When we reach the top of the stairwell, Jude shoves me into the first open doorway. Football and Swimsuit Illustrated posters cover the walls, and it reeks of body spray and old socks. It looks like a typical guy’s room–if I ignore the burglar bars on the window.
“So, she’s just supposed to stay in here?” Caleb asks, running a hand through his short dark hair, his gaze pinging between me and Jude. “For how long?”
“Three days.” Jude shoves me toward an unmade bed. “And don’t fuck her.”
Caleb groans. “This is stupid…”
He’s holding me hostage in a bedroom. The two men continue to argue. Judging by their conversation and the accommodations, they clearly aren’t in the business of taking hostages. Maybe I can reason with them.
“You know someone is going to look for me, right?” I say. “You clearly haven’t thought this through.”
Both men fall silent. Jude’s face reddens as he turns to face me. “Of course I haven’t thought this fucking through! I’m not the one who decided to use a human being as collateral.” He narrows his eyes on me like I’m the source of all his problems. Well, fuck him.
“You’re deciding to keep me though. I’m a medical student. I have friends, family…”
His jaw tics, and that’s the only warning I get before he fists my hair, yanking my head back. “I’m going to lay this out real straight for you, doll. No one is going to find you here.” His fingers tighten, keeping me from looking away. “I’m a fucking ghost. And this house is in the middle of ten acres of guarded woods. So what you’re gonna do for the next three fucking days is be a good little prisoner.” He shoves me away, and I stumble back onto the bed. “You’re gonna sit your ass right here until your boyfriend pays up.”
“And what happens to me if Euan doesn’t pay?” I shouldn’t ask. I’m not sure I really want to hear the answer, but some morbid part of me needs to know exactly what will happen.
He dismisses me by glaring at his brother. “If she goes for a piss, you follow her.” Then he storms through the door, slamming it behind him.
Caleb pulls a keyring from his pocket, slipping one of the keys into the lock, and imprisoning us both in this room. “Well, there goes my weekend,” he mumbles.
Good, I hope this screwed up all his plans because it sure as hell screwed with mine. He grabs the remote from the dresser, then falls to the gaming chair beside the bed. The TV flickers to life, the camera panning out over a stadium filled with screaming fans.
“What’s your name?” he asks, like this is some casual meet and greet.
“None of your business.”
He sighs, turning the volume up to a deafening level. “This is gonna be a long three days.”
Three days where I’m collateral. Three days where they won’t kill me.
After that though…
_____
It’s been a long, long two days.
My stomach cramps from hunger, but I ignore it as the incessant buzz of the TV fills the room.
If Jude expected me to play the good little prisoner, he was sorely mistaken. I cannot just sit here and comply, so I defy them the only way I can. I refuse to eat their fucking food.
“What’s the flag for, ref?” Caleb shouts at the TV. The irritating ruckus of a football game has been blaring, nonstop, all day. “Come on, Saban. Get your guys together. Shit!” He glances back at me. “Do you see this shit?”
As if I care about football right now. Or ever.
The only plus side of the game being on is that Caleb’s focus is on the screen. Otherwise, he never stops talking. I now know he’s Jude’s younger brother. I’ve heard about his ex-girlfriend, his job as a paramedic, his favorite football teams, and everything in between. I don’t want to like him and, for the most part, I try not to speak to him, but he’s impossible to hate.
Something happens on screen that sends the crowd booing.
Caleb takes his Alabama baseball cap off and folds it in his hands. “You should be glad you go to Vanderbilt right now, because Bama looks like a sack of horse shit on that field.”
At the mention of Vanderbilt, I think of the life I might never go back to. Of the life I thought I was going to have with Euan, and now never would. Whatever grain of faith I had left in my dickhead ex-boyfriend is diminishing.
A commercial comes on and Caleb gets out of the chair to stretch. “You want something to eat?” he asks, the same way he has several times a day since I’ve been here.
“No, I don’t want to eat. I want to go home.” Maybe it’s petty of me, but I’ve been entirely stripped of free will and this is the only thing I have any control over.