by Kira Graham
“Please don’t do this. Whatever he’s paying you, whatever your reasoning is for this, you don’t have to do it. Just untie me and let me walk out of here, and nothing will happen to you. I haven’t seen your face,” I tell the man, my voice trembling on that last part, as hope and terror collide inside me when he snorts and leans closer, his breath hitting my neck.
“I had no choice, lady. You remember that later, ya hear? I did what I had to.”
“Please—”
“I gotta go now. Don’t struggle. Just sit here calmly, and don’t panic. We’re too far out for anyone to hear you if you scream.”
“Wait! Don’t leave me here alone! Please.”
“I got a message to give ya ’fore I get going. You need to keep your nose outta other people’s business. Sometimes, the best thing that you can do for yourself is to live your own life and do it the right way. Keep your head down, keep your nose clean, and remember that your family needs you,” he tells me, that husky rasp ending on a sigh when I freak out and start to panic.
I don’t like that he’s mentioning my family—
“A mom is supposed to be focused on her children, not on everyone else. Remember that, and always know that you’re being watched. You all are.”
“Don’t you threaten—”
“Ain’t making no threats, lady. Just delivering the message the way I was told to. If I was you, I’d take that advice to heart. You got yourself two beautiful little boys. You keep that in mind before you or any of your kin go snooping around looking for answers that you don’t want.”
“Answers? I haven’t done anything but stay out of people’s business since I found out I was pregnant. And those answers? Who wouldn’t want to know who is stalking them and why? Look, man, I don’t know why you’re doing this, why you’re involved, or what it is that this guy has planned, but I am begging you to just let me go so that I can go back to my babies,” I beg, my breasts aching more painfully the longer this drags out.
I pumped before I left for the spa this morning, but it’s been hours since then, and I can feel the discomfort tingling in my boobs as they continue to fill. Any longer out here, and I’ll be in some serious pain.
“It’ll be fine. Just do what I told you to do, and you’ll be okay.”
I start to argue, to try to beg him to let me go, but by the time I’ve worked up enough nerve to open my eyes and turn around, the door is closing, blocking out what little sunlight there is.
At first I fight, pulling at the duct tape with all my might. I’m wrapped up from my wrists to my elbows, and soon I’m tired out, my breaths huffing out in frantic pants. The tape doesn’t budge an inch, and instead starts to cut into my arms after a while, forcing me to stop altogether and fall back, spent and ready to sob in defeat.
That’s when I hear the voice—and almost have a heart attack. It starts with a loud panting that reminds me of suppressed laughter, and then turns into distorted chuckles that become titters of mirth. It freaks me out so much that I freeze and whip my head around, searching the darkness for the monster that I know is there.
“Doesn’t feel good, does it? Being powerless? Knowing that no matter what you do, you can’t change where you are?”
Don’t scream—
I start screaming, but, in my defense, this isn’t one of those situations in which you can possibly not scream!
“Stop.”
I can’t! I am officially, put-a-fork-in-me done with being brave. I’m not overly brave in the first place—well, I mean, I am awesome, and I am totally a fighter and have had my fair share of hairy situations, but never something even remotely as scary as this. It’s easy to run your mind and mouth off about what happens to other people, and then tell yourself, and others, that if it had been you, you’d have been so cool and calm that you’d have found a way to win.
After Cleo almost died, and after Sin and Rosetta and Mindy almost bit it when Barnes Hilan came after them, I went on record as saying that “I’d have kicked his ass but good.” Those were my exact words. Exact. Words. And right now, I would give anything to be trapped in a darkened building, running around with a madman stalking me. Anything but this. Anything!
Oh, my God—
Thwack! Something hits me, and it takes about one nanosecond for me to realize that I haven’t been slapped. When every muscle, bone, and sinew in my body goes rigid, and fire sparks through me, I realize that I’m being Tased and feel my teeth slam closed so tightly that I hear them grinding together.
It’s awful. Pain unlike anything I have ever felt in my entire life. Too much. Too much—
It suddenly stops, and I fall back into the chair, wheezing and blinking, my brain winking as if something has gotten short-circuited.
“I said to stop it and calm down!” the voice bellows, the distortion coming through so clearly that I have a flashback of watching those lame-ass movies where the guy runs around in a mask, making calls and asking people what their favorite scary movie is.
It’s irrelevant, and not something that I should be thinking about, but as I go completely lax, my muscles turning to jelly, I wonder if this is what Neve Campbell felt when she took up the role of Sidney…I forget the last name.
“I…” Oh, God, Alexandria, do not blow chunks right now! “I…why are you doing this?” I manage to blubber, swallowing down the bile that fills my throat when an ominous shiver skitters down my spine.
“The more important question would be—what am I going to do with you?” he asks, a sinister snort filling the air when I stiffen and try to melt into the wooden chair frame. “Relax. I’m not here to kill you, though God knows that you deserve a little killing after the way you’ve been conducting yourself. I was really hoping that you’d kick Chilli to the curb after all the shit he put you through. Hell, I had money on you as the only Sweet idiot who isn’t swayed by money, sex, and a pretty face. But it turns out that you’re a whore with no self-respect.”
Hey!
“Hey! That isn’t a very nice thing to say. I’ll have you know that you have no idea—”
“Let’s recap the last few months, shall we? You slept with a man who made a beeline for the door the moment he woke up the next morning. He spent weeks avoiding you, and then you pulled a disappearing act when your small, infantile brain finally realized that you were carrying his children. I was strangely proud of you when you decided to take a stand, Alexandria, and even more proud when I realized that you weren’t going to just fall into his arms. So color me bewildered when you agreed to marry him and got stood up at the altar, and yet here you are, after all of that, still clinging to Chilli Hart like a vine—and still pathetic enough not to see what’s right in front of you.”
“What’s right in front of me? Chilli loves me! And I love him. He’s the father of my children. He’s the man that I want to spend the rest of my life with,” I breathe, only now realizing just how much I mean what I’m saying.
Yeah, okay, so the road to this enlightenment hasn’t been an easy one, and yes, I’ve been holding back for a while now, just hanging on to that resentment and anger in order to keep myself protected against Chilli and the way I feel…
Crap! Dammit.
I’ve been an idiot, I think, my body deflating when it hits me that I could die out here, alone, afraid, and without having said everything I need to say. I don’t want that, and not just because it kills me to think of my boys growing up without me, but also because I don’t want to get my ass murdered without having that sappy, disgustingly emotional talk with Chilli after all. I deserve the chance to get all grossly in touch with my feelings and tell him that I love him, and that I have loved him ever since the moment I saw his handsome, extremely uncoordinated ass running from Rosetta—because she was stalking him, though that’s a long story, and not one I think about, unless I want to be arrested for killing my own cousin in a jealous rage. Mostly, I do not want to be murdered by some pathetic lunatic who would rate a very low four on the B-movie scale
of villains—
“Would you shut up? Good God, woman, talking out loud and insulting the person who has you at his mercy is not smart.”
Yeah. Ahem. Bad brain!
“Sorry! But it’s true. Let’s be honest here—let’s just get the ugly truth out into the open and move on from there. You’re not that great of a character in the horror story that has become my life. Be honest—you’re nowhere near as terrifying as Freddy Krueger, and you’d get your ass kicked by Jason in a heartbeat. And if I was clichéd enough to have thought about white masks and machetes, then you’d come in a very poor second to Michael Myers. Face it, man. As a villain, you’re not all that scary.”
That’s a lie. I’m plenty scared. I’m just hoping that my bladder will fall for my bravado and not release. I’m also holding on to the slim hope that I’ll find a way to lie myself into less of a freak-out, and somehow stop leaking tit milk all over myself. This is not the way I want to go, people. I don’t want the cops to find me out here, a gory mess, smelling of the sour, days-old milk crusted to my boobs—
“Would you stop your babbling? I am not going to kill you!” he yells, the last few words getting garbled as he screams into whatever voice machine thingy he’s using.
My desperate mind hears it, though. It hears!
“You aren’t? Oh, thank God! I thought that I was going to have to start praying and somehow find a way to convince God that I’ve been good enough to go to heaven. Even though I haven’t been! And I don’t want to die without at least one trump card to pull out when Saint Peter tells me to get to stepping to the basement.”
I hear a huff in response, then some shuffling, and then a clear sigh of annoyance.
“I brought you out here to warn you to keep your nose where it belongs, Alexandria, and to tell Rosetta that if she keeps digging, things won’t go well for those she loves. Use this as a warning for her. Tell her that if she doesn’t stop searching for me, someone will get hurt, and it won’t be her. It’ll be someone she loves. It’ll be on her conscience.”
“What are you saying?”
“That if Rosetta and Zeus don’t stop looking into things that they will never understand, then they’re going to watch someone they love get hurt. For God’s sake, Alexandria, I just said that! Pay attention,” he huffs, making me frown and shake my head. “You’re so damn stupid!”
“I am not! I just wanted you to clarify so that I could tell you that it is not cool to hurt other people for no good reason! It’s even worse when you consider that the people you’re hurting haven’t done a damn thing to you. What is this about, huh? Did Rose or Cleo or Tee refuse to go out on a date with your ugly ass? Is this about the time that Rosetta blew up that car? Because that was an accident ,and no one got hurt! Except the car.”
“This isn’t about—dammit. Would you shut up and concentrate? I’m done playing games, Alexandria, and I am done watching you all waltz around making decisions that affect the rest of us. Keep your noses out of my business, and give Rosetta and Zeus the message. That’s it! Christ, I should have snatched Sinai. She at least has some savvy.”
“That isn’t nice! And you can thank your lucky stars that you got some freak to kidnap me, or I guarantee that you’d already be dead. Sin looks rational, but she’s already used up her bury buddy privileges—” I say, and then stop.
Mostly because I don’t think that it’s a good idea to confess that the two of us did something bad one late, late, completely moonless summer evening four years ago. That’s prosecutable shit that no one needs to know about.
“Ahem. I mean, she’d kick your ass,” I mutter, cursing myself when I realize what I’ve just said.
And yeah, maybe it’s true. Maybe I’m not as nuts as the rest of my family, and perhaps, if I have to be completely truthful, I’m a little less badass now that I have children and understand mortality a little better.
“She would, I have no doubt. Nefertiti would have killed my little pawn the moment he popped up behind her in that car, and Cleo would have probably put her foot on the gas and aimed for a tree,” he muses, chuckling in that weird, creepy way. “That’s why I chose you, Alexandria. You’re the easy one. The soft one who lies to herself about being brave and insane while secretly longing for love, security, and a family.”
“Hey! You made that sound like an insult.”
Not that I’m going to argue it too hard. I mean, I am tied up here, and at his mercy—
“Jesus Christ! There is definitely something wrong with you. I told you, I am not killing you, and for your information, I was complimenting you. It’s one thing to be brave and fearless, but quite another to be recklessly stupid like the rest of your family. Nefertiti and Sinai may be fearless, but they also have no regard for others. And Cleo and Rosetta? Those two just aren’t sane—something that will end up getting them killed if those poor men of theirs can’t step in on time. You’re not reckless, Alexandria, and that is a good thing, because it’ll keep you safe.”
“I don’t get any of this! I just don’t get it. Not that I am not totally good with being safe right now, because I am, but none of this is making sense to me. Why are you not hurting me? What is it that you really want? Why are you doing this?” I ask, the fear that still fills me settling into a stomach-churning roil as I become more and more confused.
Look, I’ve said that I’m not ungrateful for being safe, if that’s even true. I don’t want to die today. That’s just a logical, completely human fact of life for me. But I just don’t understand any of this, and the lack of understanding is starting to drive me crazy. I want answers. I need to know.
“Tell Cleo. She knows the answers. She just isn’t looking hard enough.”
“Tell Cleo what? Hey! Hey, don’t you dare walk out of here without answering my questions! Dammit. Goddammit!” I yell, fighting against the tape around my wrists when I hear movement and then feel fingers ghosting across my cheek.
Then he’s gone, the rickety door creaking open and slamming shut behind him, my struggles and yelled demands falling in echoes around me as I’m left alone.
Goddammit!
Chapter Twenty
Alexandria
God. I am thirsty. And hungry. And tired.
Mostly, I’m sore and freezing, because as great as the weather is in the late summertime, it still gets cold in these parts after dark, and it’s not just cold tonight; it’s downright freezing as I scuttle through the woods, limping through the pitch darkness.
Fact one of my ordeal and subsequent escape: I totally suck at realizing the obvious before it’s too late. Obvious fact number one—my feet weren’t tied to the legs of the chair, which basically means that I could have stood up at any time during my brief conversation with my kidnapper-slash-almost-killer. Fact two—I could have leaned down and chewed through the duct tape around my wrists during my hour-long struggle to get free, while I sat in that shed-like cabin with darkness descending all around me. Fact three—I didn’t have to crab-scuttle out of there, hunched over with a chair strapped to my back.
Which I really wish that I’d realized before I ran backwards toward a tree in an attempt to shatter the chair. And I really wish that I’d realized all three of those facts before I slammed into that tree, got the seat rammed into my ass, and suffered bruising to my asshole that is still causing me pain. Mostly, I wish that I’d gotten myself free before it became fully dark, because then I wouldn’t have to be hunched over in the dark woods, trying to pick my way towards the main road while the sounds around me make me want to scream and flee in terror.
I don’t know if anyone knows this, but the woods are dark at night! I’m a little afraid of the dark. Okay, a lot afraid of the dark. And I keep hearing noises from behind me, as if something or someone is following me.
God, I am stupid, I think, pissed at myself for not thinking clearly. I should have stayed in the shed until daybreak and then set out, but honestly, even if I were being rational about things, I don’t think that I’d
have been able to just stay there, like a sitting duck. I have what some would call an overactive imagination, and by that I mean that even now—hunched over, in pain, and leaking like I got tit-stabbed—I keep imagining a killer creeping around behind me, enjoying the sight of my fear-induced movements.
If I ever get out of here, I will never leave the house again. Ever again. Never—
Another sound from behind me has me going still, my body going so tight and stiff that I feel my already aching legs scream in protest. Something is definitely coming up behind me. It isn’t my imagination. Oh, God. Please, Jesus—if you just help me out here, I promise that I will be nicer to people. Mostly, I’ll try to stop lying so much. Like I am right now, because we all know that I can’t be nice unless I really want to be.
Another sound snaps me out of my fear-induced, statue-like state, and I suddenly find myself running, just taking off and bolting as if my life depends on it. I run until my legs cramp, and then keep running anyway, my lungs so hot and pained that I try not to breathe too deeply as I force myself to keep going. Of course, this is me, and, me being me, nothing goes right. Somehow, I screw it all up. One moment, I’m running like the hounds of hell are nipping at my heels, and the next, I’m tripping over a tree root and flying through the air. And then, of course, I crash headfirst into a tree trunk that I don’t see, mostly because it’s so dark that I can’t even see my hand in front of my face.
The impact is filled with a scream of pain, the dull thud and crunch of my skull against bark, and then…nothing.
Achilles
“We’re not giving up!” I yell when Adonis walks towards me as I’m standing beside Alex’s car, which was dumped just off the main road, where a dirt path leads into the woods.
It’s going on three in the morning, and despite the heat of the dwindling summer, tonight has turned out to be a cold one, with the temperature dropping low enough that I accept the fleece coat that Adonis shoves at me. Feeling my body warm and comfortable beneath the thick fabric has me recalling the thin shirt that I saw Alex wearing yesterday morning, and thinking about how cold she must be right now if she is, in fact, still alive out there somewhere.