DERANGED

Chapter 3

“I am Emmi, Emanuel is the name but Emmi for short. We have Lawrence over there-“

He pointed towards one of the guys who was sitting on the table eating something on the other side.

“That guy over there is Hugo.”

He pointed towards a guy that was sitting on a beam bag beside the glass window with his phone in hand.

“That’s Raphael”

He pointed to another.

And then another,

“That’s Adam.”

“And the guy who’s somewhere probably in the bathroom is Sacha.”

They all looked the same so I could t quite tell the difference with their black combat clothing and ski masks but from their body type, I could somewhat tell them apart.

“And him?”

I pointed towards the unconscious guy before us.

“That’s Xenon. What’s your name?”

Emmi said as he leaned back, pressing the palm of his hands on the floor, he seemed tired.

“I’m Asha….

When am I allowed to go back to my life?”

I asked, trying to avoid the thoughts of Rose that were haunting me once more. I wish that I could take her place, I didn’t want to be here, not when she was no longer alive, the only reason she was dead was because I had asked her to come to the bank with me and now everything was torn apart and it was my fault, even this guy that was injured, that was my fault too.

“I’m not sure, that’s our boss, he’ll decide when you can go when he awakens.”

He pointed towards Xenon and I wondered that if I could ever leave this place, maybe knowing their names wasn’t a good idea, maybe I should’ve stayed a stranger to them.

Sitting here in silence, it felt like forever before Xenon began to twitch here and there, I sat up next to him making sure that he was ok as his eyes fluttered open and s**t and with a low painful groan, he tried to sit up as I pushed down on his chest to get him to lay back down.

“No, no, no.”

I chanted to him, making sure that he wasn’t moving too much to further injure himself but a huge relief washed over me, knowing that at least, he hadn’t died and thankfully he must’ve been the same blood type as me.

“Xenon is awake!”

Emmi informed the other men as he also rushed to Xenon’s side, making sure that he was ok as the other guys began to surround us.

“Hey guys, give him some space.”

I said as I ushered for them to go back to what they were doing and it felt as though they saw me as a doctor because within an instance, they all scattered away so that they weren’t suffocating the wounded guy, the only one that remained still was Emmi.

“Make sure he doesn’t move too quick.”

I said to Emmi as I grabbed a bottle of water, holding the back of Xenon’s head I pulled him up slightly to let him drink some water and he did just that as his eyes began to open. It was a shame that I couldn’t take the ski mask off his face because right now, he needed to breathe and I wasn’t sure if the ski mask made it easy for him but I wasn’t willing to be killed in order to let this guy breathe and so, I kept his ski mask on.

Once his eyes fell onto me, he began to sit up, causing me to push on his chest again to get him to lay down but he was so stubborn, I just couldn’t win against him and so, he finally sat up.

“You saved my life huh.”

He said with his deep hoarse voice as he coughed, grabbing his abdomen in pain.

“That’s not important right now, please lay back down, you need to rest.”

I said gently, trying to usher him back into his laying position but the guy was just not having it, instead of laying down, he tried to get up but he couldn’t hold his weight as he was in too much pain and so, he sat back down, looking over to me once more.

“I guess I owe you one.”

He said before glancing towards Emmi then back to me.

“Emmi get her a room ready, she’ll be our guest for a while.”

And as the words left his mouth, my heart sunk down my stomach, he was planning on keeping me here? Even after I saved his life?

Drowning in my reality, I stayed silent, scared that if I spoke, I’d confirm that what I was going through was real.

For now, I needed to feed myself the luxury of believing that…

I was dreaming.

Chapter 4

Asha

A part of me wished that Xenon never woke up because now that he had, he was holding me hostage for a longer time that I preferred.

Cooped up in the small confined space of the bathroom I had locked myself in for the past thirty minutes, I tried to go over my options, ways to get out of here unharmed. Maybe if I just obeyed them and did everything they asked for without putting up a fight, they’d let me go sooner than expected.

They had got away from the police, I had saved Xenon’s life and I never saw any of their faces, so why was he keeping me here? Why wasn’t he letting me go? It’s not like I was of any use to them, in fact, I was more of a baggage than anything else, I could eventually see their faces, I could find out where they were hiding at, there were so many negative factors at risk for them with me being here, they were better off with letting me go so why was it that he wanted to keep me here?

Scanning the bathroom for something, anything to help me get out of here, I opened a cabinet full of pills.

Antipsychotics.

Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I wondered which one of them was taking those, because that person, was the one I had to look out for as he clearly wasn’t stable.

“You good in there?”

A knock on the door sent jolts of electricity within me that scared me to the bone as I jumped up from the floor and looked towards the door as an unfamiliar voice came to hearing.

“Yes, I’ll be out in a minute.”

I said quietly as I studied myself in the mirror, I looked truly damaged. Disheveled as ever, half of my body was covered in road rash while the other half was in pain from the crash. I needed to find a way out of here and this bathroom surely wasn’t giving me the answers I needed and so, not wanting to attract any suspicion, I unlocked the door and headed out, standing before me was who I assumed was Hugo from his body build.

“I’ll give you a friendly advice.”

He whispered into my ear as he leaned into almost too close for comfort.

“Don’t try anything, Xenon can be gentle but he can also be awfully violent. You never know with him.”

He warned me and I took his threat quite literally, although they all seemed like normal people, people who weren’t completely psychotic, I could sense a dangerous aura around them, one that told me that if they wanted, they would bury me alive if I stepped out of line but that wasn’t enough to deter me, if given the chance, I’d run for my life and never look back.

I wanted to ask, to see which one of them took antipsychotics but I was afraid that those pills had the persons full name on it, although I hadn’t paid any attention nor did I see any names, I still considered the fact that there may have been a name and if there was, they’d keep me hostage for the simple fact of finding out the full name of one of them and we couldn’t have that and so, I walked in silence with Hugo as he guided me to a room that I assumed was for me.

“You will stay here for now.”

He said as he let me into the room and stepped out of it himself.

“Make yourself at home.”

I didn’t miss the hint of malice in his voice as he closed the door and locked it behind him, closing me in here, trapped within my thoughts, I was frozen in time as I knew that it was too late to try to escape now, though never too late, I still get out of here until someone let me out of this room.

There was a full glass wall window on one side of the room but I was on the second floor and if I were to break the glass and jump out, I’d most likely fall to my death and so, that was not an option until living was worse than death but for now, I wanted to live.

Time ticked now slowly when you were cooped up in a locked room with a bunch of masked men outside of the doors that lurked within the shadows that kept you suffocated and I had no idea how long I had been in this room, left alone to rot all on my own, that was until the door unlocked and in came a large Xenon, I could tell it was him, not just from his injured form but from his large self, he stood around 6’5, muscular, even through his black combat clothing, you could see the muscles that were bulging against the material of his clothes and those dark eyes, I could never forget those dark eyes.

“Feeling at home yet?”

He questioned as he walked over to me with a hand holding his abdomen, he seemed to be in severe pain and the last thing he should’ve been doing was walking around as though he hadn’t just crashed and had a tree branch stab into him.

“I would like to go home is the answer.”

I said quietly as I studied him, I could’ve easily attacked him, he was wounded and in pain but I knew that there was more than one man outside of this room and I had no idea where they had brought me to so really, the furthest I could get was probably to a couple of trees down in the jungle before one of the caught up to me and I didn’t want to find out what it meant to attack one of these men and run away.

“How old are you?”

He asked as he ignored my previous answer.

“19, where are you from?”

I challenged him, if this was going to be a 21 questions, I also wanted to know certain things about these guys and since they all had a foreign accent, I wondered exactly where in the world they had come from.

“France, is anyone waiting for you at ‘home’?”

He answered and asked bluntly.

“Maybe. And how old are you?”

I answered and asked bluntly too, mimicking him.

“27, tell me, do you plan on making things hard for the both of us?”

His question vague and I wasn’t sure if I understood exactly what it was that he was asking and I wasn’t sure if the answer I wanted to give was the right one but if he meant that if keeping me here meant that I’d complicate things then I only had one answer for him as I said;