6
Waking up felt like I was treading through a fog, I couldn’t quite get to my destination. I shifted in and out of consciousness for what felt like days. Strange voices flitted around me, liquid was slipped down my throat, I could feel someone touching my hair...but still I slept on.
When I finally emerged from my deep sleep, it felt like I’d been sleeping for years. There was sunlight streaming in from a large window to my right that took up almost the whole side of the room...a very unfamiliar room I might add. This wasn’t my place or the seedy motel.
Panicking, I tried to rack my brain for where I was. Had I gone out with Cherry and gotten drugged? Sleepwalked? Was I still dreaming? A million different scenarios ran through my head until I fell on one that filled me with the most dread of all.
They’d taken me.
The Vepar.
The strange three men who’d been following me around for weeks.
Sitting up in bed, I was relieved to see that for the moment, I was at least by myself in a giant bedroom easily twice the size of my loft. I sat in the largest bed I’d ever seen, easily able to fit four sleeping adults. Moving my legs, I noted that the silky sheets were also the nicest I’d ever felt as they slid against my skin. Wherever I was, the person who owned this place owned expensive things. And if I was kidnapped, this had to be the strangest prison I’d ever seen.
Looking down at myself, I found myself wearing a flimsy white nightgown. My brain started to short circuit as I realized I wore nothing underneath, meaning that someone had taken off my bra and underwear and had seen everything.
Dread crept over me at the thought of what they’d done to me while I lay unconscious, but as I shuffled out of the bed, I sensed no pain, and especially not the kind I’d expect between my thighs if someone had forced themselves on me. Someone had broken into the motel room, carried me away without anyone noticing, redressed me, then laid me to sleep in a bed that would have belonged in a real palace. Not the run-down motel Palace.
I had to be dreaming.
But if it was the Vepar, and at this point that seemed the most likely scenario, how the hell had they found me at the motel?
Getting out of the bed, I walked on shaky legs to the window to look out and find my location. I gasped at the forest that spread out in front of me for as far as the eye could see. No sign of the skyscrapers that usually graced my eyesight. Wherever I’d been taken, it was a long way from home. My heart beat like it was trying to escape, matching my situation perfectly because I was about to have to try and escape.
A lock clicked behind me, and I backed into the corner, looking around wildly to see if there was anything, I could use to defend myself.
The door cracked open and an older, plump woman opened the door. Her silvery hair fell to her shoulders. “Oh good, you’re up,” she said cheerfully as if we knew each other. She started bustling around the room, going over to the bed and beginning to straighten the sheets.
Adrenaline flooded my body, and I bolted through the door she’d left open.
I heard her say, “Oh, dear,” as I left the room, but no footsteps followed me to signal she was trying to stop me.
A flight of stairs lay a ways down the hallway, and I flew down them not sure what I was going to do if the Vepar were waiting for me down below. I just knew that I couldn’t stay still any longer.
I jumped the last few steps, landing on the wooden floorboards with a loud creak. They were cold beneath my feet, icy almost. I glanced around to the open kitchen I’d entered, flooded in bright sunlight that was pouring in from the enormous windows. Everything was sleek lines, white, and very clean. The L-shaped counter was made of white marble, peppered with the latest kitchen gadgets including a mixer, stainless steel coffee machine, juicer, blender, and mini oven. The sweetest aroma of pancakes found me, and my stomach betrayed me, gurgling with hunger as I realized I didn’t remember ever getting to my frozen meal last night. I stared at the stack of pancakes on the island counter accompanied by an array of syrups and cream and chopped fruit. I couldn't remember the last time I’d eaten something so decadent. I obviously wasn’t going to get to eat it this time either.
Footfalls sounded upstairs, and I spun on the spot, searching for a way out. There on my right, stood a slightly open door with what seemed like sunlight shining out of it. A way out!
Adrenaline coursed through me, and I sprinted forward. When I dragged the door open wider, I ran straight into someone solid as stone. Stumbling backward, I whimpered, staggering over my feet, only to notice someone darting forward from the doorway to capture the mountain of blueberries that had flipped out of the bowl in his hand. Tiny purple balls rained down on me.
I fell on my ass, the tiny fruit tapping the floor around me. I looked up in dismay to see the blond haired Vepar who’d been following me around in the black town car studying me with a raised brow from the doorway.
“Going somewhere?” he asked in an amused tone. He was wearing nothing but a pair of loose pajama bottoms that hung low, showing off that “v” line that every girl seemed to be obsessed with. I hadn’t thought that it really existed before now, and I couldn’t stop staring. I had to stop.
He glanced down at the blueberry covered floor. “Guess we’ll have to have strawberries this morning,” he said with a sigh, beginning to walk past me, not bothering to pick up the blueberries or help me off the floor. I stared after him, my mouth hanging open in shock. I stood shakily and turned to bolt again for the door.
“There’s nowhere for you to run, my pet,” came another voice right as I took my first step. Moving toward the door I was about to run towards was the dark haired Vepar who seemed to be everywhere in my life recently.
“Where am I?” I asked in a trembling voice, suddenly very much aware of how thin my nightgown was. He took a step closer, his gait smooth and predatory. That was a trait of the Vepar that had always scared me, everything about their movements were a little too fluid, a little too perfect...a little too inhuman.
The Vepar studied me, not answering my question. He was dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting black t-shirt that went well with the bad boy image he had going for him. I could see the hint of a tattoo peeking out from the top of his shirt.
“Bring her in here,” the other Vepar called from the kitchen. As the black haired Vepar in front of me took another step closer, I panicked, my fight or flight instincts taking full effect. I had already tried the flight, apparently now it was time for the fight. I flew at the Vepar, scratching and clawing all the skin I found, shrieking as I did so like I was possessed.
Suddenly his hand encircled my neck in an iron grip, cutting off my air flow so abruptly that I couldn’t breathe. I tried to claw at his hands, but I might as well have been a child swatting at him with how little of a difference it made.
Leaning in close to me, he whispered in my ear, “Are you done yet, pet?”