Chapter 6: Converting to Cowgirl
“I’ve told you a hundred times kid,” said a gravelly voice next to me. He sounded much too old to pout. “It’s not an exact science.”
“It’s your neck if she’s damaged,” another guy responded, “You were supposed to stick it in a fleshy part.” He said under his breath.
“There’s nothing fleshy on this kid to aim at, and why don’t you try aiming the blow gun? Let’s see if you’re any better.”
I couldn’t pry my eyes open to see where I was, and I couldn’t feel any part of my body, like I was floating on puffs of air. I couldn’t even tell where my arms were, just that they were still attached. My mind was in the same discombobulated state. I couldn’t hold onto a thought long enough to process the dream.
My nose registered the strong scent of leather, but it seemed to be my only sense that was functioning. Where was the smell coming from? Luckily I liked the smell of leather so it wasn’t altogether unpleasant. But the smell wasn’t the important thing. The important thing was sleep.
“Well get on with it,” gruff man said again. “Check her before she gets movement back.”
I was aware enough to feel someone close to me and tugging on my shirt. Even in the dream, the thought of a stranger touching me was terrifying. I tried to scream and punch out in the area of his carotid sinus, but all that came out was a moan and a finger twitch. That was probably the worst part about the nightmare. For the first time in my life, my body wouldn’t do what I told it to do.
The darkness pulled harder at me, erasing the dream from my mind.
When I awoke I could feel my arms and legs. I shuddered at the memory of a dream in which I couldn’t feel anything. My limbs were numb, but it was more a numbness from sleeping in an awkward position for too long. But after a moment when I realized that I couldn’t move, I wondered if I was still in the dream.
My arms ached behind me, and something dug into my wrists and ankles where they were bound tightly. Then panic began to set in. I tried to steady my breathing, telling myself that this was just a dream. Once I’d calmed enough to breathe normally I began to take stock of my surroundings, and realized that this wasn’t a dream. Or a nightmare. My wrists hurt too much for me to be sleeping. And the black leather that my face was smashed up against smelled too real.
Just as I realized that I was packed into the backseat of a car, presumably the same one that followed me all day, I heard voices nearby.
“Think we should check to make sure she’s alive?” a gravelly voice said.
“It wasn’t a big enough dose to kill her was it?” The other guy asked, his voice rising. I assumed it was the one who had asked me for help. I still didn’t know his name.
Before I clued them into the fact that I was awake, I took a few moments to try to formulate a tentative route of escape. I had nothing.
“I don’t know Ant. It wasn’t even supposed to knock her out, but it did.”
Ant? Who names their kid ant? No wonder he’s on the wrong side of the law. He really never had a chance with a name like that. Or was that a nickname?
The only possibility I could think of was waiting until they were close enough, then doing my best impersonation of a bucking bronco, and hope I could head butt them hard enough to knock them out, without knocking myself unconscious at the same time. And then I would…wiggle toward the door and open it with my toes?
That actually sounded pretty doable.
Abe always thought my feet belonged in a circus sideshow because I could pick stuff up with my toes. At first I just did it because I was too lazy to bend over to get stuff on the floor, but then making Abe nuts became its own incentive to continue the practice. Who knew that all those times I was grossing him out with my autonomous toes I was actually developing a survival skill?
Luckily, I was wearing slides today. I would definitely need the full dexterity of my toes at my disposal. Also, I thanked my lucky juju that I had opted for jeans today, as opposed to the skirt I had been considering, because the upcoming rodeo would have been quite a show.
I decided to wait until both assailants were within bucking range to initiate my plan. Eventually they started talking again.
“How could you have miscalculated by so much? It’s been an hour. We were supposed to be in and out in five minutes.”
By his tone I assumed their entertainment for the hour I’d been passed out was round after round of this same argument.
“Will you stop bringing it up? She looked a lot taller in the videos. I calculated the dose for a bigger person. Okay?”
Videos? They’d been watching videos of me? That was ϋber-creepy. And why would it be important for their kidnapee to be conscious? Also, why would they assume it’s necessary to tie up a sedated girl? They must know about my judo or wing chun.
“And you didn’t happen to notice how tall her shoes were?” Help guy asked.
“You know what? I’m not getting paid to be second guessed by a punk kid. I’ve been in this business since you were in kindie-garten. I don’t care who your Daddy is. Got it? Discussion closed,” Gravel Man said.
He waited a full minute before asking, “You going to tell The Boss?” He sounded nervous when he mentioned The Boss.
The guy called “Ant” let out a long breath through pursed lips.
“Let’s not. For now.” I heard the leather creak as the one in the driver seat readjusted. “We don’t even have anything to tell him, except that we accidently put her under and she hit her head, and we aren’t sure if it’s her.”
Speaking of which, my head did hurt.
“How we going to know if it’s her?” I decided to peek at the two who were speaking. I opened my eyes to watch the conversation from the backseat. Gravel Man sat awkwardly in the driver’s seat, waiting for the other to answer.
I said he sat awkwardly, because although the soft, leather seats of the Benz were comfortable, he just looked too big for the space allotted to him, like those big men who drive half-cars—a.k.a. hatchbacks—and take up the whole front seat.
When gravel man turned to look at the one sitting in the passenger seat, I had to refrain from gasping because his face was shaped like a boulder, lumpy and pitted all over. Or was it more like a rock-shaped face? Either way, he must have had one gnarly case of acne when he was a teen, and then have had various disfiguring accidents besides. If he hadn’t shot me with a blow dart gun I might have felt bad for him.
The guy in the passenger seat though, he was the hot guy who asked me for help, as suspected. From where I was lying, his hair looked glossy and almost black. He ran his hands part of the way through it, then started pulling it at the roots. Before answering, he took a deep breath.
“I say we ask her about the scar. That is, if she ever wakes up.” He said this with a sharp look at the behemoth seated next to him. I closed my eyes quickly when they both turned to look at me.
“What do we do if it isn’t her?” the hot one asked.
I cautiously opened my eyes again to see that they had both turned back toward the front. They were definitely searching for a specific person. The question was: was it me? And if so, why do they want me?
“Well, let’s just hope it is her, so there won’t be a problem.”
Although I wasn’t sure what they would do to me if I didn’t happen to be the person they were looking for, I was grateful to be dealing with kidnappers instead of rapists or something. Maybe I could try diplomacy before making a run at rodeo queen, because if I didn’t manage to knock them out I would probably want more than just my nimble toes to protect me, and kung fu wouldn’t work very well with my hands and feet tied.
I watched the two in the front sitting in silence. Ant leaned his head against the headrest. Boulder Man hunched in his cramped space. I decided to make some noise.
Groaning, I pulled at my bonds. Both their heads snapped toward me. The liar, who asked me for help, jumped out of the car and opened the door near my head. This was somewhat startling because I wasn’t in any position to defend myself—excluding a wild, wild, west display—and I wasn’t accustomed to feeling this helpless.
Squatting on the ground outside the car, he brushed the hair from my face with gentle hands, stroking it gently. He stared into my eyes as if trying to read something written there. So, I gave him a message to read, loud and clear. It said, “I am going to rip you to shreds when I figure out how to get untied.”
I think he understood my glare or at least the basic idea anyway, because he sighed and withdrew his warm hand. He was better at nonverbal communication than Erica. That was for sure.