The Uber

3

There were shouts all around, some scared, others angry. I felt cold, rigid metal smack against my cheek and my hand flew up instinctively. When I backed away Scruffy took another swing, catching Ronnie on the scalp. She cried out and did a frantic attempt at tugging her purse away as he pulled it from her lap and toward him. She held on for dear life, knowing that she kept a secret inside and he was about to uncover it. But it was no use struggling. He was stronger.

He won.

"Was that so hard?" he said.

"You better cut that shit out, Mike," Gav said. "You almost caused me to go into a ditch.

Scruffy—Mike scowled at Gav. We sat holding our wounds. Ronnie crying softly. I knew why she was so afraid and I was afraid for her. Were they the type to ignore the obvious and go with what they saw written by others? Would they put her in the trunk with Timothy when they found out what was in there?

"Jeez, you hiding gold in here or something?" Mike teased. 

My anxiety was about to take over, adrenaline pumping fiercely. I almost felt overwhelmed with it, like I was going to faint from the intense feel of it. I grasped for focus.

I found three different objects. One: Ronnie's long, honey-blond hair across her shoulder. I watched it shimmer as a bright ray of sunshine bounced along with the rhythm of her sobs. Two: the eye of our abductor, green, with a brown freckle near the pupil. Cold. Uncaring. Three: my bracelet. I touched the metal, warm from laying against my skin. I felt the tiny ringlets run through my fingers, back and forth.

Two different sounds. One: the car's engine, purring calmly, as if we weren't inside it with our hearts pumping wide open, pedal to the floor. Two: Krista mumbling. The jagged whisper, a prayer of urgent panic.

One smell. Cologne. Bergamot and citrus.

Mike let out a loud cackle that startled me. He had Ronnie's Louis Vuitton wallet open. I felt like I was falling or going to faint. 

"Ronald W. Kearny," he read aloud.

Ronnie sobbed. We've seen so many news reports of situations that went badly for people like her—people who just want to live their life on the outside to match the person they are inside...I'm afraid for her, but I can't imagine how afraid she is.

"It's Ronnie!" Krista screamed.

Out of nowhere, she lunged. Mike was distracted by Ronnie's ID, the gun pointing away from us as he held the wallet in his other hand and the card in his gun hand. He didn't see Krista coming. She went straight for his eyes with Ronnie's pepper spray. I had no idea when she'd gotten ahold of it. The spray didn't only get his eyes, however. In such a small space, it tore at my throat. My eyes started watering. I heard coughing all around. The car swerved, slowed, and then I felt a breeze to my left side. 

The door hung wide open as Ronnie made a run for it. She ran so fast one of her heels came off. She didn't care. The price of the shoes was a small price to pay for her freedom and safety. 

I grabbed Krista's hand, ready to drag her with me as we followed Ronnie, but the other car pulled up and blocked my escape. Doors shot open and some occupants piled out in pursuit. I couldn't see Ronnie anymore, but I heard her scream, "No! Please, let me go!  Please!"

The other occupants came to our car. One of them shut my door forcefully. The next movements were as if they'd been rehearsed. Two men from the other car opened the driver and passenger doors, took the arms of Gav and Mike and pulled them out. 

"My eyes!" Mike shouted. "The bitch sprayed my eyes!"

Gav coughed. "Got--me--too."

I gasped for air, Krista's door was open, but she didn't run, she sobbed and gagged, holding my hand tight. 

"No!" Ronnie screamed. 

"Don't hurt that one!" Mike shouted. "That one is worth a lot of money."

I wanted to be sick, instantly realizing what their goal was. Fear rushed through my body in a tingling wave, from my fingers to my ears and down to my toes. They were going to sell us...

The two men who pulled out Gav and Mike took their seats and began to drive. 

"No!" I cried as I watched us get further and further away from Ronnie, who was being restrained and dragged by a big guy, being forced into the back seat of the other car. "They took her! Krista they took her!"

"Shoulda separated you bitches from the beginning," the guy in the passenger seat said. He reached back and jerked the bottle of pepper spray from Krista's hand. I squeezed her other hand as tight as she was squeezing mine. He shook it. "Man, you unloaded that sucker. Got them dumbasses good." He laughed out loud. 

The driver joined in. "Thought they were ready for a big job, huh? Didn't even do a pat down."

It sounds like this isn't these guys' first time doing something like this. My body shook. Terror was taking over and I couldn't stop it. It was filling me up, until I felt I would burst with it. 

"Money?" I mumbled, because I had to do something. "Who--who are you selling us to? I'll pay. I'll pay for all of us, I can do it!" I, in fact, could not. There was no way I could afford it, I was a struggling student. But they didn't know that. If I could just get to a bank, I'd get them to trip an alarm or something. "Please, I have money in the bank, just take me there--"

"And let you escape?" the driver said. "Do you think we're stupid?" He didn't wait for an answer. "No, we're only going one place, and that's to the boss's house." 

My heart plummeted to my guts. Who's the boss? Could I convince him that I had money?