“’M sorry,” she mumbled.
Then her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed.
Chapter Four
“Al!” I screamed as she fell. I tried to hold her up, but the best I could do was slow her fall and keep her from hitting her head on the coffee table as she went down. I dropped to my knees beside her, slapping her cheeks lightly in the vain hope that she would wake up.
“’Ere now, no need to get hysterical,” Gary said calmly as he came over and shoved me out of the way. “She’ll be fine.”
“What did you give her you, you asshole?”
“Watch yer tone, missy,” he growled at me. “It’s just a little GHB. Harmless.”
His definition of “harmless” and mine obviously weren’t the same. I wanted to put all my self-defense training into use, kick Gary in the head while he was conveniently low and vulnerable. If he didn’t see it coming—which he wouldn’t, because who would expect it from a teenage girl?—I could probably knock him out and make a break for it.
The problem, of course, was Al. She was out cold and wouldn’t be running anywhere, not for several hours at least. I wasn’t strong enough to carry her, and, of course, I couldn’t let myself get more than a few yards away from her. Though if she were conscious, I might want to give her a good hard slap in the face for getting us into this mess.
Ignoring me, Gary satisfied himself that Al was unconscious, then started rooting through her bag. He pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts list, frowning in concentration. “I knew ’er mum didn’t like me,” he muttered to himself. “Bet she’d do anything to get ’er little girl back now.”
So Al pulled out all the stops to come to London and make sure the man she loved was okay, and his only thought was how he could profit from her infatuation. Her taste in men sucked.
“You think she has the Faerie Queen on speed dial?” I asked, knowing full well Gary wouldn’t appreciate my sarcasm.
He glared at me, then put his hand on Al’s throat and gave a squeeze. “I told you to watch your tone,” he said, using his cultured accent once more. It made him sound colder and more dangerous.
I was sure he wasn’t going to kill Al, not when he thought of her as his key to a big payday, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt her. I know some girls are drawn to losers, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. Al could probably have just about any guy she wanted, and this was what she fell for?
“Sorry,” I forced myself to say, hating that I had to apologize to someone this loathsome.
Gary took his hand off Al’s throat and rifled through her bag some more, emptying her wallet and shoving the handful of bills in one of his robe’s pockets.
Then he found my phone, with my dad’s name and number clearly marked in the contacts list. He smiled smugly, pleased with his find. He tucked the phone into his other pocket, then put his arms under Al’s shoulders and dragged her toward the couch. His robe gaped open, letting me see that in the age-old debate between boxers and briefs, he favored briefs. I thanked the universe that he didn’t go commando.
I hated standing by helplessly. My every instinct screamed at me to do something, to make an escape attempt, or to attack, or at least try to talk my way out of the mess. But as long as Al was unconscious, anything I did could too easily get her hurt or killed. The fact that Gary had GHB lying around the house didn’t exactly speak to a sterling character even if he weren’t planning to hold us for ransom.
“Help me get her on the couch!” Gary snapped at me, and I had no choice but to do as he said. “Now sit beside her and smile for the camera,” he commanded, pulling my phone out of his robe pocket.
“Why are you taking our picture?” I asked, though I already had a good idea.
Gary didn’t answer except to sneer at me. I sat on the couch beside Al. He snapped a couple of pictures with my phone and seemed satisfied. I chewed my lip, thinking that Gary might be a little smarter than I’d given him credit for. If he was going to contact my dad to demand ransom, he’d have to show proof that he had us, and a picture was worth a thousand words. It also meant Gary wasn’t going to let me talk to my dad to prove I was alive. Which sucked, because it meant I couldn’t blurt anything out to let Dad know where we were. He couldn’t come after us himself, but I knew he had human friends who could.
When he was finished taking pictures, Gary flung Al’s limp body over his shoulder and marched toward the stairs, snarling at me to follow if I didn’t want Al to die. I had no choice but to comply.
____
Gary wasn’t a complete moron, but he wasn’t what I’d call a rocket scientist, either. He dumped Al on the floor in a dusty, stuffy attic, then used a plastic zip tie to fasten her wrists together around a support post. I knew he was going to do the same to me, and I think he expected me to make some kind of a stink about it.
However, Keane, my self-defense instructor, had made me watch a bunch of videos on the Internet about escaping zip ties, and had then made me practice until I’d practically sawed my wrists off.
Instead of trying to fight, I was very helpful, putting my arms around the post he indicated, just out of reach of Al, and presenting my wrists to Gary peacefully. I didn’t think he was stupid enough to fall for it if I put my wrists side by side, so I crossed them over one another, making sure to flex my wrists as much as possible. Gary looked at me suspiciously, and I did my best to give him scared, innocent eyes. It’s not hard to do when you’re a sixteen-year-old girl. I’m sure I looked about as helpless as helpless can be.
Gary fastened the zip tie around my wrists, pulling it brutally tight. I winced and gasped, but kept my wrists flexed, thereby making them bigger. When Gary was satisfied with his work, he nodded and left Al and me alone in the attic. No doubt he was on his way to call my dad to make his ransom demands.
I listened carefully to his footsteps as he descended the stairs, waiting until I was sure he was gone before I set about trying to get out of the zip tie. I relaxed my wrists, and now there was a little slack. It was still tight enough that it wasn’t going to be much fun to get out of it, but at least I didn’t have to try to break it, which I wasn’t very good at despite lots of practice.
Telling myself to take it slow and easy, I flattened my hands together and started shimmying and squirming the top hand, using the slack my flexed wrists had given me to slowly work my thumb out from under the tie. The damn thing was tight enough that it scraped my skin raw in the process, but once I managed to get my thumb through, I could simply slip my hands out.
Great! I was free!
But Al was still unconscious, so my situation hadn’t exactly improved a whole lot. I loosened the zip tie by a couple of notches, then stuck it in my pocket so I could get to it easily if Gary came to check on us. I then began a slow and careful examination of the attic, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. The attic floor was dangerously creaky, and there were several times when I thought sure Gary would hear me moving around and come up to investigate, but he didn’t.
I didn’t find anything in the way of real weapons, though to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure what I’d do with a weapon if I found one. As long as I couldn’t get Al out of here on her own steam, anything I did to Gary short of killing him would just piss him off. I supposed I could hope to knock him out and then tie him up, but the price of failure was frighteningly high.
I squatted beside Al and patted her cheek. “Al?” I whispered urgently. “Al, can you hear me?”
She made a little murmuring sound, but she didn’t open her eyes.
“Damn it,” I muttered, chewing my lip as I tried to think of a way out of this mess. I considered just being a good little victim and waiting to be ransomed, but I reminded myself that Gary wasn’t a moron. Al and I knew who he was, and there was nothing he could threaten us with that would keep us from telling the authorities when he released us. I wasn’t sure if that had occurred to him yet, if he realized just how deep a hole he was digging for himself, but I knew he’d figure it out eventually.