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Chapter six
Daphne
Myslowclimbback to consciousness began with a low humming noise. A persistent buzz that just wouldn’t quit. I opened my eyes, panic engulfing me when I couldn’t see. I blinked several times before I realized I wasn’t blind; it was just incredibly dark.
Groaning at the dull throbbing behind my sightless eyes, I attempted to press my hand to my head, and was shocked to find that they both moved at the same time. A few heartbeats later, and it all came back to me: the masked men, their cruel words, the burn of whatever I was injected with, and the cold look in the man’s eyes as he slammed the trunk closed on me.
Shit. The trunk. I was in the trunk of a car. That explained the humming noise, which I now clearly recognized as the familiar whirr of tires on asphalt.
I waited for the fear, for the terror I would have expected to be consumed with in this situation to fill me, but I was strangely calm. Even when the men stormed into the store, one of them waving a gun like mad, I didn’t feel like maybe I should have. Was I scared? Of course, any sane person would be. But I imagined these men would be expecting me to collapse into a puddle of tears and pleading, and so far, I wasn’t there.
At least, not yet.
Trying again to move my hands, I felt around for something I could use, either to untie myself or as a weapon. I started by feeling along the floor and sides of the space, looking for that handy pull thing that opened the trunk from the inside. But remembering the look of this older model boat of a car, I highly doubted I’d find any modern safety features. After flailing about like a fish out of water while I looked for the pulley system or a tire iron or, hell, a flare gun even, I remembered that the trunk had been empty when he shoved me in here. I mean, what kind of criminal would leave their captive with a means to defend themself?
Captive. That word came with a whole lot of connotations I wasn’t quite prepared to contemplate. The first thing I needed to do was try to get away. Failing that, I knew from a lifetime of watching movies that I needed to remember as much about my situation as possible.
Thanks, Liam Neeson.
Closing my eyes—although why I needed to do that in the total darkness, I didn’t know—I tried to recall details about the guys who grabbed me. As far as I could tell, one was much more in control than the other. The guy who threw me in the trunk was Mr. Chill, not seeming to be phased by anything about the situation at all. Like a good old-fashioned kidnapping was an everyday occurrence for him. Hell, who knew? Maybe it was.
The dude with the gun, on the other hand, was a total spaz. He looked like he was high, which was never good for a captive. Not that my experience with drug users was vast, but I would assume that there was no real way to gauge the reactions of someone like that.
So, my options were to either run away, deal with Spaz, or try to appeal to the humanity or Mr. Chill.
Yeah, not super comforting.
Huffing out a breath, I tried to stretch my arms over my head, feeling the cramped confines of the trunk taking their toll. When I felt something digging in under my armpit, I almost laughed out loud as I reached awkwardly into my bra and found my phone.
How had they missed this? I remembered Mr. Chill patting down my pockets, but clearly, he didn’t know the hazards of wearing skinny jeans either.
Fumbling in my excitement, I flipped the phone in my bound hands until I was holding it upright and tried to wake it up. I had a moment of alarm when nothing happened, fearing that my phone had been damaged somehow and I was right back where I started.
“No! No, no, no, no!” I muttered as I begged all the electronics gods to help me out.
After a few frantic seconds, they actually came through for me, granting my prayers by way of me actually remembering that I turned the stupid thing off when my mother kept blowing up my phone.
Giving myself an internal eye roll, I pressed the power button and waited for it to start up, each second feeling like a lifetime as I watched the screen run through its loading stuff.
Sheesh. Considering the thing cost almost fifteen hundred bucks, you’d think it would be a bit faster than molasses when it came to that kind of thing.
Tapping my fingers impatiently against the sparkly case, I breathed a sigh of relief when the home screen appeared, the sudden light blinding in the darkness. Bringing up my phone app, I paused for a second, debating who to call. A pair of blue eyes flashed in my mind, smiling warmly at me as we sat side by side, but I quickly blinked them away.
Not only was Silas in Nevada, but I hadn’t spoken to him in over six months. Calling him now, no matter how desperate I was, seemed a bit melodramatic.
It would also hurt like crazy if he sent my call to voice mail like he had been doing right before I left Las Vegas.
No, the logical first step was to call the police, so that’s what I did, typing those familiar three numbers in and pressing send.
My pulse picked up as the call was dropped.
No Network
Those two little words screamed at me in the dark. Where the hell were we that there was no signal?
I tried again, and a third time, but still nothing.
That panic I was missing earlier had started to creep up on me now, a niggling fear in the back of my mind that I might not get out of this. That I would end up a statistic like so many other young women.
What would they do with me? My first thought was that they were going to hurt me, rape me, even. But then I remembered that they asked for me by name.
Well, not me specifically, but they were looking for a Pennington, and there was no way I was going to let anything happen to Penelope. So, if they were there with one of us specifically in mind, that led me to believe this was about ransom.
The relief I felt was immeasurable. If they were after money, there was a good chance they would keep me alive.
For now.
But until I knew for sure, I would have to keep working hard to help myself.
Going back to my seemingly useless phone, I flipped on the flashlight feature and looked around. As I suspected, there was literally nothing useful in the trunk with me and certainly no escape leaver to get me out. Killing the flashlight to save the battery, I stared at the screen again, hoping against hope that we’d drive through an area where I could pick up a signal and make that phone call.
I kept checking every few minutes, but the longer we drove, the more tired I became. The initial adrenaline from waking up zip tied in a freaking trunk had worn off and the lingering aftereffects of whatever they gave me was starting to drag me under again, my mind drifting in a hazy cloud of sleep and memories. They would float behind my eyelids like taunting ghosts, teasing me with flashes of him; all the best memories and moments, the soft touches and scorching kisses, they all run through my mind, one after another, each cutting deeper than the last.
I came awake again with a jolt as the cell phone clutched in my bound hands began to vibrate.
Someone was calling me.
I didn’t recognize the number, but that didn’t matter. Somehow, I had gotten a signal and now I needed to make the most of it.
“Hello?” I whispered urgently. “Who’s this?”
“Daphne?” came the unfamiliar man’s voice, sounding more relieved than any stranger should, considering he would have had no idea what was happening to me. “Are you okay?”
“No!” I shouted, then thought better of it and lowered my voice. “No, I have been kidnapped.”
“I know,” he responded, cool as a cucumber. “I am trying to track your location, but the service keeps dropping in and out. Don’t hang up.” The sound of keys being pounded at a seriously rapid pace fills the sudden silence.
I waited a moment for him to say something else, and when he didn’t, I asked, “Who are you?”
“Call me Hack. I’m a…friend of your brother,” he replied cryptically. I assumed he meant that he worked for Stone.
I had no idea how long it had been since these d-bags grabbed me, but a quick glance at the time on my phone said it had been almost two hours since I last remembered checking the time in the dress shop. Between Penelope and the salesclerk, someone would have called the police.
My mind went back to the final moments, just as the trunk lid was shutting, finally dragging up the last thing my drugged-out brain registered.
Ice filled my veins as I remembered the scream—and the gun shot.
“Penelope!” I gasped, finding it difficult to breathe. “Is—is she—?” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Luckily, I didn’t have to.
