There’s a loud, male grunt and then some words are said angrily in a foreign language as the guy stumbles back.
I can’t just sit in the car and watch my friends get grabbed so I jump out, meaning to help Lindsey get inside, when she suddenly produces a little black tube in her hand.
It’s pepper spray, I realize too late as she pushes the trigger.
A thick stream of fluid shoots out, hitting me on the cheek.
I immediately double over, coughing and crying in burning agony.
Two strong arms wrap around my waist and haul me back.
“Let her go, you asshole!” I hear Lindsey screech and then the screech turns into a scream.
I’m dragged across the parking lot, my heels scraping against the pavement.
I’m in too much pain and misery to even fight back.
“Get your fucking hands off me!” I hear Lindsey squeal.
I start to rub at my eyes but it only seems to make the burning worse. My entire head is on fire. My eyes, nose, mouth, and throat burn with every breath I take. The spot on my cheek where I was hit with the pepper spray feels like it’s swelling up like a giant bee sting.
“Help! Help!” I hear Sophia scream. The third help is suddenly cut off with a sickening crack.
The arms tighten around my waist and then I’m lifted into the air.
“Help,” I try to croak out but end up only coughing on the word.
I go flying through the air and crash into something hard and unforgiving. More pain lances through my body. The side I landed on throbs and aches from the impact.
Then another set of hands grabs me, dragging me back by my arm and hair.
I can’t see, I’m completely blind. I didn’t take a direct hit to the eyes, but my eyes are still burning and swelling shut. I reach up, trying to claw at the hands dragging me, but then they suddenly disappear.
“Come on, let’s get the fuck out of here!” I hear a deep voice bark.
There are two more thumps. I’m pinned and squished up against something hard as a warm body is pushed against me. Is it Lindsey, Sophia, or Amanda? I don’t know.
Whoever it is isn’t talking or moving.
“Please,” I hear Amanda whimper at my feet. “I’m going to be sick.”
Okay, so whoever is next to me isn’t Amanda.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” another male voice says, his words thick with a foreign accent. “If you puke I’ll make you eat it.”
There are two loud thumps as if someone is hitting the side of the van, and then a breeze hits my legs as the back doors are slammed shut.
“We got ‘em. Let’s go!”
I try to move, try to escape my pinned position, but then the van starts moving.
The van squeals out of the parking lot and the body next to me rolls into me, further squishing me against the hard thing that must be the side of the van.
It feels like we’re flying down the street.
The tires squeal loudly as we take a sharp turn and then we burst forward.
“Please stop, please,” I hear Amanda whimper again before she starts to heave.
“Fuck!” someone curses in disgust. “Get her the fuck away from me.”
As I listen to Amanda cry, heave, and sniffle, I struggle with the horror of our situation. We didn’t just get grabbed off the street… we didn’t.
This kind of shit only happens in the movies or to other people…
Yet it just fucking happened to us.
Shit.
The van flies down the street for several minutes before starting to slow. I wiggle and struggle and finally manage to push the body crushing me away. Now that my ribs no longer feel like they’re about to collapse, I gulp in air through my mouth, take stock of myself, and try to figure out the situation.
My eyes still burn and are swollen nearly shut, but it’s starting to fade a bit. I can’t breathe out of my nose because I have so much snot clogging up my sinuses, and my face is burning like I have the worse sunburn ever, but otherwise I’m okay. I suppose it could be worse. I could have taken a direct hit to the eyes.
We just got grabbed off the street, that much is a given. But why? Perhaps this is merely a ransom situation. Given who we are, there’s no way this is completely random…
“Fuck, looks like we got the trifecta here, boys. Blonde, brunette, and redhead,” one of the men says.
“Yeah, no thanks to you, asshole.”
“Hey, I can’t help it those other girls ran off…”
“We would have had them if you didn’t fucking spook them.”
“Hey,” a new, deeper voice interjects. “It doesn’t fucking matter now. We got some girls, some fucking hot ones. Alexei will be happy.”
Shit, so this isn’t a ransom situation? We’re just some random girls they grabbed because they couldn’t grab some others? They don’t even know who we are?