33. Not My First Kidnapping
NOT MY FIRST KIDNAPPING
CHARLIE
I am a highly trained technical operations officer in an intelligence agency.
I can’t believe that when we first saw the opening to the tunnel, I didn’t immediately call Emerson and request backup.
Nope. Instead, I have us shine our flashlights down it!
And then just take pictures to attach to a text!
Okay, granted, we thought that Giovanni was on a different continent.
I guess we should’ve realized that a smuggler as skilled at evading detection as Giovanni is would’ve figured out how to smuggle himself.
And we’ve seen so little movement with this building that it didn’t occur to me that anyone might be around.
But still. Had Jace, or Miles, or Ledger done exactly what I did, I would’ve given them so much grief for it! And they are highly trained in the field and could hold their own in a situation like this. I am not .
What I am is someone who is currently getting every childhood fear of hers triggered as we walk down a tunnel that has probably been around since Prohibition.
(And I’m not just basing that off the number of spider webs in the corners.
The floor is packed dirt, and the walls are brick.
Not that I’m a brick expert, but they do look like they’ve been around since at least the 1920s.
I bet Owen could probably tell exactly what year they were made.
Maybe even where they were made. That’s probably one of those random historical facts he has memorized.)
As far as tunnels go, they’re decently-sized.
Nearly three-foot-wide hallways, tall enough that no one has to crouch, not even Giovanni’s taller stooge, and there are several spaces that are much wider.
They were probably used for alcohol storage.
Now, at least one of them is being used as a smuggler’s compartment and one as a sort of command center, where a third stooge is standing at a table with some papers and a lamp on it.
So we have enough space, but we’re still trapped.
This place is nothing like the warehouse where I was kept as a kidnapped preschooler, but I immediately recognize the fear I’m feeling that my family won’t know where I am as the same.
My hands are clammy, and I am simultaneously uncomfortably hot and freezing cold.
I shiver, and Owen puts his arm around me .
It seems that Giovanni and his guys are in the middle of trying to get the items they have down here moved elsewhere, especially because they know they have government agencies watching them, and preferably moved to buyers that they already have lined up.
He seems too busy to deal with us yet, and maybe also like he doesn’t have the spare brainpower to figure out what to do with us.
So, they stick us in one of the wider spaces that they haven’t filled with something else.
A space that is right in their line of sight, so there’s no sneaking out.
Owen and I are sitting on the ground, our backs against a brick wall (that I definitely checked for spiders before leaning against). I can’t keep my eyes off the gun at Giovanni’s waist. The silent threat.
“Are you okay?” Owen asks.
I nod without taking my eyes off the gun.
“Charlie,” he says, and waits until I look at him. “We need to get out of here.”
I look back at our captors. “We can’t. We’re trapped.
” My mind just keeps swirling around that one fact.
We’re stuck down here. They’re watching us.
They have a gun. This is the guy that my whole department has been trying to find for weeks.
And they have us. I’m supposed to be safe behind a computer!
Not in the field. Not captured. Not where no one knows where I am.
The hair is lifting on my arms, my heart is racing, and I’m struggling to keep the shaking in my hands from being noticeable and my breathing from being too fast. Every part of my body is telling me to hide, yet there is nowhere to hide.
There’s only out here, in the open, where I can most easily be seen.
“Charlie, look at me.” I manage to tear my eyes off the men and look at Owen. He puts his hands on the sides of my face, holding my focus on him. “We’re going to be okay.”
I nod a bit. I like the words. I don’t believe the words. We’re trapped. We’re trapped. We’re trapped .
“Breathe with me.”
I know I need to listen. I try to focus on the rise and fall of Owen’s chest. Feel his hands on the sides of my head, the brick wall at my back, the dirt on the ground, the way his bent leg is pressed up against mine. And I breathe. Slower. Deeper. More sure.
After a few minutes, the swirling fog in my mind begins to subside, and I can think a bit more.
When my heart rate feels like it’s not racing quite as fast, I glance back at the men.
They seem to be focused on their own issues, so Owen drops his hands from cradling my head and straightens his leg as I slowly slide my cell phone from my pocket and unlock the screen.
It still has the text open that I was getting ready to send to Emerson and Blake.
“No bars,” I breathe. There’s not even a hint of a bar.
Owen’s eyes go wide .
I sneakily type the words CAPTURED and HELP .
I don’t even bother to say that we are at The Shadowridge—they’re smart enough to figure that one out.
Then I tap send, even though I know it won’t go through until we are out of this tunnel, which will be kind of pointless then, and slip it back into my pocket.
I can tell that Owen’s mind is spinning, so I pull myself together.
I am almost never in any actual danger, but I have proximity to danger all the time.
I experience it vicariously every time I guide Jace through a mission.
Owen doesn’t. I need to be calm for him.
I know how Jace thinks from watching him in situations similar to this, so I can handle this.
I breathe slowly and deeply still, and I think.
Silent but Scary keeps looking at me like he’s worried I might bolt, so he needs to keep himself prepared to tackle me at any moment, and it’s making that regulated breathing a bit more difficult.
Be strong for Owen . He just calmed me—returning the favor is the least I can do.
I remember I have something I can tell Owen that will help keep him from being overly focused and stressed about our situation.
And Reese will be so proud of me if I do.
Besides, what better time to tell the story about when I was so vulnerable and exposed than at a time when I’m feeling most vulnerable and exposed?
Well, probably any other time—during any other situation—is a better choice.
I take a deep breath and hold it for a moment, because it came in shaky and I need it to not come out the same, then I exhale.
I can do this. Owen and I are sitting so close that our bodies are practically touching from shoulder to ankle, so I can talk softly and he’ll still hear.
“This is not my first time being kidnapped. Well, technically, we aren’t kidnapped; we’ve been abducted. Or held against our will, I guess.”
He looks over at me in shock. “This isn’t your first time?”
I shake my head. “I was three years old. I was with my brothers and our nanny at a park. Blake and I were playing in the woodchips in the playground area when a woman with a dog walked by. Blake loved dogs, so he ran after her to see if he could pet it. I like dogs, so I followed, but I got distracted along the way by a caterpillar. The next thing I knew, I was being lifted up by a man who then ran with me across the grass to a van that was waiting. As soon as we got inside, the van took off before he even pulled the door shut.”
Owen sucks in a breath, entwines his fingers in mine, and gives my hand a squeeze.
Outside of telling people when it first happened, I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it more than just saying that it happened when someone else brings it up, like Zoe did. Then I shut down all thoughts of it. A part of me wants to do exactly that right now. To hide. I push through it, though.
“I always say I don’t really remember it, but there are parts that I do.
We were in some kind of open space, probably a warehouse.
There were five men and one woman there—none I had seen before.
I remember being afraid. I knew there was nothing I could do, and I felt so helpless.
Not that you don’t feel pretty helpless as a three-year-old at any given time anyway.
But I knew that my family wouldn’t know how to find me. ”
“How long was it before they did?”
“Almost twenty-four hours. But I couldn’t see the sun where they kept me, so I thought it was much longer. I’d never gone that long without my family before. But I wasn’t hurt. I made it back all safe and sound.
“It was hard on everyone in my family. Blake, especially, because he doesn’t think it would’ve happened if he hadn’t gone over to pet the dog. It really spooked all of us. It had just been an ordinary day, you know? No one saw it coming. We had all felt pretty helpless.”
Owen wraps an arm around me and pulls me tightly to him, and it calms my nerves.
“When I was standing out in that field, squatting to get a good look at that caterpillar, I was in a wide open space. I was so exposed to danger.” I glance around and force a chuckle. “Kind of like how I’m feeling right now.”
Owen reaches his other arm around to give me a squeeze, and I just soak in the feeling of being safe in his arms for a long moment.
When he drops his arm, I decide I want to continue.
For the first time since I was three, I didn’t downplay what happened or brush it off.
I showed more of myself to Owen than I ever show to anyone.
I can let myself be fully seen by him. “I like to believe that getting kidnapped was something that only affected me when I was three. I mean, that was a long time ago! I didn’t want to believe that something that happened when I was so little could still affect me as an adult.
“But since we met, I’ve been starting to realize how many things that I just assumed were part of my personality—like not wanting to be seen—can be traced back to that.
I’m sure there are even more parts that I haven’t realized yet.
And I don’t know what to even do with that information.
” I let out a breath of a chuckle. “I guess it just makes me feel like I’d felt when I was three and captured—helpless.
And I really don’t like that feeling, so I try to stay away from it. ”
“You’re not helpless,” Owen says in a low voice.
“There are just parts that you haven’t given yourself time to figure out yet.
You will, though. I mean, look at you—you’ve been brave since preschool!
And you’re one of the smartest and strongest people I know.
On top of that, your sunny outlook is so bright that it can turn even the darkest corners into day.
It can find every crack that fear tries to hide in.
I’ve got no doubt that you’ll figure this out.
And I’ll be here for you in whatever way you need me. ”
Instead of sharing with Owen being dangerous, like I’ve always felt it is, it somehow feels like the safest thing I’ve ever done. Which is saying something, given the fact that Giovanni, Man Bun Menace, Silent but Deadly, and Shoulders-for-Days are all hurrying around and talking in stressed tones.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you. Especially since you trusted me with your trauma much sooner.”
“Hey, someone had to kick off the Sad Backstory Olympics. I took one for the team.”
I laugh. Quietly, of course. We’ve got bad guys in the room, after all. And I’m still me, so I don’t want their attention on us.
I’m glad I told Owen. It feels good that he knows.
It feels good to no longer carry around the weight of not telling him.
And it feels extra good because it has definitely calmed him and taken his focus off the stressful situation, which was kind of the point in the first place.
Well, that, and fulfilling my promise to Reese.
I hear Giovanni say a buyer’s name, and log it in my head.
The whole time we’ve been down here, I’ve been keeping an ear out for names that Giovanni or his goons mention, trying to memorize them.
I wish I could type them on my phone without being noticed.
My brothers are so good at memorizing everything because they have to be.
I don’t. I always have my computer right there, so I’m not as practiced.
And there have definitely been times when I’ve been focusing on Owen and not paying attention at all.
As long as Giovanni is giving orders to pack up specific artifacts and giving instructions to Silent but Deadly and Shoulders-for-Days on where to take them, there’s not much we can do. And if Owen and I stop talking, we’re both going to go back to being stressed out and anxious.
Plus, I realize how much I trust Owen. I know he’ll be with me through thick and thin.
I look at the four men we share this secret tunnel with.
Not only are they at least a dozen feet away, but they’re all scrambling to take care of everything quickly.
I know they can’t hear our quiet talking, so I guess now’s as good a time as any.
“Since we’re on the subject of sharing things we never share, I’ve got another doozy for you. ”