Kidnap My Heart

Chapter Four: Emma

I woke up dazed and confused in an unfamiliar place, my vision still blurry. I tried to sit up and vaguely heard a door slamming shut, but my body wouldn’t respond to any of my commands so I stopped trying to sit up, letting time drag by. It felt like hours, but in reality, it was probably closer to minutes. When I finally came to, I pushed myself up and looked around. I was in an unfamiliar car, but the rest of my surroundings were familiar. I was still at the rest stop; I still had a chance. 

I scooted over to the window, rubbing a sore spot on my leg. That was going to bruise later; whoever had grabbed me hadn’t been too gentle. Looking out the window, I saw two figures dressed head-to-toe in black. They were standing by my side of the car and looked like they were arguing, probably about some issue they were having with this kidnapping attempt of theirs. Maybe Jack had done something; I didn’t know. Either way, this seemed like an amateur job to me. At least they’d had the sense to cover their faces with masks.

I tried opening the door, but it was locked, of course. I tried every door, but they were all locked from the outside—child proofed, I was guessing. I didn’t know why I’d expected anything different. Only an absolute idiot would leave a door unlocked.

I was distracted from my failed escape plan when I heard yelling. My head whipped over to the source of the sound, and my eyes widened when I realized what was going on. Taylor had seen everything and was panicking, but so was I. She was going to get herself in major trouble if she didn’t stop yelling. I could fend for myself, but Taylor wasn’t as hard-shelled as I was.

Taylor continued yelling at them in a pathetic attempt to get them to stop, her voice ringing through her window and mine. She was that loud. “Let go of her! Let go of my best friend, you pigs! Let her go!”

I sighed in relief when I realized Taylor was in the safety of my car. My reactions were still a bit slow, and my thought processing wasn’t as immediate as it usually was. I’d been panicking over nothing, and I had bigger things to worry about.

“Hey!” she screamed. “Let go of Emma! Leave her alone! What did she ever do to you?”

“Thank God she’s in my car,” I muttered, although you wouldn’t have been able to tell what I was saying if you tried. They’d duct-taped my mouth—another little detail I’d just noticed. I hated chloroform. I felt weak and helpless, and where the hell was Jack?

I spoke too soon. Taylor decided it would be a good idea to leave the safety of my car and try to make them let me go. What did she think she was going to be able to do? She should have called Jack. She shouldn’t have done that. It was so unlike her, too; it was the kind of stupid, reckless thing I would do, not Taylor.

I tried to get her to be quiet, knowing what would happen if she didn’t run back inside the car immediately, but the duct tape on my mouth was a bit restricting. Pounding on the window didn’t work because I was too weak to put much energy into it. There wasn’t much I could do besides bang my head against the glass window, but all that did was give me a headache.

A couple who was exiting the rest stop—the same couple I’d seen when I first walked in—looked over at our corner in alarm, and the woman pawed at the man’s arm, her mouth moving frantically. I couldn’t hear a single word she was saying, but I hoped she was planning on doing something to help.

The two kidnappers, seeing that they had to act fast, moved over to Taylor and grabbed her. The shorter of the two—not by much, actually, although I had a feeling my depth and height perception were still a little compromised—was the one who actually grabbed her and shoved her into the car with me. She screamed and kicked in protest, but it was no use. She’d written the end to this chapter of hers the moment she left that car.