I looked over at Al, cuddled contentedly against Gary’s side, and then again at the can of beer he’d put down on the coffee table.
“Why aren’t you drinking the beer?” I asked him suddenly, not caring that my tone was decidedly abrupt. I’d only met him like ten minutes ago, but I already knew he wasn’t the type to waste a can of beer he’d already opened. Unless there was a good reason to, that is.
“Al, don’t!” I cried as she raised her beer to her lips and took another swallow. I darted forward and knocked the can out of her hand, spilling beer all over her and all over the couch.
“What the hell?” she said indignantly, surging to her feet and glaring at me.
For half a second, I felt foolish. I was being paranoid, too on edge about this dangerous adventure to take things at face value. Until I saw the little smirk on Gary’s face that is.
“He put something in the beer,” I told Al, grabbing her arm and dragging her away from the couch. “We have to get out of here.”
But I hadn’t figured it out fast enough, and Al had already guzzled too much of the beer. She staggered, and the constant buzz of her magic sputtered strangely.
One moment, she was the Goth girl with black and purple hair and piercings; the next, she was a typical blond-haired Fae girl and the only piercings were the two in the lobes of her ears. She gasped, and the glamour flared back to life for a moment. She staggered more heavily, and only my hold on her arm kept her upright.
“Fight it!” I commanded her, slinging her arm over my shoulders.
Al mumbled something I couldn’t understand, and her magic flickered out once more. And this time, it didn’t come back.
“’M sorry,” she mumbled.
Then her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed.
Chapter Four
“Al!” I screamed as she fell. I tried to hold her up, but the best I could do was slow her fall and keep her from hitting her head on the coffee table as she went down. I dropped to my knees beside her, slapping her cheeks lightly in the vain hope that she would wake up.
“’Ere now, no need to get hysterical,” Gary said calmly as he came over and shoved me out of the way. “She’ll be fine.”
“What did you give her you, you asshole?”
“Watch yer tone, missy,” he growled at me. “It’s just a little GHB. Harmless.”
His definition of “harmless” and mine obviously weren’t the same. I wanted to put all my self-defense training into use, kick Gary in the head while he was conveniently low and vulnerable. If he didn’t see it coming—which he wouldn’t, because who would expect it from a teenage girl?—I could probably knock him out and make a break for it.
The problem, of course, was Al. She was out cold and wouldn’t be running anywhere, not for several hours at least. I wasn’t strong enough to carry her, and, of course, I couldn’t let myself get more than a few yards away from her. Though if she were conscious, I might want to give her a good hard slap in the face for getting us into this mess.
Ignoring me, Gary satisfied himself that Al was unconscious, then started rooting through her bag. He pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts list, frowning in concentration. “I knew ’er mum didn’t like me,” he muttered to himself. “Bet she’d do anything to get ’er little girl back now.”
So Al pulled out all the stops to come to London and make sure the man she loved was okay, and his only thought was how he could profit from her infatuation. Her taste in men sucked.
“You think she has the Faerie Queen on speed dial?” I asked, knowing full well Gary wouldn’t appreciate my sarcasm.
He glared at me, then put his hand on Al’s throat and gave a squeeze. “I told you to watch your tone,” he said, using his cultured accent once more. It made him sound colder and more dangerous.
I was sure he wasn’t going to kill Al, not when he thought of her as his key to a big payday, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her. I know some girls are drawn to losers, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. Al could probably have just about any guy she wanted, and this was what she fell for?
“Sorry,” I forced myself to say, hating that I had to apologize to someone this loathsome.
Gary took his hand off Al’s throat and rifled through her bag some more, emptying her wallet and shoving the handful of bills in one of his robe’s pockets.
Then he found my phone, with my dad’s name and number clearly marked in the contacts list. He smiled smugly, pleased with his find. He tucked the phone into his other pocket, then put his arms under Al’s shoulders and dragged her toward the couch. His robe gaped open, letting me see that in the age-old debate between boxers and briefs, he favored briefs. I thanked the universe that he didn’t go commando.
I hated standing by helplessly. My every instinct screamed at me to do something, to make an escape attempt, or to attack, or at least try to talk my way out of the mess. But as long as Al was unconscious, anything I did could too easily get her hurt or killed. The fact that Gary had GHB lying around the house didn’t exactly speak to a sterling character even if he weren’t planning to hold us for ransom.
“Help me get her on the couch!” Gary snapped at me, and I had no choice but to do as he said. “Now sit beside her and smile for the camera,” he commanded, pulling my phone out of his robe pocket.
“Why are you taking our picture?” I asked, though I already had a good idea.
Gary didn’t answer except to sneer at me. I sat on the couch beside Al. He snapped a couple of pictures with my phone and seemed satisfied. I chewed my lip, thinking that Gary might be a little smarter than I’d given him credit for. If he was going to contact my dad to demand ransom, he’d have to show proof that he had us, and a picture was worth a thousand words. It also meant Gary wasn’t going to let me talk to my dad to prove I was alive. Which sucked, because it meant I couldn’t blurt anything out to let Dad know where we were. He couldn’t come after us himself, but I knew he had human friends who could.
When he was finished taking pictures, Gary flung Al’s limp body over his shoulder and marched toward the stairs, snarling at me to follow if I didn’t want Al to die. I had no choice but to comply.
____
Gary wasn’t a complete moron, but he wasn’t what I’d call a rocket scientist, either. He dumped Al on the floor in a dusty, stuffy attic, then used a plastic zip tie to fasten her wrists together around a support post. I knew he was going to do the same to me, and I think he expected me to make some kind of a stink about it.
However, Keane, my self-defense instructor, had made me watch a bunch of videos on the Internet about escaping zip ties, and had then made me practice until I’d practically sawed my wrists off.
Instead of trying to fight, I was very helpful, putting my arms around the post he indicated, just out of reach of Al, and presenting my wrists to Gary peacefully. I didn’t think he was stupid enough to fall for it if I put my wrists side by side, so I crossed them over one another, making sure to flex my wrists as much as possible. Gary looked at me suspiciously, and I did my best to give him scared, innocent eyes. It’s not hard to do when you’re a sixteen-year-old girl. I’m sure I looked about as helpless as helpless can be.
Gary fastened the zip tie around my wrists, pulling it brutally tight. I winced and gasped, but kept my wrists flexed, thereby making them bigger. When Gary was satisfied with his work, he nodded and left Al and me alone in the attic. No doubt he was on his way to call my dad to make his ransom demands.
I listened carefully to his footsteps as he descended the stairs, waiting until I was sure he was gone before I set about trying to get out of the zip tie. I relaxed my wrists, and now there was a little slack. It was still tight enough that it wasn’t going to be much fun to get out of it, but at least I didn’t have to try to break it, which I wasn’t very good at despite lots of practice.
Telling myself to take it slow and easy, I flattened my hands together and started shimmying and squir
ming the top hand, using the slack my flexed wrists had given me to slowly work my thumb out from under the tie. The damn thing was tight enough that it scraped my skin raw in the process, but once I managed to get my thumb through, I could simply slip my hands out.
Great! I was free!
But Al was still unconscious, so my situation hadn’t exactly improved a whole lot. I loosened the zip tie by a couple of notches, then stuck it in my pocket so I could get to it easily if Gary came to check on us. I then began a slow and careful examination of the attic, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. The attic floor was dangerously creaky, and there were several times when I thought sure Gary would hear me moving around and come up to investigate, but he didn’t.
I didn’t find anything in the way of real weapons, though to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure what I’d do with a weapon if I found one. As long as I couldn’t get Al out of here on her own steam, anything I did to Gary short of killing him would just piss him off. I supposed I could hope to knock him out and then tie him up, but the price of failure was frighteningly high.
I squatted beside Al and patted her cheek. “Al?” I whispered urgently. “Al, can you hear me?”
She made a little murmuring sound, but she didn’t open her eyes.
“Damn it,” I muttered, chewing my lip as I tried to think of a way out of this mess. I considered just being a good little victim and waiting to be ransomed, but I reminded myself that Gary wasn’t a moron. Al and I knew who he was, and there was nothing he could threaten us with that would keep us from telling the authorities when he released us. I wasn’t sure if that had occurred to him yet, if he realized just how deep a hole he was digging for himself, but I knew he’d figure it out eventually.
Was Gary the kind of guy who could cold-bloodedly murder a couple of teenage girls, including one who was in love with him? (Or had been, before she’d drunk that roofie.) I suspected that once he thought through the ramifications, the answer would be yes. Which meant Al and I had to get out of there before it came to that.
There was a small dormer window in the attic. I gave the window a cursory examination, wondering if there were some way I could slip out and summon help, but even if I could, I feared that getting out would involve getting too far away from Al. And if I stuck my head out and started yelling, you could bet Gary would come back up in a heartbeat to stop me.
Afternoon had slipped into evening when I heard the sound of shouting voices from downstairs. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but one of them was definitely Gary, and the other was another guy, maybe the house-mate.
Soon, there were angry footsteps on the stairs, and I hurried to get myself back into position at the post, slipping my hands back through the zip tie and flexing my wrists to make it look like it was fastened tight. It definitely looked looser than it had when Gary had put it on me, but I hoped like hell he wouldn’t notice. If he realized I could get out of the zip tie, he’d no doubt come up with some other form of restraint I would like less.
The attic door opened and Gary strode in, his face set in a sullen scowl. He’d gotten dressed, but it looked like that was about the only productive thing he’d done since he’d stuffed Al and me in the attic. His hair was the same snarly mess it had been when he met us at the door, and his eyes were not only bloodshot, they were dilated. Maybe he’d realized what a mess he’d gotten himself into and had been self-medicating all afternoon.
The man who followed Gary into the room was an altogether different kind of creature. In some ways, he looked a lot like Gary, with his sloppy, torn clothes, his mousy hair, and his wiry build. But whereas Gary’s eyes were dulled with drink and/or drugs, this man’s were sharp with ruthless intelligence. I had at least hoped that Gary might balk at the idea of killing us, but I suspected Tom—assuming that’s who this other guy was—wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.
“You see, Tom,” Gary said, waving vaguely at Al and me. “’S all good. They’re not going anywhere.”
Tom scowled at Gary, then came over to us. I shrank away from him as he approached, hoping to look as scared and helpless as possible. I didn’t want him checking my bonds to make sure I was tied up tight, and the less of a threat he saw in me, the less likely he was to be as careful as he should be.
My fear seemed to please Tom, and a hint of a smile played over his lips as he looked me over. “Be afraid, little girl,” he said. “Be very, very afraid.”
My pulse tripped over itself, and my stomach clenched with dread. Gary was a slimy, opportunistic creep, but everything about Tom screamed that he was a predator, by far the more dangerous of the two. I held my breath as he kept looking at me. If he tried to touch me, I wouldn’t be able to stand playing the helpless victim anymore, even knowing the odds of coming out the winner if I fought back were abysmally low. But just as I thought Tom might be about to try something, Al made a little whimpering sound and stirred, drawing his attention.
I let out a slow, steadying breath as Tom turned to Al, giving her the same visual appraisal he’d given me. The look on his face said he liked what he saw. A lot. Which was hardly a surprise—as a full-blooded Fae, Al was predictably gorgeous. Tom had addressed me as “little girl,” which was a term he certainly wouldn’t apply to Al. He squatted beside her and plucked at her crinkly silk dress.
Someone in this house had bought that GHB and had probably used it before, and I got the instant impression Tom liked his girls barely conscious.
Tom was in easy kicking range, and if he tried to do anything to Al, I was going to have to try to stop him, no matter how ugly the consequences. There are some things worth fighting for even when you can’t win. To my surprise, however, it was Gary who stepped in.
“She’s my girl,” he said, taking an aggressive step forward. “You can have the other one if you want, but Althea’s mine.”
I’m sure Al would have been really touched by his show of affection if she’d been conscious. I know I was.
Tom laughed, but thankfully he left Al alone after checking her eyes and seeing them hugely dilated. “Maybe later,” he said, winking at me lewdly. “Once we have the money.”
He stomped around the attic for a moment until he found a roll of duct tape. Then he tore off a strip and fastened it over Al’s mouth.
“Wouldn’t want you waking up and saying any magic spells,” he murmured, letting his finger skate down the column of her throat while his body blocked Gary’s view. I wondered if Gary was going to have to step in again—and if I was going to have to call his attention to what Tom was doing—but Tom was apparently content with that one small caress. At least for now. He tossed the duct tape aside and rose to his feet.
“Have a lovely evening, ladies,” he said. “Be good girls, and you’ll be back home before you know it.”
I didn’t believe him for a moment. Tom and Gary filed out of the attic, and once more I listened carefully to their footsteps on the stairs, waiting until I was sure they weren’t going to pop back in. Then I slid my hands out of the zip tie again.
Chapter Five
I hurried over to Al’s side and shook her shoulders, not really hopeful of getting any response. We’d been in this attic about four hours, which seemed like the better part of eternity, but I didn’t think it was long enough for the roofie to have worn off yet. Clearly our captors didn’t think it was, or they’d have tried to dose Al again. And Tom had seemed satisfied with how her eyes looked when he opened them.
I almost fell over in surprise when Al cracked her eyes open and blinked. The light in the attic was fading as the sun went down, but I could still tell that her pupils were huge and dark. She groaned softly, and her eyes slid closed. She might have woken up, but she was definitely still heavily under the influence.
“Stay awake, Al,” I hissed urgently, patting her cheek.
She mumbled something from behind her duct tape gag, but of course I couldn’t understand her. I was a little reluctant to take the tape off, afraid Tom would
come back up to check on us. If he had any idea I could get free, our situation was going to get even worse than it was now.
Al’s eyes opened wider, and the mumble was louder. A shock of static electricity sparked on the back of my hand. No, not static electricity: magic. It was gone before my brain had a chance to process what I’d felt, but hope surged through me. I picked at the corner of the tape, then stuck my face in hers so she was forced to look into my eyes.
“Don’t yell, okay?” I said in an urgent whisper.
Al blinked blearily, but nodded. I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted her, but I didn’t have much of a choice. If Al could use her magic, I was confident we could get out of here pretty easily and this whole rotten adventure would be over.
Holding my breath, I yanked off the tape. Al made a high-pitched squeal, but she kept her mouth closed, trapping the sound inside. My pulse did a little salsa dance anyway, but I didn’t hear any footsteps on the stairs.
With hands that shook just a little, I undid the zip tie holding Al’s hands together. I had to help her sit up—not a good sign—and she kind of sagged against my shoulder.
“Come on, Al,” I urged. “Stay with me.”
“Trying,” she murmured sleepily.
I needed her more conscious than this if I was going to engineer an escape, but I didn’t know what to do to help her. Another static shock pinged against my skin, as ephemeral as the last. Al groaned.
“Can’t . . . hold it,” she said, panting. She was still sitting on the floor, leaning on my shoulder, but her head was hanging lower now. She was fighting the drug with all she had, but I feared it wouldn’t be enough.
“Magic, you mean?”
She nodded. “Need to . . . burn off . . .” She sagged, and I had to put both arms around her to keep her semi-upright. Her eyes closed, and I swallowed a string of curses.