The Hidden Box

Bumps in the Road

Sarah

The man went ahead and stood behind me. He shook my chair violently, which made me jolt upright. I had no control, my entire body was tied.

"Not so fearless now are you?", my captor smirked, "Be a nice little girl and tell me where is the box.....or else..." he threatened, whispering into my ears so calmly that it confused me even more. "Or else what?" I turned my head around and looked straight into his eyes.

Upon hearing me, I thought I saw a ghost of a smile on his face but before I could be sure, it was gone.

"I can do things Miss Winters", he said resignedly while towering over me, "terrible things which will haunt you for every second of every minute of every day of your life. You'll beg me to stop, you'll be begging for mercy and if you don't know it yet, let me tell you, I have no mercy"

"I don't need mercy from you" I scoffed, "Especially because if you harm me, you are never going to that box". I didn't say 'get away with it', because I didn't know if I even had anyone or not, I didn't trust Matt even normally - who knew if it would even matter to him that I am gone? Honestly, I didn't want to raise my hopes high about anything, but that didn't mean that I'd stop being a fighter. This man didn't have know the truth about me, he didn't need to realize that I was helpless and anyway his stuff was at stake too.

"Clever aren't you? but I know how to torture things out of you"

"All this hard work for a stupid box?", I muttered quietly, hoping that he'd listen. I needed it to be casual but I also desperately needed to know why I was in such life-threatening danger in the first place.

Matt

I didn't tell Sarah why the blood stains were on the wall or why her apartment was trashed. All so that she would be able to be a little happy and saved from trauma for a few days. It was stupid of me to ever think that we could be a normal couple. Should I have told her the whole story? Her terror stricken eyes as she was being dragged away, haunted me.

Chasing the car was absolutely useless, I never understood why people even bothered when they already knew it wouldn't be possible to catch up. I just needed to make a few phone calls and figure out where she was headed, but first - I needed to see if I could find that box myself so that this nightmare could end, once and for all.

I unlocked my car and was just about to enter when a woman came up jogging towards me, "Wait!" she yelled. Once she was close enough and her panting decreased, she looked upto me with angry eyes.

"Your partner was just kidnapped and you are walking away? Just like that!"

I fumbled. What could I have possibly said in my defense that didn't make me look like a douche?

"You are going to stay put until the police come. Don't even try to escape, a lot of people have seen what happened and I won't be the only one standing in your way if you try to run off."

I re-locked my car and folded my arms. I was not going to try to escape, it would just make me look guilty and drag me into an even stickier web of politics and accusations. The police would be here any minute and I would behave like any grief-stricken love-sick person would and that would be it. I would go home and do the needful. The only side-effect of this whole procedure would be that I would be a bit late in finding Sar but that was Ok. She would survive. She has always been a survivor.

The woman still stood nearby me with wary eyes. I was not going to even try to talk or explain my actions to her. I noticed several people's eyes on me. Even the people in the clinic were staring. This was not good. A kidnapping in a public spot was too risky. He had become very desperate I guess.

My hands itched for a cigarette to cool down my nerves but it just seemed wrong. Eyes were upon me. From every angle. "Maintain a low profile", I was always told, and now here I was in the limelight and I had no idea of how to come out as normal.

After what felt like an eternity, a police car entered the parking lot. The lady rushed over to talk to them. In the meantime I tried to make a grief-stricken expression.

Soon enough, the uniformed men headed my way. Before they could even say a word I burst out talking," I don't know...they took her....how could they!!" My voice was a a mix of desperation, confusion and disbelief. I just hoped they believed what they saw.

"Don't worry sir. We'll find her. Can you give us her name?"

I had to give them her real name. Or else the receptionist would, which would drag me further to the top of their suspect list.

"Sarah Winters. Till today morning everything was fine. We had breakfast together. For some reason she was having some sort of amnesia. She couldn't remember things. So I brought her here, it was probably the side-effect of some meds she was taking. So I brought her here and she just went out for some fresh air when they took her!"

"Did she have any problems with anyone? Maybe at work or with her family?"

I gulped. "Not at work. She was a hard worker. And she's an orphan. Her family died a few years ago in some accident."

"Could you describe the kidnapper? Did they seem familiar?"

"No. I was too shocked to even notice what they looked like, it was all so sudden"

"Okay. Thank you for your time. We will keep you updated." They walked off.

I stood there for a few more minutes waiting for everyone to be busy enough to not notice me anymore and then slipped off, quick and quietly away in my car. My first stop would be our apartment. I needed to do a more thorough search of the place.

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Hi everyone! This chapter was posted after a much longer time than my previous ones as I have been really busy for the past few weeks. Matt has several layers which makes his character all the more interesting and fun to write as no one knows what he can do next. Please do write your views in the comments as to what you think will happen to Sarah in the upcoming chapters and where does Matt stand in this whole dilemma.

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