Huge hands slapped a hand over my mouth, grabbed my arms, and pinned them behind my back. I struggled, but they were much stronger than me, which was no surprise. They were all about 10 times larger than me.
"Ouch!"
"Grab em!"
"Don't let them get away!"
"They're gone!!"
"No, I got the girl!"
"ENOUGH!!" I heard a deep voice bellow. "Give me the girl and get your sorry butts to the trucks!" They handed me to the yeller like a sack of potatoes. "Look at you, girl. You're the new member of the scary kid gang?" he scoffs. I heard laughter; barking, ruthless, and sadistic. It terrified me, but I wasn't about to let him see that. "New member? Ha! I am their brains, their planner, the schemer among them. I can think of a thousand ways to kill you. Which shall it be?" I declared boldly.
"I am impressed!" he said. "Death threats may work on our weaker brethren, but I am the leader. They all bow to me. And you are not worthy to kill me, much less scrape the mud off my boots." He sneers and laughs. A few men have returned, carrying a briefcase, probably filled with knives, guns, and other weapons. But I pretend that I'm tickled pink by the idea of a briefcase. "Ha! What are you gonna do? Make me sign papers till I drop dead?" I taunted.
"So eager to die, girlie? No, we need you alive. Johnson, now!" A giant man pulled out a gun and shoots a dart with a red feather into my arm. The world darkens around the edges and then goes completely black as I fall to the ground.
"Caleb? Peter?" I cried, my voice quivering. "Where are you?" Shaking with fear, I started to wail, but the men didn't like that. "Shut up," one with a jagged scar said harshly, drawing a huge knife, "or I'll have to use this." "Aww, ease up, Scar. This one's just a kid," another reasoned. "Tell that to the boss," the first man said. "He's gonna kill us all when he finds out you lost the other two."
They're still alive. "They've already escaped!" I shouted, trying to sound bold while keeping the fear out of my voice. "They're bringing in reinforcements as we speak, so you better watch out." Most of the men had the reaction I wanted, faces breaking out in fear and worry, and looking to their leader, the man with a scar on his face, cruelly named for his wound mark. But Scar just laughed, a bellowing, ruthless sound. "Was that meant to scare us? It was a good try, but you are weak, little girl. It takes a lot more than that to scare us." "Besides," he winked to his companions, "we have a special friend coming to visit you very soon." They all laughed. Scar grabbed me by my hair and hauled me to a dark room with steel doors, then threw me in and locked the door. The only light in the room was a lantern and a barred window, but it was pitch black outside. I laid on the floor and tried to fall asleep.
My nightmare started back at my old home. I was hiding in the closet in my parents' room waiting for them to wake up so I could scare them like every Saturday morning. The doors of their bedroom banged open. I wondered who it could be on a Saturday morning. Probably just our Great Danes, Bubbles and Harry. I had thought at the time. But then there was a loud BANG! , a blood-curdling shriek of terror, and another BANG! . I felt something liquid leaking into the closet. It was blood; the blood of my dead parents. I tried to stay as quiet as possible, and my parents' killers didn't find me, but they did find Muffin, our cat, Harry, and Bubbles. I ran away that day, and spent 3 nights alone, terrified, and hungry. I found the occasional thrown out sandwich, but otherwise I had no food. On the fourth night, two faces peeked into the alleyway where I was staying, one with long blonde hair and startling sapphire eyes, the other with a chestnut buzz cut and a splash of freckles on his nose. My saviors, Caleb and Peter.
With a start, I jolted awake and saw those same two faces peeking through the bars on the window of the door. They were dressed in guard uniforms and were holding wigs and plastic masks. I rubbed my eyes to make sure they weren't just figments of my wild imagination. "Caleb? Peter? Is that you?" I asked, my voice breaking with relief.
