by Sofia Daniel
Moments later, the door was unlocked, and Henry stumbled through. Behind him stood a pair of men in balaclavas. I drew my knees to my chest and breathed hard. It had been a good call to pretend I’d been asleep for the photo shoot. These kidnappers might not have let me out of their house alive otherwise.
The smallest of the balaclava men pointed at me. “Stay quiet, and no one gets hurt.”
I nodded and gulped.
“How much do you think Trommel will pay for you? Five million? Ten?”
Warm water regurgitated to the back of my throat, making me cough. “What?”
The short kidnapper stepped forward and pointed his finger under my nose. “You’re his stepdaughter, aren’t you?”
I glanced at Henry, whose face stiffened. Had he been telling the kidnappers about me?
“Well?” snapped the short kidnapper.
“I am, but they only got married less than two months ago. We barely know each other.”
“Right,” he said in a tone that implied he was making recalculations. “Well, if he decides not to cough up, we’ll send him body parts.”
The dread lining my stomach formed a spike of fear. “They won’t allow human flesh through the mail!”
He tossed his head and stepped out of the room with his companions, leaving me gasping at their brutal stupidity. It was going to get me killed, maimed, and addicted to whatever had been in that syringe.
As soon as the key turned in the lock, I whirled on Henry. “Why did you overestimate my worth like that? Now they’ll be disappointed with anything they get!”
Henry stepped back, palms raised. “I said nothing of the sort.”
“Then what were you doing out of the room with them?”
“Bathroom break.” He picked up the paracetamol and water, then sat on the oak chair, which strained under his weight. “Look, there’s no point in blaming me for anything that’s happened. I didn’t ask you to trail after me and get caught in the kidnapping. If we’re going to survive, we’ll have to work together, alright?”
I pressed my lips tight and huffed out a frustrated breath. Henry was right. Yesterday, he was my worst enemy, but today he was the only ally I had in a den of kidnappers. “Did they take your photo, too?”
“Yes. And I expect the school will raise the alarm when Edward tells them I didn’t go to bed last night. There’ll be search parties and everything.”
“Of course.” A bitter taste formed in the back of my throat as I remembered waking up being eaten alive by a sheep and then discovered the triumvirate and their sycophants had left me to my fate in the middle of nowhere. I rested my chin on my knees and wrapped my arms tight around my legs. “No one will raise the alarm for me. They thought I’d run away last night.”
“Really?” Amusement laced his voice. “How did you find your way back?”
Hearing the mirth in his voice was like a fist to the heart. Anything could have happened to me out there. I jerked my head away. “If you’re going to laugh, I’ll stop talking.”
Henry lowered himself onto the mattress, his weight making me topple to the side toward him. One of my hands stretched down for balance and sank into its filthy surface. Ugh. I’d eat left-handed for the entirety of my stay… if they ever fed us.
“Hobson, look at me.” He paused, not speaking until I raised my head and glared at him from the corner of my eye. Even after a night in the trunk of a vehicle and with his blond hair tousled over his face, he still looked like Michelangelo’s David come to life. “What happened at the academy is in the past. The situation we’re in is far worse. Can you focus on the kidnapping and work with me?”
My eyes shuttered closed, and I gave my head a little shake. Not in response to his question, but at my single-minded fixation on the bullying. “Sorry.”
“That’s quite alright. Do you have any clues you can share with the police?”
I repeated a version of the mantra I’d memorized from being carried from the trunk, through the house, and into the room, adding that I’d seen the face of the photographer and the man in the beanie hat.
Henry nodded. “That will be helpful. What about—?”
The key turned in the lock, and a female kidnapper in a white balaclava walked in, holding a plate of sandwiches. From the bulk around her head, I would guess this was the photographer trying to hide her dreadlocks.
“Food.” She placed the plate on the oak chair, reached into her pocket, and dropped two Snickers bars on top. Then she headed for the hallway.
I glanced at Henry, silently urging him to spring forward, commando-style, snap her neck, and make a break for the exit, but he was too busy eyeing the sandwiches to read my eye signal.
“Which do you want?” he asked, “Cheese, ham, or egg?”
I took in the chipped plate. “Neither.”
The female kidnapper paused at the door. “Don’t even think of going on hunger strike.”
“How do I know you didn’t grind pills into the butter or something?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Someone will make a trip to Marks and Sparks, but it might take a few hours. That all right for you, Princess?”
“No sandwiches,” I said. “Just potato chips and packaged food.”
She walked out of the room and locked the door, muttering something about the bourgeoisie. I clamped my lips shut. If she’d seen some of the apartments Mom and I shared in the early days, she wouldn’t compare me to the likes of Henry, who had grown up stinking rich.
I turned to bourgeoisie boy, who was already halfway through the second round of sandwiches. “What are you doing?”
“I’m hungry.” He threw a Snickers bar onto my lap.
I picked it up and held it to the light, examining its wrapper for puncture marks, breaks in its seams or any other signs of tampering.
Henry snatched it out of my hands, pulled it open and gave it back. “Eat something and keep up your strength. If they want to drug you, they’d hold you down or do it while you’re sleeping.”
After sniffing for chemical scents, I bit into the chocolate and rolled it on my tongue, checking for unusual flavors. Yesterday, I’d been too busy freaking out about having been left in the middle of a field to think about how I’d slept through the duct taping, but now, I had a few ideas. “Did you drug my cocoa?”
“Hobson,” he snapped.
Right. Forget about the past and focus on the current situation. “Why are you so calm? Have you been kidnapped before?”
“Twice.” He pulled open his Snickers bar and took a huge bite. “The first I barely remember because I was five, but the second happened just before my first day at Mercia.”
“You were eleven?”
He paused and gave me a strange look. “Ten. My birthday’s on the first of September.”
“What happened?”
“Cars ambushed the limo on a country road, and they snatched me.” He shrugged. “It was in all the papers.”
I chewed the chocolate and swallowed. “I didn’t keep abreast on the international news circuit at that age, so sorry I missed it.”
His face split into a crooked grin and his eyes flashed to mine with a mixture of mirth and desire. “You’re actually quite amusing.”
“Thanks.” I tried to ignore the sleeping butterflies that stirred in my stomach, picked out a peanut and held it to the light. “I always wanted to be the side entertainment during a kidnapping.”
Henry chuckled, drawing my gaze to his smiling face. He finished his Snickers bar in two more bites and shrugged off his waterproof jacket. Then he unzipped his thermal jacket and pulled off his sweater. The fabric rode up, revealing a stomach that could have been carved out of marble. His abs rippled with his movements, a contour of peaks and valleys I longed to explore with my fingertips and tongue.
All the moisture in my throat rushed south and gathered between my legs. What caught my attention most was the golden treasure trail that led down into the waistband of his cargo pants. Whe
n the fabric rode up to the bottom of his pectoral muscles, a little gasp escaped my throat. “What… What are you doing?”
“It’s hot.” He pulled down his long-sleeved T-shirt, abruptly ending the show. “You’ll get dehydrated if you keep on all that outdoor gear. Take something off.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks as I imagined his bare skin pressed against my own, and I clutched the Snickers bar to my chest. “I’ll keep on what I have, thanks.”
He rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself.” Then his gaze landed on my chocolate. “Are you going to eat that?”
“Yes!” I took a larger than average bite of the Snickers and chewed hard.
Henry laughed and lowered himself back onto the mattress. The see-saw effect of his weight had me rolling onto his side and inhaling his comforting citrus and mint scent. “Oh, Hobson,” he said with a chuckle. “If I had to be kidnapped, I could think of no more an amusing companion than you.”
I longed to snap at him and demand to know if that was why he’d stood back and watched me get bullied and tormented, but he’d remind me to focus on the present. Instead, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“You’re stubborn. The average person would have left the school with all that pressure. I know Yelverton stayed out of financial desperation. Someone living in her kind of squalor can’t afford to leave when things get tough, but you could have gone anywhere with the Trommel fortune. Why?”
“You’ve answered your own question.” I shifted to the other side of the mattress.
“What are you talking about?”
“Trommel fortune. There’s no Hobson fortune. My father’s a fashion photographer with a young family. He can’t afford boarding schools.”
“Is that why your mother left? She was a model, wasn’t she?”
I bit down hard on my Snickers bar. Of course, someone like him would see all women as shameless gold diggers who walked out on perfectly good men for those with more money.
Mom left when Dad’s recreational drug habit turned into a dangerous addiction that drained their savings, dried up his work, and brought unsavory characters to our home. Even though it would leave her destitute and penniless, she took herself and five-year-old me out of the dangerous situation. She had stayed with friends, rented shitty apartments, and tried to get work, but I’d been a millstone around her neck. Mom had never explained any of this to me, but our fortunes only changed when she remarried, but that guy eventually left her for someone younger and without a surly kid.
Henry glanced down at me. “It was a simple question, Hobson. Your mother married an extremely wealthy man.”
“And yours didn’t?”
After a pause, he inclined his head. “Touché.”
Maybe it was the chocolate, or the remnants of whatever the kidnappers’ drugged me with, but my eyes became heavy, and a yawn ripped from my lips. I blinked several times to try and stay awake, but I felt myself falling fast. I turned to Henry. “Let’s talk about sleeping arrangements.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t even suggest I take the floor or that rickety chair.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I snapped. My mind scrambled for ideas because that’s exactly what I’d thought of proposing.
His gaze lingered on the queen-sized mattress. “Good, because if you’re not amenable to either of those options for yourself, we’ll share the bed.”
“Fine.” I eyed the bitten part of the Snickers bar. Did they usually look this messy? “But we’re sleeping top to tail and back to back with no wandering past the halfway dividing line.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he drawled. “I wouldn’t dream of pouncing on you in the middle of the night. I intend to be the perfect gentleman.”
A flush bloomed down my entire front, and I jerked my head away and folded my arms across my chest. The image of a shirtless Henry and his treasure trail pouncing on me in the middle of the night brought a wave of heat crashing between my thighs. I squeezed my legs together and harrumphed. My mind was taking me to strange and dark places, and it was all because of the concussion and the kidnappers’ drugs.
Chapter 13
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but when I awoke, sunlight still shone through the gaps of the boards covering the window. Henry’s booted feet lay two inches away from my face, and I shoved away his ankles, making him snort in his sleep. I propped myself on my elbows, letting my gaze linger on the fabric pulled taut against his muscular ass. A tiny growl of appreciation rumbled in my throat. At least he’d kept his promise and mostly remained on his side of the bed.
Later, one of the kidnappers let me out into the darkened hallway for a bathroom break, telling me to go to the door at the end. On my left was the handrail, which led to the top of the stairs. I made a mad dash for freedom, but two balaclava-clad men standing halfway up the stairs blocked my path and shoved me back up to the third-floor landing. Even though they mocked my pitiful attempt, I held my head high and strode to my destination. At least I’d tried.
The bathroom was a tiny, avocado-colored room with a threadbare, burgundy brocade carpet that hid the rotten floorboards. I tried not to look into the toilet bowl as I squatted over it to relieve myself, but I couldn’t help glimpsing decades of built-up grime around the walls. Dust covered the bathroom mirror, which I wiped off with the sleeve of my waterproof jacket.
A cerise-pink, straggly-haired mess stared back at me, looking like something out of a Stephen King novel. The blue insults TROLLOP, WHORE, and YANK still stood out like words on a whiteboard. I sighed and turned on the rusty taps with my fingertips. Brown water spluttered out.
I shook my head and left the water running until it turned yellow. I muttered, “What else should I have expected from this dump?”
Someone banged on the door. “Hurry up. This isn’t America’s Top Model!”
“Clearly.” I glowered at the filthy water swirling around a plughole clogged with limestone.
Eventually, the water turned a less poisonous shade, and I stuck my fingers under it and tried rubbing the crap off my face. The color, along with the epithets, remained fast.
This routine continued into the next day. Our captors had been kind enough to supply us with a bar of soap, a tube of toothpaste, and a washcloth, making getting clean in cold water a little more pleasant, even if it did mean brushing my teeth with my index finger.
Henry and I maintained a truce of sorts. We’d lie side by side on the bed, and the heat of his body caused my own to rise. He had revealed that most of the pranks had been instigated by Edward and Charlotte, with Patricia and Blake providing assistance. Whenever I’d ask why he did nothing to stop them, he’d draw away, clam up or change the subject.
About a week into our captivity, it was Henry’s turn to bathe, and he’d been gone for nearly three hours. The photographer was late arriving with breakfast, and my heart flipped summersaults. I paced the room and clutched my stomach to still the nausea churning inside.
Something had happened. Perhaps his parents had paid the ransom, and the kidnappers had let him go. My mind whirled. Had he escaped and left me behind? Or… or his parents refused to pay, and our captors had decided to kill us.
My breaths became shallow. Anything could have happened. I knocked on the door for attention. “Hey!”
Nobody came.
I banged on the door with both fists, pounding to match the rhythm of my heart. “Somebody, help!”
Still, nobody came. Not even to tell me to shut the fuck up.
My eyes shuttered closed, and I rested my head on the wooden door, thumping my fist against it until my arm ached. Palpitations reverberated through my chest and my head swam. Something terrible had happened to Henry, and when they had discarded his body, they would come after me.
Even though I resented him for standing by the bullies, I couldn’t survive captivity without his company. When my knees buckled, I staggered back to the mattress and lowered my spinning head between my knees. I gulped as much air as I could
fit in my lungs and gave myself a mental slap. Panicking wouldn’t help me ensure this torment. I had to stay calm. Had to survive so I could escape and tell the police everything I knew about the kidnappers.
“City, pot-holes, Mulberry Terrace, broken furniture in the front garden, a three-story house, hippies, the marijuana, Caz and Stokes, blonde dreadlocked photographer, man in the beanie hat.” I rocked back and forth and recited the mantra over and over, whispering it until the words formed a groove in my memory. I knew all their voices. Knew their body shapes. I’d be able to pick each of the kidnapping bastards out in an identity parade… As long as I remained calm.
Another spasm of fear rattled my bones. Where was Henry? What had they done with him? I pushed away the questions and repeated the mantra. I had to stay focused. I had to survive. I don’t know how long they kept me alone in that room and without food or water, but panic subsided into exhausted despair. My vision blurred, and my mantra became a blur of jumbled sound. Numbness overtook my senses, and my eyes dropped shut. I dozed, dreaming of myself running from room to room in an abandoned house, looking for Henry.
After what felt like a day, the lock turned.
My heart jolted back to life. I sprang off the mattress and rushed to the door.
Henry stepped through, looking dazed and drawn. My heart burst with a warm mix of joy and relief, which flowed into my chest, thickened my throat, and brought happy tears to my eyes.
The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, as though they had kept him awake all night. He ran a hand over his face and groaned. I wrapped my arms around his huge frame. Marijuana masked most of his comforting scent, but I didn’t care. He’d returned mostly unhurt.
“You’re alive!” The last word came out as a sob.