I feel the car come to a stop. I open my eyes to see a convenience store out the window, and squint due to the sudden brightness outside. I sit up from leaning on the door, realizing I'd fallen asleep. I look at the tiny clock on the dash, that reads 12:10, then to my left to see Mama rummaging through her purse. She looks up at me. "Feeling better Buggie?" Well, I do feel a bit better now after napping for a bit, but I still feel bad for making Mama worry...and everything else.
"I'm sorry Mama. If didn't I like adventures so much, we wouldn't have gone on one, and you wouldn't have been scared and drove fast, and you wouldn't have worried about me either, and-"
"Bennie." She says cutting me off. "None of this is your fault, and I'm sorry if I scared you Bennie...I-I'll explain everything later Buggie, but for now I just need you to trust me okay Bug?" She looks at me with kind eyes, no longer filled with tears, and gives me one of her signature warm smiles. I smile back and nod.
"I trust you Mama." She reaches over to brush my hair out of my face, then holds my head in her hands. She looks and me for a second, and then looks off somewhere for a second as if she had something on her mind.
"Wait, right here, Buggie!", she says in an excited tone. She pushes a button I can't see on her side of the car, and I hear the sound of the trunk popping open. She opens the car door and rushes to the back of the car. In seconds she closes the trunk, but I can't see what she pulled out. She holds it low enough to where I can't see it in my view of the window. She opens the car door smiling at me and hiding whatever it is behind the open door. I stare at her with anticipation until, she swiftly maneuvers her hand from behind the door. She holds out in front of her what looks to be...a panda bear! A plush panda bear of course. It's huge, and looks so soft and fluffy. Climbs in and hands it to me, and I immediately give it a squeeze. Panda bears are one of my favorite animals. When I was four Mama took me to the Zoo, and we nearly spent the whole day just looking at the Pandas.
"His name is Alvar", Mama says to me after a while. I smile at her, and give Alvar another squeeze. As I hold Alvar in my arms, Mama grabs her purse, and closes the car door, then looks in at me out the window.
"Think you'll be okay with Alvar while Mommy's in the store?" I nod at her. "Good! Make sure she stays safe Alvar." I giggle and make Alvar wave at her as she walks away. When she's at the door she looks back at me for a second, with a troubled look on her face that disappears within seconds. I just brush this one off since Mama's been acting strange all day. Maybe she's just very tired.
~~~
It's been a couple minutes since Mommy went inside the store. In the mean time I've introduced myself to Alvar told him all about myself, all of my favorite things; favorite colors, animals, movies, snacks, plants, and places to explore. As I was telling Alvar all about our adventure and everything that happened this morning up to now, in the corner of my eye I see a black van park right next to the driver side of Mama's car. I take a mental note of it, and continue talking to Alvar. Not even two words into my conversation with Alvar, I hear a car door slam loudly, turning my head in the direction of the van. A man about the height of Daddy, but stronger looking, stands next the van, looking in my direction. He has a emotionless expression for only a second, when he puts on a friendly smile. "Oh, uh, that was loud wasn't it? Sorry if I scared ya kid!", he says in a friendly way, but his voice was very deep. I'm a little unsettled by this...he's a stranger, and Mama always says to not talk to strangers. I give a shy smile and a nod, then turn my attention back to Alvar, and continue to talk to him in a quieter voice.
"Oh, is that little Panda your friend?" I look up and jump in my seat. The strange man is now standing right next to me, arms resting on my open window. " Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to startle you again." He lets out a chuckle. I force a smile, and hug Alvar very tightly. He strange man , continues to talk to me, asking me lots of questions; What's your name? Where's your Mom? Did your Mom give you that panda bear? Is she inside the store? What does your Mom do for work? Do you have a Father? Do you know where he is? I just keep my head down and respond with, "Um" or "I don't know", not really wanting to answer the questions at all. I hold Alvar close to me and whisper to him low enough so that the man can't hear me, "Alvar, I'm scared, please help me", and squeeze him tighter. I thought my head was low enough so that he wouldn't see my lips move but....
"Hey, kid, what's that you just say? You spoke a bit too quietly I couldn't hear you..." When he spoke that time he sounded kind of off, as if he was threatening me with a simple question. "Hey! Kid! Answer my questions!", he yells at me making me flinch. I hug Alvar as tight as I can with trembling arms. I hear my car door open and look to see the man holding the car door open wide looking at me with angry eyes. The friendly facade was completely gone. "I'm done playing these little games with you kid. You're coming with me!" He reaches over and grabs my arm, attempting to pull me out of my seat, but my seat belt keeps me strapped in. I scream for my Mom and anyone that could be around to help me as he reaches into unbuckle me. Just he plants a hand over my mouth to muffle my screams, I hear a faint voice say, 'Push him away and climb to the backseat. Kick him if he grabs you.'
Assuming the voice is just the quick wit of my conscience, as soon as I hear the click of my seat belt I do just as the voice instructed. Sure enough, as I try to climb to the back seat the man grabs my one of my ankles. I kick him in the face with the other. He staggers backwards in the passenger seat as I fall in the backseat. With Alvar in hand, I unlock the back door and leap out the car running toward the entrance of the store. Overestimated the amount of strength I had in my kick because he recovered very quickly, and has just grabbed me and picked me up from behind I scream and kick holding Alvar to my chest I frantically look around for people but there's no one in sight. I try to turn my head around to see into the store through the windows. Hopefully I can grab the attention of the cashier, and Mama! Mama has to have seen me by now, with all the commotion! I try to look into the store best I can, but I can't see anyone. No one's behind the counter. No one's in the store. I look around at he gas pumps and surrounding parking lot. It's completely empty. Not a single car in sight except for the man's and the family car.
My body becomes completely limp and frozen holding Alvar in my restrained arms. Horrible thoughts flood my mind. Where's Mama? What if something bad happened to Mama? Am I ever gonna get to see her again? What about Daddy? Is Daddy safe? What if Daddy's next? Where is this man gonna take me? The sound of a sliding door brings me out of my zoned out state. I'm still frozen, but I'm still able to look around, and process what's in front of me. I look up to see the van is now open, and two people; another man holding the door of the van, and a woman sitting inside the van, both staring right at me. The new man is a lot bigger than the one holding me. He looks like he could break me without even trying. As I'm being handed over to him, the woman crawls over to help me into the van.
"Allan, what the hell did you do to her?! Poor thing looks scared to death!", she says then pulls me back to where she was sitting and holds me in her lap.
"Marcus, take the wheel, I'm gonna drive the other car back to our place. We can't have leave any traces", he says completely ignoring her. I watch as Allan, walks over to my car and gets in the driver seat, leaning over to close the passenger side door and then his own. Marcus, one of my new captors hops out the van and slides door closed from the outside. It's kinda dark back here due to the windows being tinted so dark. It's also pretty roomy since there's no backseats. In their place are some pillows and see a large fluffy looking blanket lying on the floor in front of me.
The sudden sound of the driver seat door opening makes me jump, which is the first time I've moved something other than my eyes since my capture. The van shakes a bit as Marcus shifts his weight in the front seat, then slams the door. As I hear the sound of the car starting to rumble and the jerk of the van as we start backing away from the store, I start to tremble and feel a sudden dampness trickling down my face. It's strange, I know I'm scared, but I don't feel scared. I feel numb, and really worn out. I just wanna go home. I wanna see Mama, and Daddy.
The woman turns to look at me and smiles but then it fades away. She raises a hand to my face and I flinch at first. "It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you." I tremble a little more as she slowly lowers her hand onto my face, and begins to wipe the tears away. She gives me a soft smile and brings her hand back down. I continue to study her face. She's very pretty, just like Mama, her smile reminds me of her too. She doesn't have Mama's freckles though, and her eyes and hair are darker. It's hard to tell in the darkness, but I'm assuming brown? She has curly hair too but it's much more tame than Mama's and looks more like wavy spirals that fall down to her shoulders. She moves suddenly, reaching for the blanket in front of us, then covers us with it.
"Here now, there you go. You're shaking so much, and I know you're very scared; might be a little cold too. I'm sorry about Al, just try to calm down. We're not gonna hurt you okay?" She gives me another smile. She seems genuine enough, so I use all the strength I have left to give her a small nod. She smile slightly widens, and she sits back and continues to hold me in her lap. I close my eyes, and try to imagine me at home, watching a movie in the living room with Mama. Me sitting in her lap as she holds me, and Daddy throwing a blanket over us to keep us warm. I slump backwards into the lady, feeling exhausted. My arms feel weak from holding Alvar so tightly. I pry my eyes open to see his looking back at me before they snap shut.
'It's gonna be okay, kid. Just get some rest.' That's the last thing I hear as I drift to sleep.
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Author's Note:
I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! I know it's rather long, but here's where the story really starts to take off!XD Sorry to anyone who has/is/or was reading my story. I've been occupied with personal matters, enrolling for college, busy with family, and I just went on a date<3, sooooo I haven't had much time to write. I'll be trying my best to get back on track as I have more events going on! I hope to see you in the next author's note!