“That was three days ago. Hasn’t he given you anything to eat or drink?” I asked. Who would go to all the trouble of kidnapping someone without bothering to feed or even torture them? It didn’t make any sense.
“Now you know why my voice is so damn raspy. I don’t suppose it sounds like a sexy bedroom voice, does it?”
I shook my head. “You’re unbelievable,” I said, laughing. “Even when you’ve been kidnapped, slashed, and left for dead, you’re still thinking about sex.”
“Hey. How do you think I got through the last few days?”
“Chelsea!”
“Thinking about Ben.” She sung his name.
“Oh, God.” I cringed, thinking she was going to give me the juicy details.
“Hang on,” I said, just as she was about to open her mouth. I remembered there was something that Chelsea was worried about telling me, and I didn’t think that her fantasizing about Ben was it. “What were you so worried about me freaking out about?” It was amazing how conversations with Chelsea so easily strayed from the topic where it started.
“Oh, yeah,” she sounded disappointed. I was sure she would have much rather been talking about Ben. It was funny how quickly she’d changed her mind about him. And I still hadn’t asked Aiden how that happened.
“As I was saying before, I’ve been racking my mind the last few days and can only come up with one logical answer.” She paused, as if she was working up her courage. Chelsea took a deep breath, then blurted, “He thought I was you.”
“What?” I asked, thinking I hadn’t heard right.
“Well, it makes sense. He took me from your house just before six in the morning. I was wearing my hoodie, so he couldn’t see the colour of my hair. And let’s face it, at that time in the morning, who else would be crazy enough to be up and about? He probably thought that I was you sneaking back home from your boyfriend’s house or something.” She stopped her rambling and looked at me with a serious expression on her face. “Think about it.”
A sick feeling settled over me as I took in what she had just said. No matter how much I wanted her to be wrong, it made sense. That was why I had heard him calling my name in the vision I’d had during my car accident. I was the one he wanted. It should’ve been me strapped to that chair, not her.
“I could be wrong. Maybe I’m a little delusional. After all, I have been here without food and water for three days. That’s gotta do something to a girl.”
I was about to interrupt her when a chilling voice stopped her in her tracks. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter 17
Without turning around, I knew it was the kidnapper, and I knew he was talking to me. The sound of his voice sent chills down my spine. Instantly, I knew that everything Chelsea had just said was true. He was never after her. He wanted me. And he had me exactly where he wanted me, and there was no way out.
Slowly, I turned around to face my predator. The sick bastard was leaning against the door to the room. He looked exactly like the picture I had given the police yesterday at the station. His shoulder length, shaggy brown hair hung limp from the sides of his face. His deep brown eyes were ice cold. He appeared detached of all emotion.
“You have to try to transport yourself out of there!”
Aiden’s voice boomed through my head. I couldn’t answer.
“Jade, listen to me,”
he screamed, snapping me out of the hysteria I was slipping into.
“You have to try to get yourself out of there.”
“How? I’m in a cage, for Christ’s sake.”
““I don’t know how, but you’ve gotta try,”
he pleaded.
The psycho started to approach the cage. The closer he got, the tighter my heart squeezed.
“Don’t you think I would if I could?”
“Look, if you got yourself there, you must be able to get yourself out.”
No matter how much I wanted that to be true, there was simply no time to try to work out how to get myself out of there. All I could hope for was that somehow my sporadic superhuman strength or a fluke transportation would get me out of the situation.
He stopped in front of the door of the cage and tapped something he was holding against the floor. My eyes worked their way down his body, and my heart stopped when I saw what he was holding by his right leg. It was a gun. He was going to kill me. He was going to shoot me dead where I stood.
“No,” I murmured, my voice barely audible, as I slowly backed up against the bars of the cage.
Looking again, I realised that it was no ordinary gun. He was holding a tranquilliser gun.
“I think it’s a tranquilliser,”
I said to Aiden.
“Shit. Just try to buy some time, try to get him…”
but before Aiden could finish his sentence, the psycho lifted the gun and aimed it at me.
“No, no. Please don’t!” I begged him.
He let out a sinister laugh, then pulled the trigger back, sending a dart flying into my chest.
I looked down at the protruding dart. My mind was telling my hands to reach up and yank it out, but my body would not respond. The sedative was working too quickly, and I didn’t stand a chance of fighting back.
My head swirled as the light started fading, and I fell to the ground with a thump. Darkness engulfed me and I blacked out.
Chapter 18
“Jade?”
Ahh, there was the voice I knew and loved. I was slowly rousing from a deep sleep, but I couldn’t manage to open my eyes. Thinking that he was curled up beside me only made me want to stay asleep more, untouched by the nightmare that had become my life.
“Jade,”
Aiden’s loving voice called to me again.
“You’ve gotta wake up.”
I tried to reach out to him, but my arms wouldn’t move. I was still so sleepy.
“Jade, please wake up!”
Aiden’s voice no longer sounded like the happy, loving voice that I’d heard only moments ago. It sounded desperate, but I was still so sleepy.
“Please wake up. I need to know that you’re okay.”
“But I’m so tired,”
I moaned.
“Just give me another few minutes.”
“Jade, you gotta wake up! You’re in danger. Don’t you remember? The tranquilliser…”
Suddenly, memories came flooding into my mind. How I’d found Chelsea. Her theory that she was mistakenly taken instead of me. The psycho. The tranquilliser gun—Oh, my God. Where was I? What had he done to me?
I needed to open my eyes, but my body was not responding to my demands. I wasn’t about to give up, though. I had to keep fighting to gain control of my body. It was the only way I stood a chance against him. I needed to be at my best, or at least have my wits about me.
A few moments later, I managed to open my eyes a few millimetres before they closed again. All I had seen was a blinding light. I knew I had to open them again, but my eyelids felt so heavy. I concentrated all of my energy on forcing them open, but all I could see was the blinding light hovering above my face. I squinted, trying to see anything beyond the light. It was too much, and I had to close my eyes again.
“You have to try again,”
Aiden insisted.
I forced my eyes open, and although the light was not quite as blinding as the last time, I still could not see a thing. I managed to turn my head slightly to the left. I saw what looked like a table, but I couldn’t be sure because my vision was still blurry.
I closed my eyes, hoping that the next time I opened them my vision would be restored.
Once again I opened my eyes, and my heart stopped as I realised that what I thought was a table was actually a trolley, and sitting in the middle of the trolley were surgical tools lined up in a perfectly straight line.
Tears started welling up in my eyes. The situation I was in was far worse than I could have ever imagined. All the bad things that I had feared would happen to Chelsea were nothing to what I was about to face.
“Good, you’re awake.” It wasn’t Aiden’s desperate voice filling my head. It was the voice of a monster.
I followed his voice. He was standing at the bottom of my makeshift bed, and I gasped in horror as I realised that I was only wearing my bra and undies. My heart hammered inside my chest as I thought about why he had undressed me. What he had planned for me.
“If he touches you…”
Aiden’s voice was filled with such anger. The next time he spoke, his tone was much calmer.
“You’ve gotta keep him talking. I need more time.”
“How much more? You’ve gotta get me out of here. I don’t want him to…”
I couldn’t finish my sentence, but I knew he would understand what I meant. The thought of the kidnapper touching me made me want to scream, shout, and curl up into a little ball and cry my eyes out.
None of those things were going to help me. The only chance I had was to give Aiden more time, so that is what I had to do.
I closed my eyes and tried to centre myself. I couldn’t show any fear. That would only ignite the power he already felt he had over me. But at the same time, I couldn’t piss him off, because that would only fuel his anger and make him kill me that much sooner. It was a fine line that I would have to tread, and I would have to get it right.
“You can do it. Just believe in yourself.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think I can do this with you talking to me at the same time.”
Instantly, I felt bad about what I had just said.
“It’s just… I’m not as good at this whole having two conversations thing as you are, and I’ll probably stuff up.”
“You don’t have to say another word. I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.”
“Thanks,”
I replied, relieved that he hadn’t taken offence.
“Just one last thing. I love you.”
Even at the worst of times, hearing him say those three little words filled my heart with strength and hope.
“I love you, too,”
I said before closing my eyes, trying to focus my full attention on buying more time. It’s funny how the whole conversation I’d just had with Aiden would have taken ten times as long if we’d actually had to talk—the mind can think a lot faster than the mouth can speak.
Once I had centred myself, I opened my eyes and began playing my part. “Who are you?” I asked. Although I was pretty sure he wouldn’t give me his real name, I needed to keep him talking. The more he talked, the more chance I had of getting out of here.
He tilted his head to the side. “You don’t really expect me to tell you that, do you?”
I shook my head and kept thinking,
tell me your name, tell me your name.
“Michael,” he blurted.
The look on his face made me think that he hadn’t meant to tell me. So I quickly asked another question to keep him from wondering why he had given me his name. “Why me?” I asked, my voice cracking.
It worked. “Ahh… now that’s the million dollar question. What makes
you
so special?” He paused in thought, circling me as if I were some mythical creature the world has been trying to capture, and he was about to unlock the secrets to my existence.
“Let’s see. If we look at this from a psychological profile point of view, we should rule out some of the possibilities.” He sounded like he must have some experience in that field. Maybe he was a psychologist or a police officer.
“Could it be that you remind me of my negligent mother, and somehow I am trying to find a way of punishing her?” He paused for a minute, considering that theory. “No. No, you don’t.” Michael continued to circle me, watching me with morbid curiosity.
“Maybe it’s because…”
A thought suddenly came to me. And if it worked, I’d be free in no time. Just before he had told me his name without wanting to, so maybe I could ‘tell’ him to free me—could it be that simple?
As he continued to rule out the various psychological profiles of a killer, I focused on ‘making him’ let me go. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Nothing ever seemed to work when I needed it most. It was hopeless. I was at the mercy of this psycho, and even though I was supposed to be able to friggin’ transport, control peoples’ actions, and have the strength of Superman, yet whenever I needed them, I was just as normal as the rest of the human race. My only option was to keep him talking, which seemed to be working quite well, I thought, as I tuned back in to what he was saying.
“No. I think whatever it is, it definitely isn’t anything as superficial as the way you look. You see,” he paused to pick something up from the trolley before continuing, “I think that it might have something to do with what’s underneath… all this.” He waved a scalpel inches from my body.
The sight of the knife glistening under the bright light brought the fear of God into me.
“He’s going to kill me,”
I cried silently to Aiden.
“You’ve gotta calm down and try to get yourself out of there.”
“I can’t. He’s about to carve me up.”
No matter how much I knew that I had to calm down, every time I saw the gleaming surgical tool in that psycho’s hands, my mind went reeling in fear.
“Look, he can’t kill you. We can’t die.”