Kidnap My Heart

Chapter Four: Emma

 Kidnap My Heart 

Chapter Four: Emma 

We were about fifteen minutes away from our destination when my bladder decided it couldn’t wait any longer and needed relief. I hadn’t even drank a lot of water that day, but the thought of waiting another fifteen minutes was horrifying. When I saw a rest stop exit, I recklessly turned and pulled in, making Taylor scream and hold onto the passenger seat in fear. “Emma, what the hell?” she screeched as we jolted to a stop.

“What?” I asked.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to use the restroom.”

“You couldn’t wait until we reached the concert hall?” she asked incredulously.

“Do you think I’d be using a public restroom if I could wait?” I wrinkled my nose at the thought of all the germs I would find there. Gross.

“Blech! You can go. I’ll stay here.”

“I’ll be back in a second,” I said as I exited my car and walked towards the entrance. Jack left his own car and followed me, inciting a bit of annoyance in me, but it wasn’t like I could stop him. He wasn’t doing any harm.

As I was walking inside, I noticed something was off about Jack. He was walking awkwardly, like he had crabs in his pants. I stopped walking to stare at him. He began to fidget, and it didn’t take me long to realize I wasn’t the only one who needed to use the restroom. “Go to the restroom, Jack.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I’ll just go later.”

“Jack.” I gave him a reprimanding look. “Nothing is going to happen in the minute it takes you to use the restroom.”

There was an awkward pause. “It might take me a little longer than a minute.”

I made a face at the implication behind his words and nodded, raising a hand to stop him from elaborating. “I understand. Just go.” Shaking my head, I added, “I told you that burrito you had would come back and haunt you later on.”

He nodded uncomfortably, making a sad attempt to subtly cross his legs. “I know. Would you do me a favor?”

“It depends…” I trailed off, immediately thinking the worst.

“Could you buy me a pack of Cheez-Its? After you go to the bathroom yourself, of course.”

I rolled my eyes. Seriously, was there a moment in life when he wasn’t thinking of food? Dear God. “Fine,” I said. “Just go.”

He nodded and literally waddled over to the men’s restroom.

Sometimes I really wondered if Jack had been dropped on his head as a baby. There was something wrong with him.

As I looked around the rest stop, I noticed an eerie silence. There was a couple walking towards the bathrooms, but that was it. I couldn’t even see any workers or anything, but I didn’t pay too much notice to this. Taylor was right; I was too paranoid. Ignoring the omens I thought I was imposing on myself, I went to the bathroom, careful not to touch anything because as I said before, these places were disgusting.

After I finished, I went over to the vending machines to buy Jack’s Cheez-Its. Everything I saw in those machines looked downright inedible. Processed junk was my least favorite thing in the world and the calories. Oh, my God, the calories. “I can’t believe Jack ingests this,” I muttered to myself.

I was just about to put a dollar into the machine when a hand holding a red handkerchief cover the lower half of my face. One whiff of the pungent odor, and I knew exactly what it was. It was chloroform. This wasn’t the first time someone had attempted to knock me out with the chemical, and I wasn’t about to let it happen again. I struggled against the person holding me and tried not to breathe, but it was too late. Within seconds of inhalation, I felt my arms and legs begin to go numb, and my knees buckled underneath me. I felt strong arms catch me as soon as I began to slip away. My vision went blurry, the vending machine now just a multitude of rays and lines, and I gave up trying to resist. Seconds later, I saw nothing and felt nothing.