Captive Of Lies Book 2(Imprisoned in my Heart trilogy...Larry)

Chapter 13

Louis didn’t make a habit of getting himself kidnapped, but so far he had decided that although he didn’t think much of it, it could be worse. Since his Total Wipeout marathon had been rather rudely interrupted by six silent, hooded hooligans, who had wordlessly declined his offer for them to join him – he supposed they weren’t fans of Richard Hammond – and then bundled him into a white van (how cliché, although it was so filthy that it was closer to brown than white) he had been treated surprisingly well. According to common stereotypes, he ought to have been languishing in a filthy, dark room that was barely large enough to accommodate him, bound and gagged and constantly held at gunpoint, while he slowly starved to death. So far, it would appear that the only thing he was in danger of slowly dying from was boredom.  

He had already explored both of the rooms that he was able to access, and discovered little source of amusement. The main room was a little larger than his and Harry’s bedroom, and painted bleakly white with pale blue skirting boards. It had one window with heavily reinforced glass, which faced onto a small, weed-ridden yard which had a ten-foot electric fence surrounding it to keep people in – and out – oh, and some lovely barbed wire, too, as though the fence didn’t quite get the message across. There was really no need for it; Louis had no intention of attacking the fence and getting barbequed. Although, when he thought about it, Harry probably wouldn’t let a 10,000-volt fence get in his way, so perhaps the wire wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The yard was an eyesore, but he did have some nice cerulean curtains to draw across the window if he really couldn’t stand the sight of it. His bed was a sturdy camp-bed with a thin but comfortable mattress, whereas the pillow was fat and overstuffed in comparison, and the heavy blanket just a slightly different shade of blue to the curtains, which presumably was a mistake as it looked awful. When he sat down on it, the bed creaked uneasily but didn’t wobble.

The floor was painted white as well, and so icily cold that it almost felt damp. Everything was unnaturally clean, as if it had all been scrubbed in anticipation of his arrival. The bookcase on the back wall had been emptied, but he wasn’t overly disappointed; he didn’t read much anyway. Surprisingly, he had an en suite bathroom which he didn’t quite like to use, filled with fluffy white towels, lots of toothpaste, and seven different types of shampoo. It was all so weird. It would appear that his captors couldn’t seem to decide whether to treat him as a prisoner or a guest in a five-star hotel. Either that, or they were toying with him, making him feel secure whilst they secretly planned how best to inflict torture and misery on him in the near future. Understandably, Louis wasn’t all too comfortable with that idea.

Despite being in awe of his surroundings, Louis didn’t react well to boredom and soon he got so fed up that he was past caring about the pristine quality of the room. He painted a picture with toothpaste on the bottom of the bathtub, mixed all the bottles of shampoo together in the sink and then added water, and gave himself a beard with the resulting bubbles. Then he smeared the rest of the foam all over the bathroom and had a solitary snowball fight with it, lobbing it messily at every elaborately polished surface and leaving soapy blobs everywhere. Once that had lost its entertainment value, he wisely attempted to clear up the bubbles and met with limited success.

Alleviating boredom soon became his sole occupation. He tried to teach himself to juggle the empty shampoo bottles but was useless at it. A single gentle bounce on the camp bed almost made it capsize, so he quickly figured out that it wasn’t built for jumping on. Singing held him out for a while, but his throat began to ache, he got thirsty, and the water from the taps tasted nasty so he chose to avoid drinking it when possible. Sleep wouldn’t come, and counting sheep was ineffective at tiring him out; he just got more bored. When he tried picking the bookcase apart, numbly wondering whether he could make some kind of weapon out of the nails that held it together, he found that it had been constructed with glue. Swearing, he abandoned the attempt. He was rubbish at fighting anyway. He’d be better trying to bludgeon his captors over the head with one of the empty shampoo bottles than stabbing them with a nail.