Chapter Ten: Will

A/N: Sorry for the delay! Finals came up, and then I started outlining the rest of this story and got really carried away (I have too many ideas) but I finally managed to update!

Merry Christmas to you all! This can count as my almost-late present. (It's still Christmas here. Updated at 11:59 like a baws. *pops collar*)

Anyways, enjoy and let me know what you think!

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Kidnap My Heart

Chapter Ten: Will

“Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer— you take one down, smash it on Emma’s head, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall,” I sang, hoping my horrible singing voice would scare off the animals that surrounded me.

It didn’t, so I started singing even louder.

“Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-eight bottles of beer—you take one down, throw it at Emma’s head, ninety-seven bottles of beer on the wall. Ninety-seven bottles of—oh, shit.”

I was starting to think my singing was counteractive. The bugs and rats didn’t look scared. They looked angry. Well, as angry as tiny creatures can be. I don’t know. I just had a feeling they were getting pissed off by my voice.

“Okay. I get it,” I said. “You guys don’t like this song. That’s cool. I don’t really like it either. I know! How about a ballad? Some of you must be chicks. Chick-rats and chick-bugs. Chicks dig ballads. Alright, what should I sing?”

Silence.

“Right. Er… what’s that song my mom used to listen to? Her and her friends loved it... Oh, yeah. Alright, bugs, rats, prepare yourselves. Your tiny minds are about to be blown.” I cleared my throat noisily but stopped when they started inching closer.

I didn’t actually know most of the words to the song—it was some girl power ballad, I think. I don’t know—so there was a lot of mumbling going on during the first verse, but when I got to the chorus, I owned that shit.

The second verse had even more mumbling, but the second chorus was when I really hit my stride. “And I-eee-I will always love you-oooooooooh! I will always love you-oooooooooh!” When I attempted to recreate the instrumental part of the song that followed, I swear they actually started backing away from me. Maybe my lack of musical talent could be used as a weapon of mass destruction, after all.

When I went back to singing, however, a few of them started coming closer again, and I had to scoot farther away from them.

“So you’re not fans of love songs. That’s alright, I’m not either. How about a good-old inspirational ballad? If you don’t like those, you’re not human.” I paused. “You know what I mean. Okay, I’ve offended you. I won’t sing Don’t Stop Believing. Your loss, though. Hmm.”

I decided to just keep making instrumental sounds after that because it seemed to be the only thing that repelled them. I think my singing just made them think I was some dying animal that they could have for dinner, and that obviously wasn’t the best thing for me, so I figured I was safer making questionable noises that made them think I was dangerous.

I lost track of the time in there once I stopped singing. The bit of light that made its way through the door started to diminish at some point, and eventually there was no light left at all. There were no flashlights in this damned garage, so I had no way of escaping the bugs and rats that came closer. All I could do was move slightly when I felt them crawl past me or on me. This was when my plans to reinvigorate Emma’s punishment started to arise, and I even started to make a mental checklist.

ð       Put her in the garage.

ð       Find Emma’s new dog bowl.

ð       Find nasty canine-like food.

ð       Give her rags for clothes (if she gets clothes—still on the fence about that one.)

ð       Find more rats and bugs (probably not a good idea, actually—also on the fence about that one.)

ð       Give her a haircut. Snip-snip, motherfucker.

ð       No entertainment whatsoever for Emma.

The minute I got out of this garage, Emma was going back in. Well, as soon as I found her, she was. I had a feeling she wouldn’t be so easy to find. What if she’d actually managed to escape?

I sighed. There was no point in thinking about that. There was nothing I could do while I was in there, and thinking about Emma just pissed me off even more.

After a while, I fell asleep and attempted to forget about my surroundings. Let me just tell you, falling asleep in that garage wasn’t an easy task. Forgetting about your surroundings is kind of hard when your surroundings start poking you in the leg and climb on your crotch. Man, even bugs can’t resist me. Why did God make me so attractive? It was starting to feel like a curse.

Oh, who was I kidding? Of course it wasn’t a curse.

When I woke up, nothing had changed. I was still stuck in that smelly garage, and I was still alone. I let out a sigh for the millionth time and found myself singing again. Why? I have no idea. I wasn’t even a singer. I only sang in the shower, if at all, and that was usually just to piss Eric or my dad off. “Allll by myself, don’t wanna be allll by myyyyyyyself anymore…”

A bug crawled on my leg, and I kicked it off. "Hey, that wasn't an invitation, buddy," I snapped.

Yeah, I needed to get out of there. Where the hell was Eric when you needed him?

Nowhere. That was where.

Some more time passed. The room got even darker, if that was even possible. The bugs still failed to respect my boundaries. The usual.

At some point, there was a banging on the wall, and I immediately jumped up.

The sound of my brother’s voice followed the banging noise, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. My first thought had been leaning towards the mythological creature side—a werewolf, or maybe a chupacabra. “Emma,” Eric said. “Have you seen Will? Is he in there with you?”

“Has she seen me? Has she seen me?” I almost scoffed. “She didn’t even give her eyes a chance to adjust, much less give them a chance to see me! She just swung that shovel at me and knocked me down!”

“Will?” Eric asked, confusion etched in his tone. “What are you doing in there?”

“Just let me out and I’ll explain.”

“Give me a second. I’ll have to go find the spare key,” he said, adding, “Come on.” I assumed he was talking to the blonde.

After what felt like an hour, Eric finally came back with a key to the garage and let me out. I heaved a huge outward breath and wiped myself off, as if that would get rid of the prickly feeling I had all over my body. I could still feel the bugs crawling on my legs and arms.

“You want to tell me what happened now?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“Afraid I’ll laugh at you?”

“Let’s go inside.” I started walking towards the house, ignoring every word that came out of my brother’s mouth after that. I could hear Eric and Taylor following me as I walked, and when I arrived at the front door, I waited for them to catch up so Eric could let us in.

Instead of opening the door for us when he arrived, Eric stood there and stared at the door for a bit, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“Are you gonna open the door or what?” I asked.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“That’s not even fair,” I complained.

Eric just shrugged, an action I could barely see in the darkness.

After a moment of thought, I spoke. “Alright, fine, I’ll tell you. Just open the door.”

“Wasn’t that easy?” Eric took a step forward and opened the door with his set of keys, letting forth a stream of light from inside. I’d never seen a more beautiful sight. I almost fell to my knees in gratitude. Light.... warmth.... atmosphere.....

Once he’d closed the door behind us, Eric started to look at me expectantly and eventually, I cracked and told him everything. Whether I liked it or not, I was going to need him if I was going to find Emma and get her back.

“Alright, so I took Emma over to the garage like I said I would and shoved her in there,” I began, joining my hands as I told the story. “She got really pissed—like rabid animal pissed—but I just thought it was funny. I mean, she was behind closed doors. She was the one who was locked in the dirty garage, not me. I had no reason to be scared or anything.”

Taylor let out a snort at this, and I glared at her but continued anyway.

“I even offered her the chance to stay in my room instead of the garage after she’d finished threatening me with death, but the ungrateful little shit had the nerve to turn me down.”

Eric gave me a look. “Something tells me there was a little more to your offer than just that. Taylor? What do you think?”

She looked like she was about to pass out when Eric turned his attention towards her. “Me? W-what?”

“If he had just offered to let Emma stay in his room, just like you’re staying in mine, would she have taken his offer?”

Taylor just nodded.

“And what would make her say no?”

She thought about this for a moment. “A catch, I-I guess.”

Eric just turned his head and looked at me expectantly.

“Alright, so there was a little more to my offer, but it was still a better deal than staying in that death-trap,” I exclaimed. “But that’s not what’s important here. The important thing is that she turned it down, and I left her in there. I stayed outside for a while after that, and then I heard a banging noise and a crash. I tried to ignore it, but let’s face it. She’s psychotic. I figured she was putting herself in danger trying to find a way to escape or something, so I opened the door to see if she was okay and what does she do to repay my kind act?”

Eric didn’t answer.

“She hits me with a fucking shovel and knocks the wind out of me. And what does she do when I’m on the ground, vulnerable and beaten? She hits me again. And again. And again. Then she climbs on my back and starts choking me, and I’m so focused on trying to breathe that I don’t realize she’d stolen my keys until she’s locking the door to the garage with me still in it.”

By this point, Eric had burst out laughing and had actual tears pouring down his cheeks. Obviously, I would find no sympathy with my asshat of a brother. Even Taylor looked entertained by my situation, but she at least made an attempt to hide it. Once Eric’s laughter became hysterical, though, she cracked and started laughing out loud.

“Oh, laugh it up, you assholes,” I snapped. “Let’s just laugh at Will and ignore the fact that there’s a homicidal maniac on the loose who wants his head on a platter.”

“You really need to stop referring to yourself in the third person,” Eric said between his laughter.

“I don’t even do it that much anymore!”

He just started laughing even harder.

“Are you gonna help me look for her or not?” I finally asked.

“Yeah, fine,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I don’t know how much luck we’ll have at this hour of the night, though. It’s too dark.”

“Just give me that flashlight.” I didn’t give him a chance to hand it over. I just snatched it out of his hands and turned it on, heading back outside. I flashed the light downwards, looking for tiny footprints in the ground. It’d be easy to tell hers from ours.

“Over there,” Eric said, coming up behind me. I followed his line of sight and focused the light on a set of footprints leading into the fields by our house.

“She made a run for it,” I said.

“Looks like it.” Eric stood by me, staring out at the fields. “We’ll have to wait until morning to look for her.”

“Morning?” I exclaimed. “She’ll be halfway to China by morning. Are you crazy?”

“Will, it’s midnight. We can’t see shit without this flashlight, and the headlights on our car only provide so much light. All we’re going to do is waste gas if we go right now.”

“But—”

“Besides,” he added. “It’s not like she’s going to get very far, anyway. She’s probably exhausted by now and conked out somewhere. She hasn’t eaten anything all day. She wouldn’t have the energy to get very far.”

“I would’ve brought her some food if she hadn’t locked me in that garage,” I said.

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“I know.”

Eric was right. There was no point in searching for her at this time of night. She would still be there in the morning, wherever there was. At least, I hoped she would be. I mean, I still hadn’t shown Emma her new dog bowl or given her a haircut absolutely free of charge because I was a good fucking Samaritan.

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Oh, how I love writing in Will's point of view... I actually have to stop writing sometimes to laugh at the idiotic things I make him say. He's my favorite. :')