Taken By Surprise (Taken Trilogy Book 1)

by Jessica Frances

  ***

  We all go through the motions after dinner. Rose plays pool against Will and soon Charlie joins in. Rose and Charlie are both really good at it and while I don’t really understand what’s happening, Will seems to be getting excited over certain hits and misses.

  “Want to play a round, Zoe, for our bet?” Charlie asks.

  “No way.” I know I’ll easily lose at it, although it’s not like I care about the bet. I’ll happily kiss Charlie. For some reason, I feel competitive about it. I want to win the bet just to win it.

  After ten, we all call it a night and go through the same routines to go to bed. We don’t want anyone to think tonight is any different from any other night.

  After a quick shower and brushing of my teeth, I glance at myself in the mirror. I’m still not recognizable to myself, but I can see something different. Perhaps I look a little less haunted? My dark brown hair isn’t so lifeless, my brown eyes aren’t completely troubled and my face doesn’t appear entirely gaunt. A change is happening and I don’t know when it started.

  I leave my room and then keep the door ajar to Charlie’s room. I don’t want to have to open the door at two in the morning and have it squeak.

  I feel like a pile of nerves lying on Charlie’s bed, thinking ahead to tonight. Will we be escaping this place tonight? Will I be waking up tomorrow somewhere else? Or worse, will we all be caught and punished? If Martha really wants Charlie and me not to be together, all it’ll take is moving us to separate locations. What if one of us gets hurt tonight? Those guards all have guns and if they mistake us for people breaking in, then they may shoot first and ask questions later.

  “Zoe, I can feel the stress you’re putting yourself through. Just calm down.”

  “I can’t. What if…” I trail off. I can’t say my worries out loud. Not because someone might be listening, but because the words won’t form for me to say.

  “Don’t think about that. Remember what I said the other night? Happy memories.” Charlie turns me over so that my head rests over his chest and I let my arm stretch over his stomach. This is much more comfortable than lying on the edge and a better use of the small mattress we share. Charlie intertwines his fingers with my own and we lie like that for hours. I close my eyes at one point and when I can’t concentrate on any one happy memory with Dana, I think about Charlie; his smile, his arms, his protectiveness of me. I allow myself to feel safe and I sink into a dream.

  I’m surrounded by wooden features. The walls look like logs and even the ground and ceiling are wooden. I feel warm and safe here as I look at my surroundings. A fire is burning strong and bright. I notice the backs of people sitting around a table as I move away from them. I want to go back and see who they are, but I can’t seem to stop myself from moving away. I turn around suddenly and look upwards, glimpsing a familiar face. It’s Charlie. I’m peering at him from a strange angle and I’m slow to realize he’s holding me in his arms. I involuntarily jerk, fearing being dropped and he looks down at me and smiles.

  “It’s okay. I’m just taking you to bed.”

  I let myself relax back in his arms as he walks me up stairs and into a bedroom, placing me gently on top of a bed. I don’t bother to take in these surroundings because I only have one thing on my mind now. Charlie. I feel such a strong need to be close to him that my breath catches. I smile when he undoes the buttons on my shirt and rips it away from my shoulders. I help lift Charlie’s shirt off him and seconds later, we are both shirtless and breathing heavily. My breath disappears when he reaches down to kiss my neck—

  “Zoe?” Charlie wakes me up with a light shrug of my shoulder and my dream crashes down on me at his touch. I’m still wrapped up in his arms from the embrace we were in from earlier and I go red in the face, embarrassed by the type of dream I was just having. Did I say anything out loud? Does he know what I’ve just been dreaming about?

  “Are you okay? It’s nearly time to go,” Charlie whispers to me softly, careful not to speak loudly.

  “I just had a dream. One of the future,” I quietly gasp.

  “Really? What happened?” Charlie’s interest is piqued.

  “We make it out of here, the two of us. I don’t know about the others. We were at a place I didn’t recognize, a cabin or something.”

  “What are we doing? What were we saying?” Charlie is clearly eager to hear more.

  “Later.” I feel further embarrassment thinking about it. It’s clear what was about to happen in that dream.

  “Fine, come on.” Charlie waits for me to move away from him before he gets out of bed. He pulls on a sweater over his shirt and I place a jacket that I left in his room from the other day over me. I quietly put my shoes on and sneak out of the room, trying my hardest not to make a sound.

  Will is already out in the hallway, waiting, and I almost go into Rose’s room to see if she’s awake before she suddenly appears. She is dressed in jeans and a dark hoody. How did she manage to score jeans? Her hair is pulled back neatly into a ponytail and I feel incredibly underdressed all of a sudden. I’m still wearing the track pants and thin shirt under my jacket. If we escape, I won’t be able to hide in these very well. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  Rose signals for us to move and I look back at my room longingly before Charlie takes my hand and pulls me forward.

  We hold our breath while Rose works at picking the lock, which she seems to have difficulty with. Just when I think she’s going to give up, the lock clicks and the door opens.

  Chapter Thirty – The Video

  After tense seconds and no rushed steps or yelling, we decide the coast is clear. Rose slowly turns the knob and opens the door further. She peeks outside and then fully opens the door when she sees no one around.

  The corridor is mostly dark except for a dim light running along the middle of the hallway. There are no windows here, so there is no way we can be seen from outside. When Will and I had been out here earlier the light had seemed brighter for the brief moments it had been on. Now it’s dull, almost as though it’s reflecting the time of night.

  We all slowly and carefully crawl forward. Charlie is in front of me with his arm hung back like it’s ready to push me out of the way of an incoming attack. I keep close to him, glancing behind at Will every few seconds to make sure he is okay. Moving up this hallway feels like it takes longer than before and by the time we reach the corridor that the guard had been down I’m shaking. My nerves make my teeth chatter and I bite down, afraid the noise of it is too loud.

  Rose quickly glances down the hallway and it’s so quick that I’m unsure how she could have processed what she saw. She signals for us all to come in and we huddle in the corridor, our heads almost touching in the middle.

  “There’s a guard there, but he’s asleep. Extra quiet.” She pulls away and tiptoes across the open hallway, hugging the wall when she reaches the other side. Will quickly runs through next and Charlie and I rush together. Will glances back and nods at us to keep moving.

  The door Will had charged through earlier still hasn’t been fixed. Rose is nearly at the entrance when Will rushes forward and pulls her back. He ducks down in the corner next to the door with her and darkness swallows them up. Charlie is quick to push us down into the opposite corner and I hold my breath when a guard walks through the open hallway from the stairs, whistling quietly to himself as he walks in. He stands at the open doorway for a moment with us only centimeters from him then turns around and walks back to the staircase while we listen to his footsteps clanging up the stairs. Rose quickly bounces upwards and rushes down the stairs silently without any fear at all.

  Charlie keeps hold of my hand as we follow Rose and Will. I fear my heart is beating so hard right now that it might bash its way out of my chest.

  When we make it to the bottom of the staircase, we reach our next problem. There is a guard who is walking a line from one side of the hallway to the other. There is desk a few feet away, but that is all that is near and
we don’t have time to all get to it at once. Instead, Rose waits for the guard’s back to be turned and then rushes over to the desk where she ducks down behind it right as the guard turns and comes back the other way. We duck back into the shadows as he moves by the open doorway and as soon as he has passed us, we all move forward again to peek out. Will is next to try, and given how fit and fast he is, he makes it with a few seconds to spare before the guard turns back.

  Charlie signals for me to go next and I take several turns of the guard to work my courage up for it. I run, holding my breath, fearful that my shoes will make a noise as I dive into Rose and Will, praying I have not been seen. A minute later, Charlie comes around the desk and I feel myself reach out to take his hand, wanting to hug him for being all right.

  Rose begins crawling along the wall towards the next desk. Will follows and then I keep directly behind him. I look to my right to see the large glass window. Outside looks cold and the wind is making loud noises as it hits the windows and the tarps. The moon is partly hidden behind clouds and I can tell it’s going to rain soon.

  Once we reach the second desk, Rose carefully sits up and pulls out the laptop from under the newspaper that has it half hidden. I wonder why no one has moved it since I first saw it. What is its purpose?

  Rose keeps crawling along one handed, the laptop securely against her chest as we find a door that leads to some restrooms. This must be where Rose had snuck out of originally to get to it.

  Will opens the door slowly and I cringe when the hinges whine. We all carefully listen in case the guard heard anything, but a gush of wind hits the windows and I doubt anyone will pay attention to a little squeak.

  Inside the restroom are two stalls as well as a small area to stand and wash your hands. Rose sets the laptop on her lap as she sits cross-legged on the ground, leaning against one of the stalls. Her fingers madly type away on the keyboard and I feel the cold creeping into my clothes standing here.

  Rose brings up files on P.A.G.E. and, after searching through several documents, she finds an address for The Core. It looks to be where they keep most of their official documents. It’s housed in Washington D.C. Rose also finds bank details for accounts set up in the Cayman Islands. If we hadn’t already known that something was off, that alone would seem quite dodgy.

  “It looks like a lot of money was just transferred into here, millions.”

  “Who from?” Charlie asks her.

  “I don’t know. This is just a copy. I would need an internet connection if I wanted to trace the account down.”

  “What else is in there?” I whisper.

  Rose pulls up files on all of us and I feel a shiver at how much detail is in there. Medical records, school records and even surveillance photos.

  “They must have a network connection for all their computers here. I can see security videos that have been recorded, plus live recording of the listening devices in our rooms. There’s a video here labeled ‘Joel’.”

  “Joel?” I question. I lean closer to Rose to get a better look at the screen. At first she pulls up a file that has a newspaper clipping attached. I skim over it to read that Joel has apparently hung himself in lockup just one day after he murdered Dana. The same day I saw him in the interrogation room.

  Before I can process what I’m reading, Rose brings up an old video file and plays it. The volume sounds incredibly loud, but I watch Rose pressing down on the volume button and it’s only as loud as the first bar. Any quieter and it’s silent.

  “It has a timestamp of Wednesday, last week. The article said he died on Sunday?” I quietly question Rose.

  “Maybe the timestamp is wrong or it’s been tampered with?”

  “I don’t know anything.” Joel is saying desperately. Blood oozes down his cut lip and he looks to be covered in dirt.

  “Listen, asshole, you tell us what we need to know and you can go home.” A man I don’t recognize comes into view. He looks strict and ruthless and I get an instant military vibe from him.

  “But I don’t know anything!” Joel yells out, frustration taking over him.

  “How about this, you tell us everything or we break every bone in your body?” The same man again speaks angrily and I see a different man coming around to Joel, taking hold of his fingers.

  Joel laughs deliriously at them and my mouth drops open in horror as one of his fingers is crushed under the man’s slamming of his fist down on the table.

  “Listen, the guy says he doesn’t want to kill his little girlfriend anymore, right? How about we do it for him?” The guy knocks loudly on the door and a guard on the other side opens it and pokes his head in. He is told something that is too quiet for the camera to pick up and then he leaves. The guard looks familiar, but I don’t know why. I have seen so many lately that it’s unlikely to be important.

  “We need to hurry up. We’ve already taken too long,” Charlie complains, but I don’t move an inch. I want to know what happened to Joel.

  The guard returns, carrying someone over his shoulder and he gently puts the person down on the floor beside Joel.

  “What the hell?” Charlie leans in closer to the screen, as does everyone else. I’m lying unconscious on the ground.

  “Zoe?” Joel struggles against the cuffs again as they hold him to the steel table. “What have you done to her?” he demands of them.

  “She is just sleeping, but if you don’t tell me what I want to know, then she’ll be sleeping permanently.”

  “You leave her the fuck alone,” Joel screams at them.

  The man who has just smashed Joel’s finger pulls his leg back and kicks me hard in the ribs. I roll over, but don’t make a noise. I’m definitely out cold.

  “When did this happen?” Charlie demands of me and I shrug, until I remember the blood test from Wednesday. I had been completely knocked out from that, I even had a bruise on my side. Harold had said I had a bad reaction from the needle, but they must have drugged me. What I felt were side effects of the drugs.

  “The blood test. They said I had a bad reaction to the needle, remember?” I lift up my shirt, showing the bruise that is still there from the kick. “Harold said I had been hallucinating and struggled. He assumed I had hurt myself.”

  “That bastard, I’m going to—”

  “Get over it,” Rose hisses. The video abruptly ends and I’m left wondering if Joel is still alive or has been killed.

  Rose clicks away at the keys and brings up new files. “These are Martha’s personal files. Look she has one on all of us.”

  Rose skims over her own file, snorting a few times at what she reads. She clicks on my name next and I skim over it, too. It talks about how I’m resisting trusting her or Stan and that I’ve yet to properly begin dealing with the death of Dana. Then it gets to Charlie and me.

  ‘…Zoe and Charlie’s relationship, while surprising, is something I have not considered previously. The plan of deterring their relationship appears to have worked and they now seem closer than—’

  The laptop goes black.

  “What happened?” I growl, wanting to finish what Martha had said.

  “I think it died.” Rose sighs.

  “What do we do now?” Will asks us.

  “We can’t stay in this bathroom forever. Decision time. Can we make it out of this hell right now?” Rose speaks confidently and it’s obvious what she wants to do.

  “We’ve made it this far unseen, who knows if we can pull that off again. I think we need to get out of here now.” Charlie sounds undone.

  “Agreed?” Rose asks us all. We all nod. No one wants to be here longer than necessary.

  “Let’s get to the main door. We can steal one of the guard’s cars outside.”

  I wonder if Rose knows how to steal cars as well as pick locks or if she assumes one of us knows how to, however I don’t bother to ask. Getting out of here seems difficult enough that I try to focus on only that for now.

  We sneak back out of the bathroom and look down
each side of the corridor. The coast is clear. We all rush out and move along the wall in the opposite direction to the stairs with Rose continuing to keep a firm hold of the laptop.

  We make it to the door we had exited through to go outside and hide behind a counter when we see several vans parked out in front of the main entrance. There are dozens of men unloading large boxes from them with at least a handful of guards watching them. I notice Stan barking orders and one look from the others makes us all realize we can’t escape tonight.

  We rush back the way we came, fearful, knowing we don’t have the option to get caught. We make it back to the desk and Rose carefully places the laptop where she found it. Stealing it isn’t an option, besides, while we’re here with no battery charger, it’s useless to us.

  Back at the final desk we have the same problem as before. One guard walking along the line across the stairway entrance.

  Even though it’s the same distance, this way seems more dangerous. Not only do we have to run into the staircase, but we have to do it hoping the guard who had been patrolling the staircase is not there and not on his way to the bottom.

  Rose goes first and I grip onto Charlie’s arm as I think for sure she has been seen. The guard doesn’t react, though, and I sigh in relief. She must have just gotten in before he saw her. She signals for us to come and Will goes next. I haven’t let go of Charlie’s arm yet and I’m shaking again, knowing it’s my turn. Again I wait for him to turn a few times before I force myself to move.

  I feel stiff from being crouched down for so long and my legs nearly give way as I rush over to the open stairway. I run as fast as I can and Will catches me in his arms before I crash into the wall. I hadn’t thought about how I was going to stop in time. He rushes me out of the way and up a few steps in case the guard peeks in as he walks by and I nervously wait for Charlie to come through next.

  He does so with ease and without waiting, we all rush up the stairs.