Chapter 25
Time moves impossibly slow when your locked in a room by yourself with absolutely nothing to occupy your mind. At least when I was with Benji, I had someone to talk to and comfort me, but now, I‘m here alone without any form of entertainment and I think I‘m slowly going insane. This seriously has to be a form of torture because I’m in complete agony. Sighing, I hoped that it’s been at least an hour and Benji had called Joel and there was some sort of plan in motion. Oh how I hoped that there was a plan because I really needed to get the fuck out of this room before I went insane and at this rate, it wouldn’t be too long before that happened. Sighing again, I looked over at the window, wondering if my decision to stay had been the wrong one. I seriously contemplated the idea again, but again, leaving Benji behind didn‘t seem to that good of an idea. Mike and his brother might hurt him or kill him when they found out that I was gone so now I was pretty much convinced staying was the right thing to do, at least for now.
I pulled myself from the floor to stand up. My ass was hurting from sitting on the floor and I’d be damned before I sat on that completely and utterly disgusting mattress. I went back to the window and peered through it, I wanted to see if there was any change. If there was, I couldn’t tell, as far as I knew or could tell, everything was the same as it was before. I pulled myself away from the window and moved towards the door. I knew it was locked, but I had to check anyway, just to be sure; to be able to say that I tried everything. I put my hand on the knob and turned it, and as expected, it was locked. I was just about to turn around and go back to the corner I had been sitting in when I heard voices.
“We’ve got to get rid of them,” Mike said sternly but hushed, obviously trying to keep from being heard, “they’re just going to keep up back. It’ll be easier for us to hide if it’s only two of us.”
“So what’ll we do with them?” His brother, who’s name I still didn’t know, asked.
“We kill ‘em,” Mike answered without hesitation and I froze with fear. They were going to kill us. What the hell was I going to do? There was no way that I could fight off the both of them, shit I don’t think I could even fight off one of them. And what about Benji? There was no way that he would be able to protect himself with the condition that he’s in. They were probably just going to fucking shoot us anyway, its not like we had anyway to protect ourselves from that, we‘re not fucking bulletproof.
“And what? Just leave them here?”
“Yeah, why the fuck not? The police don’t know where we are so it’ll be awhile before they find the bodies, if they ever do, and that’ll give us enough time to get far, far away.”
“When are we gonna do it?”
“Tonight,” Mike replied, “at least then we can be the fuck outta here in the morning and get out of the country or something, we just can‘t stay here. There‘s no way that we can survive a long time here.”
“Okay,” his brother replied and I could hear in his voice that he was slightly hesitant in complying with Mike’s plan, that told me that they hadn‘t intended on going this far with Benji and I. Things were supposed to end in the police station. Damn Benji for opening his mouth, I thought to myself. Maybe we could have avoided all of this had Benji not said anything. Then again, who knows what would have happened. They probably would have taken just me and killed me by now since I was the one that they wanted. Sighing yet again, I continued to listen for anything else they might say, but silence has fallen over them. Not knowing what to make of the silence, I inched my way back into the room. My eyes fell on the window once again, this time knowing that time was limited. Once again, I found myself facing a decision that I didn’t want to make.
Should I stay or should I escape? Both possibilities had highly plausible negative repercussions that I wasn’t sure I was ready to face. Benji’s welfare was the most important thing at the moment since he’s not at a hundred percent. He needs me close so that I can take care of him and protect him, much like he had done for me. I owed that much to him, he did it for me before he even knew me. Closing my eyes, I sat down next to the door so that I could hear any future conversations between Mike and his brother so that I knew what to plan for, but I had a feeling that no matter what I came up with, it wasn‘t going to do much good since I was pretty much defenseless. From now on, I’m carrying pepper spray or something, I decided. If all this shit could happen to me in only two weeks who the hell knows what’s gonna happen to me down the road.
When I reopened my eyes, the room had nearly fallen into darkness. Shit, I thought, I’d fallen asleep. I jumped up from the floor, more angry at myself than anything else. I couldn’t believe that I had fallen asleep. Benji. Shit, if I had fallen asleep god only knows what happened to Benji. He was exhausted when I was pulled from the room. Oh god, if he had fallen asleep that meant that he probably didn’t call Joel back and since his phone was off, Joel couldn’t call him. Nervously, I started to pace the room, angry with myself for falling asleep and paranoid with the idea that Benji may have done the same thing. If that happened, who knows what we’re gonna do or what to expect. The police and Joel had to move ahead even if they didn’t hear from Benji because they wouldn’t leave us here like that. Finally, my pacing began to slow as my mind began to fill with a million different thoughts.
Immediately I went over to the window and placed my fingers on the cold glass. This could be our last chance I thought to myself. If I didn’t leave to get help now, we might not live to see the morning. I bit my lip, once again torn between the idea of escape and waiting for what at this point seemed to be the inevitable. Swiftly, I moved towards the door again and pressing my ear against it, I waited and listened. Nothing. It was completely silent. Maybe they had fallen asleep. At the thought, my heart began pounding. If they were sleeping, I would have enough time to escape and return with help before they knew what had happened. Suddenly, I began to perspire and quiver with could only be adrenaline. I could do this I told myself as I pulled away from the door and made my way towards the window. I glanced quickly at the door before I slowly and quietly began to inch the window up.
I knew if I made too much noise, they would hear something and they would come in and see what I was doing so I knew that I had to be careful for this to work. Inhaling deeply, I continued to slowly inch the window up. Each inch feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds and took hours for me to move when it really had only been a couple of seconds. Taking another deep breath I willed myself to be patient. It would only be a little longer. Just a second or two more I thought as I closed my eyes and listened as the window moved higher and higher. Finally, the window stopped moving and I opened my eyes as a cool breeze caressed my cheeks. I stuck my head out to assess how high off the ground I was. Luckily, it was only a couple of feet and if I went feet first, I’d be alright.
“I’m gonna go get some help Benj,” I whispered to myself before I took another deep breath and began to position myself at the window. I lifted my leg to put it through the window and I brought my other leg up so that I was sitting on the window sill with my legs hanging out of the window. Just as I was getting ready to turn around so that I could lower myself down, the door flung open and my eyes met Mike’s and I froze.
“Kev!” he yelled as he ran towards me and it was at the second that I was snapped out of the trance that I had fallen into and attempted to turn myself but it was too late because I felt Mike grab onto my arm and he roughly jerked me back inside. “Fucking bitch,” he seethed as I hit the floor hard and yelped in pain. Mike’s brother, who’s name I’m now assuming is Kevin, came running into the room, looking slightly disheveled.
“What happened?” he questioned, obviously not processing the scene that lay before him.
“The fucking bitch almost escaped,” he replied, his eyes never leaving me as I remained a crumpled heap on the floor.
“How?”
“The fucking window,” he yelled. “I thought you said it was fucking locked!”
“I thought it was!” Kevin yelled back. “You fucking saw me lock it remember!?”
“I told you to check it to make sure that it was fucking late that this was an old building and not everything is gonna fucking work moron!” I looked at the two of them, their eyes locked on each others. My eyes moved from brother to brother as they continued their heated exchange. I took a deep breath and began to slowly crawl away from them.
“If I’m so fucking stupid, why didn’t you do it your god damn self!” Kevin challenged.
“Because I thought that you could at least lock a fucking window!” I took a deep breath, bit my lip then made my move. In an instant I was on my feet and running towards the open door and towards freedom. I only barely made it into the dark hallway when at least one of them realized I was doing.
“Hey stop!” One of them yelled before I heard a single gun shot and I landed face first on the cold ground, my body racked with pain.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Hey guys, I wanna apologize for taking so long to get this chapter up! I was without the internet for a while so I wasn't able to get any updates up! Again, I'm sorry it took so long, but here's the next chapter, let me know what you think!!
~Stephanie
~Stephanie
