Fatal Jeopardy

Chapter 6: Kidnapped

Carlos tossed and turned in the trunk of the car. He tried steadying himself, but his bound arms and legs prevented him from holding still. He could faintly hear Cyrus’ voice in the front of the car. He tried listening harder hoping to make out some kind of useful information, but the voice was too faint to hear from the trunk.

Even though Carlos had known he would most likely be kidnapped as a result of keeping the ring away from Cyrus, it didn’t make the situation any less terrifying. His mom and friend were in danger and he couldn’t even begin to form a plan on how he was actually going to rescue them.

Carlos felt the moisture in his eyes, but he didn’t let the tears fall. He refused to give Cyrus the satisfaction of seeing him break down. Right now he had to be strong for his mom and Darla.

The road became rougher, and pushed Carlos around the trunk even worse than before. He guessed that they were driving on a forest trail. Maybe even the one he’d been walking on the past few days. The car came to an abrupt stop smashing his head into the side of the car. Carlos stifled his cry of pain.

He heard the cars doors opening, and then footsteps approaching the trunk. The trunk opened, and he was brusquely lifted out. The hood was finally pulled off of his head, and he now had a clear view of his surroundings.

Just like he’d predicted they were in the middle of the forest where no one was likely to interfere with whatever Cyrus had in store for him. The thought made him tremor in fear. Alex and Chuck stood on either side of him holding him firmly in place.

“You know this would have been so much easier if you’d just given us Fotia” Cyrus said in a cool voice. Carlos was surprised to hear him refer to the ring as Fotia. It seemed to be the name, but it must have some meaning to it.

“What is Fotia? I don’t even know what that means” He replied hoping to get some answers from Cyrus.

“You must be pretty dimwitted if you can’t figure it out. Couldn’t you tell when you saw the color?”

Carlos shook his head with a puzzled expression, “It’s red so what?”

Cyrus sighed, “Pretty close to the color of a flame wouldn’t you say.” His responses only made Carlos even more confused. From what he could tell Cyrus was trying to tell him the ring was a representation of fire.

He was sourly reminded of his hallucination when he’d put the ring on his finger. The fire had consumed his body without doing any harm to him, and seemed to embed itself inside his body. But that was only a crazy dream what did Fire have anything to do with this?

He knew it meant something he just couldn’t wrap his head around it.

“This is your last chance to tell me where you hid it Carlos”

He scoffed, “And after I give it to you, you’re just going to let me go home happily ever after?”

Cyrus chuckled, “You’re not as stupid as I thought you were I’ll give you that much” He whipped his knife out seemingly from mid-air “So you’re not stupid enough to think that I won’t get that ring from you” Cyrus stalked up to him, and without indecision cut him from the bottom of his eye to his cheek.

He screamed out in agony, but Alex thrust a fist into his gut cutting his yell off short.

“Let that be a warning to what’s to come Carlos, now take him away and let him think about where my ring is.”

…

The blood on the side of his cheek finally began to dry up, at first he was worried about bleeding out but the blood flow seemed to stop relatively fast. His hands were tied above his head to an old pipe with a plastic tie. He tried rolling his aching shoulders but it only seemed to make the pain worse.