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I turned the knob and immediately noticed how his eyes dropped to my hands. Rage took over and I almost slammed the door. In fact, I would have if it weren’t for the other man in the room that had me frozen in my tracks. I didn’t know who he was, but the look on his face screamed danger. Dark eyes hooded by the tendrils of dark hair that fell across his forehead only added to my fear. But it was the scowl on his face that had me taking a step back. It was a mixture of hatred and calculation. I didn’t know him, but I had no doubt he knew exactly who I was.
“Where is it?”
I swallowed hard, unable to take my eyes off the menacing man that sat in the corner chair, casually flicking a knife open and closed. “Um…”
“Sarah, where’s the fucking paperwork?”
I finally tore my eyes away and looked at my boss. I could see now that he wasn’t just upset. He was scared. This man was here for nefarious reasons, and I was now caught in the middle of it. Suddenly, my excuse that it was in another briefcase didn’t seem so bad. “Um…I forgot I took a different briefcase with me and left it at home. I just need to run out and get it.”
The man stood, flicking the knife open once more. Slowly, he walked toward me until he stood just inches from me. “Why do I think you’re lying?”
Because I was, and I was terrible in a crisis. I always had inappropriate reactions, which was why I couldn’t help the next words out of my mouth. “I don’t know you well enough to guess how smart you are. But you look like a really bad guy, and if that’s the case, you’re probably not that bright. You flick that knife open like it’s going to scare me. Which, it has, but if you were really smart, you’d use something more intimidating to get the information from me than just flicking a knife. It’s really very juvenile.”
That may have been the wrong thing to say, but as I said, I had terrible reactions to situations like this. And that was how I ended up in the corner of the office with a bomb strapped to my chest.
“All this over paperwork?” I huffed. “If I had known it was so important, I would have faxed it over last night.”
“There was a reason I wanted the hard copies!” my boss shouted.
Now, I was in a pretty bad situation, you know, with things that went boom strapped to me. Thankfully, my boss wasn’t too much better off, which gave me at least a tiny gleeful feeling in my gut that if I died, he would too.
I watched as he wiggled in his chair, strapped down with duct tape and unable to move. Okay, technically, he was better off than I was, but at least if this thing went off, I’d be dead before I knew what was happening, so…bonus points for me.
“Where are the fucking documents, lady?” the man shouted in my face. I tried really hard not to flinch, but spit flew at my face and that was just disgusting. I was pretty sure some even got on my lips. Now I had gross man spit on me.
“Well, at least we know you probably don’t have cavities,” I mumbled.
“What are you talking about?”
I wiggled my nose, trying to somehow move the spit from my lips. “You have a lot of spit, and that’s great for helping to keep your teeth healthy. You should be happy that you’re not one of those crazy, knife-wielding people that have rotten teeth. Although, that might give you more of a menacing air. Not that you’re not super scary. You are. And the fear factor is definitely there. This is my first time being strapped to a bomb, so I’m pretty terrified right now.”
“You don’t sound terrified,” he argued. “Which makes me think you have more to hide.”
“No, not really. I just…don’t know how to respond to these situations. Although, as I said, this is my first time strapped to a bomb. If there’s some other way I should respond, please feel free to give pointers.”
He looked at me like I was crazy, and frankly, I certainly felt that way at the moment. If I had a guardian angel, she would be hovering over me telling me to keep my mouth shut if I wanted to live. I’m sure other hostages in situations like this stood stock still and shook in fear. Maybe their eyes were wide and their pits were stained with large circles of sweat. Some of them probably even passed out. That would be the normal response, I was sure, but my body almost went into a kind of refusing to give any type of response. It didn’t make sense, but then again, neither did being strapped to a bomb for not having papers. I should probably be more focused on that. It would probably save my life.
“Look,” I said, trying to get to the heart of the problem. “I’m sure this is all some big misunderstanding. You want papers, and I’m supposed to have them.”
“But you don’t,” the man hissed. “And why is that? Who are you working for?” he said, stepping toward me with his knife jabbed in my face.
I flinched back, gently raising my hand to push the knife away from my eyeball. “It’s actually a pretty funny story. See, I got the papers and put them in my briefcase. Then I went to my hotel room and set them down. I went to the bar for a drink and met this super hot guy—”
“Was he the spy?” the man shouted.
I flinched back again, this time at how close he was to my face. He obviously didn’t understand anything about personal space. Glancing over at my boss, I thought maybe he would interject or something, but he was the one shaking in his thousand-dollar shoes, and he didn’t even have a bomb strapped to him!
“No, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a spy. He was more of the…desirable nature.”
“You slept with him?” he accused.
“Well, in my defense, it had been a while. See, my boyfriend of five years slept with a waitress at a bar,” I snorted. “As if that’s not cliché.”
“Douchebag,” the man muttered.
“I know!” I exclaimed. “That’s exactly what I thought. And then during one drunken night, my friends decided I needed to liven things up, hence the hair.”
“It suits you,” he said conversationally.
