Page 109 of Finding a Melody

For a moment, I grew completely numb. Just like when Lindie put me in the hospital over the summer. It felt all too similar for being such different situations.

She had beaten me so hard that I thought I was never going to be able to move. I had lain on the floor thinking it was completely over for me. That I wasn’t going to come back from her beating. I hadn’t been able to move. I hadn’t even felt the pain anymore toward the end.

Then I heard the blessed police alarms and their thudding footsteps and after that, I was in and out of it, looking at bright lights, blurry faces, and I knew I’d be okay.

But there were no police alarms. No one even knew I was gone at this point. At least I didn’t think so. My captors were driving normally enough, granted with hard turns and stops, but they weren’t on the run. No one was chasing us.

No one knew. And they wouldn’t know where I was taken.

I wasn’t going to come out as lucky this time. I had to have used up all my luck already just to survive Lindie, the break-in, and the car chase. There had to be nothing left at this point.

We came to a hard stop, and this time the driver turned off his car. No one moved for a long moment and all I could hear was my heart and heavy breathing.

“Let’s get this over,” a gruff voice said, following the sound of the door opening and then slamming shut. The man in the back with me didn’t move right away before finally getting out. Then strong arms grabbed me, arms hooking around my armpit, and yanked me out. Someone else grabbed my feet and just like that, they carried me. Leaves crunched under their feet and the air smelled too fresh and clean.

I whimpered and returned to thrashing as reality truly settled in now. We were at our destination, which only meant my chances of survival shrunk to next to nothing.

“Damn, she’s still energetic,” the man at my head said.

“Not for long,” the other man snapped out.

They carried me up some steps and then through a door. My nose curled at the smell of something overly sweet, and underlying that was something similar to ammonia.

“This her?” an older man asked.

“Sure is,” the one by my head said. Best guess, he was the boy my age.

“Bring her downstairs, tie her up.”

Bile rose in my throat and I coughed, trying to remind myself to keep breathing normally. All the while, another door opened and then I was being carried down. While my world was dark, it suddenly felt extra dark now as I was shoved into a chair. I tried to move, but one of them kept me in place while ropes were tied around my legs and arms.

Then my blindfold was yanked off and I blinked into a bare, dim room, no windows, air stale. They left the cloth in my mouth as they stared down at me, not looking impressed. The boy with sandy brown hair who had been following me was even frowning hard with his eyebrows furrowed, almost like he was worried or anxious. I couldn’t tell.

“Should we be wasting our time on this?” my stalker asked.

“Boss seems to think it’s more important now than ever. Come on.” The older man grabbed his shoulder and pulled him toward the stairs. They left me there, taking with them any source of light.

I cried out as the darkness pressed against me. There was something horrific about being in a basement in pure darkness. I kept waiting for a creature of darkness to come out and devour me. My imagination definitely didn’t become my best friend as I kept thinking up nightmares while I was locked in a dark basement.

It was all I had as time went by, the seconds ticking away, the fear eating at me. A few times, a distant sound would draw out a whimper from me, but no one came down right away. When people were in the room above me, I could hear every step and frankly, it was welcome. I’d count the steps, then count the time between the steps, and then count the steps again.

Over and over, that was all I had to keep me distracted. Their footsteps. It helped to keep me from screaming my head off until I went mute. From crying. From breaking down into a blobby mess.

Music too.

I thought about the songs I’d been working on. The ones I wanted to do. The guys’ song came back to mind too. I hummed through the gag, trying my best to distract myself. The lyrics floated through my mind and I sang them in my head.

“Regret is a six-letter hell

Just tell me what went wrong

I just wanna be strong”

“What are you trying to say?” The light flickered on and a middle-aged man stood before me, tanned skin, dark eyes, light hair. He would probably be found as handsome in that dangerous kind of way as his muscles bulged and a tattoo crawled up along his neck, stopping under his ear. He came closer and finally removed the gag from my mouth. I licked my mouth, it completely dry, my jaw a little sore.

“Just singing,” I replied in a soft voice as I stared at the stranger.

He made a humming sound as he stared down at me. The man had to be just over six feet, and with him hovering over me like that, he seemed too much like a giant.