Set Me Free

"You will help me get back what is mine."

"If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid."

I bounced around the spacious van, colliding with the wall every time my captor took a sharp turn. I was blinded to the outside world, forced into the dark about exactly where I was being taken. Something told me I wouldn't like the answer when I found out.

My brain raced with every possibility of who would construct such a plan to get me in their midst. I was known to be loud and occasionally opinionated, but never so much as to make someone want to kidnap me. I had lived an extremely quiet life, and the list wasn't long of people that would want to do this to me.

The only person that topped that list would never have the courage to actually execute it.

Five years ago, I fell in love. He was perfect in every way that I could imagine, the exact image of my ideal partner. The only thing was he wasn't mine to have. He had been in a relationship for two years before I met him, and yet some part of me couldn't stop myself feeling that way about him.

We slept together, only once and after many drinks. I had never felt so guilty in my whole entire life, I thought it would consume me.

She found out.

I never had an enemy before, someone hell bent on my demise. She plagued me, humiliated me, all in an attempt to make me feel the same level of pain she felt. And I let her. I deserved it, I deserved to feel terrible, to feel guilty, to never forget the horrible thing I had done.

I knew though that she would never come up with a plan as extreme as this. She would do things like 'accidentally' spill her coffee on me or humiliate me on every form of social media. She would never plan to kidnap me, she didn't have it in her.

She was only the only person I could think of who would want to do this to me. Which could only mean one thing. I didn't know my kidnapper.

That was a lot scarier than the thought of it being someone that I knew. It meant that the attack was unprovoked, with a complete unknown agenda.

As I sped along the road, I could feel my heart sitting in my throat, my heart beating as if it wanted to escape from my chest and head for the nearest exit. I had never been more scared in my whole life than I was sitting in the back of that van.

After what felt like a lifetime of driving, the van comes to a stop and the front door slams shut. This is it, our final destination. I don't think I'm ready to find out what is in store for me.

"You're meeting awaits," he tells me as the door slides open and I'm yanked from the back.

Standing before me is what appears to be an abandoned warehouse. The windows are nothing more than cardboard, the front door sealed with chains and pad locks. The whole place sends a shiver down my spine.

"Keep walking, we have a schedule to keep," he says in my ear. Once again he is far too close for comfort and this time I shiver for a different reason. This man terrifies me.

We come to a stop outside as he takes out multiple keys to unlock the door. He doesn't hold me at this point and I know it's because he is certain that I won't run. His gun is currently staring at me from the waistband of his jeans, taunting me with the idea of death.

After extensive work, the door creaks open and I'm meet with the bleakness that lies within. A barren room stares back at me with nothing more than a table and a few chairs to fill the space. No one greets us at the door and I'm lead further into the building through multiple doors. He leads me through such a maze that I know if I ever had the chance to escape I wouldn't remember the route.

Eventually, we come to a door and my captor knocks three times, awaiting a response. It comes in a firm and muffled 'come in' before the door is flung open to reveal three men sitting around a table.

The first one is closest to the door with his back to me. I can't see his face, but his body language screams strength and danger. The second is sitting next to him and he turns to stare as we make our entrance. His hair is jet black, his eyes a similar colour. He has a scar that stretches the entirety of his left cheek, hinting at the dangerous life he has lived. He simply smirks as he meets my eyes.

The final man is at the head of the table, dressed formally in a black suit. He's older than every man here, his eyes filled with a past I don't want to delve into. He has greying hair and dead eyes and barely acknowledges that we've entered the room.

"Sit her down here," he orders my captor, an order he swiftly follows. He steers me forward, pushing me down until I am at the same height as the others.

The first man still doesn't glance up.

"So, Elizabeth, you must be wondering my we have brought you here," the elder man asks me, no emotion or expression gracing his wrinkling face. I go to speak, but realise too late that I have no voice to contribute. The fear has taken over and taken my ability to speak with it. I can only nod.

"Well, maybe it was time we told you."

I look at him, pleading him with my eyes what my mouth is refusing to do. I am pleading with him to let me go, to set me free. If he sees this look, he doesn't acknowledge it.

"I run a business, we deal with loans and distribution if you will," he tells me. I'm no idiot, what he really means is that he sells and distributes drugs. I know enough about this kind of business to know the lingo. "And with that job comes a certain level of give and take. My workers sell their piece and in return I continue to supply them with it. However, it has been known for a few of our workers to become a little greedy with the deal that we have contracted and therefore we must deploy our bargaining chips. This is where you come in dear." I look at him in confusion as he tells me this. I have never taken drugs in my life, never met a dealer. How could I possibly be a bargaining chip?

"Ah, I see that he never told you," he cryptically states.

I continue to look at the man in disbelief, at a complete lost as to who the mystery drug dealer in my life could be.

"You're father was always such a good worker, but once in a while, the good ones go rogue."

I tune out after that in a state of shock.

This is my father's doing? He is the mystery worker? It can't be, my father was always such an innocent man, I could never imagine him standing on street corners supplying the addicted with their next fix. It changed everything I knew about the man that helped raised me.

"You see, he's stolen from me, and you my dear will help get back what is mine."