Crash

72: Damsel in distress

Lyra-

A long while ago, I woke up in a lot of pain. Everything hurt. It hurt to breath, to turn my head or to even wiggle my toes.

After my vision stopped being blurry and the dizziness stopped, I could see where I was at. I was in a small room. The walls were dirty and old. It smelled musty in here. There was only one window and one door. The window was too far out of my reach and the room was obviously high up.

The door was guarded twenty four seven, I could hear the men outside the door. It was also locked, I always heard the click when they came in here to check on me.

The worst of it all was that I was in a ridged metal chair. My wrists burned from the rope that was layered with duct tape. I understood my arms and ankles were the important parts to tie down, but my middle?

Duct tape was wrapped around my stomach and the back of the chair, insuring that I didn't move around a lot. The gag in my mouth made me nauseated. It sat on my tongue and was soggy with saliva, tasting of copper.

I'm not sure how long I've been here, time just gets muddled together as I pass in and out of consciousness. I know I'm hungry, very hungry. Injured. And I've needed to pee for a very long time.

But it's clear I'm not getting out of this chair. I feel like a light bulb that wants to flicker out and die but won't. My breathing hadn't evened out since I woke up. I could barely move my fingers and feel the sensation of sticky, drying blood on my palms.

I tried to take a body count. My ribs ached and it was hard to take in deep breaths, so maybe I had a cracked rib or two that was close to my lung. My head was in a constant swirl of hurt, maybe I had a concussion.

The rest was a mess of stings and aches. I must've looked awful but that was the least of my worries. I always knew Alexandra was crazy but I didn't think she was insane. Apparently, this is the length she will go and I hoped no farther.

From what I got from Alexandra's little speech and the men's talk from outside the door, the plan was to keep me here.

After a while, my father would be more likely to hand over a large sum of money, though I knew he'd give it up right now. They listened to a stolen police scanner last night, and while straining to hear, it was evident that dad was looking for me.

I kept myself from crying for as long as I could but it didn't help. I was in so much pain and confusion. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to Nathan. He is going to flip his shit if he ever finds out about this.

I stopped myself from sobbing because to breathe in while crying was painful and it gave me a bigger headache than I already had. I had to stay calm, I was familiar with tough situations. I was trained to stay level headed when things got rough. But this was nothing like I'd ever been in.

And let me tell you, I've been through some awful shit.

They didn't give me food and were obviously not going to let me out of this chair, so that meant I wasn't going to be here long. My guess was another two days, no more. My only time passer was staring out the window, but there wasn't much to see. Tree branches blocked my view to anything on the outside.

I was pulled out of my swirling thoughts at the sound of the key unlocking the deadbolt with a click. The rusty hinges protested as the door was swung open behind me, making my ears ring.

There was some mumbling and shuffling. What are the doing? They never stayed this long.

"Bring it all in here," A familiar voice commanded. Uncle Richard. A slimy bastard I hadn't seen since Christmas two years ago. So that's who Alexandra's working with. It didn't come as a surprise to me.