Stealing Her Read online

  In the meantime, though, I have to fight.

  All three of my masked assailants have their hands up, their tall, muscular frames carefully circling me as I wield my heavy messenger bag like a flail. I feel strangely powerful. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, but my heart is beating calmly and evenly. I never miss a beat. I never falter for even a moment. I am in total control here.

  Finally, one of the masked men takes a dive toward me, but I’m prepared for him. With a throaty growl, I swing my bag at him and hit him hard in the shoulder. He cries out in agony, stumbling clumsily to the ground. His cohorts are so stunned by my attack that they hesitate— and their failure is my victory. I can clearly see the window of opportunity, and I take it.

  I drop my bag and bolt in the opposite direction, the keys to my BMW roadster jangling reassuringly in my pocket. I’m running as fast as I can, breathing hard, never daring to look back. There is no need. I smile to myself, knowing that safety is just a few bounds away. I press the unlock button on my key fob over and over again as I run up to the driver’s side door. I fling it open and slide behind the wheel, my hands trembling slightly as I jab the key into the ignition and give it a violent turn. But to my horror, I turn it too hard— and the key snaps in half.

  I cry out, my eyes wide as I gaze at the shattered key in my palm. A moment later, the windshield shatters with an ear-splitting crack, and as the shards of glass pierce my face, I am jolted awake.

  My eyes round and wide open, I sit there slumped against the muddy wall, my chest heaving as I gasp for breath. I look around myself, my heart sinking as reality comes trickling back in. I’m not on campus in my car. I didn’t defend myself against my attacker.

  He won the battle.

  He captured me, and now I’m still sitting in this disgusting, dank hole waiting for him to carry out whatever sick punishment he has in mind for me.

  I sigh and let my head fall back against the filthy wall behind me. I can feel the damp earth soaking through my hair to my scalp, and normally that would gross me out beyond belief. But right now, it doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters, to be honest. Might as well get used to feeling gross and uncomfortable, because it seems as though my captor has no intentions of letting me go free anytime soon.

  I only wish I knew how long I’ve been in here. Long enough to drift off into a dream, at the very least. I try to shift around, stretching out my legs with a groan of pain. It hurts. My whole body feels like one gigantic cramp at this point. I need to get up and move around. I would kill for the opportunity to do some simple yoga poses— anything to change positions and work out the kinks in my muscles. I have a strong feeling my captor isn’t concerned with muscle tension on my part, however.

  In fact, for all I know, he could be leaving me in here to waste away.

  I shiver.

  That’s an even worse fate than dying in some contested battle. At least if I had to physically fight him, I could go down swinging. That’s how I want to go. With a battle cry, not with a whimper. But that’s not up to me anymore. I, Lila Hawthorne, girl who is continually in control of her own fate, can’t do a damn thing to save herself from a slow, boring descent into madness or death.

  “Yikes,” I murmur to myself, shaking my head. “That’s a little grim.”

  I force myself to think of it differently. My father would be so disappointed to see me give up so easily. Sure, he’s always taught me to obey his commands and advice, but he’s also always told me that I have to fight for myself. That I can’t trust a man to look after me. They all want the same thing: to break me down and stamp out my spirit.

  I summon up as much defiance and indignation as I can muster, focusing my anger toward my captor rather than at myself.

  I wish I knew what time it is. My wrists are bound behind me, so I suppose it wouldn’t matter whether I’d worn that watch Daddy got for me or not. Besides, the guy who brought me here took all of my belongings: my purse, my messenger bag, my phone. He would have taken my watch along with the rest anyway. For a moment, I feel a glimmer of hope: maybe someone will have already realized I’m missing and will be tracking the location of my cell phone. That happens all the time in TV shows.

  But then I remember with a sinking heart that my phone does not even possess that capability. Even though my father is very well-off and he could easily afford to give me an updated, fancy smartphone, he always insists that I’m too reliant on newfangled technology and that I need to do things the old-fashioned way. Everything my father has ever taught me has been in pursuit of creating a strong, battle-ready, but obedient daughter. He says today’s technology has made me too soft, that I need to pull back a little and do things the way he does it. When I go to class, I’m the only student in the room who still takes notes exclusively in paper notebooks. All of my classmates use laptops and tablets or even just their phones. And their textbooks all exist in e-reader format, giving them a much lighter load to carry to and from class each day. But not me. I still use heavy, hardback textbooks, even when my professor urges me to do otherwise.

  At the end of the day, I only answer to one man: my father.

  It means that I’m always behind, always doing the analog way of things. Daddy wants me to work hard, and sometimes that means shoveling out far more effort than anyone else does.

  So I have a flip-phone, one of those old ones that can’t even access the internet. The GPS tracker is deactivated, and besides, it probably would not have worked very accurately anyway. Yes, it’s the 21st century, but if Daddy says I have to do it the old way, then I’ll do it the old way.

  Of course, that doesn’t help me one bit right now. Nobody is tracking my phone. They couldn’t even if they wanted to. It’s always been a point of pride for me: that I’m old-fashioned. I’m classic. I don’t need those new technological advances to be an exceptional student or a phenomenal success of a daughter. I’ve always proven the naysayers wrong. I’ve always worked that much harder, poured that much more of my heart and soul into my work to balance it out and come out on top. Daddy won’t raise a quitter, and he sure as hell won’t raise a failure.

  I could kick myself for letting him talk me into using one of those old flip-phone bricks. It would be so easy for someone to just flip on the GPS tracker and have them come find me if only…

  “No. Don’t think that way. There’s no point,” I scold myself out loud. “No use agonizing over what could have been. Come on. You can’t go back in time. All you have is the present.”

  I’m wide awake. Might as well do as much research as I can while I’m conscious.

  I start looking around, squinting in the almost perfect darkness of my holding cell. I can’t move very easily, since my hands are still bound behind me, but I can lean from side to side a little. I frown, thinking that I might possibly be able to make out some strange markings on the wall to my left. Summoning up all the strength I can get, I lurch over toward the markings with a grunt. I nearly topple over in the process, but I manage to get close enough to follow the pattern of the marks. My stomach twists uncomfortably when I realize what I’m looking at.

  Tally marks. A lot of them. Clearly meant to number a count of days stuck here. And they’re not made in chalk or pen or pencil… they’re obviously claw marks. Someone whittled the shit out of their nails to make these tally marks.

  “Well, that’s not great,” I mumble, feeling sick to my stomach. I can’t help but wonder what dark fate befell the person who was held here before me. How many have there been? How did they get here? How did they get out?

  Why?

  Suddenly, I feel a frantic need to busy myself. I have to get out somehow. I know I can’t get through that door, so I just start scratching away at the dirty floor beneath me. I kick back dirt with the heels of my boots, digging and digging in the desperate hope of finding some secret door or something. But instead, I find something much worse: concrete. Underneath the layers of grime and filth is a cement floor, hard as rock and totally impene
trable. Again, tears burn in my eyes as hopelessness sets in.

  But no sooner do I start to cry than I’m distracted by a strange new sound. A scraping noise that makes me swallow my sobs and I go silent with fear. I stare toward the door, totally paralyzed. For a moment I worry that madness is starting to sink in and I just imagined it, but then the door slowly creaks open. Soft evening moonlight falls like a pillar in front of me, illuminating an absolutely hulking dark silhouette. My captor. My lips open to cry out to him but no sound comes out. The next thing I know, I’m bowled over by the delicious, stomach-rumbling fragrance of hot soup and warm bread. I realize instantly how very hungry I am, and I hastily scoot forward, following the smell. I can see a small bowl and a tiny plate with a hunk of bread beside it, and my mouth waters. I manage to drag myself closer and closer to it before remembering that my hands are still bound behind my back.

  I can’t eat.

  A moan of disappointment rolls from my throat and I glare up at the dark figure in front of me, blinking and trying to bring his face into focus. But he’s blocking the light in such a way that it’s difficult to make out his features. All I can tell is that he isn’t smiling.

  “This is bullshit,” I murmur, shaking my head as I stare up at him. “You did this just to screw with me. You know damn well my hands are tied.”

  “Have you been good?” he asked, his voice deep and composed.

  I frown, tilting my head to one side. “Yes. Of course, I have. I can’t do anything else,” I tell him, trying to hold back my rage. Clearly, that’s not going to get me anywhere with him. I wait, my chest heaving, as he seems to size me up. Then, without warning, he starts moving toward me. Panic floods through my veins and my heart pounds, my breath coming in short gasps of terror. The man quickly bends down beside me. I’m so frightened that I don’t even dare to steal a glance at his face in the light. I close my eyes tightly and brace myself for some kind of punishment. But to my infinite relief and shock, he doesn’t hurt me at all. He reaches behind me and deftly unbinds my hands, then steps back into the doorway to look down at me.

  I immediately start rubbing my wrists, wincing at the bruises left there but the cords. I can hardly believe it. I gaze up at him warily, wondering what I did to deserve that.

  “I don’t understand,” I admit.

  “You behave, you are rewarded,” he answers simply. “Eat.”

  I look down at the soup and bread, unable to deny the growling in my stomach. I want to eat it. Desperately. But there’s a part of me that worries it might be poisoned. Or that maybe it’s a trick of some kind.

  Besides, I still feel that fire of defiance. I don’t want to do as I’m told.

  “Eat,” my captor repeats gruffly, a little louder this time.

  “And what if I don’t?” I ask, glancing up at him with my held head high.

  “Then you’ll be hungry.”

  It’s such an easy, straightforward answer that I almost start laughing, but then I quickly resist the urge. “Why should I do what you tell me to do?” I press him, fully aware that I’m playing with fire but somehow unable to stop myself.

  “I think I’ve made myself pretty clear, Lila,” he says, and the way my name sounds on his lips makes me shiver in a way that confuses me. “Do what you’re told, and you will be rewarded. It’s really that simple. Eat.”

  This time, I don’t know if it’s because of the way he said my name or maybe just because I am, in fact, very hungry, I give in. I do as I’m told. I pick up the spoon and start to ravenously slurp the soup, taking nibbles of the bread in between sips. I can’t help but groan a little in satisfaction. The food is surprisingly delicious considering the fact that I’m essentially eating it off of a dirt floor. And all the while, those dark eyes are locked on me, never blinking, never turning away for a second. When I hurriedly finish my food, I push the empty bowl, plate, and spoon back toward him and I scoot back a little, waiting for… something. I don’t know what.

  But when it happens, I realize what I’m waiting for.

  He kneels down, still masked in darkness, and reaches out to touch my cheek. I freeze up, unable to pull away as his rough fingertips caress the side of my face. I don’t know why, I can’t even begin to explain it, but for some reason I lean into his touch hungrily. Desperately. He strokes my cheek once, cooing.

  “Good girl,” he whispers. “Very good.”

  I close my eyes, losing myself to the bizarre comfort of his warm hand against my face. I never want him to stop. I need him to stay close, even though there’s a voice in the back of my head screaming, begging me to pull back, to not let him touch me. When he withdraws, I open my eyes and actually whimper, disappointed to lose his touch.

  Silently, he takes something out of his jacket and slides it across the floor to me. I blink, squinting in the darkness to figure out what it is. I realize with confusion that it’s a notebook of some kind, and there’s a pencil poked through the spiral binding.

  “What is this for?” I ask.

  “To write in,” my captor says directly. He stands up and I gulp, noticing once again how enormously tall and broad-shouldered he is. “You will be watched. Do not do anything to hurt yourself, Lila. I would hate to see you hurt.”

  I’m speechless, just staring at the notebook open-mouthed. But that’s not the only gift he has for me. The next thing I know, he’s handing me a neatly-folded bundle of clothing, and I realize with a sinking feeling that I recognize these clothes.

  They’re from my own closet. At home. Somehow, this man has been in my home. It hits me hard just how dangerous and unpredictable he is, that I’m standing so close to the flames. I should fear him.

  I do fear him.

  And yet, there is something about him that comforts me. It doesn’t make any sense, but I decide to push it a little further. After all, who knows how long he will wait before coming back to visit me again?

  “Please,” I beg him, “I have a dog. He’s a rescue. You have to let me talk to my friend— she’s got my dog right now and she needs to know that I-I’m okay. Please.”

  There’s a pause. Then he says, in the same even, controlled tone, “I can make no promises. But as long as everyone is as obedient as you have been tonight, then no one will be hurt. You could be out of here sooner than you think.”

  I’m stunned by his words, and it takes me a few seconds to process the meaning of them. By the time I’m ready to reply, he’s already closing the door. My heart starts to pound as the darkness falls in around me once again.

  “Please! Don’t go! Come back! Don’t leave me here alone,” I cry out, crawling toward the door as it closes in my face.

  Lila

  Is this what it feels like in solitary confinement?

  I sit here in the shadowy darkness, staring at the wall. My eyes roll across the faint scratchings in the earthy material, the vertical claw marks tallying up a daunting number of days and nights. The sight of them, the sheer number of lines etched into the wall, make me dizzy to look at them. The lines run together. I lose count. My mind won’t let me approach the reality of what the previous tenant of this cell had to go through.

  I know if I even begin to turn down that road, there’s no telling what horrors my imagination will summon up from the depths of my fear and anxiety. It’s like watching a horror movie alone in the dark. It always seems much scarier when the monster is still kept hidden, because the human mind is a peculiar and vividly-colored machine. Once the devil is revealed, he tends to lose some of his mystique, some of his inherent monstrosity. The viewer can then more easily categorize and therefore rationalize the monster. He’s not as scary anymore after that.

  I’m being held for ransom.

  The conversation with my ransom spins around in my mind, over and over, but that’s one thing I know for certain. Everyone has to behave. Not just me. I don’t know if it was a slip up or if he simply wanted to let me know why I was kidnapped, but there’s the simple, awful truth.

 
Sitting here, waiting as the minutes slide away slowly as molasses but much less sweet, I am tempted to believe that nothing could ever be so terrible as what my mind can think up. But I have an ache in my gut that warns me that truth is almost always stranger than fiction, and uglier, too. And those tally marks aren’t just part of the austere decor of whatever this cell is supposed to be. They are real. Left here by a real human who used her real fingernails to scratch out the final days of her sanity, maybe even her life.

  Maybe it’s unfair for me to assume the person who was here before me was also a young woman. If my captors are operating under the assumption of a ransom deal, there’s no way to really pin down what demographic are most likely to be held for that reason. At least, it’s not something I have ever stumbled across the data for. Surely it’s out there, but that kind of thing has never mattered to me, not in my world. There’s little space left for superfluous research or hobbies. I try to keep myself as busy and productive as possible.

  My father has no tolerance for laziness, and he instilled in me a driving need to push further and climb the ladder. That’s why I’ve been working to get my business degree. Business is one of the few concentrations my father deems worthy. It’s easy to see why: he’s a businessman himself, and a successful one at that. He never coddled me, even when I was a little girl. Daddy has made it abundantly clear that he will not accept weakness. He will not tolerate vulnerability. And he sure as hell will not allow frivolity.

  Not until I’ve got my degree and have struck it rich in my own right. Then, he says, I can spend my hard-earned money however I see fit.