Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next day at work, the hours dragged on forever, the hand on the analog clock in the employee room barely seeming to move.
Sierra couldn’t tell if it was because she was excited about her date with Aodhan later or simply because it was a slow day in the library.
She was so distracted by her dreamy thoughts that it wasn’t until a blond girl came into the library dressed as Little Bo Peep that Sierra realized it was Halloween.
As she had told Tyler, Sierra hadn’t really cared about Halloween, well, ever, but as she looked around and noticed that even some of her coworkers were wearing fun jumpers and hats that represented various book and movie characters, she wished she had paid just a little bit more attention so that she could’ve done something fun too.
Ah, well, there was always next year.
Other than realizing too late that it was Halloween and feeling like someone had purposely slowed down time, the day went smoothly; Sierra reshelved books, took her lunch break, then reshelved some more.
Sierra was shelving what would probably be her second to last cart of books when a man approached her.
“Excuse me, miss?”
Sierra turned, catching her breath as she realized the man was wearing a black beanie.
As quickly as her mind flashed to Aodhan, the thought dissipated as she realized the man was nothing like Aodhan.
First of all, he was wearing some type of old-fashioned sweater, which definitely didn’t match his hat.
He was also quite tall and looked a bit older than the average student.
Sierra surmised he was possibly a Ph.D. student. “Are you looking for something?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, I was wondering if you had any books in old Gaelic?”
Sierra drew her eyebrows together. Of course, on the day Aodhan wasn’t working at the library, what she assumed was a Ph.D. student would need a book in the language only he spoke.
“We do. I have to apologize, though; I don’t speak old Gaelic, so I’ll take you to the area, but then you are on your own.”
“I’ll manage.”
Sierra set the book in her hand on the cart and started walking toward the part of the library where they kept the Gaelic books, the man following silently behind her.
So silently, in fact, she had to glance over her shoulder once or twice to ensure he was still there.
Each time she looked over her shoulder his eyes bore into hers.
He was looking at her so intently it was unnerving and Sierra walked a little faster hoping to get him out of her hair sooner rather than later.
As they rounded the corner, Sierra was trying to brush off the weird vibes she was getting from the stranger when he suddenly pushed her up against the bookcase, putting his hand over her mouth.
Panic set in immediately, and Sierra started struggling against him, trying to remove his hand from her mouth so she could scream, but his hold was firm, his hands like iron.
Sierra’s mind flashed back to her talk with Aodhan about strength yesterday, and she rolled her eyes up to the stranger’s face, focusing on the beanie. Could he be Fae?
While she had been afraid before, Sierra’s heart sank to her stomach as she realized this probably wasn’t a human holding her. She continued to struggle, hoping her adrenaline would magically make her stronger as it did in the movies, but the stranger didn’t budge.
It seemed like time had slowed to a crawl, but realistically, Sierra knew that she had likely only been in his grip for a few seconds.
In a last-ditch effort, Sierra raised her knee, intending to go for his balls, but before she could connect, the stranger pinched her neck, and the world in front of her eyes swam before everything went dark.
Sierra awoke a while later in the pitch-black feeling as if she was spinning.
She brought her hands to her head to see if she could stop the sensation, only to realize her hands were stuck together.
She struggled against whatever kept her wrists pressed together, but she couldn’t tell if it was rope, duct tape, or something else.
Letting that thought go for a moment, she brought her tied hands to head level, running them along the side of her face.
The smoothness of tape glided over her cheek, and she felt the cloth covering her eyes.
Well, that answered both her questions; it was dark because she was blindfolded, and her hands were taped together with duct tape.
Now that was out of the way, Sierra took a deep breath to center herself before she panicked, and tried to take in her surroundings with the senses she did have access to.
When Sierra was a kid, her mother had been convinced one of her children would one day be kidnapped.
As a result, Sierra had taken a few self-defense classes over the years.
While she had already made one mistake, which was allowing the kidnapper to change her location, she knew it wouldn’t be long before Aodhan noticed she was missing.
She also knew she needed to figure out her new location, and fast, so she could start working on an escape plan, or leave clues for someone who could be looking for her.
Sierra inhaled deeply, trying to work out the scent filling her nostrils. It smelled like burned rubber. That, and the fact that she could tell she was in motion, led her to believe she was in a vehicle of some kind.
She wiggled around, but wherever she was, was flat, and she had been able to move her bound hands to her face, which meant she wasn’t on a seat or on the floor of the back of the vehicle, unless it was a type of van.
Sierra moved her bound hands around her head, but she didn’t encounter any walls.
Then she lifted them up a few inches, and her hands came into contact with hard metal.
She was in a trunk.
Sierra took another deep breath, glad that her mouth wasn’t taped shut, but she also knew that if it wasn’t, her captor likely had an idea in mind to control her noise, or that there wasn’t anyone around to hear her scream.
If this had been just any kidnapper, Sierra might have tried screaming anyway, in the hopes he had misjudged her, but Sierra was reasonably certain at this point that her captor was not human.
So that left only one option, and that was to figure out what he could possibly want from her and figure out a way to use it to bargain for her freedom, or a way to outsmart him when the time came.
Sierra ran over all her conversations with Aodhan, Braan, and Kaye in her mind.
Had any of them mentioned dangerous Fae?
She didn’t think so.
The only time they had even spoken about Fae and humans together was when discussing the loss of Fae magic and the fact that only humans were servants in the Fae world.
Was this man taking Sierra to become a servant? Was that what this was?
She certainly hoped so, as that would give her an option to escape. If he was taking her for more nefarious purposes, she was out of ideas.
Sierra felt tears behind her eyes at the thought of the things he could be planning to do with her, but she forced herself to push those thoughts away and remember that Aodhan was coming for her.
There was no way he would accept that she had ditched their date.
Plus, he was picking her up at the library, so he would notice she wasn’t there right away.
Yes, Aodhan was likely already on his way to rescue her. With that comforting thought in mind, Sierra let herself be carried off to sleep with the rocking motion of the car. She would get out of this. She had to.