Chapter 10 Marla
MARLA
Everything went so quiet. There were footsteps. Ranger left. And then… nothing. He did say they were all going down into the basement, though, so I hunkered back down into the makeshift bed in the closet.
I brought the phone back to my face.
My ears twitched at every little creak and crack. I busied myself with some more offline games. This time, I found something reminiscent of Duck Hunt.
I swear, that dog scared the hell out of me when I was a kid.
I nuzzled down against the cool pillow and pressed on the screen, seeing what the little makeshift gun would do if I did. There wasn’t really a tutorial, so I settled on experimenting.
My phone dinged out.
“Huh?” I asked as my eyes darted to the notification banner.
I wasn’t sure what I expected the notification to be. But I certainly didn’t expect it to tell me that I had a text message waiting. I didn’t quite catch the number that flashed with it. Just a message saying that I had a video waiting for me.
A video?
Did Ranger send me something?
I thought nothing of it as I closed out the game mid-shoot. My eyes darted around the screen until I looked at the bottom home scroll and found a little number one bubbled up in the corner of one of the icons. That must be where the text messages were, so I clicked on it.
Only to be faced with a text from a number I didn’t recognize.
I furrowed my brow as I tried remembering back to what Ranger said. Didn’t he say he programmed numbers into the phone? I didn’t open the text message. My hackles were already raised once more. But I did navigate to my contacts list.
And I saw names of people I only vaguely remembered.
“Doc,” I whispered to myself. “Wrecker. Scout.”
I paused. Who the hell was Scout?
I smiled softly when I scrolled across Ranger’s name. He didn’t put his nickname in my phone. He put his actual name.
Miles.
With a little black heart beside it.
The message.
Oh.
Right.
I shook my head as I double clicked on the screen and went right back to the text message at hand.
The fact that the number wasn’t registered in my phone didn’t sit well with me.
Was I supposed to get messages like that?
I peered through the grated slates of the wooden closet door. I chewed on my lower lip.
Should I go get Ranger?
Interrupt that meeting he’s in?
No, his boss would probably get mad.
No, that’s not what he called him. Who was it? Cap?
President?
That sounded more like a word I heard thrown around here.
My phone dinged again, like it was reminding me it was still there. My hand trembled. Fuck it. I was tired of being scared all the time. No harm had come to me in two weeks.
Why would it start now?
I did remember one thing: Ranger said he had these phones on lockdown.
So maybe I just got a text message or a video or something from a secondary phone of his.
Or even Cap’s. Maybe it was one of the girls?
Oh man, maybe it was spam. Maybe I could tease Ranger about that.
‘See? You said you locked down these phones, but they’re still trying to reach me about my car’s extended warranty. ’
That made me giggle, and I ended up opening the text message.
?The video auto-played.
“What the—?”
I didn’t even get a chance to register that there was a physical text message along with it as well. All I knew was that when I opened the text, the play button on the screen disappeared and it blew up full-screen on my phone.
Without me having to touch a button.
“Just a smartphone thing,” I whispered to myself.
But my skin was already crawling.
And I knew that wasn’t good.
If there was anything I’d come to learn during my captivity, it was to trust my body. My body knew things before my brain knew things, and I had to get very comfortable with that. I swallowed hard as the video started off with nothing but a black screen.
Maybe this was a prank.
Maybe this was just someone being bored and trying to get a rise out of me.
Until a familiar face popped up onto my screen.
“What?” I asked breathlessly as I bolted upright in bed.
“Uh!” a woman grunted out as a fist came out of nowhere, clocking her in the mouth.
“Em,” I whispered as my eyes widened.
Oh. My fucking. God.
“Tell us what you know,” a voice off the screen glowered.
No, that couldn’t be here.
She was deployed.
There was no fucking way.
You’ve been gone for months.
“How the fuck did you find us!?” a voice bellowed.
Another fist came onto the screen and clocked her in her nose.
“No,” I whispered as I scurried onto my knees, cradling my phone in both of my hands.
I watched as my best friend’s split lip dribbled blood down onto her chin. I watched as her eye swelled shut right before my very eyes. Lizzie-Pizzie. Eminem. My best friend growing up.
My best friend now.
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” I whimpered as I tried casting off the blankets I’d tangled myself in.
“Tell us what you know!” a man bellowed.
“I know that you took my best friend, and I want to know where the fuck she is!” Em shrieked.
I heard the sound of another punch and realized that at some point in time, my phone dropped from my hands.
I stood onto wobbled legs, my body feeling weird being on its own feet again.
I’d been laying down so much, trying to rest. Trying to heal.
Trying to find a way forward through all of this bullshit.
And this entire time, my best friend had gone after me.
“Oh no,” I whimpered as I scrambled to pick up the phone.
“We’re going to ask you one last time,” the man glowered as I heard a gun cock.
My eyes widened in horror and helplessness as I watched the nameless, faceless entity hold a fucking gun to my best friend’s head.
My eyes darted around her body, assessing her condition.
She had ligature marks around her neck. It looked like blood stained one side of her face, just beneath her ear, when she turned her head enough.
Why did she turn her head like that? Her eyes kept bouncing around.
Was she trying to clock her surroundings?
Was there more than one person with her?
I shuddered at the thought.
I hated it when there was more than one of them.
She wasn’t too badly bruised. The bruises weren’t that deep.
Not as deep as I remembered the bruises being on me.
But did that mean they were healing? Were they new?
How long had she been with them? What the hell happened?
Focus. I had to focus. The bruises were there, and that was the only thing that mattered.
I continued studying the footage. Her nose sat a bit crooked on her face.
My stomach lurched at that. She favored one of her sides, slouching a little bit to the left.
Was that her left? Or my left? Fuck, why didn’t I pay attention more in school?
I wasn’t sure how cameras reflected angles and all that.
I never was good at science, or whatever the hell that kind of natural intelligence was.
Being a librarian where I didn’t have to interact with people suited me just fine.
I shook my head softly and went back to studying the video as it replayed yet again.
Her long hair had been chopped off at wild marks, making it uneven. Fucking hell, she’d hate that. Her hair had to be pristine for the Navy. I clocked a shadow moving in the background, but no one stepped into the frame.
And that was when I realized that there was a part of the video that had no audio to it.
She said something to the man, but the sound cut out.
She had a fierce look in her eye, though.
Did I turn down the volume or something?
I didn’t bother checking, all I did was study.
Her hands were bound behind her back. She was on her knees on what looked like a broken tiled floor.
I didn’t recognize any of her surroundings.
Not the walls. Not the hands hitting her. Not even the gun.
Which was weird, because they all had designer guns.
Wait a second, did I tell Ranger that?
I remembered something.
A voice pouring through the phone again caught my attention. The camera panned off my best friend before nothing but lips, chin, and mangy yellow teeth came into view.
“We know what you’re doing,” the man said with a deep, dark voice. It sounded almost… modulated. “Back off, or we come for your women.”
And then, the video went black.
I reached for my arm and pinched it. Once. Twice. Three times, just to make sure I wouldn’t wake up. Then, I did the one thing I shouldn’t have done.
I played the video again.
I watched those fists pummel my childhood best friend.
The one woman who was always in my corner, no matter what happened to us.
Bile crept up the back of my throat as I studied other facets of her body.
How crooked her back was. Did they hurt her?
Broken something? That would end her military career.
That would take her life away from her.
“We know what you’re doing,” the voice started again. “Back off or we come for your—”
I turned off the video and my vision dripped with red.
“WHERE! IS! MY! EMINEM!?” I screamed out.
Lizzie.
Oh my God.
My poor Lizzie.
“Miiiiiiiiiiiiiles!” I shrieked as I ripped the closet door open.
I damn near took the fucking thing off its hinges, I threw open the wooden door so quickly. I stumbled out of the cramped space, my legs not quite underneath me as my feet got tangled up in the blankets. I surged toward the bed, catching myself before my phone fumbled out of my grasp.
That was when I heard footsteps rushing down the hallway.
“Lizzie, I’m coming,” I whispered softly as I squinted against the harsh light of his bedroom.
I had to get to Ranger.
Just get to him.
He could fix everything else.
He even said so himself.
“LIZZIIIIIIIIIE!” I screamed out as I grabbed my phone and shoved myself away from the bed.
“Marla!”
I heard Ranger in the distance.
“Miles!” I cried out as I found my way to his bedroom door and ripped it open.
“Marla! I’m coming!” he called out, his voice getting closer.
The footsteps, rumbling louder.
I needed the military man. I needed the cold, hardened man who came for me. That had saved me.
We had to go after my best friend.
“RANGEEEER!” I yelled as I stumbled out into the hallway. “IT’S LIZZIIIIIIE! SHE NEEDS OUR HEEEEEELP!”