9. Audrey
9
AUDREY
“Let’s move!” the man shouted, jumping out of the vehicle after cutting our zip ties.
Spencer grabbed my arms and stared at me with wild eyes. “What the hell is going on?”
I chuckled, prying his hand from one arm. “You need to relax. This is all part of the show.”
“Flying into a barricade is part of the show? Why? Why would that be in any way useful?”
“Look around you, Spencer. We’re still on the highway. Cameras are in the sky.”
“There are no cameras in the sky,” he snapped.
“Helicopters,” I retorted, trying to calm him down. “If you want this to look real, you have to go along with this. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” He jabbed his finger out of the vehicle toward the men rushing around outside. “Those men are crazy! They crashed into a barrier. The one man jumped through a window and then killed that man!”
I glanced to the front with a raised eyebrow. “You really think he’s dead? I can guarantee he’s only passed out. It’s for show. And that man is a stuntman. You’ve seen it all the time on the set. Come on, Spencer. This is what we do. You know how crazy those men are. They’re adrenaline junkies. They live for this stuff.”
“But who are they? I thought you said the men who kidnapped us were taking us to Craig. Now these people are here, and we’re supposed to go with them?”
“Well, I guess Craig set it up so we’d be ‘kidnapped’ and then ‘rescued’.”
“For what possible reason?” Spencer asked. “The whole point was to be taken hostage!”
“Look, I don’t know the logistics of all this. I’m sure Craig has a reason for doing it this way. It’s probably to make sure no one can follow the trail. Like switching vehicles so no one knows where we are. That sort of thing.”
“Now, people! We need to leave now!” the man snapped, shoving his head into the vehicle. “That means get your asses moving.”
I shoved Spencer with a pointed look. The poor man was so scared, and I sort of understood it. He just wasn’t your typical man. He didn’t like action movies. He definitely didn’t have to be the strongest man in the room, and if you wanted to have a drinking contest, he’d walk away. I knew this whole thing would be difficult for him. I just underestimated how far Craig would go to make this look realistic.
As soon as I stepped out of the vehicle, I tugged Spencer’s arm over to the other vehicle and climbed into the back seat with the man who now had Spencer’s puke all over him. I sat in the middle since I was the smallest.
“So, what are we doing now? Heading to the airport?”
“Yes,” the man bit out. “Any idea who that was?”
“Not really.”
His gaze snapped to mine in a questioning glare. “Not really?”
“Well, obviously, they were kidnappers.” Geez, even he knew that.
“Yeah, but what were they after you for?”
I frowned, wondering why he would ask me that. “You know who I am, right?”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. Was it really that much of a mystery or that hard to figure out?
“I’m Slider. That’s Thumper in the driver’s seat and IRIS over there.”
IRIS turned around with a grin. “I saw you in Scorching Desert . That was pretty sweet, although the title could have used some work.”
“Well, I don’t name the movies.” I cocked my head at him. “Isn’t Iris kind of a girly name?”
His grin widened and he turned back around with a chuckle.
“What? Did I miss a joke?” I asked the bald man beside me, already forgetting his name.
“Is he okay?” the man asked, jerking his head at Spencer, who was staring straight ahead, his eyes wide.
I patted Spencer on the leg. “With time. He doesn’t really like guns or anything too violent.”
“Isn’t he an action star?” the man asked.
“What’s your point?” I asked, quirking my eyebrow at him.
He sighed, shaking his head. “As soon as we’re to a safe house, we’ll contact your boss and try to figure out who’s after you.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because we need a list of possible suspects,” he retorted.
Man, this guy was really playing his part well. I had to give it to him, Craig really knew how to make all of this so damn real. “Sure. Safe houses and suspects,” I chuckled.
“You know, you’re awfully calm for being kidnapped and going through a car chase like that.”
“Well, I’ve been through it before.”
His face pinched. “You have?”
“Sure. In Striking Endeavors . It wasn’t exactly like this, but same gist. I know all the things to do in a kidnapping.”
“From a movie,” he said slowly.
“Sure.”
“Oh, I’d love to hear this,” he said, leaning against the door and crossing his arms.
Man, this guy was something else. I looked into his gorgeous puppy dog eyes and pretended they didn’t affect me. After all, he was bald. That had to be some kind of bad thing or something.
“Fine. When you get kidnapped, the first thing you do is make sure you drop something so someone will realize where you’ve been taken. You know, so they have a location to place you at the scene.”
He quirked an eyebrow at me, so I kept going.
“Then, when you’re stuck in the trunk, you need to keep calm and count the streets you cross and pay attention to which direction you’re going.”
“Not bad.”
“And then when the kidnapper opens the trunk, you should stay calm and not do anything to piss them off until someone can come to the rescue.”
He grunted as I smiled, proud of myself for remembering all that.
“So? How did I do?”
“Probably about the worst way to ever be kidnapped.”
My jaw dropped in shock at his blunt dismissal of my amazing abduction skills. “Why would you say that?”
The man driving chuckled. “Because you shouldn’t have been kidnapped to begin with.”
“Well, that’s just silly. If I wasn’t supposed to be kidnapped, it wouldn’t be a thing!”
“What he means is that if you knew how to handle it—if you have been taught what to do, you would know how to defend yourself to avoid putting yourself in that situation, or how to get out of it if the inevitable happened.”
“Nothing could have prepared me for this,” Spencer muttered beside me.
I ignored him and turned back to the man. “Look, Baldy?—”
He huffed out a laugh. “Wow, name-calling already.”
“I just couldn’t remember your name,” I said irritatedly.
“Slider.”
“Whatever.”
“So, we’ll be back to Baldy in two minutes. Got it.”
“The point is, I followed exactly what I should have done.”
“No, you put yourself in the worst possible situation. First of all, dropping something at the scene? Sure, it might be helpful. You know what’s even more helpful?” he asked, cocking his eyebrow at me. “Screaming and fighting back. Go for the most sensitive spots and fight with everything in you. Nuts are good. Twist ‘em, kick ‘em. Do whatever’s necessary. Eyeballs are good also.”
“Ew!” I screeched. “You want me to stick my finger in someone’s eyeball?”
“Very effective tool,” IRIS said, turning around. “It’s very unlikely the eyeball would get caught on your finger.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
“A good throat punch would work if you could pull it off. Hitting a man in the gut is hardly going to be effective unless he’s a puny shit. You’re half a pint and would barely do any damage untrained.”
“I don’t know,” Thumper sighed. “Look at Rae.”
“I said untrained,” Baldy snapped.
“Why do they call you Thumper?” I asked.
“Because I like to eat rabbits.”
“That’s…”
“And when I do, I start thumping my foot on the floor.”
I felt Spencer tap my shoulder and turned around, still not sure what to say about the man and his rabbits.
“I think we should just go home,” he whispered.
“What? And ruin our vacation plans?”
“This is not a vacation,” he hissed. “We’ve been kidnapped!”
“Actually, we’re on our way to the island right now. You heard him. He’s taking us to a safe house. That’s the island.”
He frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty much.” I patted his hand in reassurance and gave him a hug. He was always so nervous about everything. When we got to the “safe house”, he was going to need at least a half day to decompress.
“I hate my life,” he grumbled.
“One more movie and then we’re home free.”
I heard a scoff from behind me and turned a glare on Baldy. “Excuse me. This is a private conversation.”
“We’re all in one vehicle, lady. Nothing’s private.”
“My name is not lady.”
“Yeah, well, my name isn’t Baldy,” he huffed.
“This is gonna be a fun ride,” Thumper muttered.
“I could?—”
“Don’t even think about it,” Thumper glared at IRIS.
“You didn’t even listen to what I had to say.”
“I already know what you were going to say. This is a rental. No explosives of any kind allowed.”
It didn’t really surprise me that these guys wanted to play with explosives. I learned a long time ago that stuntmen loved to play with anything they could blow up.
“Typical men fighting over their toys.”
“How about you just take a nap until the ride is over,” Baldy suggested.
I bit my tongue and refused to rise to the bait. I wouldn’t be with him that much longer. As soon as I saw Craig, I was so going to get this asshole in trouble, and then he would regret ever crossing me.