Dream Lover

#18

They came to take Micky away just after eight o'clock. Ginger, Ding—Dong, and Eddy left with my friend in tow. They'd made Charlie stay behind and guard us. I thought that maybe if they all had gone, we could somehow try and make a break for it.

I was about to become discouraged when David spoke up.

"Hey, Charlie!" He said.

"Yeah?" Charlie asked in his monotone British accent.

"It's sort of boring in here." Davy complained.

"So? What do you want me to do about it?" Charlie said.

"Couldn't we have a deck of cards to play with?"

"Sure." Charlie said after thinking for a moment. He disappeared deeper into the warehouse.

"Hey, David, what are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm gonna get him to unchain us. Then we'll be able to take him." Davy finished talking just as Charlie returned and opened the cage door.

"Here you go." He sighed, handing the deck of cards to David.

When He opened the door to walk out Davy called after him again.

"Hey, Charlie. We can't play with our hands chained to this wall, could you unchain us for a bit?"

"No way!" Charlie laughed. "I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to escape. Well let me tell you, Eddy put me in charge of looking after you guys and I'm not going to bodge it!" Charlie spat angrily.

"I didn't say you had to bodge it." Davy smiled. "You could lock the cage and then we'd still be captive."

Charlie seemed to think about what my friend had said.

"Well...okay. But just for a little while. I don't want Eddy to come back and find I've let you guys of your chains." Charlie closed the cage door and locked it. Then he made his way through the line and unlocked us all.

It felt heavenly to have the metal removed from my scarred and bruised wrists. I stood up and readied myself for a struggle, but waited until Charlie had unchained all of my friends. Davy, Peter, and I followed Charlie right up to the gate, stopping and whistling whenever he looked back at us. He took his precious time unlocking the door, but when he cracked the metal bars Muscles the Mauler jumped right onto Charlie's back. Charlie screamed something awful as the three of us struggled to pick him up and carry him to the chains. He thrashed with his arms and legs, writhing so that our grips on him would fail. He was strong, but not strong enough!

Davy held him around the arms and chest, and Peter sat on the man's legs, while I fumbled for the keys to lock the chains I'd fashioned around Charlie's wrists.

"No! Please!" He wailed.

"Just stop fighting!" Davy yelled.

"You got him?" Peter asked me.

"Yeah, just about." I locked the final lock and signaled to Davy that I was finished. The three of us jumped away from the thrashing kidnapper and trotted out of the cage where our girlfriend, fiancée, wife, and son were.

Once we'd made it outside we'd realized our mistake. We had no idea where they had taken Micky!

"Wait!" I stopped the group.

"What?" Peter asked.

"We need the guy, Charlie." I said turning back and jogging into the building. Davy joined me. We handcuffed the still thrashing man and drug him out with us.

"If you help us find our friend, we'll let you go." I bartered.

"Okay. Okay." Charlie groaned in pain.

"Which way did they go?" I asked angrily.

"You're gonna need a car." Charlie informed us.

"Well we don't have one." Chelsea said sarcastically.

"Yes you do." Charlie groaned.

Just then, a shiny red 1967 GTO appeared. It was parked on the side of the road already running.

"Would you have guessed it?" I said to no one in particular.

Our group of eight ran over to the vehicle and piled in. Charlie was seated in the back middle seat. In between Davy and Peter. He gave me directions as I sped through the L.A. streets.

When we arrived at a second warehouse I slammed on the brakes and the entire company jumped out of the car. We stormed into the building with Charlie in hand. Hopefully we could use him as a trade. If we could give them Charlie they'd give us Micky. Hopefully.

However, when we busted into the open room, our hopes changed to doubt.