Day 8
They came for Kiara at the crack of dawn. The sudden pull at her doorknob had her eyes blinking open, still heavy with sleep. Two men - or at least she guessed they were men, in the dark of the night, based on their rough size and shape - stalked into her room and one grabbed her. The other seemed to be methodically going through her stuff, rooting through her old school textbooks, some of her well-loved novels and astrology books, as if he was looking for something.
When the man made contact with her forearm, Kiara started screaming. Her heart felt like it was pulsing comically out of her chest, like in some children's cartoon. She couldn't make sense of what was happening. This was her home. She was supposed to be safe here! She'd told Rafe just hours ago that she was perfectly safe.
What the fuck was going on?
"DAD!" Kiara screamed, her voice cracking.
"Don't make this harder than it has to be," the strange man in her room warned, using his grip on Kiara to wrestle her out of bed.
"DAD! MOM!" Kiara tried again, twisting and squirming, to get out of the man's hold. "Get off me!"
Despite her screams, no footsteps followed. There were no parents running to her rescue. It didn't make sense. After an apparently unsuccessful looting of her room, the other man came over to Kiara's bedside. Together, the pair were able to yank Kiara out of bed, where she was kicking and screaming.
When they pulled her backwards off the bed, Kiara was able to use some momentum to throw a sharp elbow into the first man's ribs. It wasn't enough to take him down, but it sure seemed to piss him off.
"Stupid bitch," he hissed, close to her ear.
"It'll be easier if you don't fight," the other one warned.
"Well, that's not really my M.O.," Kiara said. She had never been known to go down without a fight and sure as hell wouldn't be starting now. "What did you assholes do to my parents?"
One of the guards held Kiara from the back, gripping her under her arms. His laugh was high and cruel.
As they half-dragged Kiara down the stairs to her living room, she noticed several other people, strangers, milling about. As her eyes adjusted to the light outside her room, she craned her head to look at the man who was holding her. Surely, she was setting some sort of Guinness record for most kidnap attempts in one month. Kiara could barely believe her eyes - she recognized the man who held her. He was one of Singh's guards, albeit not one who'd ever been assigned to her detail. But she'd definitely seen him from the room where they kept her.
Kiara's screams were becoming less frequent. No one was coming to help her. She wanted to cry again. She dug her nails into the guard's arm, leaving red half-moon marks on his skin. He barely reacted, only to shake her off.
A glossy pamphlet, displaying an image of a sun-soaked Caribbean villa caught Kiara's eye from the living room table. She couldn't make out any of the words.
"Hey, where are you taking me?"
The men didn't dignify her with a response, but merely pulled her the rest of the way out the front door. As she was led onto the front porch, she made out a white van parked in front of her house. Mike and Anna stood beside it. Kiara could see the way her father's arm was around her mother, how she was tucked into his chest. Anna seemed like she was holding back tears.
"Mom! Dad!" Kiara tried again, kicking against her captor.
As they came closer to her parents, the driver stepped out of the van and walked towards them. He gave Mike a firm handshake. Kiara couldn't hear the words being exchanged between them, but she could see who it was: Singh.
