47 | Captive
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I don't know how long I've been in this room. I don't know how long I've heard muffled voices scrape at the corners of the walls, heard footsteps move around like a cruel punishment trying to taunt me.
The cable ties on my arms have made red marks, ones that burn any time I twist my head far back enough to see. They're almost loose, like they were tied by an amateur, but still have me fastened against a fucking chair. The harsh plastic feels like a dagger against my wrists and ankles.
The tears stopped a while ago, salty remnants dried down my cheeks. Even if tape wasn't forced across my lips I don't know if I could speak anyway. I can barely think.
Every question that could explain this situation has been exhausted.
My mind hurts, my head is dizzy, my nervous system has worn itself out into nothing.
I've stared at the ceiling, stained and yellow.
I've stared at the old couch, sagging in the corner of the room.
Every piece of mismatched furniture has warped into a blur. I don't know where I am.
I remember getting home, then my breathing going damp, filtering away as I passed out.
I was in a car at some point but by the time I finally came to I was being tied up in here, vague voices laughing as I struggled to lift heavy eyelids.
Since then it's just been shadows moving past the door, the idea of human life.
My arms stir again, a weak attempt at freeing myself.
The wall I'm up against means I can't fall back, can't try to smash the chair into pieces.
I can't shuffle either, it's too loud, there's no way they wouldn't notice.
I want to scream, cry, yell. My throat is so dry it hurts, my mind has spiralled into a new category of fear where everything's numb.
How the fuck could this even happen?
Just as another wave of tangled emotions rush through my chest I hear voices again, right outside the door - but this time they've stopped. Shadows hover, menacing laughs, the sound of a hand resting on the doorknob... they're coming in here?
Fresh panic trickles down my spine, every possible scenario playing out.
They're going to kill me. I'm going to fucking die here.
My hands shake in ways they haven't done since I arrived, throat trying so hard to swallow the sickness down.
I can't decide whether being here alone, tied up and confused, is better than confronting my kidnappers.
The door pushes open, a flood of light searing my eyes. The dangling bulb that turns on above me is much brighter than the lamp keeping me company for all these hours. I think it's been hours, maybe overnight. I squint, trying to make out the figure storming towards me.
"Hi, Blondie," A voice I don't recognise spits.
I keep blinking, until my eyes adjust and I can pull out the features on this man.
Dark hair, black eyes, one with a scar half-sliced through.
Tattoos down both his arms, a grin so wide it makes me feel even more nauseous.
I don't know him... but he looks familiar.
I must squirm against my confines because he laughs, tilting his head mockingly.
"How's everything going, hm?"
I'm tied to a chair, he tied me to it, and he's still putting on a calculated innocent act. Fire burns its way up my throat, I can't do much but make muffled noises.
The man moves closer, only a few steps, but it feels unexplainably invasive.
"You know, you were never meant to be here," His grin widens, "But I'm so happy you are."
What the fuck is he talking about?
"I have my brother to thank for that, really..." His eyes cast towards the door, before calling out, "Diego!"
My brain is swimming, filled with thoughts that don't make sense.
Am I supposed to know these people?
His brother? I'm trying to think rationally but the cuts at my wrists, my heartbeat rattling in my ears, my mind flashing snapshots of my life, my mom - they make it hard to focus on anything.
The second Diego enters the room something slides into place. It's mismatched and odd, a terrifying realisation, but I'm not completely blind to what's happening anymore. The guy. The guy Nolan knows, who followed me.
The person who was supposed to leave me alone.
The familiarity makes sense now.. they have the same eyes, the same crooked nose. I don't know what they want from me, what I have to do with any of this. Is this to get back at Nolan? I want to ask, maybe I try to, either way it comes out as a low sob.
"Remember me?" Diego taunts, leaning down, "I missed you."
I'm going to be sick.
"You're scaring her," The other guy says, with probably the least amount of care you can have saying those words. It's like he's enjoying it. Psychopath.
Diego waits a second before pushing back up to full height, eyeing me, down my entire body, so that I feel completely exposed. It's degrading, just being here so they can watch me with no way to escape. I feel so weak, unless. My brain won't work, my muscles won't work.
"I saw you outside Mina's little cafe," Diego talks with sudden casualness, "I was supposed to be checking up on her...
but you caught my attention with that pretty little face of yours.
I knew there was something special about you.
I didn't think it would be your connection to our old friend Nole. "
I was targeted by chance. This whole time these sick bastards just tormented me because they could. It makes a new anger rise inside me, a frustration that curls through my lungs, makes my breathing filter through shakier than it already is.
"So," The other guy murmurs, "When we found outNole had this interesting plan, to put me back behind the bars I just fucking got away from... what else to do but take away his prized possession? His secret forbidden girlfriend or whatever bullshit."
That was his plan? This secret thing he's been trying to work out is getting this guy arrested? He made it seem like this little, tiny end he had to close, now his protective secrecy has blown it wide open.
It's a lot, too much, I don't really know what to think about it.
"Take off the tape," Diego says, "I wanna hear what she has to say."
"You want to hear her beg."
He shrugs, "Of course I do. I've wanted to hear that for a long time."
His brother scoffs a low laugh, "As much as I'd like to hear that, not yet." He moves closer, "I need our captive to listen for a bit longer."
A hand drifts close enough to my face that I wince, every part of me wanting to shrink away as much as I can. There's nowhere to go, not when he grins at me with a slimy smile or puts one man-handling hand on my thigh. The touch almost makes me lurch.
"Wanna know how we foiled your boyfriend's plan?" He asks, that glint in his eye screaming gotcha, "It was fucking stupid anyway. They really thought we'd just come to them?Make it that easy?"
I don't move, don't give him any physical response. I want to scream but my voice is useless. It wouldn't do anything even if I did.
"Your friend, what's his name... Kyle? Cole?"
"Cole," Diego confirms, watching loosely from further back in the room, "You'd be surprised what people will do for a little..." He makes a drinking motion with his hand.
No? No way.
Not my Cole, my fucking friend. He wouldn't....he couldn't.
The brother's grip on my thigh tightens, his musky breath close to my neck. My hands strain against the ties, desperate to push him away. He's lying. He has to be.
"You're cute when you're all shocked."
I think I make a noise, shake my head, try to tell him that he's just trying to mess with me. Everything is a blur, every move hazy like this is some sort of twisted hallucination.
"Diego's telling the truth, Blondie. Your friend has been keeping tabs on Nole since the day he came back. That includes you." My stomach sinks lower as his roaming hand moves up to my hair, stroking it as I can't do anything but sit here.
More questions plague my mind as realisation hits. Is that why Cole has been so distant? Because he's been secretly working for these psychopaths? Did he know about me and Nolan this whole time? I pause when I think about me and Nolan. Us. The funfair.
I haven't given it any thought in the time I've been here. I can't. But when fresh tears slip down my cheeks thinking about Cole, feeling this strange man's hand in my hair, I think some of it is to do with Riley finding out too. This is all just a big fucking mess.
"Let me over there," Diego mutters, "You're making me jealous."
"As much as I'd love to, we've got to get to the important stuff."
I don't want to know what that means.
"We have another surprise for you."
His hand finally comes away from my head and I physically exhale. Maybe I'd been holding my breath that entire time. They both move towards the door with precision, flinging it open before speaking to someone else. I can't make out the voice.
Then there's a kick, a grunt, a shove.
Someone tumbles through the doorway, stumbling to get back up to their feet.
I watch, the pieces of their weird game still not making any sense.
When the mystery person scrambles to their knees my eyes widen.
Not just because of the gun Diego now has pressed to the back of his head, but also because it's my fucking dad.
He's got a black eye, fresh and swelling as his head bows, forced in place by the weapon threatening him.
I blink and blink, but this is real. He looks worse than before, like he's hanging on by a thread.
Blood has dried in splashes on his face...
how long has he been here? I want to be angry but there's so many factors that pinpointing the correct emotion is impossible.
"Look," Diego orders with another sharp kick to his side.
He groans in pain but looks up, just enough to catch my eyes. The recognition is obvious, and instant. His broken breath hitches, my name leaving his lips without thought, "Ava..."
"Shut up," Diego growls, shoving the gun against him harder. It forces his gaze to lower again, towards the old wooden panels lining the floor. "Did I tell you to speak?"
"Your dad owes us a lot of money, Blondie," The guy whose name I still don't know chimes in with a sickeningly happy tone.
Money. This is about his stupid fucking money. Is this who he was taking loans from? This entire time it was the same sickos involved in Nolan's shit.
"He insists he doesn't have it, that he can't repay this debt he was so desperate to take out," He gives my dad a pitying look that looks more like twisted satisfaction, "Lucky for us, we have other ways he can pay up."
The gun makes a distinct click, Diego's finger now comfortably on the trigger.
The motion snaps me out of my silence, a plea trying to leave my lips.
It's muffled by the tape, coming out as a pathetic noise.
The two men in the room snap their attention to me fully, amused by my sudden movement.
I don't even know what I want.
I hate my dad, for what he did, how he treated my mom. For the debt, the yelling, ruining our lives. He's selfish, he doesn't know how to get better and he doesn't ever want to get himself help. Not long ago I told him to leave me alone forever, that I never wanted to see him again.
But does that mean I want him to fucking die?
All the sleepless nights, the shouting, the sickness as his voice crawled down the phone blurs in front of my eyes, his arm attached to my wrist begging me for money.
But there's something else, a tiny glimmer of the not terrible things.
Childhood memories. Him reading me stories before bed.
The times he took me to the park, on trips to the city. Before everything went wrong.
For some reason, with miserable eyes and a gun to his head, I can't bring myself to just let this happen. He can't die, not like this.
"You have something to say?" Diego murmurs.
His brother moves towards me slowly, a gun I hadn't noticed before now also slotted in his hand.
My heart stalls, breathing erupting from my chest. Even as his fingers come close to removing the tape on my lips I still watch my dad, the way he trembles, the almost silent pleas he's making for his life.
I think I hear a sorry, an apology.
"Scream or do anything stupid and this bullet is going right through your skull, hm?" The man beside me says, raising the gun a little higher to prove his point.
I nod because I feel like I can't breathe, because I can't cry here in silence anymore. What would I even be able to do anyway? I can't escape.
He peels the tape off slowly, my skin prickling like it's on fire. Air floods my lungs immediately, every part of me slightly relieved. I cough, dry throat begging for oxygen, water, anything.
"Don't," Is all I can croak out.
"Don't what?"
I shake my head, "My dad... please don't shoot him."
He chuckles beside my ear, "Hey, look Diego, she's finally begging. Cute."
"Knew taking off that tape would be worth it,"He snorts back.
This is all a game to them. My entire life has crumbled beneath my feet and they're laughing like two fucking schoolboys. My wrists and ankles strain harder against the constraints as everyone important to me runs through my head. Mom, Riley, Nolan...dad.
Would Riley and Nolan even come looking for me after what happened?
What if I'm just destined to die here?
"If you don't want your dad here to die, you're gonna need to do something for us?" The guy says, breath so close that my skin's itching with anxiety. The thought of me being left here lets a few new tears run down my cheeks in rivulets.
"We need Nole here to fix this problem he created," Diego chimes in, still steady with his own gun, "And you're going to get him here, understand?"
I don't understand.
"Hey," The other guy hums, pushing the gun gently against the side of my neck when I don't respond, "You help us or it's over for your dad. Do you understand?"
I wait a second, frozen in confusion.
Then I nod.
I guess I'm going to have to.
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