by Angela Foxxe
The car wasn’t going to move, so I climbed out of the vehicle. It probably wasn’t the safest place for me to be, but I felt the need to do something. I faced the beast in front of me and prepared for a fight. I didn’t have a chance to give one, however, because strong human arms grabbed me from behind. I kicked and screamed, but it seemed to have no effect. “Stop it, woman.”
“Leave me alone. Let me go, you freak!” I screeched at whoever was holding me in that moment.
I didn’t recognize the voice. “Hush now. We’re here to help.” The voice grew a bit softer.
“This is kidnapping, you monster. Let me go.” I was getting louder, hoping that someone would hear me and do their best to step in.
“Now, I can’t do that. We need you to be safe. We don’t want that baby to get hurt.” There was something sinister in those words. I couldn’t quite place the basis of the evil that I was hearing, but it had to have come from somewhere. I kicked at the man who was holding me. I hit him in the shin and his grip shifted.
This was my chance. I forced my arms apart and screamed as loudly as I could. It worked. I broke his hold on me. I landed a little hard and a bit off balance, but that didn’t matter. I recovered quickly. Something about pure unadulterated fear would do that to a person. I groaned a bit as I broke into a run. It was time to go. “Nope, little lady. Get yourself back here.” The man was chasing me, but the animals seemed to break as I ran past.
“Just let me go.”
“Nope, sorry. Can’t do that.” There were different voices now. I risked a backwards glance and noticed that all of the animals were changing into men now. It was just like what had happened to Torrance, but instead it was the opposite. They were changing from animals into humans. I felt like I had been trapped in some sort of werewolf movie, and it didn’t feel like anything seemed to match to my expectations of reality.
I had been raised with a very specific view of the world. Things like this did not exist. This couldn’t be happening. I closed my eyes, still running with the speed of fear fueling my feet. This was much too much for me to handle, but somehow it all was starting to make sense.
As I ran, I remembered things, things that I had heard on the news. Animal sightings and the like in the area. Well, I thought that I was in the area of the sightings. The truth was, I really didn’t have many clues as to my location. I didn’t remember where I had made that wrong turn, where the panic made me make a mistake and it looked like I was paying for it. “I told you we should have waited.” I heard the voice behind me.
“No, this was our chance. She’s panicking. There’s no better time.” I was breathless, but the voices that were discussing my situation weren’t. I kept moving, rushing on the side of the road. I wondered if I should keep on the same path that I was on, or if I should take off into the deep dark trees on the side of the road. No, I had to stay on the road. Hopefully, someone would pass by and stop to help me out. I definitely could have used it, but I seemed to not be having that kind of luck at the moment. There were no headlights coming. The cavalry was nowhere to be seen. It was up to me.
My legs were starting to cramp. I had no idea how long I had been running. “She’s getting tired.” The voices started again. They weren’t breathless while I struggled to even draw a breath. I knew that I wouldn’t have been able to speak if my life depended on it. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep running.
“Yep, we just got to wear her out.” Whoever was speaking started to snicker. “It won’t be long now.”
“Do you think that this can hurt the baby?” Another voice. I must have counted at least four different ones.
“Probably not, but does it matter? We just have to get her. She can carry a shifter.” There was evil in those words, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but I knew enough that I was in danger.
“He’s gonna be looking for us.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll keep her nice and safe.”
I stumbled, falling to my knees and trying to stand up. Instead of getting up of my own accord, I was pulled up by one arm. “Why don’t you just give up? You aren’t going to get away from us.”
“You’ll have to kill me first,” I screamed and kicked at my captor.
“I’m not going to kill you. I don’t have to do that. You’re gonna be carried out of here and there’s not a damn thing that you can do about it.”
“Let me go!” It wasn’t very witty, but I screamed it again.
“No, little missy. We need you to come with us.”
“No, I won’t do it.” I stared hard at his face. I knew that I was going to have to identify him later. It was hard to concentrate, partially due to the fact that I seemed to be surrounded by naked men and women and there must have been at least seven of them in total. There was no way that I was going to be able to fight them all. I sagged. It was too much. There was no way for me to get away. I was kidnapped.
Two people split off after I was searched. They headed over to my car, that appeared to have been put up on some sort of blocks. I don’t know when that happened, but somebody must have done it during the ordeal. I knew now why my vehicle hadn’t run anymore. I stared at it, but they carried me right past it and into the woods.
I thought that I had run a lot further than I had actually made it. I groaned and tried to strain against the men holding me, but my movements were halfhearted at best. I knew that nothing that I did would matter. I was going to be going with them, no matter what I did.
They carried me to the tree line. There was a van there, hidden behind the first line of trees. I could see houses over here and I couldn’t help but kick myself. I had chosen the wrong direction. I was placed in the back of this van and quickly surrounded by naked bodies. There were no windows back here. I tried to focus on this, what it was called. We pulled out of the woods and I heard a conversation from the front of the van even if I couldn’t see it. “He’s chasing the car.”
“Fool thinks he’s going to save her.”
“Guess that’s what he gets for assuming that we’re dumb.”
“How could he think that we wouldn’t find out about this?”
“I don’t know, maybe he just thought that we wouldn’t pay attention to ads in the paper.”
“Who knew that he would be able to find one of them?”
“Yep, that shifter she’s carrying is sure gonna help us out. We need more.” To be honest, I had no idea what they were talking about. It all seemed so strange, but I listened anyway. I was trying to find some clue, some way to escape. I knew that I was being moved. I had heard enough advice about it to know that this was the worst possible situation for me to find myself.
All of the people here seemed unafraid to show me their face. That worried me, too. That meant that they probably weren’t going to send me home alive. I wasn’t going to make it out of this, but the only thing that I had going for me was the fact that they all seemed highly interested in the baby that I was carrying. I figured that they planned to hold me until the baby was born. There was something important going on. “We’re dying out.”
The person next to me shrugged. “We’re dying out. Maybe she’ll understand that someday.”
“It’s all the human’s fault.” Someone else sneered and I could feel the fear start to rush over me once again. I looked at the people around me, fighting to recognize faces or some kind of detail that might help me identify my captors to the police if I ever managed to escape from their grasp.
“Should she be awake?” someone asked. I was getting confused. There were too many people talking all at once.
“You’re right. How do you want to do this?”
“I can just hit her on the back of the head.”
“That isn’t necessary.” I put my hands up. “I’m not fighting anymore.”
“She’s got a point.”
It felt like everyone in the van was talking at once, giving suggestions on how this p
roblem should be solved.
“We can’t let her see where we’re going.”
“Paul’s right. We can’t let her stay awake.”
“It’s not like she can escape, anyway.” Someone shrugged. I was starting to really like that reasonable woman. I didn’t want to be unconscious. There wasn’t as much chance to get out of this situation if someone listened to that person.
I decided that I had to try to get them to listen to reason. “You don’t want to hurt me. I thought that you wanted the kid alive.”
“We do.” There were so many people that they all seemed to flow right into each other. “But that don’t matter as much as having you alive.”
“What are you talking about?” I glanced around. I knew that there were only about five people in the back of the vehicle, but it felt like there were a thousand people between me and my freedom. There might just as well have been. After all, what cop would believe that I had been kidnapped by people who could change into animals and were naked every time I saw them as humans? What chance would I have to stay out of the looney bin?
While I waited for a chance to escape, I started to think about a story that I could tell the police when I managed to get out of this situation. I didn’t know how long it would be, but I rehearsed the story in my head. Something about that was starting to keep me calm. It made me feel a little better to know that I had something similar to a plan.
“We don’t have a bag to put over her head,” one of the women sitting in the car mentioned.
“We should have planned this better.” The driver was shaking his head.
“We didn’t exactly have the time to get everything ready. This had to happen now because she’s in reach. Who knows when we’d be able to get another chance like this?”
“We need to put her out,” someone insisted. The words let me know that I had been targeted for this abduction, but I didn’t quite understand it.
“They’re going to be looking towards her place. She went the wrong way.”
“Nah, remember. He already found the car.”
“Focus, guys. We can’t show her how to get to the place.”
“Yeah, we should figure out what to do.”
“A blow to the head can’t hurt the baby, can it?”
I started to shake. “It can hurt the baby.”
“It’s about the least risky thing we could do.” Another voice. They were starting to swirl around my head. I was drowning in a sea of voices that were trying to decide what to do with me. I couldn’t follow who was saying what. It’s not like it mattered much, anyway.
“Na, I think that if we choked her out it would be less risk.”
“You have to be careful not to choke her too long.”
“Besides, I read somewhere that it isn’t going to keep her out long.” My eyes snapped around the panel van. There wasn’t a lot of seating here, but they had strapped me into one of the seats. I had to fight against the urge to vomit as I heard them discussing my fate. I had no idea what they were going to do with me. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but it was starting to look kind of dire.
Looking back at the situation, I can’t help but laugh at how confused my captors were. Frankly, they couldn’t figure out what to do with me, but they knew that they had to do something. Had the conversation been something that I observed from the outside. I would have been in awe at the ridiculousness of my captors, but instead I just sat there in stupefied silence while they argued back and forth often talking over each other in order to come to some sort of decision in the matter.
They knew that they had to do something with me and I could see enough out of the front window to know that the driver was moving in circles until some consensus was reached.
Eventually it was, and before I could react I felt the sharp blow on the back of my head. My eyes went dim and I slumped into my seat, carefully repositioned so I didn’t fall on anyone.
CHAPTER SIX
“Psst. Wake up.” I was being nudged.
“Huh, what? Cyndi let me sleep.” I rolled over. I didn’t want to wake up. Nothing in the world could make me wake up. “I didn’t sleep that well. I need a few more minutes.”
“You need to wake up. It’s time to eat.” The voice was whispering.
“Am I late for work?” My eyes flickered open a bit and I looked around. There was total darkness so I waited for my eyes to adjust. “I’m awake.”
“We need to speak. I know they didn’t explain anything to you.” The voice was gentle, a woman. I felt the need to hear her out, but still the fear started to grip my chest.
I tried to look at her. “Can you turn a light on or something?”
“Not yet, honey. We need to be careful. You’ve probably got some light sensitivity. I think they gave you a minor concussion.”
“Those people are monsters.” I groaned. “I can’t believe this is happening to me. I just want to go home.”
“I know.” I squinted, trying to glean some kind of detail about the woman who was in the room with me. I couldn’t see much, but she was lithe, a powerful figure, albeit, a little on the short side. She reached to the side and pulled a chair over towards her, using it to rest. I could tell that she was tired, but I didn’t know why.
“I’m leaving.”
“I’m afraid that I can’t let you do that.” The voice was still kind, but I was starting to hear the steel that existed beneath the lilting tone of her voice. There was something about this woman that made me pause. I was afraid of the fact that the sharp edges in her voice could cut me if I ventured to close to an argument.
“Why not?” I wasn’t acting accusatory, my voice was a hushed whisper, making the kind of sound that a frightened child would make. I was still curious about what my fate was going to be and I couldn’t get a good look at her. I wondered how much she would lie. She had already lied to me. She wasn’t looking out for my health, she just didn’t want me to see her face. I could kind of understand that. If I ever felt the need to kidnap someone, I would want to keep them in the dark as well. It just made sense. They wouldn’t want me to see them.
“Because it’s important. This has to be done.” She was facing me, I could tell that from her profile.
I sat up on the bed that I had been placed on. “Why is this so important?”
“You don’t understand what you’ve gotten yourself into. Torrance never explained, so there was no way for you to know the kind of danger you got yourself into.”
“Danger from you?” I don’t know why I asked the question. Maybe I just needed confirmation.
She gave me the confirmation I had been looking for with a slight nod. My eyes were starting to adjust and I was able to see a little better. The woman, whoever she was, cleared her throat. “Look. I know that you didn’t sign up for this, and as long as you don’t cause any trouble, I can guarantee that you’ll be just fine. This is just a formality, really.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Formality?”
“I don’t expect you to understand why we do the things that we do. We have to live in the human world, but that doesn’t mean that we have to follow all of their rules. We tried that for a while and that’s why there are so few of us left. That’s why Torrance had to find you.”
“You aren’t telling me anything.” I groaned. “You’re talking in circles and I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I suppose it would sound like a riddle to an outsider. You don’t understand what we’re doing. You can’t ever possibly truly understand. You’re just a womb for hire after all, but didn’t you ever think that it was strange that he made you move in with him?”
“He didn’t make me do anything. It was my choice.”
“But it was strongly encouraged, right?”
“I suppose.” I chewed on my lip. This was starting to freak me out. My mind flashed over to when I had seen Torrance changed. My mind raced about the possibilities. This had to be some kind of elaborate prank. I just c
ouldn’t figure it out. Was any of it real? Was I pregnant or not? Had Cyndi put this mess together? I thought and thought and my captor was apparently quite happy to let me ponder over everything that I was going through, through all of the curious happenings that had been going on. My life had turned on its ear, and I can’t say that I was happy about it. I thought and thought, and then I screamed in rage and frustration.
The door opened. “What are you doing to her in here?”
“Nothing.” The woman spoke in a low tone, her voice shimmying under my screams. “I think she’s just starting to figure it all out.”
“What did that bastard do to me? What did he bring me into?” I was still screaming, yelling at anyone who would listen and trying to punish whoever happened to hear me with the horrific screams that were exiting from my mouth. “Why?”
“Because you’re capable of carrying a shifter child.” She shrugged. “Recessive genes or something like that.”
“What the hell are you saying?” I wanted to pull my hair out and hit something at the same time. I settled for a happy medium, flailing my arms around as I shouted. At least I had stopped screaming at this woman. It probably wasn’t a good idea to screech like some kind of infernal banshee at the people that had just kidnapped me, anyway.
“I’m saying that you’re pregnant with a shifter baby.”
“What the hell is a shifter?”
“You might not be familiar with the term.” She sighed. “He should have told you these things. He was a fool not to inform you of what you had gotten yourself into.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I know it doesn’t. I’m trying to find the right words. You should never have gotten pregnant if you didn’t know what you’re getting into. We’re shifters. We can take animal form.”
“What? You mean, like werewolves?”
“I guess that would be the word that you use.”