Accidentally Kidnapped

Chapter 4

Alone, I stood quietly, thinking about my options. If those active land mine thing he said was true, I'd be dead in five minutes. Woods surrounded us as far as my eye could see. I recognized that where we were was on a private property owned by the government. No one had been here for years.

They said they wouldn't kill me. But they had killed so many other people before. I was just another casualty. An inconvenience that needed to be gone. Why should I trust Cage Vickers? He was one of the most wanted criminals in the country. 

Alone, I'd never survive the night. But with Cage, I had a chance. A very slim chance that might kill me in the end, but it might not as well. That's what I had to consider. And that was what I convinced myself I was doing when I sat down on the ground like Micheal had, my legs dangling into nothing but darkness. Was Cage even waiting for me down there?

There was only one way to find out. Taking a deep breath, I pushed myself off the ledge. For one second there was the terrifying feeling of falling, and then strong arms around me. I half-landed on Cage and half-landed on the ground. Pain shot up through my foot. It wasn't the romantic 'I will always catch you when you fall' sorta thing in movies.

Cage barely caught me.

"Ow! What the fuck?" Cage shouted angrily as he was dragged down with me. I stumbled across his leg and fell on my butt, my feet aching from the impact. Not only did we both miscalculate where the other was, we almost missed. I would have died if he wasn't there to break the fall.

"You suck at catching!" I complained loudly, my voice echoing in the tunnel. The sewer hole was the only light source. I couldn't see very much except the dirty dirt walls and the musty must smell. At least there wasn't, you know, sewer stuff anywhere. "Dumbass."

"I will shoot you.'' Cage growled, pulling himself up. He had cursed because my weight had knocked him down and he tried to break the fall with his bleeding hand, which I still hadn't figured out why it was bleeding. "I will literally  throw your body into the ocean if you don't shut up."

"Jeez." I pulled myself up, using the wall for support. My ankle twisted when we landed. Fighting through the pain, I leaned against it. "Are you on your period or something? Death threats aren't very nice, you know. In fact, most people do the opposite thing when they're threatened. Just kidding, I just made that up."

Cage was brushing himself off as I said all of this. With a glare, he shoved past me. Something tickled the back of my neck. Cage turned around and grinned. "There's a spider in your hair."

And then he walked away.

"There's a spi- what?" I shrieked, violently brushing myself off. Screaming, I stumbled to catch up with Cage while trying to get the spider off me. "Help me! Cage! Oh my God! Oh God, get it off me! No! No! This is unacceptable!" I ran after him, my hair covering my eyes so much that I couldn't see. Farther up the tunnel, I heard a soft chuckle.

        I suddenly stopped and frowned, my face tickled with strands of hair when realization dawned on me. All of this for nothing. There was no spider because we were so deep underground. There were no bugs that could survive in a place like this. Cage had tickled the back of my neck when he walked past. What an asshole. Fixing myself, I caught up to Cage.

"Wow, you really got me there." I frowned. "That would have been hilarious...if we were in first grade!"

He turned around, face completely expressionless. Reaching behind my head, I felt his fingers grip my back. A moment later, Cage's hands reappeared, clutching something carefully. To my utter horror, he opened his hand and let the biggest, blackest spider-tarantula thing from the depths of hell itself slip past his fingers and onto the wall.