Up in Smoke

  “Yes, you will,” he says, crouching closer, his breath on my cheek. He isn’t touching me, but I can feel him everywhere. Around me. Against my skin, in the pit growing in the bottom of my stomach. In the spike of adrenaline surging through my heart. “Where the fuck is your old man?”

  My old man. My father.

  My lungs inflate, drawing in a much needed gulp of breath, bringing new life to my thoughts.

  He wants my father, not me. He doesn’t know the truth.

  I’d feel slightly relieved because it means my work is safe, even if I’m not. At least for now.

  “Answer me!”

  “I…I don’t know,” I lie on a strangled exhale. I turn my head back to the floor, the curtain of my hair I’m used to hiding behind falls between us. But he isn’t a high school kid. My hair isn’t going to do much to protect me now.

  “Bullshit,” he growls, taking a handful of my hair and twisting it in his hands so I have no choice but to face him. My scalp burns.

  “Let’s try this again,” he seethes. He flips me over onto my back and cages my torso in with his big thighs on each side of my hips. He lifts my wrists above my head and holds them there. “Where’s your old…” his words suddenly trail off. He leans closer. His brows lift then furrow again, lining his forehead in confusion. He’s unmoving. Unbreathing.

  I do the same, remaining as still as I’ve ever been in fear that even the smallest blink will trigger his rage and set him off down a path there won’t be an escape from.

  Eons pass before he blinks back through wherever it is he’d gone. He flips me over onto my back, keeping my hair firmly between his fingers. He twists it until I can hear hairs ripping free from my heated scalp. “The truth. Now,” he demands.

  I can barely think with the pressure mounting inside my skull. I’m at this man’s mercy, and that’s only if he has any.

  “I haven’t spoken to my father in years,” I tell him. My eyes water.

  He yanks my hair back so hard I have no choice but to look up at him. Tears leak from my eyes and spill down my cheeks into my ears and hair.

  He scans my face again, this time not in confusion but like a human lie detector conducting a scan. He reaches up with his free hand. I try to pull away but only manage to inflict more pain on my own scalp. He surprises me by running his fingertips over my lips, slowly tracing both the top and then bottom. My stomach turns as fear stabs its way through my body.

  “It’s a fucking shame I can’t keep you. You’d make a pretty little pet.” His dark words are laced with even darker meaning. “Tell me, hellion.” He says. “Why didn’t you ask me why I was taking you? Or why you’re here?”

  “I…I…” I stutter.

  Shit.

  “I think it’s because you already know.”

  He releases my hair and I fall forward onto the floor at his feet. Relief and pain crash into the top of my head.

  “I don’t know what you’re…”

  “Don’t play dumb. That shit won’t work. Not with me. Your old man stole from the wrong people,” he grinds out. On the side of his neck is an elaborate tattoo of a pocket watch where a thick vein throbs directly under the second hand. “People who aren’t as patient as Iam.”

  “I’m telling you the truth. I haven’t spoken to him in years,” I tell him.

  “The question is where he is, not if you’ve fucking chatted lately!” He leans down so close his nose is almost touching mine. His nostrils flare. He’s losing his patience, and I’m losing my shit.

  “I don’t have any money,” I tell him. “But I-I can get it. I just need a laptop, and I can—”

  “Even if I believed you, that’s not gonna fucking happen. Money isn’t all your old man stole.” He stands, towering high above me like a god looking down from heaven, peeking into Hell.

  He’s living proof that as humans our outsides don’t always match our insides. His good looks are wasted. A travesty. A distraction. No more effective than marker filling in for wallpaper.

  “If you won’t tell me where he is, then we’ll have to make him come to us. You know how we’ll do that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He won’t come for me.” It’s the truth. I feel a little stronger for being the one holding the cards even if those cards are face cards, and that face is the grim reaper. I take a deep breath. One and then another. Each painful inhale gives me more strength. More determination. More will to fight.

  “You’re awfully smart for a girl who’s so fucking dumb,” he says with a shake of his head.

  “I’m not dumb,” I say through my teeth. “My father used to tell me I was dumb. He was wrong, too.”

  “Oh yeah? You jumped from a moving car,” he points out, his voice so deep it rumbles like the engine of his motorcycle and I can feel his words as well as hear them.

  “That was brave,” I argue.

  He’s looking at me with interest but doesn’t say anything.

  “If you’re going to kill me, then just do it,” I challenge.

  His chuckle is low and menacing. “You’re not doing much to prove your point about not being dumb, hellion.”

  I meet his gaze. “Death on my terms? Seems pretty smart to me.” I shrug. “I can’t give you what you’re looking for so I’m dead either way, right?”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  He crouches down again. He lifts his hand to grab my face, and when I turn away, he forcefully turns me back by grabbing my chin, his fingers digging painfully into my skin. His breath on my lips.

  “Nothing about this will be on your terms. NOTHING.”

  What he doesn’t know is that nothing about my life has ever been on my terms. This might be the first time I’ve ever been kidnapped.

  But I’ve been a prisoner for years.

  Chapter Ten

  “Doyou want to know what’s going to happen to you if you don’t tell me where your father is?” The man asks, staring at me with cold, hard eyes.

  I shake my head. What does it matter?

  He tells me anyway. “I’m going to do more than just kill you.” He lifts my hand in his and pulls on my index finger until the knuckle cracks. “I’ll start by removing your fingernails.”

  I try to yank my hand away but he holds tighter and presses down on my thumbnail until I’m breathing through the searing pain. He releases me, and I wrap my hand around my finger like a brace.

  “Then, I’ll remove your fingers, one at a time.” He grabs my wrist. “Then your hands.”

  He slides his hand up to my forearm right below my elbow squeezing painfully at the joint. My mouth opens in a silent cry.

  “It’s amazing how you can remain conscious and alert while getting your arms and legs hacked off. I’ve seen men watch their limbs be removed one by one until more parts of them are hanging around the room than are left attached to their bodies. The human body can take a lot before it gives up. But I won’t bore you with all the details. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough.”

  He digs his fingers into the most menacing looking purple bruise on my bicep. I hiss and glare hatred into his eyes.

  “You’ll feel every fucking thing. Every snap of bone. Every severed muscle. Every pop of a vein.” He pushes into the bruise once more before releasing me.

  I rub my aching arm while he stays close, looking at me. Watching my every reaction like he’s studying me. His gaze darts from where I’m rubbing the bruise to my face then back again. He looks like he’s thinking about something and whatever it is, I don’t want to know.

  For a long while we just breath the same air, staring hatred into each other. He’s waiting for me to crack and tell him where my father is, but I can’t crack even if I wanted to.

  I curse my father in my head. “Listen. Please. Frank wasn’t a very good father, and later, I found out he wasn’t a good person either. Honestly, I would hand him over to you if I could. He deserves whatever he has coming to him, but I can’t do that. It’s not possible.”
r />   The man says nothing but continues to stare at me for a long time.

  “Get the fuck up,” he finally orders.

  Dread courses through me. I can hear it too. It’s louder than my own heartbeat which is thudding in my ears like the heel of a hand beating out an unsteady rhythm on a drum.

  I freeze.

  “Get up, and take off your fucking clothes.”

  My stomach rolls. My eyes widen. My pulse quickens and my fingers begin to twitch. “Please,” I beg. “No. No. Please no. Don’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Get. Up.” This time, he repeats it through tightly clenched teeth.

  He lifts me off the floor. His hands are large and rough as they wrap around my shoulders. I kick against him, but he subdues me easily, turning me around so my back is pressed tightly to his chest.

  I’m trembling as he shoves his hand into a hole in my sweater and yanks. “No!” I yell as he tears what’s left of my school uniform from my body, the sound of ripping fabric slicing through my last shred of hope. I’d rather have him take my limbs then take my body by force. I’m weeping for the first time in my entire life.

  The man moves to my skirt next, and it only takes a few tugs at the seam before it, too, is in shreds, and I’m standing before him in only my panties and sports bra.

  I’m terrified, but I resist the urge to cover myself with my arms. I tell myself that when it comes to it, I’ll fight him off with all I’ve got, but if that doesn’t work, which given our size and strength difference seems likely, then I’ll try and think of a happier place and happier times. It doesn’t take me long to realize that won’t work either. I haven’t had a real happy time since…well, ever.

  His fingers trace the thick strap of my sports bra. I suck in a strangled breath. The hair on the backs of my arms stands on end. He chuckles as he circles me.

  “As I said,” he whispers, “so smart, yet so fucking stupid.”

  “What…what are you going to do to me?” I manage to squeak out. The heat from his chest warms my back as he comes to stand behind me once more. “I’ll fight back. I won’t let you. Please. Please don’t…”

  “Please don’t what?” he asks, coming to stand in front of me, crossing his big muscular arms over his chest. He’s looking down at me at me as if my very presence offends him.

  “Please. Just… don’t.” I can’t find the right words, but I hope it’s enough. I close my eyes and drop my chin to my chest. I’m pushed backward. I land harshly onto a rickety wooden chair with legs almost as wobbly as mine. My tailbone screams out in pain but it’s nothing compared to the pain of not being able to do a damn thing to save myself. “Cut me or even kill me if you have to, just don’t do...that. Please.”

  He looks me over like a spider assessing the fly caught in his web. Panic rises in my chest and gets stuck in my throat. I try, but I can’t swallow it down. I’m prepared for most things, but I’m not prepared for that. No one could be.

  He comes closer. His knees bump against mine. I open my mouth to scream, but he covers it with his hand. “Have it your way, hellion.”

  Suddenly, there’s a gun pressed to my forehead.

  * * *

  I go blank.I register nothing but white, then the man standing above me holding a gun to my head. The image is shifting in and out of focus.

  “I’m not going to suddenly be able to deliver my father to you just because you have a gun to my head,” a much stronger version of myself says.

  My heart is trembling in fear, but my soul wants to fight like a suicidal gladiator and I want to live because I have to live. I’ve spent several years fighting for the lives of others and if I die, they die.

  I shut my eyes tightly, preparing for the end. I make silent apologies to all the people I’ve never met who don’t even know they’re counting on me.

  I’m so sorry I failed you.

  I’m wondering what it’s going to feel like, if anything at all, when the bullet sends bits of my brain splattering onto the wall behind me.

  “I hope I make a big fucking mess, and you have to clean it up yourself.” I say, coming back into my body, and staring up into his dark evil pools. The corner of his eyes wrinkle like a smile that doesn’t reach his lips.

  My heart is hammering in my chest when his phone buzzes, and he answers it on speaker without saying a word.

  “Smoke,” the man on the other end greets.

  “Griff,” Smoke replies, gruffly.

  Smoke. My kidnapper’s name is Smoke. And Griff? Where have I heard that name before?

  “The bitch talking, yet?”

  “Not yet,” Smoke says, cocking the gun. He pushes the barrel harder into my skin until I’m pressing my head against the back of the chair as far as it will go. “I’m working on it.”

  It’s not far enough.

  “Send the pictures,” Griff demands, sounding as if he’s talking through a stuffy nose.

  Smoke holds up the phone and snaps a few pictures of me with the gun to my head. He taps out a few keys then returns the phone to speaker. “Sent.”

  “I’ll make sure they get sent to anyone who’s ever had contact with Frank Helburn. One way or another he’ll get them and more importantly he’ll get the message. Show your face or the bitch dies.” Griff says, sounding pleased with himself.

  He can be pleased with himself all he wants. It’s not going to work.

  “You’ve got your picture. Flush the fucker out,” Smoke says.

  “We’ll wait a week. If it doesn’t work we’ll throw her off the Skyway Bridge and come up with another plan,” Griff says. “Better yet. Hang onto her for a week. Take out your pound of flesh as you see fit then bring the girl to me.”

  “I can end things just fine on my own.”

  “You owe me, Smoke. If he shows his face he’s yours. If he doesn’t, you have one week. Then the girl is mine.”

  Smoke grunts in agreement then hangs up. The gun leaves my head. He throws the phone into the drywall where it makes a pizza-sized hole.

  I exhale the longest held breath in history and drop my chin to my chest. I’m shivering from both fear and adrenaline.

  I’m still trying to catch my breath when something soft connects with my head. Another something falls on top of my bare feet. I’m surprised to find it’s a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

  “Put those on,” Smoke orders, shoving things into his duffle bag.

  When I don’t move right away, he gives my body a slow once-over. For a second, I think I see heat in his eyes, and my entire body tenses, remembering my earlier fear.

  “You have two fucking seconds to put those on before I take them away and you spend the next week naked.”

  I scramble as fast as I can to pull the jeans over my legs and the shirt over my head. The fabric of both is soft and stretchy, but still feels like sandpaper against my bruises and scabs. Regardless, I’m grateful to be covered again.

  One week.

  Just like that, my death sentence has been temporarily extended. I have seven days to figure out a plan. To escape. Whether I do it through bribery or by figuring out which god is the right one to pray to. Lucky for me, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, and I’ll use every single one of them if I have to.

  I’m fully dressed, but I’m unsure of what to do next. Smoke comes over and pushes me back down into the chair and pulls my arm down, cuffing my wrist to one of the legs.

  “I see that look in your eyes,” he says. “It’s best you put an end to that shit right now.”

  “What look is that?” I ask.

  “Hope. It ain’t gonna do you no fucking good. Not with me. It’s best you stick to fear. Hope may feel like the beginning, but it