by Ash Johnson
I’m lying on a stiff twin bed with no bedding on it set in the middle of the room, my sweater has been removed and my wrists and ankles are tied to the posts in each corner by rough rope that is chaffing my skin. The room is small, with white walls and what looks like clean tan carpet, except for the vomit that is now all over the floor. There is a window on either side of the bed with dark blue or possibly black curtains drawn over them. It looks like it could be light outside, but it’s very hard to tell what time of day it really is with the dark curtains.
Every muscle in my body hurts and feels heavy, so I lay my head back on the bare mattress and close my eyes, focusing instead on the sounds around me. I can hear a soft thumping above me, so my guess would be that I’m in an apartment building and someone lives above this person.
I can hear clanking outside the door of the room like someone is banging pots and pans together and there are muffled voices talking to each other. I can’t tell who it is because they are talking too quietly. I lay there, stiff and sick to my stomach for what seems like hours before someone comes into the room.
I lift my head off the bed and see a person, I can’t tell if it’s a man or woman, in a thick black sweater, bulky sweatpants, and a black ski mask pulled over their face with sunglasses covering their eyes. They’re gloved hand is holding a plate of what looks like a grilled chicken breast and some mashed potatoes, but the smell of the chicken makes my stomach roll and I try to curl into a ball to stop the pain in my stomach, but it doesn’t work because I’m tied up.
“I’m sorry masked kidnapper, I don’t want to insult you but the smell of that chicken is going to make me heave. That chloroform covered rag you shoved over my face upset my stomach something fierce. Do you have any saltines or something like that?” I ask with a weak voice, hoping this person doesn’t just beat the shit out of me.
I’m actually waiting for them to say something so I can determine if it’s a man or woman and I can narrow down my options as to whom this person is, but they don’t say anything. They notice the vomit on the floor, shake their head, and walk out of the room. A few minutes later, they come back in with a handful of saltine crackers and shove one into my mouth roughly, causing me to gag.
Now that this person is sitting on the bed next to me, I can see that they have a small body frame. It is most likely a woman or a shorter and smaller man, but I can’t be positive which. After I finish a few more crackers and they give me a sip of water through a straw, they put a small trash can next to the bed, I’m assuming it’s for if I throw up again. When they have their back turned to me and start moving toward the door, I decide to ask a question I’m sure they won’t answer.
“Why are you doing this? What did I do to you that made you want to hurt me like this?” I whisper because my throat is still very dry. They stop and slowly turn to look at me. The look of fury I see in their body language scares me. I can see their stance change to a more authoritative one and two gloved hands clench tightly. They shake their head a few times and turn to the door, slamming it on their way out.
Okay, well I certainly did something to piss this person off; I just don’t know what it could be. I try to think of shorter men that I know. Most of the men I work with are taller. What about women I know? Maybe it’s an ex girlfriend of Jay’s? No, it can’t be that because he hasn’t had a steady girlfriend since college. Maybe one of the girls I work with? Possibly Cassie, but I can’t see her doing something like this just because I’m dating Jay, could she? I try to think of other women but come up empty handed because I’m friends with all of girls in my department.
I stop trying to focus on who took me and decide that I need to find a way out of here. My mouth isn’t gagged and there are people above us, so I prepare to scream as loud as I can. I take a giant inhale of breath and start to belt out a blood curdling scream, but get a shock to my throat which makes me instantly stop.
What the fuck was that?
I hear muffled laughs through the door before the masked asshole comes back in, holding a dry erase board with bold words scrawled in sloppy handwriting.
You have a shock collar on
Quit trying to scream
Awesome- fucking awesome. I have on a shock collar. Who the hell is this person? This time before the kidnapper leaves, they walk up to me and throw a punch, connecting with the left side of my jaw. It hurts, but not too badly. There wasn’t a lot of power behind it, so I’m assuming this is a woman that doesn’t have to fight a lot. They turn and walk out the door again, shaking their fist out the whole way as if I hurt their hand.
I throw my head back onto the mattress, wishing I was at home with Jay, wondering what he is doing right now, and also trying to figure out who the hell would want to hurt me.
After lying in that uncomfortable bed for what seemed like five or six hours, someone finally comes in. This isn’t the same person that came in before; this one scares me a lot more. This person is a lot taller than the other one and has a much bigger build, probably a man. They are wearing the same outfit as the other, black sweat suit and a black ski mask over their face, also with a pair of sunglasses to cover their eyes. The only difference between the two is that this person wears white latex gloves that you would see at a doctor’s office instead of the thick black gloves that the other person is wearing.
It’s obvious that these people and I know each other and their eyes would give them away, or they wouldn’t be wearing sunglasses. They start to move forward and it only takes three big, threatening steps for this person to reach the side of the bed and sit down next to me. They softly run their gloved fingers down the side of my shaking face, faking tenderness, before violently slapping me across the cheek. There is a lot of power behind the hit, and since the latex gloves are like a bare hand, the contact makes my eyes instantly water.
“Who the fuck are you? What do you want from me?” I shakily whisper in their direction. All I get is a low menacing chuckle from this person and another swift smack across the cheek. I start to tell myself to be grateful that this is all the violence that these people are inflicting on me when psycho #2 appears in the doorway of the room with a silver serving tray that has at least five long cutting knives laid out on it.
I feel my eyes widen and the panic start to invade my chest, but I can’t scream or I’ll get shocked again. All I can do is watch in horror and shake my head as psycho #1 sitting next to me picks the smallest of the knives and slowly lifts it toward my face.
Chapter 28
Jay
Ada’s friend Ronan wasn’t too far behind the police officers who first showed up last night and I finally got to talk to him after he viewed the evidence with his partner.
“You must be Jay, I’m Ronan. I’m a close friend of Elle and Ada’s,” he says, his arm outstretched for a handshake. I reach out and shake his hand when I really want to punch him, or anyone else around us. I don’t give a shit who any of these people are as long as they find Ada alive.
“Hey Ronan,” I say with a slight nod of my head. “Ada said that you were working with her to find out who this person is. Do we have any idea yet?” I grit out, practically begging with him to have a positive answer for me, but I know better.
“No Jay, I’m sorry. At this point I’m still waiting on the phone company, but I will put in an urgent request to get the information on this phone number as soon as I leave here. Don’t worry Jay, we’ll find her soon.”
“Please hurry with this Ronan. The texts she’s been getting were bad enough, but to know that this person has her now and wants to hurt her scares the shit out of me. I need to get her back as soon as possible,” I am basically pleading with him.
“I know Jay, I know how bad these texts have been and I’m going to do everything to get her back as soon as I possibly can.” He gives me a curt nod and then walks away to speak to the other police officers.
I decide to go back to Elle’s house after I finish with the police to tell her what happened to Ada an
d see if she could think of anyone who might want to do this. After Elle falls to the floor, almost passing out from shock, I sit her on the couch and hold her while she sobs hysterically for at least ten minutes. I let out a few tears of my own, but try to hold it together because I don’t want to make things worse for Elle.
“Jay, I have no clue who would want Ada! She is the sweetest person I know,” Elle says between sobs. I wrap my arms around her, trying to calm her down which is hard to do when I’m crying and panicking myself.
Where the fuck is Blake? He should be here with us right now. Suddenly, Elle gasps and pulls back, her mascara streaked eyes looking up at me.
“What about Rob? He’s the only person I can think of that would have a reason to be mad at Ada.”
“I thought about that, too. He was at the fight tonight and I let the police know it so they said they would go to his house and question him. Ronan told me that he’d call me as soon as they were done talking to him.”
“Did you tell Ro about Greg or Cassie?” Elle questions as she wipes the tears from her cheeks. Who?
“Who the hell are Greg and Cassie?”
“Ada never told you about the creeper nurse that works the day shift in the E.R. or the chick that’s pissed off at Ada because she’s dating you?” Elle’s brows pull together as she leans back to look at me.
“No, she never said a word about either of them,” I mutter, trying not to get pissed that Ada didn’t tell me that there was a guy at her job that made her uncomfortable. I think she mentioned that one of the girls she worked with was a bit jealous that we were together, but Ada didn’t tell me that this chick was threatening her.
“Ada was never worried about Greg, but he asked her out on almost a daily basis since he started working there. I’m guessing she never really took him seriously or she would have mentioned him to you. As for Cassie, Ada said she was just calling her names but that Ada wasn’t afraid of her and could kick her ass if needed,” Elle answers, trying to lighten the situation, but it doesn’t work because I’m getting more pissed by the second.
A flash of a phone conversation I had with Ada about the woman who called her a bitch flies through my memory before I look back to Elle for more information.
“Do you know this Greg guy’s last name?” I wonder.
“No, Ada hasn’t told me a lot about him, other than he bugs her all the time about going on a date and she has to keep shooting him down,” she clarifies. I’ll have to remember to tell Ronan about both him and Cassie when he calls me.
After two hours of pacing the house in the middle of the night, my cell phone rings with a number I don’t know; it must be Ronan. I answer on the first ring.
“Hello.”
“Hey Jay, it's Ronan. We just left Rob’s house and he’s clean. He told us that it was a coincidence that he ran into Ada. He had no clue she was going to be there and he was only there for work. He allowed us to look around his apartment and everything was clean. We don’t believe it was him,” the sound of defeat rings through his voice.
“So, what’s the plan then? You guys have to be doing something else now, right?”
“Slow down, Jay, yeah we have a few other people that she works with that we’re going to interview and then I’m going to call the phone company personally and get the info on the number.”
“Are Greg and Cassie some of the people you are going to interview?”
“Yes, Cassie is one of them, but who is Greg? Does he work with Ada?” Ronan asks.
“Elle says that he works the day shift at the E.R. and that he’s been making Ada uncomfortable by hitting on her for a long time now. I don’t know his last name, but I would look into him.”
“Okay, thanks Jay. We’ll definitely interview him and Cassie,” Ronan answers, but before he can tell me goodbye or hang up, someone else comes to mind as well.
“Interview Blake Adams, too,” I say with conviction in my voice.
“Who is Blake Adams?” Ronan asks.
“He’s my roommate and he’s also been dating Elle, but he had made some harsh comments about Ada a few days ago and kind of freaked her out when she woke up the other day to find him at the end of her bed, watching her. He was also sitting next to her during the fight and completely disappeared before I found out she was missing.”
I feel a bit bad even thinking that Blake could be a part of this, but he needs to be checked. I look over at Elle and see her eyes are the size of saucers and her hand is cupped over her mouth.
“Dating Elle, huh.” There’s a slight pause before Ronan clears his throat and shifts his focus back to Ada. “Okay, I’ll check him out. Do you know where I can find him?”
“No, not at the moment, I don’t. I tried to call him an hour or so ago, but he never answered,” I narrow my eyes and try to think about where he could be. I give Ronan our address and his phone number and he says that he’ll find Blake and question him along with the others.
Now I’m pacing back and forth across Elle’s living room floor while she sits on the couch and blankly stares out the bay window. It has been fifteen hours since I last saw those beautiful different colored eyes, that gorgeous smile and that perfectly tiny little button nose.
I have been doing nothing short of freaking out since I couldn’t find her last night. Why the hell was I stupid enough to think that she would be safe sitting there by herself? I should have brought her with me to the locker room, not left her sitting there like a neatly wrapped present for the kidnapper to snatch easily. How could I have been so stupid?
Last night was supposed to be special for both Ada and me. I was going to ask her to move in with me. I had already talked to my dad about having a house built for us and I would use the life insurance money I got when my mom died to pay it off completely. We are supposed to boarding a plane in a few hours for Omaha to visit her sister’s grave. Shit! I completely forgot to call her mom and tell her what happened to Ada. I bet she’s freaking out.
“Hey Elle,” I mutter through a scratchy voice and watch as she shifts her puffy red eyes from the bay window to me. “Do you know Ada’s mom’s number so I can let her know what happened? Maybe she’ll have some answers.”
“Uh, yeah I have her number, but I don’t think she’ll be able to give us any information. Ada and her mom don’t get along too well.” Elle shrugs before picking up her cell phone and then spouting off the number. I dial it and after the third ring, a woman’s raspy voice answers the phone.
“Hello.”
“Hi, is this Dawn?” I ask in a soft voice.
“Yeah, who is this?” she bites back.
“Hi Dawn, my name is Jay Hunt and I’m dating your daughter Ada.” I stop talking after I hear her huff.
“You’re dating Ada?” she says in an incredulous voice.
“Yes ma’am I am,” I reply, my manners taking over for me.
“Well is she ready to go on our fun family vacation to Omaha today?” Bitterness drips from her tone.
“I don’t want to alarm you ma’am, but Ada was kidnapped last night and the police haven’t found her yet,” I choke through the tears threatening to fall once again, sadness rolling through my voice. What she says next floors me.
“Huh.” That’s it. Dawn doesn’t panic, she doesn’t scream; just “Huh”.
“Ma’am the police are looking for her and we’re trying everything we can to get her back safely.” She doesn’t even ask me what the police are doing to find her. Then she royally pisses me off by asking the stupidest, most offensive question ever asked.
“Why the fuck would you date that disaster of a daughter of mine?”
“Excuse me?” I can’t say anything else. It doesn’t terrify her that someone has taken her daughter and could possibly have killed her, but she is genuinely curious as to why I would want to date Ada.
“That girl is a disappointment and everyone should just stay away from her. She walked away from the only good thing she had when she divorced Rob. No offe
nse to you, but that boy was good for her. No one should have loved her after what happened with her beautiful sister, but he was sweet enough to take on that train wreck,” she says, letting out a bitter laugh at the end. I’m fuming before she even finishes.
“That disaster daughter of yours is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met and her asshole ex-husband cheated on her; she had every right to leave that piece of shit. I’m sorry about what happened with Ivy, I really am, but I’m surprised that Ada came out of that situation as a kind and caring person at all when she had a bitch mother who blames her for something that wasn’t her fault.”
Dawn seems to be stunned into silence, so I decide to speak up again while I have her attention.
“What gives you the fucking right to be angry with Ada for what happened with Ivy? If it was you in Ada’s place when it happened I’m positive that Ada wouldn’t be treating you like you were a piece of shit that had let her daughter die. She would try to comfort you and grieve with you; I just wish you would have given her the same courtesy, you bitch,” I growl and hang up on her. I‘m so pissed that I really need to hit something.
Chapter 29
Ada
I’m whimpering and leaning into the stiff mattress as the person sitting next to me is lightly running the edge of the knife in their hand up the side of my cheek. I’m trying so hard not to cry, but I’m terrified that I’m not going to make it out of this situation alive and I have a feeling these people aren’t going to want that either. I’m slowly pulling my face away from the blade of the knife, but that causes whoever this is to trail it down to my neck, adding pressure as they move it down.
“No, please don’t do this,” I whisper with tears filling my eyes as psycho #1 lifts the neck of my tank top away from my chest. They take the knife and cut straight down my white tank top, splitting it open and exposing my white lace bra.