Capricorn

Ideal Saturday Afternoon

"I would suggest you hurry and get in contact with us, because in another..." He looked at his watch. "Fifty four hours she will be quite unreachable." 

Fifty four hours. A little over two days. 

Unreachable. 

Unreachable... oh god. Did he mean what I thought? Were they actually gonna KILL me? 

I started squirming at this realization. Not for long, because something hard connected with the top of my head and then there was only blackness.

I came to and saw Capricorn, sitting backwards in the chair as always, watching me. She didn't have that stupid smiley mask on this time. The video camera was gone, as was everyone else. 

I glanced at the wall clock. 

2:20pm. 

Then, all at once, my head started pounding. It hurt all over. It was like I was finally feeling the hits and cuts from earlier. God, I just wanted to grab my head, and I tried, again reminded of my bonds. 

Fuck this, man. This shit was getting old. 

"Why are you doing this?!" I yelled at Capricorn.  

I probably shouldn't have, but I was pissed, my whole body ached, and I was probably experiencing some kind of mini hangover from all that liquor earlier.  

In general, I felt like pure shit. I was annoyed, agitated, anxious, and scared all at the same time. 

She smirked at me and pulled out her knife and began admiring it. 

"Goddamnit, answer me! I've been patient till now. I think I deserve some kind of explanation! Especially if you guys are gonna KILL me anyway!" 

I'd played along with this for long enough now. Now after this video thing I'd had enough. I think I'd been a pretty cooperative captive up to this point. I never screamed or anything. 

But clearly that approach didn't work, so it was gonna be different from now on. 

She just ran her finger along the edge of the knife, disregarding me completely. 

I wanted to yell at her some more - though more appropriately I was just expressing myself about the whole situation not her specifically - but she rendered me powerless by not responding. 

After a few moments, she asked, "You done?" 

"If you're not even gonna answer me, what's the point..." I trailed off, defeated. 

She got up from the chair and pointed the knife at me and laughed. She began strolling around the room, tossing the knife in the air and catching it. "I like you. That's some sound logic there. You should tell that to anyone else I've dealt with in the past. What is the point of screaming and shouting if no one is gonna answer you? There is none. Yet so many do it anyway." 

"How many others have you... dealt with?" I figured I'd feed into what she was talking about, instead. 

"This isn't a line of work that has a weekly schedule. I do jobs here and there when I'm interested." She answered.  

So she was interested in me for some reason, by that definition. 

"I don't know how that all works, obviously... I guess I assumed people called YOU, not the other way around." 

She was still tossing the knife. It looked dangerous, but I guess she was competent. 

"They do. I just choose whether or not to accept."