Kidnapped

Chapter 7

I awoke to Sterling shaking me. I blinked my eyes sleepily and snuggled down under the covers instinctively. It was pure reflexes, after years of living with my mom, who used to wake me up every morning for school. Trust me, she was much worse than a normal alarm clock. I'll just say that my only defense was burrowing under the cozy warm blankets of my bed.

Unfortunately, this wasn't my mother. I probably wouldn't see her waking me up for school ever again.

Besides, Sterling was more persistent than my mom. "Trixa, wake up," He dogged me. A vocabulary word popped into my mind: tenacious. Persistently determined. The exact word for Sterling. My English teacher would've been proud of me. "Trixa, you sleepy-head, get up!"

"Five more minutes," I mumbled. "No, scratch that. Wake me up when the zombie apocalypse happens; and then give me five more minutes."

I heard Sterling's annoyed sigh. "If you don't get up, you'll miss breakfast." He warned.

"Are you trying to bribe me?" I wondered aloud, opening my eyes. Sterling was sitting next to me, gazing down at me with a mixture of annoyance and amusement.

"Yup." He admitted truthfully. "Is it working?"

I pondered my options for a moment. "Probably. What's on the menu?"

"An energy bar and a bottle of water," He answered. "A hearty meal."

I wrinkled my nose but sat up. After all, I hadn't eaten in probably two days. Sheesh, I'd been running on pure adrenaline. Unfortunately, I'd run out of it, and now I was starving. My stomach made a hungry elephant sound, and Sterling raised his eyebrows, grinning.

"Oh, shut up," I said and pushed him back.

"I wasn't saying anything!" He protested, smiling.

"Yeah, but you were thinking it," I countered, swinging my legs out of the bed. "Where's the food?"

Sterling grinned. "Say 'please'," He ordered.

"Oh, come on," I protested.

"Say it."

I sighed, rolling my eyes. "Pretty please with sugar on top may I have my breakfast?"

Sterling grinned wider and tossed me my energy bar and water. I tore through them ravenously, wolfing it all down. Dang, I was still hungry. I would've killed for a cupcake.

I paused from gulping down my water. "This wasn't yours, was it?" I asked, horrified, for a moment, that I had eaten his breakfast.

"Nah," He assured me. "They gave enough for both of us."

I glared at him intensely. "What?" He asked. "Do I have something on my face?"

"Nope," I replied. "I'm just trying to figure out if you're telling the truth."

"Well, Officer, am I?" He asked, grinning slyly.

I glared at him a few moments longer before waving my hand imperiously and stating, "I'll have to think about it," I held up the imperative stare for a few seconds longer before a smile crept over my face. Sterling started laughing and before I knew it, I was laughing, too.

I realized with a start that this was the first time in almost four days that I had laughed; like, truly laughed, with legit humor. With all the general kidnapping going on, it was pretty hard to find something comical. But now...well, it felt simply good. Nice and bubbly and good.

Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever.

My wrist started spiking up pain in a storm, and I winced, my laughter cut off. Sterling immediately stopped, too. "Are you okay?" He asked, worry clouding his face.

"Yeah, fine," I said, standing up. "Just a sec'," I walked over to where the ice pack was laying, which I guessed was from Kaden. It was one of those instant ones, where you shake it and it gets really cold. I shook it a bit, and as the temperature inside it dropped, I pressed it against my injured hand. At first it burned a bit, but soon, the swelling began to fade.

Underneath the ice pack, I found another little surprise: a few pain pills. I was pleasantly surprised; why would Kaden care so much about me? I popped a pill into my mouth and washed it down with some more of my water, pondering the explanations.

Just then, I heard footsteps coming down the hall. Sterling, obviously learning from the incident yesterday, grabbed me roughly and put me on the bed, to avoid me ending up at the window again. He himself, though, peered out the small window. The door unlocked, and in walked Aiden, accompanied by both of the thugs. I saw the one who had almost broken my wrist and glared at him in anger. He grinned smugly and gave me the finger, obviously pretty darn happy that he hurt me. The thought filled me with a sudden urge to run him over with a truck.

"What are you doing here?" I asked bravely, noting that Kaden wasn't with them.

"We're not here for you, girl," Aiden said dismissively, keeping his eyes on Sterling. "Boy, come here. We have a buyer."

Instead of answering my question, this just confused me, though Sterling seemed to know what this meant. His expression hardened, and once again, I was struck how quickly he could change his mood. One moment, he was unfriendly, the next, he was joking around and having fun.

One of the thugs--no, I'll call him Stupid Jerk--grabbed Sterling's arms roughly, and started walking him out of the room. Sterling shot me a look over his shoulder just before he left the room, and I read it clearly: Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone.

Ha, like that was going to happen.

Aiden was just about to leave the room, when he turned to the second thug, the one who hurt me--he shall be called Stupid Twerp--and said something to him. I only caught a fragment: "Teach the girl a lesson."

Stupid Twerp smiled evilly, and as Aiden left, he turned to me, walking slowly and leisurely towards me. I felt a slow, rising panicky fear inside my chest, but I forced my body to sit still and look him calmly in the eye. As he got closer and closer, I clenched my fists and examined my options. What could I use as a weapon? Maybe the part of the bed? Or I could jump on his back...

And then Stupid Twerp was standing over me, glaring at me. "Time for you to learn who's your superior, girl," He said in pleasure.

I didn't have time to make one of my awesome comebacks before he grabbed my injured wrist. I cried out, kicking and squirming and jerking. "Let go, you i***t!" I screamed.

"I'm not even getting started yet," he grinned. And he hadn't.

Next, he slapped me across my cheek, then threw me down on the floor. I coughed and tried to struggle to my feet but he kicked my stomach and I cringed, curling up into a tiny ball, wanting to disappear. But he wasn't done yet.

He picked me up and threw me down again, sending spikes of pain through my back. He placed a foot on my injured wrist, pressing down with his weight as I wriggled and squirmed in pain, but I couldn't do anything about it. Just agony overflowed in my mind, and I screamed again. My vision was going fuzzy and black. "STOP!" I yelled.

Stupid Twerp just laughed.

Oh, he really was a stupid twerp.

Suddenly, I heard a commotion. The pressure on my wrist lifted, and my brain throbbed with pain. I curled over into a ball, listening quietly to the yelling happening over my head. Finally, someone stomped out of the room again, and I opened my eyes as I felt my body lifted into the air. "Are you okay?" Kaden asked me, worry clear on his face.

"Oh, I don't know," I said with the best sarcasm I could muster in my weak state. "I just got kicked around and pretty much tortured by Mr. Clearly-On-Steroids over there, and I'm kidnapped, not to mention that my wrist hurts like heck, but I'm feeling pretty fine right now. Thanks for asking."

"Ha, ha, very funny," He answered with his own sarcasm, but it was soon replaced by worry again. "Seriously, though, how bad is it?"

"I'm fine," I said as he set me gently down on the bed. I pushed him away as he tried to examine my wrist, which apparently had been damaged even more.

Big mistake.

I ended up using my injured wrist, and I cried out in pain, which, if you haven't noticed, causes you to breathe, which was not exactly good for my bruised ribs. Every time I breathed, needles of pain dug into my chest.

"No, you're not," He corrected me. My vision was going fuzzy again, but I fought it as Kaden pulled something out of his pocket.

"Why did you do that?" I asked. "Make him go away, I mean."

"I warned you before that Aiden would do things that would make be kidnapped a hundred times worse," He answered as he started rubbing some creamy stuff on my cheek, which somehow had started bleeding--which made me think that Stupid Twerp really had a talent for making people bleed without actually using any weapons.

"That's not a good answer, Katie," I said. I felt quite proud of the new nickname that Kaden was officially given.

He rolled his eyes but kept working on my injuries. "So? I warned you, but you went after that little boy, trying to protect him--"

"He's six years old," I said, low and threateningly. "And he's practically a brother to me."

He paused in his work, then continued bandaging my wrist. Jeez, was this guy Batman? He had, like, everything and was prepared for anything. "So?"

"So?" I repeated. "What you're doing is wrong, kidnapping kids, and little boys--"

"You think I don't know that?" He asked furiously, cutting me off. His eyes met mine, and stormy blue-gray clashed with fiery amber. After a few seconds, he lowered his gaze. "You think that I'm all bad." He stated.

I snorted. "Yup."

"Well, you're wrong," Kaden said shyly. I started. Shyly? Shy? "Aiden isn't actually my uncle. He says he is to everyone, but the truth is, I was kidnapped, too."