Ensnared

by I N Foggarty

  A single bulb served as the room's only light source, casting a bleak and unshaded glow on the bare stone walls that looked like they would do well with a good scrub and a lick of paint. Beneath his feet, a rumpled brown cord carpet hid most of the cracked stone floor from view. In the back corner, a pair of rickety bunk beds had been crammed. He did not fancy its chances of still being intact if Roca climbed into it. He would definitely be claiming top bunk. If that heavy bastard fell through on him during the night… well, he had a feeling it might finish him off.

  Stretching from the foot of the beds along the back wall was a makeshift work surface atop a set of cupboards and a fridge, which housed the blasted icebox. A kettle and microwave were the only other available appliances. Completing the furnishings, a battered coffee table flanked by two equally lumpy sofas and an old tube television set.

  So this would be home for the next god knows how long, it was a dive. Ramone sighed and tossed the now sodden cloth onto the table, his hard-won ice well and truly melted. Stuck in this dump in the middle of nowhere with only El Roca for company. Great, just great. It made the sofa at Ronaldo’s, hell even the one at Jasper’s, seem much more appealing in hindsight. His mind slowly wandered to home and… Maria.

  Two years ago, he had such big plans and dreams. The pier five deal was to bring Los sin techo into the illicit substances market and net them a huge payoff within six months. After that he had planned on getting out, taking his share and buying a ring… marrying Maria and settling down somewhere with a normal job, maybe some kids or something. He could see himself so clearly in his mind’s eye Maria and him not at each other’s throats all the time. Her with a home she would be proud of holding fucking book club meetings or some other thing where women got together and drank wine and rubbish like that. Could see himself taking a daughter to ballet class or a son to soccer practice, drinking with some other Dads or washing a car in front of some house in the suburbs and not diving for cover when he heard a police siren. However, images in one's head did not constitute reality and the whole thing had blown up in his face, literally.

  After recovering from his injuries, he had left Los sin techo anyway and tried to get an everyday job, get the dream the long fucking way round. A year later, after he had failed to find anything and Maria had become increasingly aggressive over his lack of income the dream began to fade even more. Eventually, he had been left with no choice but to go back to Sergio for work. Though time had diffused the tension and Sergio had welcomed him back things were not the same. Tanya had appeared on the scene and planted herself firmly at Sergio’s right-hand side, and into his bed too Ramone had wagered, hissing like the snake she was. Los sin techo were now firmly in the human trafficking business and though closer to home, they had in many regards moved further away, carrying Ramone and Sergio’s friendship with it. Reluctant to engage in their new enterprise Ramone had been stuck on the fringe. Running around the city with people like El Roca and doing the scant few old jobs that remained. The money had been poor, the hours erratic and the wedge between him and Maria ever expanding.

  “Sup, Rae?” the voice of El Roca smashed through Ramone’s reminiscing like a brick through a window. He had not heard the man enter the room. “That’s the playpen all locked up.”

  Ramone took a draw on his cigarette only to find it had almost burnt itself to his lips. Hastily he spat it out. By ‘playpen' Roca referred to the alcove that had been barred off in the next room. For what reason they were initially put in he did not know and Sergio had not bothered to enlighten him. Regardless, they were well fitted and negated the need for ropes and constant surveillance; something to be thankful for. He looked up at the thick man. “Did you double check the lock?”

  "Yeah, I checked the fucking lock," Roca replied as he went to the fridge and withdrew a can of beer. He held it out to Ramone. “You want one?”

  Though well after three am, there was nothing new about beer at this time in the morning of late. “Sure,” he replied curtly. Perhaps if he got drunk his face would stop hurting, not convinced that Jasper hadn’t given him dud-drugs. Reaching a hand out over the back of the sofa he took the semi-cold can of Black Bear beer Roca offered him.

  “S’nice bruise you’ve got there.” Ramone scowled at Roca’s back, the other man moving to sit on the second sofa. When his ass disappeared into it, he was sure he heard a spar of wood snap.

  “It wouldn’t have happened if you’d come out the back of the van when you were supposed to and grabbed the bitch,” he spat, cracking open the can of beer.

  "I already told you the fucking door jammed," Roca replied through a mouthful of beer, foamy spit covering his chin. There had already been a full-blown argument over whose fault it was while they had been driving. The bastard had kept insisting that Ramone were to blame for the doors jamming on account of him not checking the van out properly prior to leaving that afternoon.

  Ramone decided not to restart the argument and instead drank deeply from his can. So much for breaking the ice between them, the fucking icebox had been easier. The call from Sergio telling him when he could leave could not come soon enough.

  Shrouded in darkness

  Darkness there and nothing more. Or at least so said Allan Poe. Yet finding herself shrouded in darkness had become an all too familiar occurrence for Anna Richards. Circumstance had made the line between dreams and reality contorted and just a tad hazy around the border of late. It had thus taken her a moment to discern in which state she currently resided. For opening her eyes had been of little help. The only thing she saw being black. Her ears fared little better. The air hung still and carried with it no audible noise. Yet it lacked the sterile quality she had grown to recognise as a hallmark of her nightmare realm. No, the air here had a dank musty smell mixed with something she could not quite place. Wherever this was, she doubted it could be inside her own head.

  Anna pressed her hands down against the icy ground; it felt slightly damp to the touch. Hesitantly she brought herself up to a sitting position. Instinctively her slender fingers located the area where she had been shot; there were two tiny holes in her top. She cursed internally at having been caught off guard like that. She should have anticipated a second assailant. Still had he used live ammunition she would surely be dead. She breathed deeply, the memory of the Taser shot washing over her. Not the most pleasant thing in the world she mused as she flexed her arms; her limbs ached slightly. Yet on its own, it should not have been enough to render her unconscious. Slowly she rolled her tongue around her mouth. Ether, she thought on picking up the faint aftertaste. That would have done the trick. The mild chafing on her wrists told her that she had been bound with rope, but not anymore.

  Her eyes now adjusted to the dark, Anna began to look around. There was little to see. From somewhere unknown, a small measure of light made its way into the room. It did little to illuminate her situation. Standing up she cautiously made her way towards it. After a few steps, she stopped and stretched out a hand. It brushed against something cold, hard and cylindrical. Bars, she cursed. That explained the lack of bindings. It didn’t take her long to walk to one wall and then back to the other; the room being roughly five meters wide. Nor did it take long to find the door and more importantly the lock. Though she could barely see Anna could feel that the whole fixture was relatively new. The metalwork being smooth and firm. She shook the door slightly not expecting it to budge more than a few millimetres; it didn’t. Without being able to see the lock and procuring something to potentially pick it with there would be little chance of her being able to escape.

  Where the hell was she? She walked towards the back of the cell. And, more importantly, who were the Hispanic men? When her hand made contact with the damp brickwork she froze. Dylan! In trying to stop the little shit from being kidnapped she had wound up being taken too, which meant… She turned and cast her gaze upon the floor, fixing it upon a shapeless lump. I should have just run for it, she thought bitterly, kicking the moti
onless boy onto his back.

  “Get up, Dylan.” Her words were harsh and still held the anger from their argument. She prodded him firmly in the side. “Wake up!”

  “Mrgh,” Dylan replied as he tried to roll back onto his side. “S’not time to get up yet, Tabbie.” Well, at least he’s alive Anna thought before she quickly retracted it. What did she care if he were alive or dead? In fact, had she not wound up in the same predicament she would have said he deserved everything that was coming to him, whatever that may be?

  “I’m not your housekeeper, Dylan. Though if I were you’d have lost the skin on your ass a long time ago. Now get up!”

  “No… sleeping,” the boy said offhandedly, weakly waving a hand at her.

  “Fine,” Anna replied, the corners of her lips turning upwards. “Don’t say I didn’t try this the nice way.” Crouching she hauled Dylan up into a sitting position by his shirt. “Open or closed?” she asked sweetly. When he failed to give any appropriate response she chose for him. In one swift motion, she brought her right hand across the boy’s cheek with a resounding ‘Smack’.

  Even in the darkness, she could see his eyes snap open as his head violently jerked around. Awkwardly he brought it back to centre and looked up at her. “Oww,” Dylan exclaimed reaching a hand up to rub his cheek. “What the hell, Anna!”

  “Trust me. That was me being nice,” she replied coldly, letting him drop back onto the floor. At least he sounded somewhat sober now. “So who else did you piss off last night apart from me?”

  He clumsily pulled himself back into a sitting position one hand rubbing his face the other the back of his head. He gave her the typical dumb look she normally received when asking him a question. “What are you on about, Anna? Where are we?”

  “We’re locked in a cell that’s part of a larger room. Other than that I have no idea.”

  “What!” he exclaimed. The firm look on her face must have conveyed the fact that she was serious. “What on earth happened, Anna?”

  Anna studied his puzzled expression in the darkness. Who knew alcohol plus Ether could cause partial amnesia she thought dryly. “Where do you want me to start? How about the bit when I walked in on Natalie snogging Matt at Raymond’s stupid party?” Dylan opened his mouth to reply but she cut him off. “Or how about the part where you accused me of stealing Matt from Natalie in the first place and then spat poison at me? Or, my personal favourite, the moment when some thick Hispanic man had you helpless in his grubby paws and I stupidly tried to save your sorry hide only to get Tasered and carted off as well.”

  Dylan’s face remained expressionless while she spoke. Eventually, once she had finished and the metaphorical dust had settled he uttered a single word. “Sorry.” It wasn’t an apology, his tone told her that much.

  “Too right you should be fucking sorry.” The anger from their last encounter began to course through Anna once more and the desire to hit him reignited; slapping him had just not been enough. “And has your addled brain even registered the fact that we’re locked up in a dark, dank and dingy cell? Or is it too busy feeling sorry for itself because you’re hungover and I’m being mean to you?”

  The silence that followed indicated that she had finally made an impression on him. When he turned his head in the direction of the bars Anna could just make out the look of panic spreading across his face. Had the situation not been so serious she would have found his staggered scramble towards the metal work quite comical. She watched as Dylan used them to pull himself to his feet. “HELP!” he yelled, his attempt to shake the bars resulted only in the thrashing of his own body. “SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!”

  “Like the people who put us in here are going to help,” Anna thought out loud. She sat back against the cool wall and tried to tune out the boy's screams. Of all the people she had to have been kidnapped with why did it have to be Dylan?

  Given current events whoever was responsible certainly had a sense of irony, whether they knew it or not. Yet the rough treatment she had already endured did not give Anna much hope that they would agree to house her somewhere else. Still, with all the racket Dylan currently made, they might save her the trouble of rendering him unconscious again. They may have been unguarded but she doubted that even the city’s dumbest criminals would leave them out of earshot. It wouldn’t be long now before Dylan’s yelling pissed them off enough to make an appearance. She closed her eyes and began a breathing exercise, trying to ignore the stale smell of mould in the air and the increasing desperation of her cellmates yelling. All she had to do was wait.

  Shocks

  How long he stood and screamed through the thin metal bars Dylan did not know. His voice had quickly become hoarse and his throat felt like he had eaten an entire desert, cacti and all. Pressing his head against the smooth metal rods his clammy hands slowly slid south and his legs began to buckle. Sinking to his knees a tear ran down his blotchy face. What was going on? Where was he? Why was this happening to him?

  Questions of a similar vein racked his brain, all the while panic began to set in. Aside from Anna no one knew where he was or where he had been since leaving Raymond’s party. He had to get help. Had to phone someone and let them know what had happened and hope they were able to find him. Frantically he drove his hands into his pockets in search of his cell phone. Gone. No, it couldn’t be gone. He had to get help, had to phone someone.

  “Did you honestly think they would have left you with your phone?”

  Dylan snapped his head around in the direction the voice had come from and struggled to pick out the silhouette of Anna sitting with her back to the wall. Even in this darkness, he could make out the cut from a glacier expression on her face. Her words holding a dry-ice like tone he knew all too well.

  “What are we going to do?” he replied hurriedly, utterly failing to hide his terror.

  Anna let out a low chilling laugh. “We?” she said rhetorically. “You expect me to help you? After everything you did last night?”

  He looked at her blankly. How could she refuse to help him… help herself given their current predicament? “Anna… please.”

  She laughed again sending a shiver down his spine that felt like an ice cube sliding down his back. “I made a mistake trying to save your pathetic skin once. I won’t do so again. The second I get the chance I’m getting myself out of here.”

  She was serious Dylan realised. He often misread Anna but not this time. How could she be so heartless at a time like this? “Don’t we stand a better chance of getting out of here together?”

  Anna snorted at him. “You were completely helpless last night.” Dylan recoiled and clattered to the stone floor as in a flash Anna sprang forwards like a velociraptor bearing down on its prey. His feelings of terror must have shown through on his face for a grin widened on the girl's face and for a moment it convinced him that she would devour him.

  “I can smell your fear, Dylan,” she hissed, her icy green gaze capturing his own. “If you can’t even put up a fight against me, whom you know, what use will you be against armed opponents? I don’t need your type of help.”

  A moment later and she had retreated back to her sitting position against the wall. He gulped down mouthfuls of musty air, the hopelessness of the situation beginning to seep in. Anna didn’t need his help. He was on his own.

  A harsh scraping sound echoed from beyond the bars and a dull white light soon flickered into life. Dylan spun round and scrambled to his feet. He could now see clearly the thin metalwork that separated them from the other part of the room. An empty oblong with dirty walls and a metal plated door against the top left-hand wall; it was open. That explained the scraping sound he reasoned as into view came two thick Hispanic looking men both clad in black. Dylan took an involuntary step backwards. The slender figure of Anna came into his peripheral vision; he hadn’t heard her move.

  “Took you long enough.” Dylan turned on hearing Anna speak. What the hell was she doing? “I’ve been awake for nearly half an hour an
d you’ve only just bothered to come visit. I must say I’m not impressed.”

  “Aww, can it, Bitch,” the larger of the two men spat, causing Dylan to take a step away from Anna. He did not want to get caught up in that crossfire. “If I wanted you to bark I’d kick your kennel.”

  Anna snorted and sounded like she was about to laugh. Though he had heard such tones from her before Dylan could not comprehend what she possibly found funny. “Really? That’s the best that big head of yours could come up with.” She visibly sighed. “And I thought the dinosaurs had it bad in regards to brain to head space ratio.”

  Dylan watched her gaze fall upon the second man, who sported a large black bruise on his left cheek. “I take it you’re the brains of the outfit.” Anyone on the outside watching this spectacle could have been forgiven for thinking that the roles were reversed such was the authoritative nature of Anna’s tone. The big man, who had been rendered momentarily speechless by Anna’s retort opened his mouth to respond but found himself silenced by his cohort.

  “Enough!” the man said firmly his tone matching his ethnicity far more than the others Americanised accent. The bigger man again opened his mouth but a single glare from his comrade closed it again. “I’m in charge here and if I want to hear you talk bullshit I’ll put a fucking bullet in your knee and see how brazen you are then.” For a moment the only sound to be heard was the low humming of the overhead strip light. Dylan snuck a glance at Anna whose calculating expression showed no sign of having been phased by the threat of kneecapping. “You two,” the bruised man indicated Dylan and Anna with a wave of his hand. “From now on you don’t talk unless I ask a question. And since I’ve got no questions I don’t want to hear a sound. Got it?”

  Dylan nodded hastily in response but another look at Anna told him that she had no intention of being cooperative. “So who are you and what do you want with us?” she asked. Dylan looked at her in horror. Had she not listened to what the man and threatened to do?