Chapter 29
Herwgipio - Kidnap
Lucy
Iawake face down on a mattress.
At least, that’s what I think it is. It’s not very comfortable.
Springs dig into my thighs, my stomach, my breasts, and the scent of urine threatens to choke me everything time I take a breath. Not that I want to breathe. Each inhale sends pain splintering across the back of my head.
I keep my eyes shut. Wish myself to drift off. Unconsciousness, obliviousness, is far better than whatever this reality is. Wherever we are, it’s hot – way too hot. This is what a furnace must feel like, or an incubator under burning lamps.
Bethan. Is she here with me? I turn my head to the side. Peel one eyelid back. Swallow again and again until the room stops spinning and the urge to vomit recedes.
Someone shifts next to me. The movement ripples through the mattress. The nausea returns.
‘Lucy?’ Her voice bounces around my head. Throbs at the top of my spine. ‘Please. Wake up. Oh, God. Don’t leave me here alone.’
All I can manage is a groan. Anything else reignites the sickly feeling. The last thing I can recall is the breeze on my back. Now, every inch of me hurts. I’ve gone ten rounds in a boxing ring and lost every single fight.
Where is here anyway?
It’s too yellow, too putrid to make sense.
Pages of newspaper print cover the windows, last year’s reports browning and grimy on the glass.
The only source of light comes from the sun sneaking through the gaps where the sheets haven’t quite matched up.
Water pools on the sill, collecting from condensation.
Mould spreads from there, across the wall to the corner of the room, where a bare bulb sits on a thin, rusting floor lamp.
The stand might have been golden in its heyday, but it’s twisted and forlorn now.
There isn’t a door on this side of the room. No other furniture. The metal creaks every time one of us moves. Next to it is a bedside table missing its drawers.
I inch myself slowly over to my other side, careful not to provoke the residual nausea rocking in my stomach.
My arms are bound behind me, making it a hundred times more difficult.
My cast, twisted at an awful angle, digs into my spine.
My wrist throbs. Eventually I set eyes on Bethan, sitting next to me on the mattress.
Her hands are tied to the headboard. Her face is pale.
‘You’re awake. I thought you might… I thought you may have—’
She pulls in a deep breath then screams at the top of her lungs. Kicks her legs. Rattles the headboard and my headache.
It must be cathartic for her because by the time she stops, she sags into the mattress, eyes closed.
‘They tried taping my mouth shut.’ She pulls in a deep breath. Exhales. ‘I bit his fingers.’ She puffs out another hard breath. ‘The way you went down. Like a ragdoll when they threw you next to me.’
‘I fell out of the car.’
She nods. ‘I’ll never get the sound of you hitting the tarmac out of my head. You puked on whichever goon hauled you up here, so well done you. You’re not going to be sick again, are you?’
‘I’m okay.’ At least, I think I am.
‘Get some rest. I’ll watch over you. I promise.’
She can’t do much the way they’ve tied her to the bed. I pedal my legs across the mattress until my head rests against her side. Touching her in some way helps, even if it’s only a little.
I close my eyes. Tight. As if squeezing them could stop the ache in my head and take us far away from here.
The door swings open, startling me from my dozing. The loud bang of the handle hitting the mouldy wall explodes behind my eyes.
The bare bulb hanging over the bed flickers on.
Aled struts in, followed by his friends.
The man on the left almost reaches the ceiling, so gangly it’s like he once suffered a growth spurt but the rest of his body didn’t catch up.
The other is short, chunky, taking up most of the space beside the bed.
Little and Large. Like a comedy duo. Though this is far from funny.
Our phones hit the mattress, both of them lifeless.
‘Turn one on.’ He stares at us as if he expects us to get right to it.
Like he’s forgotten Bethan’s bound to the bed and I have my arms tied behind me.
He curses. Yanks me into a sitting position using my hair.
My scalp burns. He grabs a phone, turns it on and holds it up to me.
‘Keep your face straight to make it work.’
A photo of Rhys and I appears on the screen. He took it this morning and air dropped it straight to me. He made me set it as my wallpaper. We’re lying in bed, the duvet tucked under our arms. Smiling. Happy.
I wish he was here.
‘Rhys.’ Aled sighs.
‘Wh-why are you doing this?’ I ask, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
‘Because your boyfriend and his mate cut me out their lives. Great little team they are, aren’t they?
Said they’d be my friends, that I could hang out with them whenever I wanted.
He even promised me a job on the first tour.
But they forgot about me. Fucked off to the States five years ago and left me behind.
Wouldn’t do anything to help me get a visa. Fucking arseholes.’
He paces the room, tossing the mobile in his hand.
‘They made a mistake – leaving me out the loop. He doesn’t understand how much I can help him.
What I would do for him. Anything. If he only asked, I would be there.
God. He has no idea the lengths I’ve gone to be close to him.
Reading the notebooks to understand their relationship.
I know they slept together, he told me. I want that too.
’ He peels back a sheet of paper, watches the world outside.
‘I’ve watched countless hours of security footage, figuring out what the two of them have.
How I can get in on that. But he doesn’t see it.
They only call on me when they’ve got an emergency, or if he gets bored. ’
Bethan scoffs. ‘They never wanted y—’
‘Shut up!’ He snatches hold of the footboard, and the metal creaks with the tension.
‘I was the first person to tell him how I felt. And he ignored me, which forced me to change my plan. Get more aggressive to show him how dedicated I am to him. I even pretended to be other people to see if that got his attention.’ He storms to my side of the bed.
Leans over me. ‘You don’t deserve anything you have. ’
Spit flies from his mouth with his words. Lands on my cheek. I shrink back, press away from him and into Bethan to put distance between us. Why he’s targeting me, I don’t know. I’m only Cai’s assistant.
‘I didn’t… I couldn’t have known…’
‘Can you blame me for going to such lengths to get the smallest slice of what I fucking deserve? I was ignored, neglected, tossed aside. Not anymore.’
This isn’t the Aled I met the day after the break in. He was charming. Brilliant to talk to. I could have filled my entire day chatting with him. Now the naked bulb casts sinister shadows over his face.
‘You two don’t have anything to worry about.’ He pushes my fringe out of my eyes then cups my cheek, strokes a calloused thumb over my skin. ‘So long as Rhys and his tosspot best friend do what I say, I’ll return you. Promise.’
My phone rings, the jaunty little tune made more menacing by the way it echoes around the bare room. He shows us the screen. Rhys’ face flashes up, and fresh tears burn in my eyes.
‘Guess it’s time to get the ball rolling. The sooner we get everything sorted, the sooner you can get on with your lives.’ He slides his finger across the screen to answer it and puts the phone on speaker straight away. ‘Hello, handsome.’
‘Who the fuck are you?’
Rhys’ words wrap around me like a velvet blanket, more comforting than I thought they would be.
Of course, he’s ringing. He’s probably been calling all afternoon, as soon as he realised we were missing.
He’ll work with Gethin and the police to find where we are and with the phone now on, he can track our signal. It’ll be okay.
‘If you want to find out, you’d better start listening, Rhys Pritchett.
’ Aled perches on the only chair in the room, staring at us as he talks.
‘Your sister and the PA are safe. For now. We need a little chat. Can you get Cai and Gethin in a room for me please, so we can natter all three of us at once?’
‘Wh-why do you need to speak to all of us? Whatever you want, I can help you.’
‘Just get them. You have twenty minutes. If you don’t call me by then, I’ll hurt one of them.’
He hangs up as Rhys stutters something and pockets the phone. He throws the other device onto the floor and slams his heel into it until it’s nothing but powder and shards of plastic.
‘Next time he calls, you two better behave. Do as I say straight away.’ He turns to Little. ‘Find them water and untie them. It’s not like they can go anywhere. Not with the door locked. I’ll be back when Rhys and his wanker friends call.’
Little throws two bottles of water at our feet, then works with Large to untie Bethan.
‘What about me?’ I shout as they slam the door shut. The key clicks in the lock.
Bethan dives off the bed, rattles at the door handle. She kicks at the wood but it’s no good.
There’s no escape.