Chapter Eight: Emma

A/N: Drumroll please.... now for a dramatic pause... and.... tada! Only seventeen months later, a new chapter of Kidnap My Heart. Better late than never, right? If you find yourself reading this and have no idea what's going on because it's been so long, I'd recommend skimming through chapter seven at least to refresh your memory. Anyways, enjoy!

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Kidnap My Heart

Chapter 8: Emma

I didn’t stop screaming for a good thirty seconds. The only thing that made me stop at all was the grubby hand that flew over my mouth. I didn’t want either of their hands to come anywhere near me ever again, much less come near my face, so you see, the only choice I really had left was to bite the guy’s hand and bite it hard. The sooner they realized this wasn’t going to go their way, the smoother things would go. This was just the first of many vindictive acts they would have to deal with it until they let me go or until I escaped. I would make their lives miserable until they realized they were better off letting me go.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he yelled, attempting to pry his hand out of my mouth and screaming when I made sure my teeth scraped him as he did so. His hand would soon match his battered face. “Let go of my hand!”

Instead of letting go, I bit down harder.

Eventually, with the help of his comrade in the driver’s seat, he managed to pry my jaw open and release his hand from my hold. I spit on the floor, momentarily shocked by the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I guess I’d bitten him harder than I thought. He shook his hand out, staring down at it with a disturbed look on his face, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Laughing caused me to swallow a bit of the blood, which, in turn, made me start choking in my attempt to spit it back up.

“Better check her for rabies, Will,” his comrade said, trying to hide his amusement and miserably failing.

Oh, yeah. That was his name. William. William Knight. Even his name made him sound like a tool.

“There’s something seriously wrong with her,” Will said, frantically wiping his hand on his shirt. I hadn’t even noticed he’d put his clothes back on. “God, what were we thinking?” he added to himself, mumbling incoherently under his breath.

“You know an easy solution to this situation?” I asked. I didn’t care if he hadn’t been talking to me. If I had input to give, I’d give it. “Really, it’s so simple, I’m surprised even you haven’t figured it out yet.”

He looked at me warily. “What?”

“Let us go now. We won’t press charges, and your injuries might actually get a chance to heal. We just want to go home. That’s all. It’s a win-win situation, really.” I hoped he couldn’t tell that I was lying through my teeth. There was no way I wouldn’t press charges. These bastards needed to rot in prison.

All my proposition did was make him laugh. “Are you kidding?” he asked. “I wouldn’t let you go for all the money in the world. You made sure of that the second you swung at me with those handcuffs. I’m going to make your life a living hell. Just you wait. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

I looked him right in the eye and said, “Neither have you.”

“If you two are done measuring dicks, can we go inside now?” the other guy asked, opening his door as he spoke.

“Why the rush?” I asked. “Afraid someone will realize you’ve kidnapped two innocent girls and call the police on you?”

“Look around. There’s no one here but us. You won’t find another person for a hundred miles. Why do you think we brought you here?”

I didn’t say anything. I’d already been going through possible escape plans, but that little piece of information put a damper on my plans.

“Time to show you to your new room.” Will smirked at me before turning around and getting out of the car. I would’ve been perfectly content staying in the car, no matter how cheap and smelly it was, but they had other plans.

My door was opened from the outside, and a strong arm grabbed ahold of me and started to pull me out. I frantically tried to find something to hold onto with my tied hands—not an easy task—but the only thing I could reach was the rubber lining on the side of the car. I still held onto that as if my life depended on it, using all of my strength to try to stop him from dragging me inside. Eventually, he got annoyed, grabbed me by the bare waist—why, oh why, did I still have to be half-naked—and pulled me right off, roughly setting me upright on the ground.

“This would be so much easier for the both of us if you’d just stand down already. You’re not on top anymore. I am.” Will continued to drag me as he walked towards the house. I dug my bare feet into the ground, wishing I still had my heels on. They would have made great cleats and would have actually stuck to the ground. It would have helped if my feet hadn’t still been tied together.

“Funny,” I said. “I was just about to tell you the same thing.”

“You literally couldn’t be in a worse position. Enough with the fake bravado. You’re not fooling anyone,” he said.

While I could acknowledge that he kind of had a point, I remained firm in my stance. This bravado wasn’t an apparition I was trying to project to incite fear in him, and I didn’t care if I wasn’t fooling him. In fact, I welcomed his lack of belief in me. The more he underestimated me, the easier it would be to trick him in the future.

Instead of telling him this, however, I simply said, “You just want me to be quiet, but I’m not going to give you the satisfaction, William.”

He stopped walking. “How do you know my name?”

“God came to me in a dream and told me.”

He turned around to look at me. “Really?”

“Really.” When I realized the idiot actually believed me, I let out an exasperated noise and said, “No, not really. I stole your driver’s license, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” He abruptly turned back around and kept dragging me forward. I looked at my new “home” in disgust, wishing there was something I could do to escape before I had to step foot in that place. The house was a two-story building with chipped gray paint, a broken porch, and moss all over the walls. There were a few shingles missing from the roof—God, I hoped it didn’t rain out here—and there was a rundown garage out back. The grass looked like it had never been cut, the bushes looked like they were capable of sucking you in and never spitting you back out, and the trees swayed dangerously, giving the appearance that they were five seconds away from falling down on us and the house. In short, the property was downright traumatizing.

The other guy opened the door for us, still holding onto Taylor’s arm. When we walked through the doorway, I noticed Taylor was being allowed to walk without bondage. She was still missing her clothes, but at least she could walk without dragging her feet or hopping around like an idiot. What the hell? I hadn’t even been given that option, although I definitely would have taken advantage of it had I been given it, unlike Taylor.

I tore my gaze away from my best friend and looked around the house. It was mostly dark, save for a few windows that weren’t completely covered. I could make out a few picture frames on the walls and some sort of hideous wallpaper but not much else.

Will followed Taylor and the other guy up the stairs, still pulling me as he went. After hearing the creaking noise every step made, I decided these stairs weren’t the best place to be dragged, much less to hop. “I can walk, you know,” I said, trying to wiggle out of his grip. “I’m not handicapped. I don’t need to be dragged everywhere.”

“I don’t trust you enough to let you walk by yourself.”

“I’m not asking you to give me free reign. I’m asking you to quit dragging me,” I said, trying to hide the discomfort from my voice. I was going to fall through these stairs or fall off the railing or something. I just knew it. Hell, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Will pushed me off of the stairs and tried to make it look like an accident. If I’d had the strength to push him off, I would’ve done it to him. That was for sure.

“This is where you’ll be staying,” the other guy said from inside a room on the left side of the staircase, snapping me out of my thoughts. He wasn’t talking to me; he was talking to Taylor.

Will and I were the last to walk into the room. It didn’t look like a prisoner’s cave or a torture chamber or anything. It just looked like a guy’s room. The light had been turned on, and I could see everything clearly. The walls were plain, except for a few posters, and there were books, movies, and video games scattered around the room. A small flat-screen was mounted on the wall, and there was a video game console sitting on a table underneath it. A computer was sitting on a desk in the corner, and there was an open closet with a pair of shoes poking out. Nothing out of the ordinary about the room.

“But—this looks—normal,” Taylor said, somehow managing to speak through her nerves. She looked like she was about to pee her pants.

The guy raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, it’s my room. What’d you expect?”

She didn’t answer. She just looked at me, pushing me to answer for her with her nervous gaze. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said when I was sure Taylor wasn’t capable of answering herself. “A medieval torture chamber, maybe?”

“That’s what we should be putting them in,” Will said, shooting the other guy a look. “Eric, what the hell? Why are you letting her stay with you?”

“It’s the easiest way to keep an eye on her and make sure she stays out of trouble,” the other guy said—Eric, I guess.

“Yeah, but—” He paused for a moment and lowered his voice. “Why do you get to watch over her? We never agreed to this.”

Eric leaned in to reply. I wasn’t sure why he’d bothered leaning in; I heard every word he said next loud and clear. “Dad said to divide them up so they wouldn’t get any ideas. He didn’t directly assign one of them to either of us, but that was basically what he was implying. What’s the problem here?”

Ah. So they were brothers that were dragged into this by their father. Or maybe they were just a messed up family who reveled in kidnapping young girls. Either way, their sibling relationship explained the fighting and the bitchy comments directed at each other.

“You know perfectly well what the problem is,” Will hissed, tightening his grip on my arm. It hurt, but I didn’t make it known to anyone.

His brother just smiled at him— a smug, evil-looking little smile. “You can’t get mad at me for picking first. Have fun with the psycho one.”

God, what were we, horses being sold at an auction? This was so demeaning!

Will’s eye started to twitch, but he didn’t make any rash decisions. I’d figured he would attack his brother or something, but I guess he had some self-control, after all. “Let’s go, Emma,” he said, turning towards the door.

“It’s Emma van der Bilt to you, chump.”

“Shut up, Emma.”

I rolled my eyes as he dragged me out of the room and down the stairs. There was one point where I really thought he was going to throw me off the side, but it turned out he’d just been trying to covertly scratch his crotch. How classy.

When we crossed the threshold to the door, I began to worry. “Where are we going?” I asked. I’d assumed I’d be staying in his room since Taylor was staying in Eric’s room. It wasn’t the most pleasant situation, sure, but it was better than the medieval torture chamber I’d envisioned.

“To your new room,” he answered without bothering to turn around.

The nervous butterflies I felt in the pit of my stomach turned into a two ton anchor when I noticed which direction we were heading. We were heading towards the garage. He wasn’t honestly considering leaving me there, was he? That place looked like a deathtrap.

“You’re not serious,” I said incredulously, frantically digging my feet into the ground again, as if that was really going to help. But I was desperate; anything was better than going in there.

“Dead serious.” Will opened the door to the garage with one hand and shoved me forward with the other. “Say hi to the roaches and rats for me.”

He slammed the door shut just as I leapt forward and slapped my hands against the door. “William Knight, you cannot be serious. I’ll die in here. This place is a total deathtrap! What if the roof caves in?”

“Then I’ll give your father my deepest condolences,” he said. I could hear him locking the door as he spoke. Shit.

“You can’t be serious,” I repeated shrilly. I think I was in denial. I’d never been in a situation like this, and I wasn’t really sure how to cope. “I swear to God, if you leave me in here, you will regret ever being born.”

“You’re not in much of a position to make threats,” he pointed out.

“I don’t care,” I shouted. “You have no idea what I’m capable of. If you leave me in here, I’ll kill you when I come out. Do you hear me?”

“Yup,” he said, and the sarcastic tone of his voice made me want to rip out his vocal cords so he couldn’t talk anymore.

“I will disembowel you and feed your remains to woodland creatures,” I warned, feeling my cheeks heat up with anger as I spoke.

“That’s cute,” Will said, amusement interlaced in his tone now.

Goddamnit. “Let’s see how cute you think I am when I’m beating you to death with your own severed arm.”

“You’re a lot less threatening behind a closed door,” he said.

“Better hope I don’t find a way to open this thing, then.” I backed away from the door and regarded my surroundings. There were no windows, so breaking a window and climbing out was out of the question. There were—oh, my God.

I screamed at the top of my lungs when I saw the animals Will had mentioned when he’d thrown me in here. There were bugs and rats everywhere, and I mean everywhere. More bugs than rats, but still.

“Did you find the rats? I’d be nice to them if I were you. They’re the only living creatures you’ll be coming into contact with for a while.”

I almost started crying when a rat inched closer to me, but I managed to calm myself down by taking a few soothing breaths. Once I was calm enough to reply, I said, “You can’t just leave me in here to die. I need to eat and—and shower and go to the bathroom. You won’t get much money for a dead body.”

“You’ll have what you need to survive, but nothing else,” Will told me. “Don’t worry about it, Princess.”

When the rat started moving closer again, I let out a loud breath through my nostrils. Fear was something I was able to soothe, but this flaming anger I felt was not. “I am going to kill you. I’m going to rip you limb from limb and leave you here to rot. You’re going to pay for this.”

“Well… there is one way out of this.”

I hated myself for doing it, I really did, but I had to know what he was going to say before I shot his proposition down. Instead of ignoring him—as I should have done—I asked, “And what’s that?”

“You can stay with me in my room… on one condition.”

How had I ended up with this asshole? Taylor was allowed to stay in Eric’s room, no conditions necessary. What the hell? All I’d done to Will was beat him, steal his car, and leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere. It could’ve been way worse.

“What condition?”

“All you have to do is give me a chance to show you I’m not all bad.”

Was that seriously it? That was his condition? Wow. He must have been hiding in the closet or something, because that condition was gay as hell. That line sounded like it came right out of one of Taylor’s cheesy romance novels. So lame.

“Especially in bed,” he added, an irritatingly flirtatious tone to his voice. Did he seriously think I was interested in him after everything he’d put me through? How stupid was he?

“Remember when you said I literally couldn’t be in a worse position?”

He paused for a few seconds. “Yeah. Why?”

“Well, congratulations,” I said. “You just helped me prove I theoretically could be in a worse position. I’d sooner sacrifice my soul to Satan than sleep with you.”

He didn’t say anything for the longest time. When he did, he didn’t sound so flirtatious anymore. “Lucky for you, I’ll be here to help you prepare for your satanic ritual when you end up in my bed. Because you and I both know that’s where you’ll end up sooner or later.”

Honestly, I think even he knew I would sooner rot in this place than give in and climb into bed with him. Maybe that was why he said it in the first place. It wasn’t just the repulsion I felt for him; it was my pride. There was no way I’d ever allow myself to make such a stupid decision just to get out of here. I wasn’t going to give him the gratification.

“The only way you’ll ever get me into your bed is if you drag my rotting corpse there, and unless you’re into necrophilia, I don’t think you’d be very interested in that.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that. After I didn’t hear any response for a while, I figured he’d left. Good. I didn’t want him around, anyway. He wasn’t going to let me out of there; he was just looking to rile me up. The frustrating thing was that it was working and he knew it perfectly well.

Emma: 1

Will: 2

The score wouldn’t remain so uneven for long. No, not for long...

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