The three of them left the SUV together, fanned out and walked toward the front of the cabin, Lucy on Raphael’s right, Diesel on his left.
Lucy squealed. “I see her! She’s sitting inside!”
Raphael changed direction, heading toward Lucy, who practically jumped up and down as she pointed at the window. “Francine!” she called.
He came alongside Lucy, looked through the narrow window into the cabin…and there she was. Francine. At long last.
The breath slowly left him as he watched her beautiful profile. She was seated at a table. The window was obscured by what looked like decades of grime, but it was Francine. Raphael’s muscles tensed. He readied himself for whatever fight loomed within the walls of the dilapidated cabin.
Lucy waved one arm high above her head, shouting, “Francine!” and moved toward the door.
A blast of heat, debris and force lifted them up and flattened them on the ground.
Lucy landed half on top of Raphael, the back of her head striking his shoulder hard enough for him to notice. It would bruise, no doubt, but Raphael couldn’t quite process why it had happened. His hearing was gone, his head filled only with the sound of blood pulsing through his eardrums as debris rained down on them.
He turned his head and saw Diesel flat on his back, a burning board resting across one thigh. He should get that off before it burned a hole in his pants. That was as much rational thought as Raphael possessed.
Raphael lifted his head to look at the cabin, but it was no longer there. Every wall was obliterated, raining down on them or gone. Part of the stone fireplace remained, but it was blackened, the upper portion gone, likely having been blasted apart and deposited in the surrounding forest.
They were lucky not to have been beaned in the head with a flying fireplace stone. He stared at where the cabin should have been and a very important thought finally registered.
Francine.No. Just no.
Raphael sat up as Lucy stirred against him. She shook her head, sitting as he did. He rose unsteadily to his feet and Lucy did the same. He stared at the near complete ruin of the cabin and fell to his knees as his legs gave out.No. No!
He heard screaming. Was that Lucy? Or was it him?
Maybe it was both of them.
Francine gave her captor a death stare as he opened the trunk, clearly expecting her to climb inside and be happy about it. She wanted him to understand just how deeplyunhappyshe was.
“What if I don’t want to get in there?” She stood on wobbly legs, having just woken to discover her captor had tied her wrists together.
“Too bad.” He reached out to touch her shoulder. She flinched, dodging his touch.
He didn’t seem fazed by her sour attitude. He pointed at the trunk again, making her furious.
She didn’t move.
He angrily pulled out the tranquilizer gun and waved it at her. She frowned, but didn’t get in the trunk. She wasn’t fond of tight spaces on a good day.
With a menacing grimace, he shot her in the belly again.
You skanky little crust fish.
That was the last thing she remembered before waking up inside the trunk. Her hands were tied in front of her and her ankles were also bound. The car was moving. She could hear the engine noise and feel the jostling of the moving vehicle. Where were they going? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know where he planned to take her, she wanted to be free. Frustration at this whole kidnap situation rose inside her like a volcano waiting to erupt.
Francine screamed and kicked her bound feet against the trunk lid until her legs grew weary. The car jostled her for a few minutes, but stopped soon enough.
She tried to focus on what happened before she was stuffed in the trunk. She’d been pushing jasmine rice around on her plate, trying to make it look like she might have consumed a grain or two.
A loud klaxon sounded throughout the cabin as her captor finished his third heaping plate of rice. He’d eaten nearly half of the soup pot of rice.
“Hmm,” he said, sounding surprised as he chewed his last bite of rice. “They are early.” He pushed his chair from the table, dropped his fork on the table and stood up.
Francine asked, “Who is early?”
