My instincts went numb as the world around me became a dizzying whirl of colours. Trees crossed my vision in slashes of green and someone was talking to me as I was lead to a place where I could sit down. From there, it could've been seconds or hours of disorientation before I gained the consciousness to take in what was happening, and when I did, I was on my knees in shadowy darkness.
The first thing I noticed was the cold, dirty ground. A moment later, the blackness revealed itself in the form of a blindfold, and panic rose in me as nightmare became reality.
I let out a guttural scream, hearing my voice echo off the walls of what had to be a large room, "no, please." My hands were tied in front of me from elbow to wrist, allowing for limited movement, and when I reached up to try to feel the blindfold, a voice came out of thin air.
"Wouldn't do that if I were you." I shouted again out of surprise and fear, pulse pounding as my blood filled with adrenaline. Facing the direction the voice had come from, I tried to keep my thoughts clear.
"Who are you." I asked cautiously. "What do you want?"
"I'm just the delivery guy, sweetheart. Sit tight, he won't be too long." I didn't recognize the voice, or have any clue of where I might be, all I knew was that I was in very real danger.
I whimpered, unable to stand my own helplessness. What time was it? Had Harry come home from work?
"How did you find me?" I pressed for information, hoping I could get him talking even just a little. There was no answer. "Hello? Tell me where I am!" I demanded, knowing it was no use but desperate anyway. Still the room stayed silent. Frustration coursed me and I began to scream, begging for help for all of two seconds before a rough hand was over my mouth.
"Do you want a gag, too?" The threatening voice asked, "wouldn't bother me at all to find one." His fingers brushed down my cheek and I sneered away his touch. When I stayed silent he spoke again.
"Good girl. You behave and I'm sure they'll be much kinder to you later." He dropped his hand to my shoulder, brushing long strands of hair away from my neck.
"Don't fucking touch me." I shuffled backwards. The callused hand found my hair and in one movement forced my head back roughly.
"You do not make the rules right now, in case that wasn't clear." He whispered in my ear.
Just then, his phone rang.
Letting go of me, the man stood up and faced away, not bothering to hide his conversation.
"How far off are you?"
There was a pause, and his voice dropped.
"She's awake now." Another pause. "I'll wait."
He clicked off the phone.
My jaw rattled as I shivered, both from the cold and from my terrifying anxiety. Who was coming? Samuel? It had to be. I couldn't go back there!
I scolded myself for believing I was free of this. Harry had seemed so sure, how could he have been so wrong? They found me at the park, barely four blocks from his house. Did that mean they knew where he lived? I clenched my jaw in an effort not to cry.
"Hey, you don't have to do this you know." I said, as calmly as I could. "You can still be a good person."
"Have you been a good person?" The voice asked rhetorically, so much closer than I'd been expecting. "Coasting by on your looks until the right person came along? How did you manage to meet someone so willing to spend that kind of money on you, Eve? A million dollar pussy? I highly doubt it." Everything he said made my head spin. He clearly thought he knew me, but what was this about a million dollars? Had Harry really spent that much? I didn't have time to consider it, because the faceless man was suddenly upon me.
"Wanna show me what a million dollar pussy looks like, princess?" His voice was husky as he put his hands on me, one on my leg and the other pulling my hair so my head was tilted back painfully.
"Ow! What the fuck, get off me!" I pulled my head out of his grasp and spat everything in my mouth at him. Even blindfolded, my aim couldn't have been too bad, because he growled and the next thing I felt was a fist connecting with my cheek. Everything went black.
**
Harry over-poured his third whiskey of the night.
When he got home, he'd been expecting an easy night. On the coffee table he dropped a pile of job openings and applications he'd been collecting, just in case Eve wanted to look through it, but instead he found the house empty. Helga came in half an hour later, a worried look on her face and a cell phone in her hand... Eve's cell phone.
"Harry, I'm sorry, I can't find Eve, and she forgot her phone. She's never been gone this long before..." The frown on her face deepened.
"When did she leave?" His reasonable mind tried to piece together a timeline.
"Maybe 3:30? I left to look for her when I realized she didn't have it." Harry pulled his fingers through his hair, trying not to overreact.
"Okay, maybe she's shopping or something and just lost track of time. Go home Hal, this isn't your fault."
The look she gave him mirrored his own anxiousness.
"Call me for anything, and keep me posted."
"I will."
...That was three hours ago.
Now, all he knew was that Eve had gone for a walk, left her phone behind and simply not come back. He'd phoned his lawyers, but they'd been nearly as confused as he was. By all accounts, Samuel had made no effort to come looking for Eve or Harry.
Their contingency plan had been working. Keeping themselves safe from a Samuel Seville backlash was a big part of why it had been so stressful to plan, and it included bugging Samuel's vehicle during the meet-up. Anytime he, or anyone else within 10 feet of the car said the words, 'Eve, Harry, blackmail,' or a few other select keywords, it would trigger a recording that got sent back to Alvin and Jamie. It was more than illegal, and completely inadmissible if it came to court, but it was a method of staying safe.
They'd been happy to discover, though Samuel was aggravated, that he was a business-first kind of man, and he cared more about getting money back from Falkland than about retrieving Eve. Of course, Harry knew this already, which made for an even more frustrating scenario in his living room.
He finished the drink, feeling the buzz in his blood that told him he needed to stop. If Eve wasn't coming back on her own, he needed to have his head on straight to find her.
He swiped his keys from the table.
And he would find her.
**
When I came around for the second time, I found my circumstances hadn't changed. The strangest relief came with the knowledge that I hadn't been transported, followed by the rigid reminder that I was bound and blinded.
Still, I knew my opportunity to escape would be gone once I was in Samuel's hands.
The hopefulness I was only a little muted by a throbbing pain in my face, and in addition, my arms below the elbow were unfeeling from the loss of circulation.
It had to be late. Harry had to have noticed I was gone by now. Even though the days were warm in May, the nights were still brisk, and right now, a cool draft was coming from behind me. No other sounds could be heard, and as I lay fetal position on the dirty ground, I prayed I was alone.
Slowly, I reached my hands up to the blindfold on my face, half-expecting the chastising voice to make itself known again. When it didn't, and my hand found the cloth around my eyes, pain shot through my cheek and right eye. I touched the sore spot gingerly, it was definitely swollen from the hit I'd been dealt, and the tight cloth was irritating as hell. Using my numb fingers, I began to try to loosen the knot. It held at first, but as I felt the first small slip of it loosening, a loud metal grinding sound from behind me stunned me still. I pulled my hands away from my eyes, furious to be interrupted before I could find out where I was.
But I didn't risk getting knocked out again.
"Rise and shine, darlin, your ride is here." The gruff voice spoke, pulling me up by the elbow. I grimaced as the pain in my arms worsened.
We were walking toward the cold, towards a door I couldn't see. I stretched my legs out while walking, glad to find they weren't numb like my arms. In the distance, a car engine could be heard, and I realized he was there, Samuel, waiting for me.
I was losing my only chance at escape.
Be smart, Everlee. The words echoed in my brain like a beacon, exactly as they had done once before, in a voice that wasn't my own. Adrenaline coursed through me. As we neared the vehicle he let go of my arm, moving ahead of me, I assumed, to open the car door.
Developing a plan on the spot, I did the first thing I could think of. Faking a fall and dropping to the ground, I bought time. I heard the man let out a 'huh?' sound as I fell, and I quickly reached up, yanking the blindfold over my head hard, ignoring the scream of pain my cheek felt as the cloth came off.
I looked up just as the man was turning to me, a sneer on his ugly face. He was tall and skinny, not at all as terrifying as he sounded before.
Even in the black night, my surroundings were instantly recognizable. I was at the end of a driveway, coming out of the old warehouse behind Falkland orphanage. There would be a fence that lead to a small woods on my left, and rest of the field, leading to the Fawk on my right. It was the sweetest discovery I'd ever known... after all, these were my stomping grounds.
The voice from the front seat muttered angrily to hurry up. I couldn't tell if it was Samuel, but the skinny man was upon me now, reaching for my arm which I yanked away. He lunged again, this time for my hair. I winced, anger flaring up like a catalyst, propelling me to defend myself. With no weapons and my arms tied in front of me, my options were limited. I weaved my fingers together, making a club out of my arms that ended in a knuckled fist. As I was pulled to my feet, I kicked off the ground, swinging my arms with all the strength I could muster.
Between one good eye and one swollen one, my vision was blurry, but the momentum of my body landed a blow directly to the skinny man's groin.
Three things happened. The skinny man bent over, winded and groaning. He let go of my head, giving into the pain as he held his most sensitive external organ, and I found my footing.
It was my chance, and I wasn't wasting it.
I ran, ignoring protests from the front seat. When the driver's door clicked open, I ran faster. The fence was only a hundred feet in front of me, three horizontal wooden beams held up by posts spaced about ten feet apart. I'd hopped over enough times to know it would hit me just under boob level. Looking over my left shoulder through my good eye, I realized the driver was not only out of the car, but in a full blown sprint behind me.
Fear bubbled through me but I looked ahead. He'd be on me in seconds if I didn't hurry, and when I reached the fence, I threw my arms over first, hooking my elbows on the beam to pull the rest of my body. He was closing in as I hopped on one foot, struggling to get the second foot down. When I managed it, I stumbled, and he was there, reaching through the wooden beams to grab my left leg. It was the best thing he could've done, because had he jumped the fence, he would've been on me before I could escape. Instead, his hand through the lowest beam gave me a target, and I kicked my right leg with all my strength, hyperextending his elbow and forcing his hand off me. He growled out in anger and pain, and as I stood up, I saw the tall skinny man running to catch up as well. I turned in the other direction and ran, into the trees, away from the brutality I'd been subject too.
The men were over the fence now, but I had a head start. I knew that if I kept running, I'd get to a manufacturing plant, but if I veered right, I'd stay in the neighbourhood. Maybe, if I could loop around the long way, I could find help...
The quiet behind me made me nervous, and I slowed down for the sake of staying silent. Switching directions, I began moving from tree to tree, hiding and bending low as I moved. It took barely ten seconds for the men to catch up to where I had just been standing, and I stopped altogether, hoping they would carry on in the wrong direction. They stopped too, barely three car lengths away, listening for me as I held my breath.
I hoped to God my racing heart wouldn't give me away.
**
Hope you enjoyed it!
You know the drill xx
E