As I began walking toward the northern end of the alley, I heard the sound of squealing tires. I looked over my shoulder just in time to see a green van come careening around the corner of the alley’s southern entrance. I told myself not to panic, but instinct won out over reason and I began running. I kept looking over my shoulder as the van closed in on me. When I saw a figure step out of the back door of one of the other shops, I shouted, “Help me, please!”
I practically slammed into the guy. “Please, they’re after me!” I yelled frantically as I pointed to the van. I wasn’t completely sure it wasn’t just some random, reckless delivery driver, but I wasn’t taking any chances. The van was less than a hundred feet from me and coming fast.
When the man didn’t respond, I tried to push past him, but he grabbed me by the upper arms in a painful hold.
And that was when I knew.
He hadn’t been coming out of one of the shops because he worked there.
He’d been waiting for me.
“No,” I whispered as pure terror ripped through me with violent force.
I opened my mouth to scream again when the man holding me punched me in the face. The blow left me reeling and I hit the ground hard. I tried to get my bearings as pure panic clawed through me, but I wasn’t fast enough.
A second blow left me too stunned to do anything at all. Several pairs of rough hands grabbed me as the world spun. I was lifted and thrown onto a cold, metal floor. More hands, or the same ones – I wasn’t sure – held me down as the van’s door slid shut.
It’s happening again.
Tears streaked down my face. “Please, don’t!” I begged, but that was all I got out before a piece of fabric was jammed into my mouth and tied behind my head. I flailed my arms and legs, but they were bound with plastic ties within seconds.
“Get his phone,” one of the men said.
I was quickly searched and let out a harsh sob when my phone was yanked out of my pocket.
“Toss it,” I heard someone say and then I heard a window opening.
And with it went my only lifeline.
I began crying uncontrollably, but my captors didn’t take any pity on me. Instead, one gruffly said, “Shut the fuck up,” and then he covered my head with some kind of hood, pitching me into darkness.
They left me alone as I rolled onto my side and sobbed into my gag. My hands were bound in front of me, but the second I lifted them to try and get the hood off, I felt something sharp at my throat.
“Do it and I’ll cut you. He said bring you back, but he didn’t say shit about doing it in one piece.”
I froze as the tip of the blade trailed down my throat. When I felt it snag on the first button of my shirt, I stiffened. Then it was popping the button off.
The second button followed.
Then the third.
I squeezed my eyes closed and let out a moan of denial.
“Knock that shit off, Spears.”
“The order was to bring him back. Didn’t say we couldn’t have some fun along the way. It’s a long drive to Chicago.”
Bile rose in my throat. They were taking me to Chicago?
Despair had me folding in on myself, not caring about the knife anymore. There was only one reason they could be taking me back to Chicago. Father might be dead, but there were plenty of men who’d be happy to take his place.
I stopped listening as the men argued and searched out that place inside my head where I wouldn’t hear them anymore. There’d be no hood, no gag, no van…
Alstroemeria… friendship.
Amaryllis… splendid beauty.
Anemone… fading hope.
I let out a sob when I realized it wasn’t working. From the time I’d been handed a book with stunning pictures of all kinds of flowers, along with their meaning, I’d recited the list of flowers in alphabetical order whenever I’d needed to block out what was happening to me. But I could still hear the men bickering; I could still feel the floor of the van beneath me and the rocking motion that went with the vehicle taking turn after turn. The gag was still there, as were my bindings.
I felt a keen sense of betrayal by my own mind as I lay there and tried to accept that I would never see my brother again. Because there was no way Dante was going to be able to find me a second time. It’d been sheer luck that he’d managed it the first time.
My body began to shake violently as this new reality crashed down on me. I had no idea how long we drove for, but it felt like hours.