“Burch. Ms. Ainsley Willow Burch?” my captor asked.
I froze in surprise, my resistance gone in a puff of smoke. They had my name?
“That’s what I thought.” He dragged me after him toward the car as the other four surrounded us.
This was intentional, not a case of mistaken identity. No wrongful kidnapping. They came for me, an orphan with nothing in the world, with their tinted-windowed black SUV, in suits looking like they cost more than the Hayeses made from fostering me, and not caring who watched them abduct a teenager off a crappy side street in the middle of the day.
I knew what this meant. No one took a kid off the street with good intentions. I couldn’t just give in and go with them.
I kicked the man tugging me in the back of the knee, then twirled under his arm until his hand was forced to let me go. His flat cap fluttered to the ground. I gave him another kick and jerked upright to run again. One step in, I was swept off my feet and thrown over someone’s shoulder.
“You good, Vinny?” The second guy’s voice vibrated from his chest into me, the sound like the croak of a gate.
“Yes.” The first speaker grunted, getting up with a slight limp and dusting off his cap. Good, he deserved worse. “Let’s go. I’m not made for this shit.”
With my legs clamped against the second captor’s chest, I pummeled my fists at his back and screamed bloody murder. I tugged at his gray hair. My belly bounced into his shoulder as he raced to the car, and I bit his side hard.
“What the fuck?” He threw me into the car. “The viper bit me.”
I rebounded from the back seat to the floor. Pain burst through my back, and my eyes watered. I held back a scream and scrambled to the opposite door, but it opened with another man blocking the exit. My attackers piled back into the vehicle as a black hood dropped over my head. It reeked of old blood, sweat, and spit, and I gagged, swallowing down my own vomit. Someone clamped my hands behind my back.
“Please let me go.” I shook, tugging at the hands holding me in place.
The chill of thin plastic grated against the tight press of my wrists. The zip ties tightened with soft-clicks, and my breath warmed the inside of the hood, worsening the smell.
“You’re lucky I’m not breaking your face in, little girl. Now, stay put.” It was the guy who carried me and I’d bitten, his voice coming from directly to my right. He shoved me hard to the floor, two sets of legs casing me in. “Shit, that hurt. This better be worth it.”
“Doubtful,” said the same man who had guttered out my name. He sat behind me to the left. Between the two of them and whoever else there was, there was no way out. I was trying really hard not to visibly shake. I didn’t want them to know how scared I was. Every part of me was tense. “Drive.”
The car rumbled to life.
At first, we drove in silence, the vibrations of the car much milder than my nerves. Hands on my shoulders held me in place, but they weren’t hurting me, not yet, but acknowledging that calmed me enough to get my bearings. Panic wasn’t going to get me free.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, satisfied with the strength of my voice. No one answered. “You can’t just take me off the street. I have people who’ll realize I’m gone. Just let me out, and we’ll forget all about this.”
Someone sighed heavily, and my hood came up a little over my mouth. Then there was the rasp and scratch of duct tape. They glued it to my mouth and shoved the hood back in place.
“No one wants to hear you talk right now, darling,” the human-carrier groused.
Every tug of the ties around my wrists dug the plastic deeper into my skin. Every cursed word I yelled came out as a muffled mess as the tape tugged uncomfortably against my lips. With my tongue, I wet it. With my shoulder, I rubbed at the sides of the tape over the hood. It barely budged.
I don’t know how long we drove for. I tried counting turns and seconds like those spies did in the movies. After six turns, I lost track. I could have sworn we were turning in circles before the sounds of the city fell away, and we picked up speed on a long track of straight road. All I knew for sure was that we were getting further and further away from home.
Three voices up front jabbered pointlessly about sports game results and the newest beer on tap at their favorite bar, as if they’d already forgotten they’d kidnapped someone. In contrast, the two men in the back seat, whose legs boxed me in, were quieter than I liked. Their near silence felt inhuman.
I forced myself to stay calm. Deep breaths, in and out. I rubbed my cheek harder against my shoulder. The tape easedoff a corner of my lips. Air seeped in through my mouth again. I kept rubbing. Slowly, the tape came off, section by section.
“I don’t like this. She’s just a kid.” The human-carrier broke the silence. He had the raspier voice of the two beside me. “Does he know?”
“Doubtful.” Again, that word, said in a harsh droll.
“You didn’t tell him?”
“He wasn’t listening.”
That seemed to end their little conversation, or at least it was all I could hear above the rumble of the car and the stupid barmaid joke being laughed at in the front. Nothing they said sounded like anything I could use to my advantage. My only option was running the moment the hood came off. The tape now dangled from one cheek. I could yell if I wanted to, but not yet. Not until the right moment when other people could hear me.
Finally, the car slowed to a crawl. It bounced up and down, crunching gravel beneath its tires, until it turned one last bend and the brakes softly creaked. My body swayed with the stop of forward momentum. I gulped down saliva. This was it. Oh god. This was where they tortured me or killed me, or whatever it was they intended to do. No, I couldn’t panic. There was a way out of this. I just had to find it and run.
