Darby is really starting to worry me. She’s always so damn strong, but I know her ultimate weakness is the dark. At night, they turn off all the lights in here, bathing us in total darkness, and that’s when she loses her shit. It’s as if her fears are slowly eating away at her from the inside out, and I worry she’s going to lose it soon. There’s nothing I can do or say that seems to help her when she’s in that obscure place inside her mind.
“I know, Darby, but we’re not in a position to do anything right now,” I try to explain to her, but she has this look in her eyes right now that tells me all I need to know. She’s cooking up a scheme or some kind of plan that’s probably going to end up getting us both hurt. “Whatever you’re planning is not going to work,” I warn her.
She turns to me, cocks her head to the side and grins. “Maybe not, but it’s better than waiting for them to kill us,” she hisses. “They need you for the ransom. If I can get out of here, I can go get help and come back for you,” she says, trying to make me understand the plan that she has formulated in her head.
“Darby, please, it’s too dangerous,” I plead with her, but she shakes her head in determination.
“Hello? Mr. Kidnapper, I really need to pee!” she yells, and I wince.
Once Darby has her mind set on something, there’s nothingtalking her out of it; but I still try. “Please, Darby, don’t do this,” I beg her in a hushed whisper.
The heavy metal door squeaks open, and my heart sinks.
One of the men, who enters the room, grumbles, “Again? We just got done tying you back up.”
“I’msosorry,” Darby drawls, batting her long eyelashes.
The man groans in protest but stomps over to her and begins untying her. As soon as Darby is free, she throws her hand forward, palm up, straight into the man’s face. An audible crunching sound fills the room before he screams.
Holy shit, those self-defense classes she’s been taking really paid off.
“You bitch!” he screams, trying to grab her, but Darby manages to stand up and evade his grasp.
She then takes off running towards a door, clearly thinking she’ll be able to escape. But I watch despondently as she pulls and pulls at the handle and nothing happens. It’s locked. She moves quickly to another door but gets the same result. It’s locked too.
As she tries to find another exit, a few men rush into the room, evidently having heard the commotion. “What the hell happened?” someone asks the injured man.
“Bitch broke my fuckin’ nose!” he hollers.
That’s when the men barrel towards Darby, surrounding her. I watch powerlessly from my chair, wishing I could have talked her out of doing this; and wishing now that I could help her somehow.
“Shit,” Darby says right before one of the men grabs her. He hauls her backwards and tosses her to the ground like she’s a ragdoll. She collapses on the hard concrete, groaning in pain.
“You’re gonna pay for breaking my nose, lass,” the first man says, stepping forward, his nose bleeding. “Grab her, boys,” he instructs the men.
Two of them grab Darby, hauling her up into a standing position. She’s barely upright when the man with the bloody nose slaps herhard in the face.
Darby’s head whips to the side, her long hair hiding her face. Tears stream down my face as I holler at them to let her go.
And then I hear…Darby laughing. She turns to face her attacker with a smile on her face. Blood coats her teeth as she beams up at him. “That the best you got? You hit like a girl,” she taunts him.
Grimacing at her words, I watch in horror as the dirtbag hits her again, harder this time. Darby collapses against the punch, and the men drop her to the ground like she’s a piece of garbage.
I begin to scream at the top of my lungs until my throat is raw. “Don’t hurt her!” I yell.
The man with the bloody nose stands over her and chuckles. “Feisty bitch, I’ll give her that,” he comments. “Kinda turns me on.”
The blood in my veins turns to solid ice when I see him reaching for his zipper. “No, no, no, no!” I scream, fighting against my bonds. I try to make as much commotion as I can, drawing their attention to me. I don’t care what happens to me in here, but theywill nothurt my best friend. But they only glance over at me for a few moments before their gazes drop back to Darby on the floor.
“I’m gonna show this bitch what she’s been missing her entire life,” the man she hurt earlier says as he lowers his zipper.
“Well, if it’s your micropenis, I haven’t been missing much,” Darby sneers.
That causes the man to just get even more angry, and I curse under my breath.Damn it, Darby.
“Hold her down, boys,” he hollers.
Suddenly, two of the men pin Darby to the ground as she kicks and screams and fights for her life.
