He got wary, and pulled back ever so slightly. “And what’s that?”
“When we get on the boat, and we’re a safe distance from land, can we talk about it then?”
“Why then, why not now?”
I took a deep breath, and held it for a second before letting it out. I had to come clean if I was going to appease him at all. He deserved that much. “Because in all honesty, I don’t know how I feel, or how I want to feel, and none of it makes any sense and I’m still trying to figure it all out.” I took another deep breath and noticed how much lighter I felt after my little confession. I picked up the brownie and stuffed it into my mouth to avoid having to say anything else. I should have thought that through, as I hadn’t brought anything to drink with me outside and instantly started to cough as I choked on the rich chocolate now lodged in my throat, suffocating me to death.
Jack started laughing at me as he leaned over grabbing the bottle next to him and handing it to me, but not before giving a sound pat to my back dislodging the now offensive food item. Now able to breathe, I grabbed the bottle from his hand and drank deeply. Once my throat was clear I exhaled loudly. “Fuck! That was intense, thanks,” I said while still panting and gulping in great mouthfuls of air.
He smiled the flirty half smile at me that always makes me melt, “It was almost death by chocolate.”
“Haha.” I rolled my eyes at him and took another swig of the bottle, and realizing what it was, stopped to look at it. “Where the fuck did you find Chivas Regal?”
Picking his guitar back up, he took another puff off the joint that had been burning away in the ashtray and resumed his strumming. “Same place I found the guitar. Figured it was a set.”
I shook my head. Leave it to the infamous Jack Jones to find both a guitar and top shelf scotch in a storage room while bringing back weed from the car. I leaned over and grabbed his pack of smokes, taking one out for myself and lighting it. Sitting back I exhaled deeply, realizing that the thing that had been missing from my fucked up day was Nicotine. It occurred to me I hadn’t smoked since this morning, and strangely that thought was weirder than anything else. I was in fact, a smoker, and had never been deterred from my bad habit by anything before. Of course I had now been to a zombie apocalypse, been involved with a pseudo-government conspiracy, and been face to boob with mean fake breasts. You would think those things combined would be causing me to chain smoke, but no. Go figure.
I sat there, watching the stars twinkle in the southern night sky, enjoying my toxins, and listened to Jack play. He was actually pretty good. I had to wonder if maybe music should have been his career path, and was now curious how he fell into acting in the first place. I looked over at him, and studied him as he was lost in the melody he was playing. Acting seemed like such a bizarre career for a guy like him; he was so laid back and easy going. He seemed to deal well with all my crazy, of course that could be from years of dealing with prima donnas and Hollywood execs. I would have to ask him his story one day. On the other hand, if I did, he would ask mine, and I would rather eat dog poop then dredge that shit up.
Finished with my cigarette, I stamped it out into the ashtray on the table and stood to leave. It was only when I stood that I felt the full effects of the scotch and weed coursing through my veins, leaving me warm and lightheaded. I must have been swaying as Jack put down his guitar and stood to steady me. Laughing as he held my arm, “Are you okay?”
I put my hand on his respectively, “Yeah, the world just picked that minute to pull a Tilt-A-Whirl.” I looked up at him and returned his smile. I barely had time to focus on his eyes when he leaned in and was suddenly kissing me. The pot and booze had relaxed me enough that I couldn’t muster the energy to pull away, or be reasonable, and I kissed him back. Taking that for a green light, he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me flush with his chest and used his tongue to tease the seam of my lips in invitation.
The combination of drugs, alcohol, moonlight, gentle breeze and stars were enough to cause my inhibitions to hit the road, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, lifting to my toes, and opening my lips to let him in. Letting out a low grumble of approval, he held me tighter and deepened our kiss.
The mix of our tongues and the taste of the scotch and cigarettes on our breath filled the air around us, and the scent of his aftershave joined the sense party and I was almost brought to my knees with want. I let out a little whimper as my knees gave ever so slightly, and briefly considered fainting. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I had been kissed like this and realized how much I missed it. Missed the kissing, and the rollercoaster feeling careening through my insides at the emotion behind the kiss. It wasn’t just a simple meeting of the lips; it was fireworks, and champagne corks, and meadows filled with flowers and sunshine, and everything else that made being in this fucked up world worth it.
Too soon, he broke our kiss, and pulled back to smile at me. “I’ve been dying to do that all day.” He supported his argument by pulling my glasses off my face and planting soft little kisses all over my eyes and cheeks. Fuck, this man was going to be the death of me.
I stared into his face, and wanted to cry at how perfect he looked standing here, on this perfect patio, on this perfect night. I didn’t want to cry because it was perfect, but because I knew it was all an illusion. This wasn’t a serene night for lovers to play, it was filled with fire and death and the unknown.
I didn’t want to let him in on the dark and fucked up thoughts that had seeped in and ruined an amazing moment, so instead I pulled back and feigned a yawn.
He looked down at me for a long moment, and my heart sank as his expression became blank and he handed my glasses back to me. “Yeah, it’s been a long day, we should turn in.” He leaned down and picked up his smokes, the bottle, and the guitar and together we made our way back inside to the club box.
Once again safely ensconced in our little residence, I sighed and started towards our room to grab my toothbrush, when I decided to detour to the kids’ rooms. I pushed open the first door and stuck my head in to find both kids and the dog sound asleep together. Glancing around, I noticed that all of their things we had brought in with us were packed up and ready to go. I felt guilty thinking of how I hadn’t remembered to come up with an escape plan yet, but figured Jack must have something by now.
Shutting the door, I went back to mine and walked in on Jack stripped down to his boxers and in the middle of pushing the sofa against the two chairs I had slept in, thus creating one, giant bed. He stopped and grinned wickedly at me, winked and went back to what he was doing. I had to stare for a minute and appreciate the view. Here he was standing before me, arguably the sexiest man on the planet, (before everyone had been eaten) and he was half naked, and making a bed for the both of us to sleep in. Although it did make me wonder what exactly he was planning on occurring in said bed, as much as that sounded like fun, now was certainly not the time. For all we knew these dirty bastards had cameras in here.
Darting my eyes away from such a glorious sight seemed a shame, but necessary before I started to drool openly. I hurriedly grabbed my toothbrush and paste and scurried back out the door to the restrooms. Safely locked away, I took a moment to catch my breath and let my hormones stop their incessant whining at being denied.
After I was nice and calm again, I brushed my teeth and cleaned up for bed. I didn’t bother with pajamas, and decided to just sleep in what I was wearing. It was clean, after all. Returning to the suite, I opened the door to our room, and caught sight of Jack all nice and snuggled up in the middle of our makeshift bed. I sighed in resignation. Apparently I was going to have to fight for space.
Walking up to the bed, I looked it over, trying to decide the best way to go about this. I crawled in, making sure to jab him in the ribs with my elbow a few times until he scooted over far enough for me to lie down comfortably. I did concede a little bit, snuggling up into his side, laying my head on his chest and wrapping my arm over him. I felt
his arm snake around me, and settle over my waist. I felt him stroke my side and kiss the top of my head.
“Night Angie.”
“Night Jack.”
Chapter 17: Taken.
I really did ‘awoke with a start’. I had no idea why I was awake, but my eyes popped open and I bolted upright with an intensely horrible feeling. That and I had to pee. I stared around the darkened room, and took note of the way the light filtering through the giant window taking up the far wall cast suspicious shadows along the furniture.
I turned and studied Jack, jealous of his serenity, and after hearing his snoring could understand partly why I was awake at the very moment. He really was beautiful when he slept, and I couldn’t stop myself from pushing a strand of dark blond hair off his forehead, while running my fingers along the crease between his eyes. My heart contracted and I felt tears building as I thought about the life he and I would never have together. No one knew if any of us would live or die, and I knew that trying to build a life with someone at this point was hopeless. I wished we’d have met under different circumstances, but then again, we probably wouldn’t have fallen for each other if it hadn’t been for the whole ‘life or death’ scenario we’d been thrust into.
I heaved a sigh, and took one last look around as I pushed the covers off my legs and moved to stand up. Pulling myself off our bed, I took another moment to watch Jack. “Must be fucking nice…” I muttered to myself as he snored again so loudly I was pretty sure the windows rattled.
Pulling my attention away from him, I scrambled around in the dark until I found my shoes and quickly stuffed my feet into them. I didn’t have to bother with clothes since I had worn them to bed and decided I wouldn’t need my glasses for a quick bathroom trip.
I started for the door, pulling it open as quietly as I could, and tip-toed across the living area towards the main door. I paused just before my hand hit the handle, as a wave of foreboding washed over me again. I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but as I stood there, I just had the insistent feeling that something was terribly wrong, and all Hell was about to break loose. I wasn’t high anymore, but the paranoia was real. I didn’t think I was psychic or anything, but there was just something about this feeling that wouldn’t be ignored.
Exercising some extra caution, I managed to get the door open with only a slight creak, and made my way down the unnecessarily dark hallway. Turning the corner that fed out into the main thoroughfare, I thought it odd that the guard that was usually stationed at the entrance was nowhere to be seen. I stopped and looked around, checking to see if maybe he was just patrolling, but there was not a soul to be found anywhere that I could tell.
“Well, that’s odd…” I thought out loud as I continued on my trek to the restroom. I thought about looking around a bit more for the missing guard, but my bladder just wasn’t having any of that shit at the moment.
I hurried into the restroom, shuddering slightly at the echo cast around the room as the door closed behind me. I didn’t usually scare easily at big empty rooms, but there was just something off about tonight, and I was definitely in a hurry to get back to bed, where at least I knew I could wake Jack up to have my back.
Finishing my task, I hastily washed up, and started back for the door. I was no sooner out of the doorway when I felt hands encase my waist, and wrap around my face.
“AHHHH What the fuck??!!!” My screams were muffled by a rag they were holding over my mouth, and I felt bruises forming where the person’s arms were forcing my legs and arms down so I couldn’t reach back and kick them with the feet that were now flailing helplessly. It was after I inhaled deeply to scream again that the strong noxious odor of chemicals filled my nose and mouth, and the last thought I had was the urge to vomit as I lost consciousness.
Banging. There was banging off in the distance, and I felt it rather than heard it as the fog in my brain receded. I tried to open my eyes, but soon realized the banging was actually coming from within my head, and quickly decided that trying to sit up, or open my eyes was a really bad idea. My stomach out voted the rest of me, as I rolled over and spilled its contents to the tile floor below the ledge I had been laying on. As the last of the heaves subsided, I lay there half on the ledge, and panted, watching the stream of drool drop slowly to the floor. “Ugh, what the fuck happened?” I groaned while trying to catch my breath. The waves of nausea and the banging of axes in my skull were easing up, and I was able to open my eyes fully and take stock of where the Hell I was.
Peering around the room, my first thought was ‘jail cell’, as there were no windows, the whole thing was done in a lovely shade of grey cement, and there was a stainless steel toilet and sink up against one wall. The whole room couldn’t be more than 20 square feet, and there was a small window on the door. I rolled over and tried to sit up, but that just made the evil elves with their pickaxes work harder at my brain tissue. I abandoned that goal, and just rolled further onto my side. I was lying on some sort of cot that was built into the wall, with a thin mattress pad, and no pillow or blanket.
The only sound I could make out was my own frantic breathing as I racked my brain for an answer as to where the fuck I was, and why I was there. Full on panic set in as I thought back to the day before and the conversations I had overheard.
“Testing on humans…” Son of a bitch. Well, looks like my acting skills sucked worse than I thought, and Ian had figured out what I knew. Either that or he really just hated me; it could go either way.
Tears welled up in my eyes, and spilled down my overheated cheeks as I ran my fingers over the rough concrete wall next to me. They had fucking stolen me, locked me up, and were probably going to feed me to their pet zombies. And I had left my glasses next to the bed to make matters worse, so my ultimate demise would be blurry.
My ribs started to ache from the silent sobs now shaking my entire body. I had pretty much had enough of this whole fucking nightmare and just wanted to go home. If my mom hadn’t been dead, I would probably be wishing she’d been there as well. And maybe a stuffed animal too. I had completely and officially lost it, and now I was alone, trapped and my future hung in the balance. To top it all off, I had put off telling Jack how I felt, and now would never get the chance.
“Jack!” I said his name out loud as I sat straight up, despite the protest from the workers in my head. He would wake up, see I was gone, but my glasses and guns were still there, know something had happened and surely would come find me. Of course on the other hand, they could have been taken too, and could be in matching cells at this very moment.
Now filled with fear of no possible rescue, I started to cry harder. Gut wrenching sobs worse than the previous day were now rumbling through my entire body as I rocked. It occurred to me briefly I’d cried in the last 24 hours more than I had in years, but didn’t stop to consider the implications of that. It didn’t take long before the mildew scented pad beneath me was soaked below my face. There was no clock, so I had no idea how long I laid there, just crying, but it felt like an eternity. There were still no sounds, and I half wondered if maybe I was being left there to rot. I doubted that though, as there must be some other malevolent purpose for capturing me in the middle of the night. At least I knew that my awful feeling had been right. Too bad I had all but ignored it.
Eventually the crying subsided and I started to think a little more clearly. That and I was pretty sure I had just run out of tears for the rest of my life. As my mental focus sharpened, I sat up and threw my legs over the side of my cot and stood up. Every muscle and bone in my body screamed at me to sit the fuck back down, but I ignored them. “Ugh,” I moaned in answer to my body. What Goddamned chemical had they taken me down with anyway? It didn’t feel like a Ruffie, so I deduced it must have been Chloroform. Awesome. Every girl just loves to be drugged and kidnapped in the middle of the night by evil scientists in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Especially while sleeping next to People Magazine’s Sexiest Man of the Year.
I
giggled to myself as I thought about the rant that had just run through my mind. This whole thing really did sound like the plot of an Ed Wood production, except instead of the token sexpot blonde as the heroine; there was just plain old me. That actually made it an even worse movie.
Shaking thoughts of B horror films, I walked over to the door, and standing up on my toes, tried to look through the tempered glass. It was reflective, so I couldn’t really see anything, and got the feeling it was a two way mirror, so was relatively certain whoever was on the other side could see me.
Just as I was about to give up on the window, I heard a crackling on my left, and looked over, noticing for the first time there was a little intercom on the wall. “Good morning, Angela. I trust you slept well?” It didn’t take a genius to make out Ian’s smug voice coming from the tiny speaker.
“Oh yes, it was lovely. My compliments to management,” I snapped back sarcastically, as I felt the loathing for this man actually drip from my tongue. “Where the fuck am I, and why am I here?” I didn’t feel the need to waste any time with witty retorts, and got down the real questions I needed answered.
“Yes, that would be the question, wouldn’t it?” He was fucking with me. His sing-song voice sounded very much like a kid with a big secret who wanted to tell, but first wanted you to beg for it.
“Cut the crap, Ian. What the fuck am I doing here?!” I yelled the last part out of frustration while banging both hands against the door so hard the bones in my arms rattled, but the door just laughed at me.
“Tsk, tsk, Angela. Violence will not get you anywhere, and you’ll know what I want you to know when I’m ready for you to know it.” I looked directly at the speaker as his words filtered through the static and my heart sank. I was in deep shit, and was likely about to have a very slow and painful end. “I hope you enjoyed your little eavesdropping session yesterday because very soon, dear Angela, you will sorely regret it.” He said the last part so lightly; I could hear the smile in his voice. This was one sadistic bastard who had just gotten a new toy to torture. “Yay, lucky me.” I thought bitterly as I pulled away from the door and started back to my cot.
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