by Julia Derek
“Oh.”
He sighed heavily. “I guess they’re not as stupid as they look. That bastard must have known they were solid before putting all those bullets into them.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right about that,” I said. “Too bad.” I remembered the food then. I knew where mine was, but where was Chase’s? I asked him that and he nodded at the big dresser. His Subway bag sat on top of it. I walked over to it and peered inside. The smell of meatball marinara sandwich rushed up my nostrils and I realized I was hungrier than I’d thought. My stomach gurgled, but not so loudly that Chase could hear it. He had come up behind me.
I handed the bag to him and went over to pick up my own, then went to sit on the bed.
“We’ll have to share my soda,” Chase said as he joined me on the bed. He pulled out his soda from his bag and stuck a straw into it, extending the big cup to me. “Here, have a sip.”
I held up a hand. “I think I’ll just stick to tap water for now.”
I pulled out my own sandwich and the bag of chips. Tearing open the little bag, I devoured all of the chips in less than a minute.
“Hungry?” Chase asked. He had yet to even unwrap his own sandwich and instead was watching me with an amused expression.
“I guess I am,” I said and wiped my mouth with the one napkin I found in the bag. Amazingly, I filled with gratitude toward the thug for having been considerate enough to include so many napkins with the food. It made me chuckle. After how horribly he’d treated me the last time he was here, forcing me to use all the other napkins afterward, it was clear I had begun to develop a serious case of the Stockholm syndrome.
Chase unwrapped his sandwich finally and took a huge bite. I unwrapped my own and started eating. It tasted as good as it had looked.
“Not bad for Subway,” Chase said when he’d finished his entire twelve-inch sandwich almost as quickly as I had emptied that chips bag. He wiped his mouth with a napkin. Then he held out his big soda cup to me. “Last chance.”
“Enjoy. I really don’t want any. Especially not if it’s full of ice.”
“It is,” he confirmed, then gulped down all of the soda. He put the empty cup on the floor and leaned close to me. “Next time someone comes in, we’ll both act like we’ve passed out.”
I turned to look at him. “Really? What’s the point of doing that?”
“That way whoever comes in will have to come up to us. Hopefully it’ll be the other guy this time. If we’re lucky, he doesn’t know that you already ‘passed out’ once”—Chase made quotation marks with his fingers—“so it’ll be more immediate for him. More of a surprise.”
I nodded. “That’s true.”
“Anyway, you’ll lie closest to the bedroom door, which should make him take a look at you first. While he’s doing that, he won’t be paying me as much attention. I can then overtake him and get that damn gun out of his hand. And we can get out of here.”
“I guess it’s worth a try,” I whispered back. “But what if you fail and he shoots you?”
Chase looked at me and smiled. Then he patted me on the cheek. “Don’t worry, honey. I won’t fail.”
I arched an eyebrow at him and decided to use the same condescending tone in my response to him. “Oh, really? So you’re a successful investment banker and an expert in disarming professional hit men now? How convenient.”
“I can hold my own in a fight,” he said in a neutral voice, clearly not interested in taking my bait. “I just need him to be slightly distracted and I’ll be good. The only reason I failed last time was because I was ten feet away from him. If I’m right beside either of those two guys, I can do it.”
Despite the confidence with which Chase spoke, I was still not sure I believed him. These guys were not amateurs. They were also total sociopaths. “Look, I really don’t want to end up alone with these people. So you better not do something so stupid that would make them kill you. Maybe we should just lay low for a while. We might be out of here when we finally find out what it is the mystery woman wants from us. She’s gotta want something from us or else we wouldn’t be here. And if it’s turns out it’s only a matter of money after all, I’d rather we give her that than take any stupid risks.”
Chase smiled at me. “Haven’t we concluded that these people want to keep us alive?”
“Yeah, probably—”
“Not probably—they do, at least for now. That means that, even if I’d fail—which I won’t—the worst that’ll happen is that he’ll beat me up a little. Or try to beat me up.”
An image of a bloody, swollen, and bruised Chase lying on the floor next to the bed popped into my head and it made me feel like crying. I couldn’t take watching anyone being beaten up. I had never understood people who were able to watch boxing and especially not the WWE SmackDown shows, even though I’d been told that those matches were all make-believe. Watching other people in pain was like torture to me.
What I had witnessed while a sophomore in high school had definitely not been make-believe. Thinking about all that had happened then, about Hannah, who was dead now, and Nina, who had almost died but didn’t and ended up becoming my sister-in-law, made me tear up for real now. Watching what all those girls did to Nina must have been the worst thing I’d ever seen.
I felt a tear spill down my cheek and drip onto the sandwich in my hand, creating a wet blot on the paper that surrounded it. Suddenly, more tears curved down my face.
“Elisa, are you okay?” Chase sounded worried as he cupped my cheek and gazed at me. “What’s wrong?”
I wiped at my tears with the back of my hands. Chase handed me some of his napkins, which I took in silence and used to dab at my eyes.
I sniffled, feeling stupid. And cried a little more. I was such a bundle of emotions, the entire gamut of them about to claim me today apparently. Sheer fury must be the only one I had yet to experience. Chase had taken care of the joy one.
“I promise I won’t die and leave you alone,” Chase said softly and took me in his arms. “If that’s why you’re crying. Maybe that’s not why.”
“It’s not,” I managed to say in between tears.
“Then what’s wrong?”
I shrugged. “I just thought of something that happened that I was involved in when I was much younger—something really bad.”
“Do you want to tell me about it? Maybe it’ll make you feel better.”
“Maybe some other time,” I said. But probably never, I thought. Even if I didn’t feel like I had a reason to impress Chase necessarily, it still wasn’t something I wanted to share with him. What I had been part of wasn’t something to be proud of.
“Okay,” he said. “You know, I know just what it’s like to be sad like you are right now. When I was a kid my dad used to beat me with a camera.”
I gasped. Pulling away from Chase, I stared at him. “No! Really?”
He looked at me very seriously. “Yeah, and I still have flashbacks.”
It took me a few seconds to get that Chase was only kidding. But when I did, I couldn’t help but crack up. It felt good to laugh.
“My dad would never hit any of us kids with anything,” Chase said and smiled softly. “He was a very gentle person. It’s also kinda hard to hit someone when you’re paralyzed from the neck down.”
I immediately stopped chuckling. “Oh, my God. That’s true. Is he still… still alive?”
“No, he passed a few years ago. Got an aneurysm, which was for the best. He was miserable sitting in that chair, even though I know he pretended not to be. What’s your dad like? You never talk about him, only about your mother.”
“That’s because he’s dead. Died from cancer years ago.”
Chase’s eyes widened in dismay. “Oh. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize that.”
“That’s okay. How could you’ve realized? It’s not like I ever told you. Besides, I’ve already dealt with it.” My tears had dried and I was feeling better, even in light of Chase bringing up my dad. A
little odd since I usually got all maudlin when people mentioned him, especially if I was already in a weepy mood. Maybe the fact that Chase continued to surprise me had something to do with it. Who knew he had such a great sense of humor? That, and the fact that he had his arm around me still, holding me close. I wasn’t sure if he realized that himself or if he was doing it intentionally.
I found myself hoping it was the latter.
Chapter Eight
When it was well past midnight and we still hadn’t heard from the mystery lady—or anyone else for that matter—we were getting antsy. Chase had returned to pacing the room while I was sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall. He stopped before me and said quietly, “We should try to get some sleep. We can take turns sleeping. If they come, we’ll wake each other up and then we can put my plan into action.”
“Yeah, I guess we might as well,” I replied. Just like being hungry and dehydrated wouldn’t help our cause, nor would being sleep-deprived. Though I really didn’t think I’d be able to relax enough to be able to sleep. But I supposed I could keep my eyes closed and rest a little while waiting for someone to come. With any luck it would be Gabi and a bunch of cops coming to rescue us instead of any of these thugs. A heavy sigh went through me. As much as I wanted to believe that was what would happen, I knew it was unlikely.
Chase leaned into me. “I need to use the bathroom. If you hear someone come, knock on the bathroom door and then act like you’ve passed out right here”—he pointed to the floor where he was standing close to the bed, about three yards away from the bathroom door. “But you can’t be so close that I can’t get the door open or I can’t get out, okay?”
I nodded.
“I’ll open the door a little so I can see what’s going on through the crack along the hinges,” he continued. “And then I’ll know how to proceed.” He grabbed the door knob. “But probably no one will come. I won’t be long.”
He disappeared into the bathroom.
As I waited for him to return, I thought about how incredibly worried my family must be by now. I kept looking at the bedroom door, hoping against hope to hear commotion in the house and then Gabi’s voice calling for me, wanting to know where I was. At this point, having been gone for thirty-six hours, there was no doubt my mom and brother knew something really bad had happened to me and were doing everything in their power to find me. And Gabi was surely helping them as much as she could. I could only hope that when the cops went through my trashed apartment, they found something useful, something that would hint at why I’d been abducted in the first place. What if the thugs had trashed Chase’s place too? Even if they hadn’t, by now the authorities must have figured out there was a connection between me and Chase missing. I thought so. The two of us gone at the same time was just too much of a coincidence. Which should narrow down any potential suspects.
Another sigh left my chest. Wishful thinking, that was what all these thoughts were. The authorities, Gabi and her boyfriend and everyone else, were surely as confounded by what was going on as Chase and I were. They didn’t even have the advantage of knowing that we were dealing with a female, not a male abductor.
Steps approached the bedroom door then, pulling me out of my head, and I felt myself go stiff with fear. But I managed to make myself slip out of bed and sneak up to the bathroom door. I rapped it lightly. I didn’t dare say anything as whoever was outside the bedroom door might hear me. Besides, Chase should understand why I had done it anyway.
I could hear Chase move around inside the bathroom, then approach the door.
A key entered the lock in the bedroom door and turned around. Frantically, I tried to assess exactly where to position myself so that Chase would have the best chance of disarming the person outside. My heart slamming against my ribcage and sweat pearls forming around my hairline, I dove as quietly as I could to the floor, praying I was in the most advantageous place. Sweat coating my face as I stared into the hardwood under my eyes, I waited to hear the door swing open and then boots clomp in my direction, maybe some curse words. The only door that I could be sure opened was the one right by my head, the bathroom door, behind which Chase was. I had no idea what was going on with the other that was much farther away. Some creaks came from that direction, then a loud thump and something rolling on the floor. I held my breath, trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, the bedroom door slammed shut and I could without a doubt hear how a key entered it and turned around. Then footsteps walked away from the door, fading into the distance.
The bathroom door swung open and Chase came out, while I was still nearly kissing the floor boards.
“You can come up, Elisa,” he said. “It was just another water bottle delivery.”
I pushed myself up from the floor and turned toward the bedroom door, my heart still thumping faster than normal. And there it was, just like Chase had said—another half-gallon plastic water bottle lying in the middle of the room. Chase extended me a hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet.
“Well, at least he had the decency to appear when I’d finished my business in there,” Chase said in a sarcastic voice and jabbed his thumb in the direction of the bathroom. He went over and picked up the big water bottle from the floor. He unscrewed the top and brought the bottle to his lips, gulping down several mouthfuls of water.
He held it out to me, but as I was about to take it from him, he pulled it away. “Wait. I should wipe down the top before you drink from it, shouldn’t I? I don’t want you to get any of my nasty germs.” His lips curved in an amused little smile.
I rolled my eyes at him and took a step closer to him so I could snatch the bottle out of his hand. “No, that’s fine.”
“Just wanted to make sure.”
When I had finished drinking, I gave him back the bottle and lay down on the bed. The stress of what had just happened made me feel suddenly exhausted, so I closed my eyes to rest a little. I wasn’t in the mood to keep bantering with Chase. The room was completely quiet for the next several seconds. I must have done a good job convincing him that I had immediately fallen asleep, because he didn’t say anything else. I could hear him move around for a while, then he padded around the bed and lay down beside me.
Only minutes later, my stomach began making sounds again, loud, horribly embarrassing sounds that seemed to be echoing in the silence of the room, magnifying their impact. I was beginning to wonder if I had in fact had some kind of machine implanted into me while I was out from the drugs. I couldn’t remember my stomach ever behaving this rambunctiously. Honestly, it sounded almost like I was farting the sounds were so all over the place in my intestines. What if Chase thinks I’m farting in my sleep? My cheeks turned red at the thought. I couldn’t take it anymore then, so I opened my eyes and grabbed my stomach.
“Oh, God, what’s wrong with my stomach? I really hope there wasn’t something wrong with those bars they gave us earlier.”
Chase turned to look at me. “Probably not because my stomach isn’t making any sounds and I ate them, too. It sounds like you might be hungry again. Or maybe your body just has a worse time breaking down protein bars. Protein bars tend to give some people gas.”
Oh, God, this is just getting worse and worse…
“No, I don’t think I have gas,” I said, straining not to make it obvious how much it bothered me that he’d suggested that. “I’m probably just getting hungry again.”
“Well, let’s see if they’ll come by with some more food. My guess is they won’t.” Chase scratched his chin on which dark stubble had begun to grow. I found the sound oddly relaxing. He gazed at his watch.
“What time is it?” I asked, eager to change the subject.
“Almost one thirty. How about you go to sleep first? I thought you were already asleep.”
“No, why don’t you sleep. I’m too riled up right now. Besides, I think I slept like eighteen hours after those bastards drugged me, so it’s not like I’m all that sleep-deprived yet.” Of course, I wasn
’t sure how much quality sleep I’d gotten during that time, but I wasn’t going to bring that up to Chase or he might insist that I sleep and he stay up. There was no chance in hell I’d enter la-la land the way I was feeling.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yep.” I pushed myself out of bed. I needed to use the restroom. Before I entered the bathroom, I glanced at Chance over my shoulder. “But try to stay awake until I return, okay? Just in case. I won’t be long.”
Even though it wasn’t that long ago since I’d taken a shower, I felt the need to freshen up a little. Like rinse out my mouth with toothpaste. Luckily, there was some in the cabinet over the sink. Then I splashed some cool water onto my face with one hand while holding back my hair with the other. That would have to do. I dried my skin with one of the towels, gently so as not to hurt the tender right side of my face, and then I looked at myself in the mirrored doors that covered the little cabinet.
Round, turquoise eyes stared back at me from a pale face in which the cheeks were a little flushed. My nose looked as stupid as always, too small for my face. I was often accused of having had a nose job, which I hadn’t. If anyone saw my brother and mother, they would stop accusing me of that, unless they preferred to think that all of us had had our noses done by the same doctor.
Then again, stranger things had happened in Hollywood, so maybe that was a weak excuse.
I kept looking at myself, still wondering why I so often heard that I was so doll pretty and almost identical to my older brother, Dylan. He was quite good-looking, I had to admit, but I needed some help to look as good. Help as in some eyeliner and mascara to make my eyes stand out more. Dylan had been born with naturally dark eyelashes whereas mine were long but much too pale. I grimaced at myself. If people could see me right now, without a trace of makeup, they might not think I was so doll pretty. If they would ever see me again.
A shiver rushed over my skin, making me freeze, and I shuddered when I thought of where I was and how maybe no one would ever see me again except Chase. I rubbed my arms to get warm again, then shook my head to rid myself of the unpleasant thoughts.
