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I checked on him last night, peeking through the curtain in my bedroom. He hadn’t gone home but slept in his car instead. He had pulled a blanket over himself. It must have been colder than the other nights.
Well, I wouldn’t feel bad. He was a grown man and this was his job. Did he expect me to let him sleep here? Or even in my bed? Of course not! I wouldn’t even imagine that. No, not at all. Not imagining him sleeping next to me, at all.
A sound outside interrupted my thoughts and I jumped. Pulling aside the curtain, I saw a white van pull onto the neighbor’s driveway. The renters next door were moving again. Jake shifted in his seat and stared back at me. I let go of the curtain and went to shower.
Thirty minutes later, I was at my front door, pulling on my black leather boots. I grabbed a heavier scarf from the coat rack, as there was a bit of frost around my windows this morning.
I was just about to leave when I remembered the file I was working on last night and ran back to my bedroom to retrieve it. My boots clicked across the hardwood floors and I prayed I didn’t leave any marks on the flooring. My landlord was picky about that stuff. I recalled the line in the contract about markings on the floor and walls. I left that part in the contract but removed the part about plumbing and electrical fixes to be taken care of by the tenant. I looked into the rental laws here and the landlord was responsible for those. I wondered how many people signed that faulty contract and whether I should look into it further with the city. I could do that after work, perhaps. But first, I had to get there.
Finally, after locking my front door, I rushed to my car. I was only a few minutes later than usual, but traffic would be brutal if I left any later than eight.
I’d barely laid my hand on my car when I heard a van door open behind me. I hadn’t thought anything of it until a loud rustling registered in my head. Someone rushed up behind me.
I wanted to turn around, but large arms grabbed me from behind and pulled me away from my car. One hand covered my mouth, and another dragged me across the driveway and into the open white van. Another man slammed the van door shut and, in the next second, the vehicle peeled out of the driveway and onto the road.
I only had two seconds to see the covered faces of the men in front of me before the first man, the one who had pulled me onto his lap to get inside the van, strapped a blindfold over my eyes.
Then everything went dark.
I kicked and struggled against the man who held me tightly against his chest, but his grip was too strong. “Go, go,” another man shouted as the van made a sharp right turn. “He’s right behind us.”
The voice was deep, not gravelly like Jake’s, but just as low. I reached behind me to scratch his face, but I felt nothing but air. I scratched his hand instead.
“Ow!” he shouted. “Damn it. Get me the cable ties.”
More rustling in front of me and then another set of hands grabbed mine and a thin plastic strip tightened over my wrists. He then tied another around my waist and connected the two. The contraption worked. I couldn’t raise my hands higher than my chest, prohibiting me from pulling down the blindfold.
Finally, the man released me from behind and I fell onto the cold, hard van floor.
Ouch!
The ridged van floor pressed into my hip and arm and I struggled to sit up. “Stay down,” the gruff voice demanded. While it was not in my nature to take orders, I didn’t move.
The horror of the situation fell onto me like a filing cabinet on my chest.
Oh god! I was in some van, tied up and blindfolded, laying on a dirty, smelly floor being driven to god knows where, with no idea what they wanted from me.
“I don’t have any money,” I pleaded, but the men were silent.
“I won’t press any charges if you leave me at the side of the road right now.”
The driver snickered.
My heart raced as I realized they weren’t going to let me go, and worse, I didn’t know what was going to happen next. My lips began to quiver and I pressed them together, but I couldn’t stop a tear from falling. Fortunately, the blindfold soaked it up so I wouldn’t be humiliated in front of my kidnappers.
Fear gripped my insides and made my stomach turn. I was nauseous, scared, and helpless.
My next thought was a humbling one.
Jake was right.
I hadn’t taken this situation seriously enough. And now I was paying the price for my pigheadedness.
Another tear fell from my closed lashes into the dark, damp cloth over my eyes. My wrists hurt from the thin plastic and a bruise was forming on the side of my body, I was sure of it. Besides all of this, I felt numb on the inside. Which was best, considering I didn’t know what sort of pain would be in my future.
I lay quietly on the floor, unable to think or speak. I lay that way for a few minutes, listening to the van squeal and turn. The men inside the van were quiet.
I wondered if Jake was still following the van or if these guys had somehow shaken him off. They hadn’t mentioned him anymore. My heart sunk further down into my gut and I shivered.
