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Chapter 23

Benji and I were pulled out of the building so fast that neither of us had any time to react. No one had the time to react, not even the police, even though I don’t think that there was much that they could do anyway. They couldn’t shoot at the guys because that would put Benji and myself in the line of fire. I glanced over at Benji as we were being lead gun point away from the safety of the police station and into a situation that neither Benji or I were prepared for. I had no idea what to expect. Hell, I didn’t even know if we would be alive for much longer. We could very well be walking to our deaths. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Benji was beginning to slack a little bit and I knew that it was due to the bullet that he had taken only a week ago.

“Move it,” the man demanded, roughly shoving Benji.

“He’s hurt,” I heard myself say. It was the first thing that I had said since this entire ordeal had begun and I found that my voice was weakened by my fear. “He just got out of the hospital yesterday.”

“Aww,” the man said sarcastically before shoving Benji again, this time more roughly. “Keep it moving.” I looked over at Benji, checking to make sure that he was alright. He looked over at me and smiled weakly in an attempt to tell me that he was fine. Of course I didn’t buy it, I knew he was hurting. We walked for only a moment more before we reached a car that had been parked near by in anticipation of a successful escape. The man that had attacked me in the alleyway opened the back door.

“Get in,” he demanded. Benji didn’t hesitate and he slid into the back seat and I immediately followed him, not wanting to anger them. As soon as I was seated, Benji grabbed my hand in his and squeezed it tightly. The door slammed shut and the two guys moved to the front of the car.

“Thanks man,” my attacker said to the other man; his brother as they entered the car, both of them shutting their doors at almost the same time.

“Anything for family,” he replied then continued, “what are we going to do with these two?” My attacker from the alleyway turned to look at Benji and I. I turned my attention to the floor, I didn’t want to look this man in the eye. I was afraid of what I’d see. I expected that his eyes would be these horrible black holes that could drain me of my soul.

“I don’t know but I think we can figure something out,” he replied with an unnervingly evil smirk on his face. I could feel Benji tighten his grip on my hand. The man turned his attention back to the front window and I lifted my eyes again. I looked over at Benji. His eyes were shut and he was leaning his head against the back of the seat. I knew he wouldn’t be able to last too long like this. The pain would be too bad and we didn’t have the pain killers that the doctor had prescribed for him.

I silently took a deep breath, bracing myself for whatever it was that was going to happen to us. I didn’t want to think about it though because I know whatever it was, it was going to be bad. This man had already done a lot of damage to my life, only god knows what else he’s capable of. I squeezed Benji’s hand again and I felt him respond and repeat my action. He opened his eyes quickly to look at me but shut them once again. He was tired, I could tell. I watched as his chest rhythmically moved up and down as he took each breath. Suddenly, I saw something slightly sticking out of the pocket of his hoodie. Curiously, I reached my hand into the pocket. It was his cell phone.

I had to contain myself. That cell phone was our way out of this. All we needed was the perfect opportunity. I pulled my hand out of his pocket and turned my attention to the window. I wanted to see the street signs so that I knew where we were so that help could get to us quickly. I glanced over at Benji again when we reached a red light and the car came to a stop. His eyes were still closed but I didn’t knew whether he was sleeping or not. I cringed a little when I heard him cough but I knew that there wasn’t anything that I could do. I turned my head to look through the window once again once the car started moving.

We weren’t in the car too much longer when we finally pulled in front of a run down building that appeared to be abandoned. Panic immediately coursed through me. They were going to kill us and leave our bodies here. I looked over to Benji to see that he had opened his eyes and was looking at me nervously. I guess that he had come up with the same scenario.

“We’re home kiddies,” the guy driving announced. Home? They lived in that building? To me, that wasn’t even possible because the building hardly looked inhabitable.

“Alright, get out,” my attacker from the alley said, turning the gun to the back seat, towards Benji and I. Benji reached for the handle to the door and opened it to find that the other man was already standing there, gun in hand, waiting for us to get out. Benji got out of the car and I immediately followed. The men began leading us towards the building and I noticed that Benji kept glancing over at me. Once we were brought inside of the building, my suspicions were confirmed: the building was abandoned. My fear levels reached a new high. I was convinced that we were going to die.

“We’re gonna be staying here awhile,” one of the men said. I was slightly relieved because if ‘we’ were gonna be here awhile, that meant that they were going to kill us, at least not at the moment anyway.

“In here,” I heard the other man say, his voice sounding slightly distant. I hadn’t even noticed that he had slipped away. My attacker waved the gun in the direction of the voice, telling us that he wanted us to move. Once we reached the other guy, we found that he was standing in front of this room that was relatively tiny and lacked any windows.

“Get in,” my attacker demanded. I looked over at Benji who was looking at me. He only stood there a moment before he walked into the tiny room and I followed suit, glad that they were at least going to keep up together.

“Hey Mike, pass me that,” the man said to my attacker, as he motioned towards a large piece of wood. Mike, so that’s my attackers name. Some how, knowing his name humanized him, something that I didn’t want because a man like him didn’t deserve to be human. Especially because of the things that he did to me and probably did to other people. Once they shut the door behind us and darkness enveloped the room, I could hear them placing the piece of wood in front of the door to hold it shut. I reached my hand out in search for Benji and I felt him grab hold of it.

“I’m right here,” he said.

“I can’t see a damn thing,” I muttered, wrapping my fingers around his.

“I know, me either,” he replied. “Come on, lets sit down.” His hand slipped from mine and I heard him groan softly as he lowered himself onto the floor. I slid down next and once again reached out to find to, this time I found him right next to me.

“Are you alright?” I asked him, concerned.

“Yeah.”

“You sure?” I questioned, knowing that he was in real pain, I was just hoping that he would admit it to me.

“It just hurts. We need to get out of here soon, I’m getting really tired,” he confessed.

“I know a way out,” I replied to him, my voice falling to a whisper, I wanted to make sure that Mike and his brother couldn’t hear me.

“Really? How?” he whispered in response.

“Your cellphone,” I answered. “I saw your cellphone in your pocket when we were a couple of blocks away from the police station and I started paying attention to street signs so that I knew where we were.”

“You’re a genius,” Benji answered, with excitement in his hushed voice. “I can’t believe that I forgot that I had my phone with me. I‘m gonna call Joel.” I heard Benji pull his phone from his pocket and when he flipped it open, the small room was illuminated. He looked over at me and smiled before dialing Joel‘s number.

“Joel?” Benji said, his voice still hushed, after a few seconds. “Yeah it’s me……. No, we didn’t escape. They have us locked in some tiny room in some abandoned building……. Yeah, Angie was reading the street signs……. Hold on, let me ask her,” Benji said, turning to look at me, “what’s the street?”

“Astor and Kingsland,” I answered.

“Astor and Kingsland,” Benji repeated before becoming silent again. “No, we’re alright, they didn’t do anything to us, at least not yet anyway. Look, I’ll call you back in a couple of hours, I wanna save the battery on my phone ‘cause I don’t know how long we’re gonna be here….. Alright, love ya too man,” Benji replied has he hung up the phone and then turned it off.

“What he say?”

“He’s still at the police station,” he started, “he told the cops where we’re at and they’re gonna get a plan together. He said to call back in two hours and he’ll let me know what’s going on.”

“So two hours and they’ll be a plan?” I asked.

“That’s what he said.”

“I just hope we make it two hours.”