.
The pouch thumped uselessly off the large man's shoulder, but he was surprised enough to withdraw for a second which gave her a moment to break. For a second, Lys thought about grabbing her satchel but decided it was better to escape and have to steal her dinner than be caught.
Another hand whooshed past her head as Lys ducked away and swung her un-knifed fist at another man's stomach. He sucked wind when she surprised him with the power behind her blow and she finally was free enough to run.
And run she did. Straight for the lush forest to the east, where she knew there was a path that would have her safely home in an hour's worth of walking, or fifteen minutes if she sprinted.
"Come back here, girl!" One of them shouted, but she didn't bother to turn. "We just want to talk to you!"
The spongy forest floor beat past quickly under her feet. One of Alyssa's shoes caught on a root and she just kicked it off and kept running. Vines, moss and branches lashed her face and her hair as she sped past, not willing to stop or even raise her hands to shield herself.
To her left, a few feet into the woods, she heard another man pushing through the growth, no doubt coming toward her. Another tangle of something grabbed her foot and Lys bent to pull herself free.
A hard tug brought only pain as her palm rasped and slipped without success. She yelped and tried again.
"We've got her, she isn't going anywhere." A breathless oaf tromped up behind her and she lashed out with the knife, intent on getting away. He quickly dodged backwards and laughed. "You've almost run me out of breath. Mr. Webb wanted me watching the woods for you."
This one? What is he talking about? Think, Lys, think!
Bending down and laughing, another of the brutish men approached from behind and wrapped his arms around Alyssa's, pinning her knife-wielding hand to her side.
"That's enough of that, little girl. What's your name?"
"Shut up!" She spat back.
"Odd name."
"Shut up! Let me go!" When Lys writhed around, she felt whatever it was on her foot squeeze harder. She finally looked down and saw that it was a trap of some sort, a bit like one meant for bears, but she still had a foot, so it wasn't anything that te
rrible. "Why are you doing this?"
"Why are we – did you hear that, Peter?" The bigger man with the red face slapped the other one on the back as three others, the ones she'd escaped from, caught up. "This girl, with her pouch full of stolen mushrooms, who tried to cut your belly open with that oyster knife, she's asking why we've captured her."
The men caught their breath before any of them bothered to turn their attention to Lys, although the one with his arms around her rubbed her in such a way that his biceps brushed against the side of one of her breasts. She took a breath and a flush crept up her chest, but she refused to admit it to either herself or her captors.
"Let me go!" She squirmed again, and tried to kick, but there was nothing she could do against one man this size, much less five of them.
"I don't think we're going to do that. Not yet anyway." The one called Peter, who had a large, wide nose and red cheeks, bent down in front of her and unhooked her foot from the trap. "Just keep quiet. I'm sure it'll be fine. Mr. Webb just wants to talk to you."
He swatted away her foot when she kicked at him as though she were a fly.
"That's enough," he said, his voice growing serious. "One more idiot try at violence won't be taken lightly."
Lys gulped. Normally she would have just ignored him and gone right at it again, but something about the big, red-faced man's voice told her he wasn't joking.
He tossed the trap – a fish-basket looking contraption – aside. Another of them grabbed her bag and the trap from the ground, slung them both over his shoulder and sighed. He looked her up and down. His gaze was hot, she felt, but couldn't imagine why.
Sweaty and hot, her hair was a mess, her skin was flushed and she hadn't the first sign of decent clothes or anything else. There was something about all of this that just didn't make any sense. Where are the cops? Why didn't they just call them and get me toted off to jail? None of this makes any sense!
With the trap off her feet, the man holding Lyssa's arms squeezed the knife out of her hand and released her long enough to pull a length of rope from around his massive shoulders and bind her wrists behind her back so tight that her shoulders strained.
"Ow!" She cried. "That hurts! It's pinching!"
"It's a rope. It's supposed to hurt. Be quiet and I won't pull it any tighter. Keep this up and we'll put a bag over your head and gag you. Don't make us do that." He yanked down on to show he was serious and Alyssa yelped as the rough rope bit deep into her wrist.
"Don't! Okay, okay, you've convinced me. But at least tell me why you've got me like this. I haven't done anything wrong."
"Oh yes you have and you well know it," Peter growled, rubbing his belly. "But that's not the point. Didn't you hear me? About Preston Webb wanting to see you?"
"I-"
He pursed his red lips.
"I suppose not."
"Right. Anyway, you know what's happening and..." his speaking stopped as he touched her face with surprising gentleness. "Ruben, come over here and hold her. This thrashing is giving my shoulder a horrible pain."
Peter squinted at her, studying her face for signs of another untruth.
"I've been told two different things from two different people. Preston wants me to be gentle with you and just bring you back to the house to meet with him. Gadsen on the other hand, seems to think you've tricked the young master somehow. From the way you're panicking, I tend to think it's the latter."
"Okay, but what do you mean? I'm happy to help him with anything, but I just don't know what you're saying." By the time she finished talking, Lys's voice had started to crack.
"You'll figure it out soon enough. Ruben, bag her and take her away?"
"Bag? Wh-" A black sack, thick and heavy, fell over Alyssa's head, and the cloth rubbed her neck raw when the cord rasped through the metal-ringed loops and closed snug around her throat. When she opened her mouth again and felt that hard canvas on her cheeks, the only sound that came was a scream.
Lys kicked in whatever direction her feet could go, but her best attempts to get away were met with chuckling. Someone grabbed one of her ankles and she managed to raise her knee into a chin. Teeth clacked together and she heard a mumbling yelp as though she'd made one of these brutes bite his tongue.
"Good!" She shrieked. "Serves you right! Let me go! They're just mushrooms!"
"Mushrooms aren't the point, even if they aren't yours. Although, to be honest with you, I'm not sure I understand what's going on myself."
A hand on her chest sent Alyssa sprawling backwards and crashing to the ground with a painful thump when she struck something hard with the back of her leg and sprawled on the ground, feet thrashing wildly in all directions. For a moment, she kept that up, but quickly tired herself out and lay limp on the spongy ground.
"Okay, enough of this," Peter said. "We've got rounds to make. Tie her up if she won't relax. I'm tired of playing around."
"Sure thing, boss," another of them said. His voice was thick and surly. Lys imagined him having big, wet lips. She imagined him unable to go more than a few minutes without licking them and rubbing his thick, crested brow.
Ropes around her ankles bit just as deep as the ones on her wrists and Lys barely squelched another yelp. Under the hood that blacked out the world, she bit her lip, trying her best not to panic. The man twisted the rope again, so tightly that single fibers from it dug in. Something about that sent a thrill up the back of Lys's leg.
"Just relax," Peter said, "there's no reason to keep fighting. Just don't try anything stupid. Right, bring her."
Her feet left the ground and a shoulder met Lys's stomach, driving the air out of her lungs as whichever one of the ogrish men it was who hoisted her over him like a sack of potatoes.
Keep calm, Lys, just keep calm. A hand went to rest on the back of her legs, right below the khaki shorts she always wore when she ventured into the woods. If you wouldn't have fought so much, you might be walking right now. Just go with it. Don't kick, don't do anything stupid. You can talk your way out of anything, but if you keep fighting it's going to be worse.
Every step the man took made Lys's body jump, and his shoulder punch into her diaphragm again and again. On the fifth, and then the sixth shoulder-ramming, she grew angry. Unconsciously she tried to kick again, but the man only laughed and it hurt her worse than it did him. She let out a loud sigh that ended with a tremble in her voice.
"Pl – please, can I walk? I promise I won't try anything."
"Why should I believe you?" Peter said from right beside where she hung. "You've not proved yourself very friendly so far."
"I'm sorry, I just panicked. I just didn't know what to do and no one's being very clear. Please, give me another chance."
The man heaved a dramatic sigh.
"Alright. One more try at being reasonable. Put her down, untie her feet. Let the girl walk."
She grunted when her feet hit the ground. The first thought she had was, of course, to kick whoever was closest and run, but luckily she'd learned her lesson from the first four times she tried that.
"Tell me about him, about Preston," Alyssa said, doing anything she could to distract herself from the apprehension growing in her throat. "I only met him for the littlest time and I don't really know much about him at all. I don't care what, just tell me anything. What he looks like, what sort of books he reads."
"I would if I did, kid," the broad-nosed man responded. "He's the sort what keeps to himself. You know the type."
Lys did, but that wasn't a very good answer. Still, she just walked on, one foot after another, in the direction she was led by the taut rope extending from her wrists.
"I guess the only important thing is that he's a moody type. He's got something that he needs very, very badly, but can't quite manage." He tugged the rope again. "Come on. Don't make him wait. That'll just make it worse."
Gulping hard, Lys opened her mouth and shut it again before she said anything to make things even worse than they already were.
"That's a girl," Peter said. "Stay like that, and I think things will work out just fine."
Onward they plodded, for what seemed like hours. Lys had no idea to where – or to whom – she was being taken. But even as they walked, her mind conjured up all sorts of bizarre images all too strange to possibly be true.
"Oz," she said. "The way you're acting, he's like the Wizard of Oz."
"Well, he's not doing any magic."
"No, I mean he's this shadowy figure behind a curtain making everything move."
"Oh. Like that. Well, yeah maybe. I donno," Peter said. "We've got one of those, but Preston isn't him." The smile that cracked his lips would have made Alyssa wince. That is, if she could have seen anything except the inside of a black canvas sack.
The compound-only phone on Preston Webb's desk buzzed, snapping him out of the daze into which he fell as soon as he sat down fifteen minutes before. Alyssa Barton and her curling-on-one-side, smirking grin hadn't let him alone for going on three days. Every time he sat down, it seemed, she was right there, her sweet smell, her soft hair, just out of his reach.
He looked down to see the button labeled security blinking angrily.
"Hello? Peter? Is something the matter?"
"No, not at all," he said. "Opposite." He sucked air, huffing and puffing, like he'd just finished running a marathon, which for Peter, was the same as jogging a block and a half.
"What do you mean?" Preston snapped, much more irritably than he meant. "Sorry. I'm tired and cranky. And now I'm confused."
"Good news. I have good news." Peter said drawing another breath and exhaling hard.
"Oh, well that's good," he chuckled. "What is it?"
"Uh, it's that girl," the big man said. "That one you told me to look out for."
Crooking an eyebrow, Preston tried his best to remember what Peter was talking about. He vaguely remembered something about it, but his head was jumbled with fourteen different things. Inevitably something slipped through the cracks.