Captive

by R. J. Lewis

  Interrupting me was another message from Kimberly. She had screenshotted a meme that read: I want the students I did group projects with to lower me into the ground when I die so they can let me down one last time.

  I let out my first laugh of the day, maybe even the week, and it was so emotionally exhilarating, I felt tears springing to the back of my eyes. I immediately wiped them away, pretending something was in my eye in case anyone looked my way. As I did so, I glanced around the bus, watching as more people piled on and…

  Standing by the middle doors was the hot dude with the fuckable hair. He must have just moved there because he certainly wasn’t there before. His back was to me, so I was able to gawk without fearing he’d notice. He was wearing a leather jacket with a grey sweater underneath. He was broad, solid, so obviously muscled. His hand gripped the hanging handle above his head and the other was holding a really old looking phone – like those century old Nokia ones that your grandparents used to love – that he periodically glanced down at. His strong jaw was moving, like he was chewing gum, but the bites were hard and slow and…God, he even made that look sexy.

  On cue, this really hot girl with fur lined boots stepped on the bus and walked sexily in our direction. She had black leggings and a giant ass and a cute white beanie and her face was just wow. She was the kind of girl I got make-up lessons from on YouTube in the mornings when I was certain John was too passed out to wake-up to, “Now apply your mascara to the other side of your lashes too, ladies, before we finish with a matte setting spray, and there are a few I love that do the job just right. I’ll add the links below. Be sure to check them out and don’t forget to subscribe.”

  I subscribed.

  To like 100.

  And I still never looked like them.

  Turning on my camera phone to selfie-mode, I quickly removed my foundation and brush from my pocket and decided I would have to guerrilla do this. I wouldn’t look like her, not when I was applying this foundation cold turkey, but it was about the principle of it. I had to at least give some kind of shit. The Youtube Make-up Community would flay my ass if they knew, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

  “Oh, sorry,” Hot Girl said as she elegantly collided into Fuckable Hair’s chest.

  Smooth move, girl. I commended her.

  I watched her, saw the radiant smile she gave him, and I waited for him to respond back with a warm smile of his own. They were probably going to chat it up. He’d ask for her number, and she’d give it to him, and they’d make out and all would be right in the world because beautiful people always got to fuck each other while the rest of us watched with envy.

  Instead, he moved aside real quick and sent her flying into the empty seat behind him. She made an oof sound and quickly collected herself, hiding her embarrassment by casually digging out her phone and pretending she hadn’t made a fool of herself.

  My jaw dropped. Dude was savage.

  Averting my attention back to the brush, I ran my fingers through it and cringed. Brush was soaked. I would have to use my fingers. I pocketed the brush and began twisting the foundation open. A rough stop on the bus from the laborious breathing driver sent the foundation flying from my hands – I blamed it on my numb fingers – and rolling in the direction of Fuckable Hair’s boots.

  Oh, shit.

  I got up quickly and raced to grab it. It rolled to his boot just as I got knocked to my knees in front of him from laborious breathing driver’s LEAD fucking foot.

  On my hands and knees, it was my turn to oof. I grabbed the foundation and happened to glance up at Mr Fuckable and felt my skin prickle. He was looking down at me, his jaw slowing down as I backed the fuck away and returned to my seat (though at the back of my mind I was thinking, if I gave him a blowjob, that was the angle I’d be given). My ponytail had loosened, hair had fallen all over my face, and I wanted to give Hot Girl a look that said, “You think you made an ass out of yourself? Giiiirl, at least I got to beat you at something.”

  This was exhausting.

  Admitting defeat, I pocketed the foundation and pulled the ponytail out of my hair, wincing as a chunk of it ripped from my scalp. I ran my fingers through my dark roots, glancing briefly at Mr Fuckable.

  He was staring right at me.

  My heart lurched. I looked down at my three-year-old gumboots that had stress lines all over it. The rainbow patterns had long faded, and it looked really fucking sad, but that was my life today – a sad, fucking disaster.

  After several minutes of removing pilling from my skirt, I snuck another look at Fuckable. He was staring down at his phone screen, seeming concentrated, although I could only see a sliver of his face because he would glance around occasionally, like he was checking to see where he was.

  He didn’t look like he often rode the bus, if at all.

  He looked like the kind of guy that should be riding on the back of a Harley instead.

  In fact, he probably crashed his Harley and was taking the bus to a motorcycle shop to purchase a new one.

  Yes, my mind ran away from me often.

  My eyes fell to his ass now because he was the kind of guy that could make ass in jeans look good.

  I was right.

  His ass looked good in them. Guy squatted like a beast.

  I checked him out slowly, taking my time. My gaze lingered on the black duffle bag between his feet I hadn’t noticed. Over the zipper bit there was what looked like a black beanie, but it looked a little long for a beanie. I twisted my head, trying to make out what it was exactly. Maybe it was the kind that went over your face too? I’d seen a bunch of dudes wear them lately, although they couldn’t have been older than ten; it was a bizarre choice of outdoor wear, but what did I know? I was currently sporting some serious fashion hell-nos.

  Unfortunately, my ogling was nearing its end. I was approaching my stop. I leaned over to press the button when I saw him reach for one closest to him. I paused, watching as he pressed it.

  This was too serendipitous.

  It was…sort of meant to be.

  Once again, I played out a series of romance scenarios in my head – but I made them a little raunchy this time. Like, I would step out of the bus and he’d grab my arm and drag me to the nearest alleyway to suck my tongue. Even though the alleyways were filled with dumpsters and sketchy people shooting up, it was still an acceptable fantasy, and that was beside the point. He’d fuck my mouth and declare he had to pay for my bus pass because he needed to rescue me from spending 2.85.

  As the bus came to a crawling halt, I threw the backpack on and rushed to the door in the front of the bus. I had to be ahead of him for him to stop me. It was just the way it had to be. The driver shot me a puzzled look as I dashed over the red line and waited, heart beating furiously in my chest. She opened the doors and I stepped out, tossing my hair over my shoulder because dudes liked that, I thought. My hair caught in the slightly opened zipper from my bag, but it was fine, whatever. I walked slow, hearing his heavy footsteps behind me as I moved, ignoring the icy rain as it slid across my skin.

  I held my breath, waiting for him to come nearer and…

  He walked past me, moving at a brisk pace in a focused direction.

  He didn’t even look back at me.

  Well…

  Fuck.

  26.

  Victoria…

  I ended up grabbing a coffee from the coffee shop I worked at three days a week. I literally walked in and out, not wanting to stop to make conversation – or even eye contact – with my co-workers. I didn’t have time to anyway, and besides, we weren’t that friendly – they were bitchy assholes.

  I was sipping on my coffee as I waited for my next bus. It was due to come in ten minutes, but the roads were hell-ish, so I anticipated a bit of a delay.

  At least this bus stop had a glass shelter to hide in and a bench to sit on.

  The cold snap was mind numbing. Arctic blast they’d called it. I saw clouds of my breath as I shakily scrolled
through my phone. I saw the latest posts from Amber and Christina and Lauren and Emily and a bunch of other girls I knew from high school that I never talked to. I wasn’t even sure I talked to them then, either.

  Honestly, why did I even have people from high school on here? Well, I kinda knew why already. At least half of my list were high school peers. And I got a lot of likes from them, so…

  I let out a long breath, feeling that sinking feeling in my chest again. The feeling of utter loneliness. I glanced around the streets, watching the cars go by, feeling almost like I was in a dream. Reality sometimes didn’t feel so palpable. I’d been sensing myself drifting from the world more since Mom passed. I couldn’t seem to come to terms with her being gone.

  I put my phone to my ear and listened to the last voicemail I got from her.

  Her speech had begun to slur at this point, and she sounded weak and tired. She would cough and breathe with difficulty, but she never gave up.

  “Hey Vicks – I know you hate when I call you that, but I miss you. They changed my room at the hospital. You’ll have to ask the front desk where I am. It’s a better room, angel. I have it all to myself. The nurse put the flowers you got me on the table right here beside me and I can smell them from where I sleep. Thank you for that, Victoria. It was so beautiful to wake up to. I feel better now. I do. I think…I think I’m okay now.”

  I didn’t know what she meant by that.

  I’m okay now.

  Did she mean she was okay at that very moment?

  Or did she mean she was okay with the direction her life was taking her? Straight to death. Had she accepted it and said, “I’m okay” in the face of it?

  I listened to the message again, closing my eyes this time to savour her voice.

  After, when I turned voicemail off and scrolled through my social apps, I felt…angry at myself for all these pointless distractions. For throwing pictures up of myself like it would attract people who cared for me. It seemed obvious what I was doing.

  I wanted someone to care.

  Reacting purely on impulse, I went through every app and removed my profile. One by one, I deleted them permanently. Not a deactivation – a deletion.

  It felt so final.

  I didn’t realize what I’d done until I’d finished, and then I felt a blast of regret. What had I done? All those years, all those cyber memories, all those pictures I hadn’t even stored in my phone…

  I started grieving.

  Gone, all of it.

  But it needed to happen, I told myself. I’d missed out on the final weeks of my mother’s life because of these stupid distractions, and then when she died, I’d buried myself in them even more.

  At some point, you need to wake up and look around you and feel yourself. These distractions dulled the pain, made you feel less alone, but then when you shut them off and sat in the silence, all you had was your own company because they weren’t real. Nothing about the internet was real or tangible. It was one fake smiling face after the next.

  And a lot of booty pictures.

  So many booty pictures.

  Jesus.

  I pocketed the phone because there was no reason to go on it anymore.

  I was still grieving what I’d done.

  God, what had I done?

  I heard the familiar sound of the bus exhaust and looked down the street. The bus had just stopped before the red light. I heaved the backpack over my shoulder and stood up. The chill in the air went straight up my skirt. My vagina was ice cold. I never thought I would say that to myself.

  I stepped out of the bus shelter, staring down the street, waiting for the light to turn green and for the bus to come roaring to me.

  Then I blinked a few times, realizing very quickly I wasn’t being poured on anymore. I looked up at the sky, at the white dreamy snowflakes coming down around me. I shut my eyes, feeling my heart burst. My mom’s voice sat in my ears, the voicemail returning to me, every word memorized, every gasping breath heard.

  I felt her right then.

  I felt her all around me.

  My mom, here, coating me in snowflakes, rescuing me from the rain, commending me for deleting that rubbish from my phone.

  I smiled.

  And just as I smiled, a loud boom erupted from behind me.

  I whipped around, gasping at the plume of smoking rising from a nondescript building situated on the corner of the street not far from me. It was an adult store from what the vague signs had read. I’d never gone in it, but there’d always been a few random cars parked behind it. Drivers poked their heads out of their cars, staring in the direction of the little building. Pedestrians further from me to the building began running toward it. Screams were heard from inside. My chest tightened as I heard cries of help.

  My legs moved before I could stop myself.

  My backpack pounded into my back as I ran to the building. A man was already at the front door, beating me by seconds. He tried opening it, but it was locked. He peered through the glass, but it was blacked out. Adult stores hid that kinky shit, I figured.

  “It won’t open,” he said, looking concerned. “Did you see the smoke?”

  “It sounded like an explosion went off inside,” I replied, feeling jumpy.

  “Have you called the police?”

  “No, I…” I immediately removed the phone from my pocket and began dialling. He said something about going around the back of the building and checking for a door there. I followed him, phone to my ear as others made it to the front of the building and began pounding on the front door.

  “911, what’s your emergency,” said the operator.

  I began to tell her about the explosion, about the black smoke coming from the top of the building, maybe out of a window from the back, I didn’t know.

  I hurried after the man as he rounded the building. He seemed to know what he was doing. No one else had thought yet to follow us.

  The back of the building opened up to a large parking lot, and behind it were train tracks and then an industrial street with tons of car mechanic shops. The parking lot was covered in rubbish and there was a random white cargo van parked, its engine on, sitting idle. The windshield looked tinted, and I couldn’t see the driver, but I found it bizarre he wasn’t leaping out and seeing what was going on.

  I couldn’t even be sure he was in it.

  The area felt hidden, like a blind spot right there from a busy intersection. It was quieter, too. The helping man was at the backdoor, opening it, just as the operator said to me, “The police are on the way. Don’t go in.”

  I began moving to the man, telling him, “She said don’t go –”

  The second he opened the door, loud popping sounds erupted. The man fell back in a heap. Voice lost, I dropped the phone and stumbled back as a group of men burst out of the building, faces covered in balaclavas, dressed head to toe in black, armed with long assault rifles.

  One collided into me, knocking me to the ground. I fell on my ass, and pain skyrocketed up my tailbone. I looked fearfully at the man that had been blasted with bullets. He was on the ground, unmoving, blood already pooling around him.

  I wanted to go to him, but I was too stunned.

  “Get it in the van,” one of them shouted. “All of it, we’re going to get some heat.”

  My face snapped to the cargo van where they all were rushing around, doors open, throwing in duffel bag after duffel bag in the back. I counted five of them, and they jumped in, one after the other. I held my breath, frozen in place, unmoving – they seemed to have completely overlooked me – as they got ready to leave in record time.

  I grabbed the phone, already pressing it to my ear, but the call had gone dead.

  The man closest to the sliding door began to close it, but then his head shot up and his dark eyes bore into me. My heart jumped as he paused midway through closing the door.

  “Hurry up!” a man shouted.

  It happened so fast – all of it – the man slamming the door bac
k open, the man leaping out of the van, running to me. I crab walked away, trying my hardest to scream, but nothing was coming out. It was a nightmare I couldn’t wake from.

  I couldn’t get up to run.

  I couldn’t scream.

  And though it happened so fast, time slowed down all at once. I saw everything play out in slow motion. I had lost all function of my senses as his arms wrapped around me. I flailed, but even my limbs felt weak and weighed down with terror. He dragged me effortlessly, and I kicked into the air, my boots skidding along the ground. He jumped into the back of the van, holding me to him, wrapping me in his iron grip, like a predator pulling its prey into a black hole.

  He slammed the door shut, and I was trapped.

  27.

  Victoria…

  Shouts of protests erupted all around me as the van took off, speeding. We were on the floor of the van. The man had me sitting in his lap, his arms caged around me. I shook, terrified, a sobbing mess, my shaky vision spotting guns thrown like straw around the interior of the van.

  “What the fuck did you just do, Beckett?”

  “She was there,” the man holding me retorted. “She saw the whole thing. She was calling the cops too. Weren’t you, honey?”

  He yanked the phone out of my loose grip and threw it behind us. Then he removed the backpack and held me to him. I shut my eyes tightly as his hand skid down my back, flipping up my skirt. Bile rose up my throat and I heaved. He cursed, forcing my head away from him and in the direction of the door.

  “She saw nothing,” another person said, coming from the front seat. “Throw her out the door, man.”

  “Fuck off, Roz, I ain’t throwing her out the door.”

  “We don’t need any more complications!” another shrieked.