Coveted

by Ryleigh Stone

  Wipe one the back wall quickly and reset, she thought as her mind spun away from her inside the bag. We are going to get another shot of that head splatter. On my mark.

  The van lurched forward and up a slope. She shifted to the side toward the back and found herself against the metal rise of a wheel well. She had pictured the back as flat floor and walls for the metal box of the cargo area. She amended her picture to include the bumps for the back wheels jutting up and out into the storage space. She couldn’t picture the model of van that was designed that way.

  The van bumped something and stopped. She thought that if they got into an accident, the police would come. If the van tried to leave the scene, the other driver would get the plate and report it to the police. The van edged forward and bumped it again. There was a scrape on the front bumper and grill and they bounced over the curb.

  The van turned left.

  It was the gate over the driveway they had hit. Don’s gate swung out instead of sideways like everyone else’s. The fence was from the 1970’s and had the locks updated, but not the hardware. The magnet locks were down and Jack had bumped it open with the van.

  When the neighbors saw the gate hanging open toward the street, they would call the police to complain. The police would find the bloody house, but they would be gone. They might not find the scene, but would not know Gia was taken. She had dropped her phone, but it would take them a couple days to unlock it even if they made doing so a priority. They might go by her house to question her about Don’s death, but they wouldn’t find anything suspicious inside that would let them know she was kidnapped.

  She didn’t remember seeing the van when she walked up to the house, so she wasn’t sure where it had been. Maybe by the garage? Getting ready to load Don’s body before Gia interrupted? Jack knew she was coming though. Or did he? How did he find out where Don lived?

  The production of Southern Sluts might miss her, but two girls had walked off set the other day. They just put a wig and their costumes on Gia and killed the characters off with Gia facing away from camera. The assistant director wasn’t going to be her salvation and he cared more about her than the rest of LA at this point.

  Susan? She might report something. She would see the news about Don and would report that she dropped Gia off there. That was going to be the connection. The police would know that she was missing then.

  It might be twenty-four hours. Maybe forty-eight. Gia knew from the dialogue in a couple of her movies that that timeframe was the difference between when the police were likely to find a living person or a body.

  Gia thought, some new actress is going to play me in an episode of a true crime missing persons show on basic cable about The Blackhearts: The Sensational Deaths of Don and Gia. Don was found brutally murdered in his home, but when Gia’s fate was finally discovered, it would turn out that he was the lucky one. Cut to tampon commercial.

  She felt the vibration of the road through the wheel well against her side. She used her elbow to push herself back upright.

  The van stopped and she wondered if it was a traffic light or if they had reached where Jack was going to hide her while he did what he had planned for her.

  It was a rolling stop and the van continued on. She wondered, if the police would pull him over, if he kept doing it. Would she be able to yell just as the officer reached the window?

  “Jack?” Her voice shook. “I want to go home. I won’t tell anyone. Let me go home, please.”

  He called back. “If you keep talking, I have to tape your mouth shut and we have a long way to go, so shut up, please.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Gia?” He raised the end of the word like he was scolding a child. “Shut up or tape. I don’t have a choice here, but you do.”

  She closed her mouth, but felt her chin quiver. A cry escaped her again. She shook as she tried to hold it in, but failed.

  He turned on the radio to an oldies station and turned it up. A voice crooned through the static about bubble gum and first love.

  ***

  Chapter 7:

  Way to Go

  Gia fell over and landed on her side on the floor. The cable attached to her wrists made a sound like it was rolling out from a spool attached above her head. She wondered how far it would go. If she got her feet free and the doors open, how far could she run before she reached the end of the spool? Would the teeth rip the tape and she would be free? Would Jack start driving the van and drag her along the road behind him as punishment for trying to escape? Is that what the cable was about? Gia, you either stay in the van or I drag you behind it, she thought. You have a choice; I don’t. Stay or drag. Would the tape or her arms break first?

  She tried to move her feet to right herself, but there was no leverage.

  The radio was on a talk station now shouting about illegal immigrants committing crimes against citizens.

  She decided to stay still on her side to keep from drawing attention to herself or making Jack mad. She wasn’t sure it mattered, but she lay still anyway. The ribbed surface of the bed of the van hurt the side of her head through the bag and she couldn’t decide how to position her head to minimize the pain. The van went over a rough patch of ground and bounced lifting her head up only to smack it back against the metal floor. As dizziness crept in from the impact they hit another and she bounced her head again.

  Gia gritted her teeth and felt the strength drain out of her. She wasn’t going to find a clever way to foil the villain. No one was coming to rescue her from the monster. They would find her months later when there was nothing left, but her teeth and chewed bones. A hiker or jogger would happen upon them and investigate. News crews would descend on her patch of woods and then she would be forgotten again. She would probably be a cautionary tale in the churches out in Dark Orchard, Kentucky. Collectors would trade around pieces of trash from her apartment. They would probably still be more interested in Jack. His owl mask would go for a small fortune for sure.

  Gia drifted off to sleep in exhaustion. The sleep was heavy like her mind was pushing as far down into her body as it could go. The dreams came in flashes with fear, but no story. A bump in the road would knock her head and pull her back up. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed or open. She would waver on the edge of consciousness just long enough for her to realize where she was and what was happening. Then, she would drift back down into the dark sleep of exhaustion and despair. She didn’t fight it.

  It seemed like the way to go.

  She woke up again with the van stopped and hot. The radio was off. The engine was off. There were noises of traffic passing outside through the wall. She wasn’t going back under again like before. Her bladder was full to the point of pain.

  She tried to sit up, but her bonds still held her. She raised her head. “Hello?”

  Her voice echoed back at her, but was muffled.

  She heard the pops and scratches that could have been from the heat, but sounded more like someone in the van with her.

  “Hello? I need to pee.”

  More shuffling, but no answer.

  Thumps and bangs sounded and vibrated through the van from the outside. Something popped and rang. She heard the familiar sound of a fuel hose and nozzle being hung back in its cradle on the side of a gas pump.

  After a pause, the driver’s door opened and closed again. There was shuffling in the front and the van started again.

  “I need to pee.”

  Jack sniffed and chuckled. “Yeah, that isn’t going to happen.”

  “I just need to pee. I swear I won’t try anything.”

  “Sure,” Jack said. “Do you want to pick up some snacks too and wave at the camera?”

  “I’m going to wet myself, if you don’t let me pee. If not here, stop on the side of the road somewhere.”

  Gia realized he probably used a credit card instead of going inside to pay. If that detail got out somehow, maybe it could help. She wasn’t sure how exactly.

&nbs
p; “Just shut up a minute and let me think,” Jack said.

  The van pulled away from the pumps and bumped as it went back on the road and picked up speed. The bump did not help her need.

  “I’m going to piss and the van will smell until we get to where we are going. You’ll be stuck in here with piss smell.”

  Jack sounded like he was whispering. Was he on the phone? She raised her head and listened.

  “Sorry, Gia, you’ll just have to sit in it. I’ll clean you up when we get to where we are going, but there’s no way around it.”

  “You can trust me,” she said.

  “We both know that’s not true, Gia. Now be cool before this has to get worse for you.”

  “I am being cool.” Her voice took an edge. “I know I made you feel bad. I was confused. I had … Don all up in my head and didn’t know what I wanted or what was good for me. You took care of that and now there is nothing between us keeping us apart … except this silly tape and bag. I know what’s good for me now.”

  She heard the turn signal clicking in a steady rhythm and then it snapped off again. Maybe he was changing lanes. She hadn’t felt a turn.

  “That was good, Gia. Is that a practiced speech? Have you been working on that in your head all this way?”

  “It’s true,” she said. “Maybe it’s that syndrome people get when they fall for their captors, but you and I had something before all this. It got confused for a while, but now I see how much you care – how far you are willing to go to have me. Maybe I’m messed up. I know I am after some of the games we played, but this is how I feel now. You can trust me to get out and pee and then we’ll keep going to wherever you have planned for us – our new life together.”

  Jack sighed from the driver’s seat. After a pause, he said, “I don’t know, Gia. Just stay quiet for me, so I can think. Okay?”

  “If I piss myself here in your van, it will ruin whatever fun you have planned for us later.”

  Jack cleared his throat and said, “What is it you think I’m going to do to you, Gia?”

  “There are only so many options when you tie a bitch up in a van, Jack.”

  Jack hummed and then laughed in the back of his throat. “Those good feelings dried up pretty fast. Go ahead and piss yourself then. It will dry up too.”

  “Fuck you, Jack.”

  “There’s the truth.”

  “I hope whatever you do to me gets done to you in prison one day.” Gia felt her lips quivering.

  “Why don’t you shut up again or I’ll tape your mouth and one of your nostrils?”

  “I hate you.”

  “I’m not playing, Gia. Keep talking and I’ll close your mouth for you so I don’t have to hear it. This is not the way you want to go with me.”

  Gia managed to hold it for another hour, but then she let a little out before she could get it back under control. It spread warm inside her jeans, but went cold quickly. The pain was worse as she tried to hold it. More escaped in a tight drizzle and felt like she was passing razor blades as she clenched her muscles. Her back cramped and her throat burned.

  She gave up and cut loose. It ran down her legs and escaped up her ass crack up her back out of her jeans. She felt it run under her through the ribs of the van floor. Then, it soaked into her shirt.

  The van made a wide turn and it ran down farther soaking into the bag over her head and into her hair. All she could smell was piss.

  Gia tried to move, but every muscle in her legs cramped and she couldn’t even shift around as much as she had before.

  She itched and couldn’t reach to deal with the cold, dirty misery of it.

  She felt the muscles in her face screw up and she balled. She heaved in huge gasps of piss stinking air and sobbed some more.

  Jack turned on the radio.

  “… wanted in connection with the grizzly scene at the home of director Don Blackheart, whose real name is Donald Kyle Blanchard, age 41. Authorities are not releasing other details regarding the scene or the persons of interest except to say that a body has not been found. Efforts to locate …”

  Jack tuned the dial and blared a heavy metal song that set Gia’s head to throbbing.

  ***

  Chapter 8:

  Take It Slow

  Gia woke up to the sound of ripping tape. She sucked in air and struggled in a panic thinking she was back in Don’s driveway and still had a chance to run. She felt the raw skin of her wrists and ankles in the tape and realized that chance had passed.

  They had stopped late. It had to be twelve hours of driving. Maybe closer to sixteen. Time was lost inside the bag covered in her own filth. They had gotten gas twice more that she knew of and had stopped finally for the night.

  She couldn’t tell if it was still night and her dreams had woken her.

  Her neck hurt and she swore the side of her head was dented from laying on the bumpy floor.

  He grabbed her shoulder and she yelped. Jack pulled her back up straight against the wall. He yanked the hood off and she squinted from the light pouring in through the windshield.

  Gia blinked and Jack came slowly into focus in front of her. His hair looked scruffier from actual bedhead than from the carefully sculpted mess guys in LA created. She wondered where he had slept. His face looked so ordinary and unlike a murderer-rapist.

  She wanted to spit in his face. She had been afraid to scream when they had stopped for gas, but she wanted to spit as she looked at his face more than anything. Her mouth and throat were far too dry to even muster it.

  Her skin hurt and felt tacky from dried urine. She felt crisp, matted hair against her cheek.

  Jack lifted a bottled water into her view and unscrewed the cap with a pop from the safety seal. “If you behave, you get water now and during the day. If you do not behave, you can live seven days without water, but it will not be pleasant. Do you want water, Gia?”

  She stared at him and blinked a couple times. She open her mouth to a stab of pain in her throat, so she closed it again. She nodded.

  He nodded back. “Open your mouth and take it slow – one sip at a time. You don’t want to vomit on yourself too.”

  She parted her lips feeling like they had grown hard and cracked in the night. “Jack tipped the mouth of the bottle up over her lower lip. The water was lukewarm and filled her mouth under her tongue until it ran out at both corners. It dribbled onto her shirt, but seemed like a small offense compared to what she had already been through.

  She closed her mouth and swallowed slowly. A bit got into her windpipe and she gagged. Gia coughed adding more pain and ruining the satisfaction of her first drink in a day.

  “Take it slow, I said.”

  Gia’s voice came strained like a cord pulled taut and ready to snap. “I fucking heard you, asshole.”

  He smiled and tipped the bottle at her like he was raising a toast in her honor. She opened her mouth again and he licked his lips. She felt dirtier than she already had.

  He tilted the water up again and she closed her mouth without losing any. She swallowed without coughing and her throat felt better.

  Jack set down the water and lifted a clear, plastic clamshell. He popped it open and took out half a sandwich cut in a triangle. It was a wheat bread with frilly lettuce sticking out the sides.

  She whispered. “I want more water.”

  “You’ll get some,” he said. “Take a bite. It is chicken salad with golden raisins. It will be good for you stomach.”

  “Chicken salad sucks.”

  “I know you like it,” he said. “You used to make your own back home. I saw the pictures.”

  She frowned and looked away to the back doors of the van. The squared windows were painted over black showing swatches of light in the spots where the paint was brushed on thinner around the darker globs.

  “I made my own because everyone else’s sucks, especially the bullshit they serve in plastic boxes in gas stations or wherever you bought that while I was sleeping in my own piss.”
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  “What did I tell you about behaving?” Jack said. “You can go a month without food, but it isn’t pretty.”

  Gia sighed and looked down at her taped ankles. A prickly rash was crawling up her skin where she could see between one pant leg and the grey duct tape. She needed to shave.

  He held up the sandwich half and she opened her mouth. He stuck in the corner and she bit through with a crisp crunch from the lettuce. Her stomach rolled as the flavor hit her tongue and she realized how hungry she was. The tang of the mayo and the texture of the raisins made her want to gag. She held down the urge as she chewed and swallowed down the bite.