Astray

02 / Home

"She's going to hurt herself."

Felix Holloway spoke these words aloud, but his voice was calm, laced with humor. Next to him, his father let out a dry chuckle.

"How long has she been at it?" Mr. Holloway—David—asked his son, as they gazed down at the live footage from Emerson's makeshift room. The girl was livid; screaming obscenities and tugging with all of her strength at the chains around her wrists.

"Nearly two hours," Felix sighed, with an air of exasperation. "She woke up around 4:30 this morning and it's gotten worse since then."

"She'll be fine. Did you give her a smaller dose?" David turned to his son and raised an eyebrow.

"Barely, I gave her 50 mil—"

"If you'd gone with the full 60 like I told you, she would've let us sleep till dawn," David cut him off. Felix hesitated, but simply sighed. He knew his father was right.

"I'm going in there in a minute. It's fine," Felix said eventually, looking back at the screen. He watched as Emerson gave another great tug at the chain attached to the wall, and failed once again.

"Don't put it off any longer," David said, and his tone was final. "You're prepared for this."

As his father left the room, Felix took a deep breath, and let out a laugh. Why was he nervous? She was his fiancé. She was going to be angry; that was inevitable. But she was his.

He needed to take control.

• • • • •

Emerson couldn't think.

Her brain seemed to be on overdrive; working so hard to figure out how to get out of this stupid room, yet completely in shock at how the hell she had ended up here. She could remember most of it: the interview that hadn't been an interview, the man—the "interviewer", Felix—who had called her baby, the godforsaken cup of water that she had asked for... how could she have known?

Jesus Christ, she'd been fucking kidnapped.

It didn't make sense. Kidnappings were something you saw in movies and in "Criminal Minds" episodes, but they didn't happen in Santoville. Emerson was as far from special as you could be; she didn't come from anywhere or anyone interesting, and she didn't have any crazy exes or sketchy family members... so why her? Was she going to be killed? Sold? Was this some sort of horrible prank? Or a hostage situation? It didn't make sense. It didn't feel like real life. Certainly, it couldn't be real life, could it?

She didn't know how long she had been unconscious for, but in the past few hours she had determined a few facts. First, she wasn't hurt, aside from a splitting headache, surely from the drugged drink. God, he had drugged her drink. She understood that it had happened, but she couldn't process it. Not fully; not yet.

Emerson gathered that while she was now missing her phone, her purse, and her watch, she still had on all of the clothes she had been wearing at the interview. It didn't help much, but the small sense of familiarity that she felt from her outfit—the same outfit she'd picked out just hours ago—helped ease her anxiety slightly.

She didn't know where she was—or what day it was, for that matter—but at least she knew it was daytime, because through a skylight in the room, she could see a perfect blue sky; as if to mock her in such a state of danger and terror. Does anyone know?

Emerson had also deduced that there were people in the house—or wherever she was—but they were ignoring her. Every hour or so there had been footsteps that crossed outside of her door, and a faint murmur of voices from somewhere close. Her throat ached with every swallow now, worn out from screaming for hours on end. Whoever was out there, Felix or not, was not going to help her.