by Avril Sabine
“Stop acting so childish and tell me where you are,” Grace snapped. “Do I have to wake your father to talk to you?”
“I’m sorry for everything. I love you, Mum. I’m turning my phone off now and leaving it off. I’m really sorry.” Her words broke on a reluctant sob. Alyssa turned her phone off before she could cry and handed it to Nathan who pushed it into the back pocket of his jeans.
“On the bed.”
Alyssa turned towards the bed and froze. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t make herself walk to the bed. She knew he was going to tie her up, but then what? And what last one? How many had there been before her and what had happened to them? A push against her lower back caused her to stumble forward, and she had to step sideways so she didn’t land in the tray of food beside the bed. She lost her balance and tumbled onto the bed, trying to avoid falling on her things. She twisted as she fell so she lay on her back, staring up at Nathan as he stood above her.
“I have a little present for you.” With a sneer, Nathan pulled a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket and roughly grabbed one of her hands. He had her attached to the bed head in moments. “Don’t go away now. We’ve got some fun planned for this evening.”
“What sort of fun?” Alyssa was certain she didn’t want to know, but the question seemed to escape on its own.
“If you’re a good little girl I might tell you when I come back.”
“You’re going?” Hysteria threatened to erupt again.
“No one can hear you if you scream.” Nathan’s lips curved into a malicious smile. “I’ll be back before dark. Midnight at the latest.” Then he was gone and the door was locked behind him.
Alyssa focused on the fact she should’ve rechecked the time before handing over her phone. Time. Time seemed to be in short supply. Midnight. Was that it? Was that all the time she had left? How many minutes had she used talking on the phone? How many minutes were left? Once again she fought the scream that tried to escape. He expected her to scream. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. There had to be some way out of this. Never had she imagined her life would end like this. Sure, she’d read books, seen movies, even read articles in newspapers and watched the news. But things like this didn’t happen to people like her. Other people maybe. Not her. Maybe it was a nightmare. Alyssa latched onto that idea. Of course. A nightmare. She sat up, and looked around.
The room was in clear focus. Everything was sharp, unlike her usually blurred dreams. “Won’t think about it,” Alyssa muttered. Her eyes fell on the tray and she reached towards it. Her hand curled into a fist and she quickly withdrew it. Was it drugged? How could you tell? Her stomach growled. Her fist opened and her hand pressed against her mouth. Saliva filled it at the thought of the food sitting there, taunting her. She forced her eyes away from the tray. They fell on the scattered contents of her bag. In amongst everything, she spotted a chocolate bar and pounced on it. She quickly tore off the wrapper and took a large bite. It was gone within seconds and she was searching through the rest of her things. She found a small packet of chips and a nearly empty bottle of water. She drank the last mouthful of tepid water before starting on the chips.
Her stomach still felt hollow. She put everything back in her bag, one item at a time, hoping she’d missed spotting some food. All she managed to find was a brightly wrapped butterscotch. She popped the sweet in her mouth and tried not to think of the food on the floor. She could manage. Hadn’t she held in the scream that echoed in the back of her head? Not touching food should be simple.
But it wasn’t. It called to her. Mocked her. Determined, she stood up and pushed the tray away from the bed with the toe of her boot. She sat on the floor and lay down. She stretched out as far as possible, her arm high over her head and the handcuffs cutting into her wrist. She pushed the tray across the room with her foot. Now it’d be impossible to reach. She crawled on the bed. She couldn’t give in and eat it. Satisfied, she stared sightlessly at the ceiling. In a minute she’d have a look at the handcuff. There had to be some way of getting out of it. How many movies had she seen where they’d picked the lock and escaped? How hard could it be?
A wave of despair washed over her and she closed her eyes. She fought back the tears that threatened to fall. Instead she focused on her breathing. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. She focused so hard on her breathing she fell asleep.
Chapter Four
Alyssa turned her head into the caress that trailed across her cheek, her jaw and then along her throat. She went to reach out with her left hand, but couldn’t move it. The metal of the handcuffs dug into her wrist.
Handcuffs! Alyssa’s eyes flew open. Everything rushed back. She looked up at Nathan who sat beside her on the bed and saw amusement again filled his eyes. She tried to move away from him and he tightened his fingers around her throat. She froze. A bare light bulb in the ceiling above him shone in her eyes, but she couldn’t look away.
His lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “I expected you to be screaming the place down by now. Instead I find you fast asleep. Odd.” He stroked the pulse at her throat. “But you are scared. So why aren’t you screaming?”
Alyssa knew if she started to scream she’d be swamped by blind panic. It didn’t help that every time he smiled more fear rushed through her. She needed to stay as rational as possible. There had to be a way out of this nightmare. But she couldn’t say that. No way was she going to warn him. “Would it help?” The words were a whisper, but at least she managed them without letting free the scream that echoed inside her head.
“So… no little rabbit to run frantically back and forth in front of the headlights. What are you then? No lion either to strike out no matter how futile. What do you think you are?”
Alyssa surprised herself by saying, “How about an ostrich? Head buried in the sand.”
Nathan threw back his head and laughed. He still smiled as he met her eyes. “It’ll be a pity to use you. If I could get a replacement this close I would. I think you’d be worth keeping for a bit. There’s so little in life that’s amusing anymore.”
“Aren’t you too young to think that?”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong. I’m nearly thirty, little ostrich.”
Alyssa wished he’d move his hand from her throat. He no longer pressed against it, but she knew how easy it’d be for him to tighten his grip. “Why me?”
He lifted the lock of purple hair and twined it around his finger, the other hand stayed against her throat. “Many reasons. But basically because you looked like you might hop in. And there weren’t many witnesses around.”
Alyssa forced herself to ask the question she was in two minds of having answered. “What are you going to do with me?”
“I’ve been waiting for that question. How about I make a deal with you? Call your friend and convince her you’re going somewhere without me. Doesn’t matter where. You just need to remove me from the equation. Then I’ll answer all your questions and I won’t hunt down your friend or parents.”
Alyssa knew he wasn’t giving her much choice. She’d ring Erin without the incentive of her questions answered. “I need to use the bathroom first.” After his earlier threats she wanted to make sure he wouldn’t leave her handcuffed to the bed until she wet herself. Even though she knew it was a minor concern, at least it was a concern she could deal with. One step at a time.
Nathan continued to look down at her, his eyes emotionless again. Then he moved off the bed. He took a key from his shirt pocket and unlocked the handcuff from the bed. He let it dangle from her wrist. “Make it quick.”
This time when Alyssa slung her handbag over her shoulder, Nathan didn’t stop her. He stood to the side as she stumbled to the door. When Alyssa glanced at the tray of food, he laughed and she looked over at him.
“It would have made it a lot easier on you if you’d eaten it.”
Alyssa took that as confirmation the food was drugged and the hollow pit in her stomach seemed justifie
d. She hurried to the bathroom, worried Nathan might change his mind. The moment she was in there, she locked the door. As soon as she’d used the toilet, she rinsed and filled the bottle she’d found in her bag earlier. She drank from the tap and then turned it off. The handcuffs hit the metal and she cringed at the sound.
A movement caught her attention and she looked up to stare at her reflection. It felt like she looked at someone else. Even her mind barely registered any thought. Alyssa was glad of the numbness that seemed to settle in. The scream echoed in there, but not many other thoughts surfaced. Or those that did, she brutally shoved away. She couldn’t think. Not without becoming a rabbit. She had to stay calm and in control. Well, as much in control as a person held against their will could be. She looked at the window again. If only it was larger. Pushing that thought from her mind, she forced herself to unlock the door.
Nathan leaned against the wall across from the bathroom. He said nothing. He watched her as she paused in the doorway. She stood there and waited to see what he’d do. He pushed away from the wall and handed her phone to her before he walked back to her prison. She looked down at it then over to Nathan as he stepped into the room. Was she meant to follow? She took a few steps forward. Maybe he was going to let her call her friend without listening in. She didn’t know. It seemed unlikely. So she walked to her prison and stopped in the doorway.
Nathan sat in the armchair. That only left the bed. If she didn’t need to sit so badly she wouldn’t have considered it. But her legs felt wobbly and she knew if she didn’t sit soon they’d give out on her.
Alyssa dialled Erin’s number. She picked up on the second ring.
“What have you been doing all day? I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to call. It’s nearly seven p.m. Over twelve hours I’ve waited. You should’ve called before now.”
“Sorry, Erin. I guess I was having so much fun I lost track of time.” Alyssa glared at Nathan as she said this, and was annoyed to see her words amused him. She could barely believe she’d slept the entire day. Maybe it was from the drugs she’d been given the night before. Another question she couldn’t answer.
“So where are you? What have you been doing? When are you coming home?” Erin fired the questions at Alyssa, without pause for breath.
“Slow down.” Alyssa forced herself to laugh. It was her usual response to her friend’s inability to go slow.
“You know you could’ve invited me along if the day’s been that much fun.”
Alyssa closed her eyes. A wave of relief rushed through her that Erin had been sensible enough not to hop in the car with her last night. Last night! It seemed like it was so much longer than that.
“Allie? You still there?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I was distracted. Hey listen. We went to the beach and I ran into some people that are heading to Cairns. They’ve got a job at a resort up there and one of the girls going with them pulled out at the last minute so I said I’d take her place.”
“You what? Are you totally insane? What about Nathan?”
“Oh, I left him at the beach with his mates and their girlfriends. This was too good to pass up. I’ve always wanted to see far north Queensland.”
“Allie? You sure everything’s okay? You’re not in any sort of trouble are you?”
Alyssa forced herself to laugh again. “Do you think I’d be ringing you to chat if I was? Really Erin, you’ve been watching too many horror movies.”
“And you haven’t been watching enough. You can’t just take off with people you’ve met for only a few seconds.”
“I can’t go home either.”
“Have you told your parents?”
“No. I’m just going to text them. It’ll be easier.”
“Ring me every day to let me know you’re safe.”
“I can’t. My phone’s running low on credit. I’ll text you.”
“How will I know it’s you?”
“Erin! Who else is likely to send you daily text messages from my phone? Get real.”
Erin laughed. “I guess. But this is so unlike you. I nearly died when you hoped in that car. I thought I’d never see you again. Don’t keep doing stupid things like that. Please?”
“I swear I’ll live as safely as an eighty-year-old woman once I get to Cairns.”
“Great. I’m going to hold you to that.”
Before Erin could continue, Alyssa changed the topic. “Did Aiden turn up at the party last night?”
“Of course.”
Alyssa smiled as she let Erin complain about her brother for a bit. She eventually interrupted. “I need to go or I won’t even have enough credit to text you. Bye Erin.” There was so much more she wanted to say. So many things she couldn’t voice without alerting Erin to the fact she was in trouble. The worst trouble she’d ever been in her entire life.
“Okay. Later.”
Alyssa hung up and stared at her phone. She needed to send a text message to her parents. How was she going to word it? She continued to stare blankly at it. No words came to her mind. Pain shot through her as she thought of how her relationship with her parents had deteriorated in the past seven years. Would they blame themselves for her death? How could she make them understand this was her own stupidity?
“You going to send that message? Time’s wasting, Princess.”
She wished there was something she could throw at him. Anything. She wanted to wipe that look of amusement from his face. But there was nothing. The room was almost empty. And she wasn’t throwing any of her things. They were hers. All that was left of her old life. All that was left of her life because it didn’t look like there was going to be a way out of this situation. Alyssa stopped that thought the moment it arrived.
I’ll find a way, she thought fiercely. She opened her contact list to text her parents when it started to ring. It was her home number. She had to admire her mother’s persistence. And yet in her they called it stubbornness and complained.
“Who is it?” Nathan demanded.
“My parents.”
“Answer it.”
“No.”
Nathan rose to his feet, and strode towards the bed. Alyssa looked up at him. A shiver of fear darted through her body as he towered over her. She banished the feeling and tried to regain the numbness of earlier.
“Answer the phone, now.” Each word was spoken softly as his eyes bore into her.
“I can’t. They’ll hear the lies in my words.”
The phone stopped ringing, but Nathan continued to tower over her. She couldn’t look away from him. The image of a rabbit caught in headlights came to her mind and she pushed it away. She was no rabbit. But still she continued to meet his eyes, even though she wanted so badly to look away.
The phone started to ring again and Nathan glanced at it. His lips thinned. Alyssa was relieved to be able to look away. She had felt like a butterfly on a pin board.
“Send the text and get that damn thing off.” He strode to the armchair and dropped into it.
Alyssa stared at her phone until it fell silent. She quickly typed in, Heading out of town with friends. Will ring in a week or two, and sent it before they could ring again. As soon as it came up as sent, she turned off her phone.
“Throw it over here,” Nathan said.
Alyssa looked at her phone, then over at Nathan. She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t throw.”
Nathan looked at her in disbelief. “Too bad. Throw it over. Now.”
“I need you to text Erin for a few days. I don’t want her to worry yet.”
Nathan stared at her for a few minutes before he rose to his feet again. When he stood in front of her, he held out his hand. Alyssa reluctantly handed her phone to him. He turned and threw it so it landed on the armchair. Alyssa held her breath as it bounced and hoped it wouldn’t fall off. She looked up at him when the phone came to rest safely on the armchair. He grabbed the handcuff and pulled on her arm so he could snap it onto the frame of the bed head.
“Pl
ease, Nathan? It’ll benefit you. She won’t raise the alarm if she’s getting messages from me.”
“I’d think you’d want the alarm raised as quickly as possible.”
“I’m going to die before dawn, aren’t I?” Alyssa was grateful for the numbness that filled her body. It even helped mute the scream.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” Nathan frowned.
“You’re too fresh in Erin’s mind. Give it a few more days and you’ll be the last person she’ll think of when she no longer receives messages from me.”
“Just like that? You accept you’re going to die so you’ll make sure your friend is protected.” Nathan’s eyes searched her face. “Have you been planning a suicide?”
Instead of answering and risk he’d hear a lie, Alyssa asked, “Haven’t you ever thought of it? Wondered if it might be easier to give up?”
Chapter Five
Nathan shook his head. “Never. I’d fight even against impossible odds. I guess that explains many things. But you’re staying chained to the bed. Just because you’re willing to die, doesn’t mean you’ll like our choice of death for you.”
“You were going to answer my questions.”
“You haven’t asked any.”
“Why am I here? And don’t just tell me to die. Tell me everything. Who am I going to tell? And if I understand it, we have a few hours to fill. I believe I’m stuck here till some time around midnight.” Alyssa fought to hold onto the numbness. She needed to learn everything about her situation. Maybe there was something in it she could use to escape. Anything. Hope was sometimes a desperate creature that beat bloody wings against a glass cage while the world outside mocked with its nearness.
Nathan sat on the bed beside her. Once again he stared at her. Alyssa met his gaze steadily. She kept her mind empty and hoped it’d help her achieve the same emotionless look she saw in Nathan’s eyes.
“Brian, my father, and I are in property development. A couple of years ago we hired a manager and left the majority of the running in his and the accountant’s hands. They had impeccable references. I guess you can’t trust anyone these days.”