I feel movement, jolting and swinging. My head aches too much to open my eyes, and I feel like vomiting but remember everything that happened to bring me here so that's better than nothing. Oww, every time I sway my eyelids throb. It's almost too much bear, so I burrow into the fabric below me. Wait, fabric? Swinging? I take a deep breath and manage to crack open one of my eyes. Dim dusty red light streams through some sort of fabric. I'm lying flat and when I lift my head to see where the rest of my body went, it hits the top of whatever I'm in so I'm left lying on my back, immobile. Nothing could go wrong in this situation. I consider screaming, trying to alert anyone near to my kidnapping, because this certainly was a kidnapping and not just capture, but footfalls and the movement tell me that I'm still being transported. I lie as still as possible, not wanting to alert them to my less comatose state. My head rolls to the side as I'm swung around a rather sharp corner, and I'm practically kissing the edge of my enclosure. The sun that streams through barely reaches my eyes, but can get past whatever I'm being held in to illuminate swirls of red and yellow and gold. And I'm so close that I can see the weave of the fabric, which both looks and feels coarse and stiff. Hold on, am I in a carpet? Yes, I think this is a carpet. Well there's a first time for everything. The swaying must be me hoisted up on their shoulders. I wonder if Grug woke up yet. I wouldn't want to face him right now.
"Hold her while unlock the door." That's the ringleader, whatever his name is. I wobble a bit, and pitch towards my feet, so they're holding me backwards. I hear deep breathing and boots scuffing on a cobblestone street.
"She's heavy. Dya think we could take her out and carry her separate from the rug?" That's Spiff no doubt. I hope they'll nod in agreement, but to no avail because I can nearly hear the condescending glares they fling at him.
"Shut up!" The boss again, and directly following this, a lock clicks and a door creaks open. "Alright now we're gonna bring her inside, no fuss. Don't look at anybody too much, I got the maid to go away for a little bit, so just do your jobs. Let's go." Maid? Maybe my prison will be fancy, a cage with a pillow, and water every other day! I can't wait!" This idea is so silly to little air-deprived me that I almost giggle, before I realize the medication is just wearing off and I take a few deep breaths to clear my head. Better now. There's less light, which is saying something when stuffed in a rug, but it's true, I can't see the colors of the rug anymore, just varying shades of grey. We must be inside, but I have no idea where. I doubt we've gone too far, carpets are a conspicuous way to carry someone long distances, but I could be anywhere in the large city. This is gonna be difficu - "Ow!" I grumble to myself before freezing up. Did they hear me? No indication so I begin to breathe again. I'm bouncing a lot now and the places where the fabric is pulled taught around me is becoming loose. This would be the perfect place to slide out, except I'm fairly certain we're on a set of steep stairs. I stop bumping a few seconds later, but now am on a ramp of some kind and as we whirl around the hallway my feet are angled towards the ground.
"Ey dya think she's awake yet?" Spiff again, who seems to be helping me more than them with these questions.
"Don't care." Oli.
"If you are awake bitch, you have it coming. Big boss can't keep you forever." I hold in a retort. That's Grug I believe, who I will be avoiding at all costs. Shame I didn't kill him with that pan. Still, it's a bit frightening when trapped like this so I lie still and don't react in any way.
"Ey whaddya think about this boss?" Someone sighs.
"We deliver the girl and get paid. It's not our job to think about it." You're not predictable at all Oli.
"It's alright. If she is awake or not it doesn't make any difference." He's wrong, their conversation cued me in to more information than I had before. We swivel all of a sudden, a hard left, and now there's almost no light. They all go quiet. I'm wondering if we're close when Spiff says "Ey, we're here now." Spiff is now my new favourite person. The weight distribution shifts again as the boss steps out to open another door. I'm carried through the entryway and light comes flooding back. Then they all halt abruptly, and I'm being lowered. Quickly. Too quickly.
"Oof! Bastards !" I hit the ground in the carpet, and lie there, now on my side wedged in this tube. Then I can feel something pressing on my shoulder and hip, and with a shove the carpet is rolling fast and I'm flailing and thumping on the floor and when the end of this strangely long carpet finally runs out momentum carries me forward until I'm sprawled out on my stomach, moaning.
"Grab her." Two hands lift me up by the arms to a standing position and drag me backwards to where the rest of them stand. I get turned around, head still spinning I'm squeezing my eyes shut. Oli yanks my hands behind my back and holds them there as Spiff on my left smiles at me and the lump that is Grug's hand rests on my right shoulder. The little boss walks in front of me and I startle. They're young, like my age young, none of them older than twenty, most much younger. They're just little boys. No crime bosses, no hit men, no chaos-wranglers I know employs anybody this young to kidnap. The boss walks up to me, stands inches from my face. I'm taller than him, and this brings me uncalled for amounts of joy even while captured. He puts his fist on my stomach. Recoils. Punches. Ohhhh I keel over, difficult to do when being held by three people but I get about halfway to the ground. My eyes are watering and I think I'm going to be sick but I hold it down.
"She's here boss." Little boss yells, and I slowly stand back up. The spinning in my head is stopping and I can kind of make out the room around me, which looks strangely familiar. I know that chair, and the bookcase, and the green walls. And I know the hallway in front of me and then my head is spinning because why on earth would you take a kidnapee back to their home, because they know everything about this place. I know the door that's swinging open from the kitchen and I know the sounds of footsteps in my creaky hall and then I stop. Because I know the figure walking towards me.
"Boss." The figure nods and steps into the full light.
"Leo?"
YOU ARE READING
Mad Honey
FantasíaWIP - Azalea is an academy trained spy, an occasional assassin. She's sent on mission to find and interrogate a boy who has been watching the academy, and her. But things go wrong when she is kidnapped and thrown into a conspiracy much bigger than h...
