AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I had woken up stuffed into the small compartment and wondered too many times over the last few hours, though it could have been minutes—my sense of time was all screwed up. That they had considered my need to breathe oxygen, albeit air laced with toxic exhaust fumes, gave me hope that I wouldn’t be dumped off the edge of a cliff somewhere. Or murdered.
It took more than one man to lift the Center and captain of the Rippton Hails Ice Hockey team as a dead weight.
Not because I’d been drunk at the time, hell, I had a game to play, but because the sick fuckers had knocked me out to carry out their little trick.
Shafts of light slipped through the tiny gap. The sun had risen and I was in a world of hurt for more than one reason. And as we were at our mid-season game, I needed to get my ass back to Rippton U before I got kicked off the team, taking my dreams of a professional career with it.
I thrashed about in the small space and managed to tenderize myself further.
My head ached and as I started to take stock for the first time, the tender spots outnumbering my ability to think clearly beyond the throbbing that pounded a staccato beat in my head.
I gritted my teeth, and pushed up on my duct taped hands. Arching my back I shoved it against the roof of my cage, yelling my frustration when it didn’t budge.
Enough was enough and I gave myself permission to lose my shit when some asshole kidnapped me and stuffed me in a small space.
It was a damn good thing that I had no claustrophobic tendencies.
I just wouldn’t have a career if I didn’t get my ass back to Rippton soon.
I wouldn’t have a career.
Fuck me.
“You pricks stop the car! I’ll rip you a new one if we don’t stop this fucking charade now!” My voice cracked at the end of my roar. I’d do more than rip whoever I had to a new one when I got free. It made me feel better not to be a passive participant in my own abduction, though.
To my total and utter surprise, the car slowed. I slid to the back of the trunk, my head thumping against the small wall that separated the hatch of the car and the back seat.
The car stopped.
Every inch of me needed to rant, to throw myself at the trunk lid, but I’d need that energy to fight in a minute. I lay curled in a ball, wiggling my toes and fingers to encourage circulation to return to my limbs. Pins and needles stung me, but I’d experienced worse pain, and besides, I could use it.
The lid of the trunk popped open. Light streamed in, obliterating my vision worse than the arena lights on game night. I blinked watering eyes that I couldn’t shield.
Hands grabbed at me. I thrashed frantically, one sense already useless. With my hands and feet restricted by the duct tape, I had little hope of actually doing significant damage.
What I wouldn’t give for a hockey stick and the freedom to swing it right now.
Disembodied hands hauled me out of the car and before my eyes could adjust to the indescribably cheery brightness that flared my vision out, some bastard punched me in the face.
I hit the dirt beneath me, grit scraping my cheek.
Well, that wasn’t very nice at all. I had never fully appreciated the flat surface of a highway until now.
I pushed up from the ground, blinking at grit that blurred before me as a puff of hot exhaust hit my cheek at far too close quarters. Grit showered me as the car pulled away. I raised my bound hands over my face in a belated effort to protect myself, and sucked in a breath filled with carbon monoxide.
Adding hacking my lungs out on the side of the highway to my list of injuries, I sat absolutely still, taking in my surroundings.
Desert spread to one side of me, a constant stream of cars flowing in the other direction. I patted my jean pockets awkwardly with both hands but came up empty.
Had I been dumped in the middle of Death Valley? My stomach turned over at the thought. That was more than a three hour drive back to the game. But the highway had too much traffic to be completely out in the desert. I hoped.
No phone, and no fucking idea where I had been dumped. I hadn’t even had enough sense to memorize the licence plate before my assailants drove away.
A few horns honked me, but didn't slow. I offered them a one-fingered salute as I worked at the tape wrapped around my ankles, but with bound fingers, all I achieved was to add more bruises to my plight as I brought myself to my knees.
No signs lined the blacktop to tell me which damn highway I knelt on the side of like a Sunday hooker on a Monday morning. The beeping around me increased. I ignored them, sawing uselessly at my wrists. Before I could free myself, an old hatchback pulled up beside me.
Desiccated roadkill and smog assailed me a second time as the car over shot my position.
