Not only did I not come up with any productive thoughts last night, but I got no sleep. Even after the lights went off and I had curled up in bed, I couldn't shut my brain off. You would think that would be because I was connecting the dots, making realizations, but no. Every possible explanation I came up with ended in a dead end.
As soon as the lights turned on this morning, I was up. It is better that I stay alert and aware of my surroundings in this situation. When you start to get comfortable that is when you start to make mistakes.
Out of curiosity, I take a look inside the closet. Much to my surprise the wooden wardrobe is filled. I quickly close the door and pinch my nose to try to ward off the smell of rust.
Slowing my increasing heart rate, I open the door again. Greeting me is clothing of all different sizes. Some made for children, others for full grown adults. All covered in red crimson. Blood.
I guess this room is meant to hold more than just people. It is also meant to hold the laundry. I don't have time to close the closet again when my chamber's door is opened.
"Ahh, I see you found the laundry. Don't worry, Dahlia, should be coming to pick it up this afternoon." He still looks the same, but oh so different. Still the same boy that asked the dumb questions in health class.
"Jason, what do you want?" I closed the door to the closet, not needing the reminder of how dangerous these people might be in my peripheral.
"I brought you a change of clothes." He looks me up and down, unlike Kane, he looks a whole lot sleazier doing it. "Or should I say another one?" He's right, these aren't my clothes. They are his. At that thought, I put out my hands ready to get his clothes off my body.
"You know that is not what I really meant." He hands me a matching sweatsuit. So, they couldn't have a white van, but they could have uniforms for their prisoners? Could they get any more confusing?
"I have do idea what you mean. Would you like to spell it out for me?" He stands there, offering me no privacy whatsoever. Clearly, I am going to need to do some spell out for him, but not the kind I originally intended to do.
"If you don't mind, I need to get changed." I point to the still open door.
"Nope, I don't mind at all." He moves to sit down on the bed, when someone clears their voice in the hallway. The throat clearing gets Jason's attention and if his scowl is any indication, he isn't too happy about it. He is probably just upset that some guard has ruined his messed up idea of fun.
"Someone will be back in a couple of minutes to grab you." He slams the door on his way out.
______
That couple minutes turns into a couple hours. A couple more hours of me staring at the wall debating all of my life choices. If only I did like any other normal girl would have, just dumped his cheating ass. I had to get some sort of one up on him. After this experience, I am vowing to just be the better person and take the high road. The high road could of course involve getting a hotter boyfriend, but let's be real you never try to downgrade when going forward in the dating world.
The only thing that I can hope for is that Daniel is also around here somewhere, so if Kane does come he can rescue both of us. Be the hero of this story. However with each passing hour, my hope for that outcome decreases exponentially.
Finally, Doug, aka my personal driver and escourter, comes and grabs me.
I try to memorize the layout of the house as I get dragged along, but unfortunately due to Doug's urgency I don't get a real chance to. I got the basics sure, where the door is, a few hallways, the main area, and where my room is in relation to them, but that an escape plan does not make.
I need more information. Need to know more about my enemy before planning an attack. You think that Napoleon went into battle blind. Save Waterloo, he had a plan and because of it he was successful.
The room that we stop in has a long table in it. The kind that would be fit to sit about fifty guests. This is all the confirmation that I need that more people do indeed live here. Unless these people have awfully large dinner parties, they have more residents here than I have seen. Besides the large table, there are the usual paintings covering the walls.
Again instead of letting me trample around in my half sneaker half sock walking wear, for some odd reason not once during my outfit changes has anyone offered new footwear, Doug shoves me into one of the seats in the middle of the length side of the table. Ahh, so while they might not see the use of white vans necessary in their kidnappings, they do think sitting at the head of the table is a must. It is a total power move so it makes sense.
"You're not going to tell me who I am meeting, are you?" The look of disdain that is sent in my direction is all that I need to gather my answer.
Right on cue, the large door that Doug had dragged me through opens. It seems that there is only one entrance and exit to this place. Or at least only one that is visible to the naked eye. They also probably have tons of guards hidden around the room. I mean you don't get to the top by not taking safety precautions.
Being that I don't know the procedures here, I look towards the door. Since my bestie behind me hasn't grumbled or yelled at me to do otherwise, I continue my staring ready to see who is truly behind all this madness.
The clicking of high heels on the wooden floor registers before anything else. The leather dress shoes. The matching hers and his pantsuits. A couple is who walks through the giant doors. A couple that I am all too familiar with.
"Mr. and Mrs. Lowmen?" I say in awe.
"Actually it is Mr. and Mrs. Lostino, Lilson." Mrs. Low- Mrs. Lostinio says as if correcting a child that simply can't remember the difference between a square and a circle.
Instead of staying together at one side of the table, Mr. Lostino lets go of his wife's hand, and lets her go around the opposite head of the table. I watch her confidently stride across the room, so different from the woman that I have seen scrubbing away at dirted pots and pans in her kitchen. Or was it even her kitchen? I'm assuming that if they have a place like this, then their house wasn't their true home. This castle is.
I don't get a chance to say anything to them because not even a full minute at Mrs. Lostino has taken her seat, any person is being brought through the doors.
His familiar mop of hair comes in first, his shoulders slumped. Then Jason jerks him to the side directing him to the seat across from me. He doesn't fight him, just limps after. My eyes don't leave the pair of best friends. Jason, in the time since I last saw him, has acquired a black eye. His half blocked vision, due to the swelling, doesn't slow him down one bit. He pushes his prisoner, who is deeming a matched outift to mine, into the seat opposite myself.
With one last shove the boy that I have been hunting days for is thrown into the chair in front of me.
"Daniel, pick up your head. We are at the table." His mother orders from her place. Listening to her demands, he lifts his head. I almost gasp at the sight in front of me. Though there is a lack of swelling, his face is dotted in bruises and cuts. Did his parents do this to him? Or was it his best friend?
I look away from the broken boy in front of me, to the two heads of the table. How could they?
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions-" I cut him off.
"Yes, like what the hell are the two of you doing?" I practically scream the question, while looking back and forth between Daniel and his parents. Mr. Lostino clenches his jaw.
"It would serve you well to not interrupt, Lily. Your parents do pay for that expensive boarding school after all. They would be sad to learn that you don't have any manners."
"Well, it would serve-" I break off when I connect with Daniel's eyes. I see the pleading there, the warning. He wants me to shut up. I close my eyes against the growing anger within.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what overcame me." I give the fakest apology of my life.
"Don't worry, you'll learn in time." In time? Do they plan on keeping me here? I think the fuck not.
"Anyway, like I was saying, I'm sure that you have some questions, but first I have one for you." He looks over to me as if asking permission to proceed. I doubt that even if I object that he will stop, but I nod to give myself some sense of control in this situation.
"You see, Lily, I am a man of business. A business that I think that you are well aware of." I feel his eyes trying to intimedate me, but I resist, "I had quite a few angry people coming to me recently, saying that I had deceived them. Said that my drugs were no good. The first couple of times, I just put it up to some druggies, being so far gone that even the hardest stuff doesn't hit anymore." He gets up from his spot and circles to me. He crouches down, "It was only when the bodies started to turn up that I questioned if they were actually telling the truth."
Bodies? What bodies?
"Turns out shooting sugar straight into the vein can be deadly." He chuckles, "But, you wouldn't know anything about that would you?"
I don't answer him, instead I continue to stare forward. Clearly that upsets him, because he slams his hands on the table startling me into meeting his gaze.
"Would you?" He repeats the question.
"No, I wouldn't." I compose myself. He will not intimidate me. I have sat through multiple of my parents' business dealings where the client's main method was bullying and I will not give into a bully. Not now, not ever.
"Are you sure about that?" His eye is starting to twitch a little.
"Yes, positive." I give him a small 'sorry' smile.
He goes to say something else, when the large doors open for a third time. Jason must be making his exit, since he probably doesn't want to continue standing in the corner.
However instead of leaving, Jason takes a seat next to Daniel while food starts being brought in. Steaks, potatoes, vegetables of all different kinds. A feast fit for a king.
"Why don't you think about your answer over dinner?" Mr. Lostino goes back to his head spot. With the plate passed in front of me full of the main meal, I realize that they really do want to have some sort of messed up family dinner. Something that has been Daniel's girlfriend for so long I have experienced before.
So there we sit, Mr. and Mrs. Lowmen now Lostino at either head of the table, Daniel in front of me beaten and bruised, his deranged best friend beside him, and me realizing that maybe I really should have gone and visited my roommate.