“Where is your daddy, sweetheart?” Rory said.
The way he said sweetheart sent a chill down my spine. It was one of the creepiest things I'd ever heard – and given where I worked, that said a hell of a lot.
“I told you, I don't know,” I said as the tears welled up in my eyes. “He left suddenly and unexpectedly. Packed his shit and left in the middle of the night without so much as leaving a note.”
“Fuck,” Rory said.
He started to shake and there was a wild glint in his eyes, but never took the gun off me. His brother reached out, putting his hand over Rory's and forced him to lower the pistol. As soon as the gun was pointed at the floor, I took a deep breath. This was it. This was my chance to escape.
While the two men muttered to each other, I turned and bolted for the door. I ran, but my foot landed on one of the cans on the floor. The damn thing rolled beneath my foot and pitched me forward. Stumbling, I reached out to catch myself with my hands, and landed hard. I fought to get back up on my feet quickly, but I was too late. Rory was already on top of me, his face a mask of rage.
The gun was nowhere to be seen, thank God, but he was pressing me into the floor. He might not be as big as his brother, but he was bigger than me. I was pinned and couldn't move. With all of his weight on me, I could barely breathe, but I fought as hard as I could. I kicked and screamed until he covered my mouth with his hand. I bit his hand as hard as I could, and Rory yelled out in pain. The back of his hand made sudden contact with the side of my face, and I literally saw stars. I felt dizzy, my vision wavered, and the pain in my cheek was suddenly the least of my worries.
“What the hell?” the other guy said.
He pulled his brother off me, holding him up by his shirt. He was pissed, I could see it in his eyes. My stomach roiled, and I felt sick. My head was spinning as I reached out for the coffee table, trying to pull myself up as the two men continued to fight it out.
As soon as I sat up, however, I wished that I hadn't. The dizziness overtook me and I fell backward onto the floor again. My vision was spotty, and it wasn't long before the world around me went black.
~ooo000ooo~
“What the hell, man? I didn't agree to this shit.”
That voice. I knew that voice, but from where? I struggled to open my eyes and when I did, I found myself staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. The smell of stale smoke and the familiar stench of stale beer that could only be found in a bar filled my nostrils. I'd worked in bars long enough to know the smell with my eyes closed. I turned my head toward the voices, and my head spun again. My stomach roiled, and bile rose in my throat. A wave of nausea rose up within me and I
didn't know that I'd be able to hold it back.
“I'm gonna be sick,” I said to no one in particular.
I couldn't sit up. I tried to rise a couple of times before realizing I was tied down. Flat on my back, only able to move my head and I was going to throw up all over myself if someone didn't do something.
The large guy from earlier rushed over to me, his face appearing in my field of vision. Kneeling at my side, he pulled at the ropes on my hands without saying a word, his deep blue eyes filled with sorrow and concern as he worked at the knots.
Rory, the other man who'd been in my house earlier, cursed at him. “Declan, what the fuck, man?”
“She's going to be sick,” the man I now knew as Declan said. “What good is a hostage if she chokes to death on her vomit?”
Another voice, from a man I couldn't see, spoke. “He's right, Rory,” he said. “Let him help her. She's not going to get far.”
My heart thundered in my chest as I tried to figure out what in the hell was going on. Declan helped me sit up, and as soon as I did, nausea rushed through me like a raging river. I couldn't even remember the last thing I'd eaten, but it came back up just the same, covering the floor beneath me. That's when I noticed I was tied to a table. Just a table.
Declan pushed my hair back as I threw up but didn't say anything. His touch was gentle, almost comforting, which was so utterly strange, considering the circumstances. That meant he was the closest thing I had to a friend there.
“Thank you,” I said as the last remnants in my stomach were expelled all over the floor.
Our eyes met again, and I knew that if I could get this man alone, I could reason with him. I could probably get him to let me go. I had no idea why I felt so certain about it, but I knew he wouldn't hurt me. He might look dangerous, but he wasn't a killer. The other one though – Rory – I could see he was crazy a mile off. Rory would have put three or four bullets in me – and probably had sex with my still-warm corpse. But, Declan seemed to have some of his humanity left intact.
“Get her some water, Rory,” the other man said.
“Killian – ” Rory argued.
“NOW,” the man named Killian roared.
I looked past Declan and met Killian's eyes. Of the three of them, he looked to be the most normal. He looked like somebody who should be at his kid's soccer games or a PTA meeting or something. He did not look like someone who would orchestrate a situation like this.
Declan was massive and covered in ink – a typical bad boy. Rory was smaller, slighter of frame, and just, well, creepy and crazy. Killian, however, looked like someone who'd have a boring, cushy job in accounting with his neatly trimmed hair and finely-tailored suit.
Yet, even though he appeared normal and like the All-American kind of guy, his eyes held something that sent a chill sliding up and down my spine like a finger of ice. It took me a long time to realize that it wasn't what I saw in his eyes that scared me – it's what I didn't see.