Being a Victim (Criminal Minds episode fanfic)

Chapter 7

Penny and I were too scared to speak to each other with this guy in the room. He was unpredictable and scary and with the dried, stained blood pools on the table we knew he could be vicious. His big frame was no match for either of us and although he wasnt physically fit he definitely would have won against us. He was what i would have described as an apple body shape, he was just round and the only part of his waist that was drawn in was the part where he had tied the drawstrings of his joggers too tight. He wore dirty clothes and by the looks of his greasy comb over hairdo and his yellow teeth, we gathered he had absolutely no grasp on hygiene. We had no idea who this man was and to be honest it was probably better that way. If I did know of him, I'd know what he wanted to do with us and that fear and dread would just paralyse me. He was stood at the far end of the room by a counter, it looked as if he was stirring some concoction together in a cooking pot but every now and again he would turn to look at us and check we were still behaving. Where he stood was like a makeshift kitchen; a couple of pans hung from the wall and he had a small portable gas cooker which this large pan was on at the moment. He swiped his arm across his forehead and we could see his now sweaty forearm glisten in the light. He looked around once more and gave us a smirk, creeping us both out and making us look away. I dont know quite what he expected us to do, we were bound to these uncomfortable chairs by our hands and feet, the rope so tight I could feel the chaffing on my wrists beginning to wear my skin down. Beads of sweat formed along my hairline, it was so hot in this room and as I looked around I noticed there were no windows, air con units, vents or fans. We definitely weren't going to get cool here...

The doorbell caught the attention of all three of us. Penny and I exchanged glances before moving our gazes over to this man, who's yellow teeth glistened in the lighting as he smiled at us evilly, leaving his pot on the gas and heading up the stairs. As soon as the door slammed shut, Penny and I looked at each other how we'd wanted to the whole time, in absolute fear.

"Penny. A-are you alright?" I whispered, my voice already breaking. "Please tell ne he hasn't done anything to you..." The tone of conversation was already morbid, but what did you expect with the situation in hand? Penny was there right in front of me, but it was like it wasn't her. She was scared, her makeup smudged down her face from crying, her hair messed up. The normally so confident, perfect looking Penny had long left this place and was replaced with an emotional, terrified shell of a human.

"Oh my God Grace!" Penny began. "How the hell did we end up like this?" She kept her voice low. I could see her eyes welling up as she spoke to me. "He's not done anything so far but I'm guessing it's not going to stay like that..." We both gulped heavily and looked around.

"I guess you noticed the stained table too then..." I chuckled sadly. "And there's no way to escape... No windows, vents, doors..." I told her the observations I had made through our small amount of time here so far. Or was it small? I had absolutely no idea what the time was. For all I knew we'd been here for a day, month, year already.

"And that was if we could even get off these damn chairs..." Penny struggled with her hands behind her back but after working herself up, she let out a short frustrated sigh and slumped in the chair. "We're screwed."

"I guessed that too..." I sighed, looking down at the floor. "I keep wondering what we did wrong. How did we get into this predicament? We were only going out with-" We both gasped, eyes wide but with a hint of hope in them.

"Riley!" Penny grinned. "He must have told someone about us not showing up at the bar! That means people know we are missing. We might actually be alright if we hold out long enough." Both our smiles dropped almost as quickly as they had appeared. Hold out long enough? How on earth were we meant to know what he wanted so we can keep him distracted long enough for the police to work out exactly who took us and where he's keeping us?

"We can always hope!" I said, trying to gain some positive energy back and fuel a little bit of life into out conversation otherwise we may as well sit here and wait to die in silence.

Another door slammed shut and we instantly shut up. I bit my lips together and looked down at the floor as I heard the door at the top of the stairs open and the stairs strain under his heavy weight as he thumped down the stairs. He walked over to his pot and turned off the gas, throwing a bag beside the pot. I heard him open a drawer and pull something out of it, the cluttering of the other objects falling around in the drawer making me look up out of curiosity. I wonder what he kept in those drawers. He headed over to us with two blindfolds in his hand and my stomach dropped instantly, as if I was on a ride at a theme park - although this time there was absolutely nothing fun about it. Fear and dread froze my body and I couldn't find the words to say to warn Penny, who at this moment in time was tracing the wooden patterns on the table with her gaze. I opened my mouth to speak but all that came out was air. My mind screamed at me to warn her, to prevent her from getting caught up in whatever was happening but my mind drew a blank. All words i had in my vocabulary had suddenly disappeared, faded into a dark pit in my mind not to resurface for a while. I looked around, wondering what i could possibly do to draw away the attention from her but all i saw was old furniture, dirty pots, drawers and layers upon layers of dirt, grime and dust.

...Wait... Dust!

I wriggled my nose and blinked my eyes a little building up for my dramatic acting of a really good, heavy sneeze. If I failed at this, we really would be screwed. If I couldn't even distract this man for a second and help Penny, I may as well just sit there frozen to my chair and wait to become a skeleton.

"Achoo!" I said, rocking myself forward until my head nearly touched the table. "I'm sorry... Achoo!" This time I threw all my weight backwards and tipped my chair. The weight and momentum was enough to cause the chair to fall and I fell with an almighty crash onto this concrete floor. My arms were squashed under the chair but surprisingly it didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, I must have landed better than I thought. The greasy man ran round the table and picked up my chair, seating my back in the exact position I was in before.

"Okay?" He asked, a hint of human emotion showing for the first time. I nodded.

"My head hurts a little." I said, wondering if this would distract him more.

"Let's have some dinner then I will let you rest." He said, again coming across like an actual human. Even if it was only for a second. Before I could think of anything else to say he had wrapped one of the blindfolds around my eyes and tightened it to the point that it was becoming painful. Slightly above and below the material I could see light but for now I was plunged into pitch black. The material smelt damp and old, like it'd been stored in a cupboard for years which merely added to the nausea I had now begun to feel. Was I about to die? What was happening?

"Leave her alone you creep!" I heard Penny's protests as the rope around her chair strained under her movements. "What do you want from us?" There was silence for a second before her shouting continued. "Hey! Get this thing off my face! What are you doing? Help!" For once I longed her to be quiet, wondering if that was going to help us more than her calling him names and angering him. So far he hadn't been too bad to me and maybe that's because I was just going along with what he was said.

"Eat this." I heard his voice boom. It was back to the tone it was when I had first gained consciousness - angry and frustrated. I held my breath as I waited. One of us was being fed something any second now and who knows what we were going to be consuming... Rat poison? Bleach? Something laced with drugs?

The noise of Penny spitting food out of her mouth caused me to jump and straighten in my chair.

"I'm not eating your poisonous food! Who knows what you've done to it. Fuck you!" Penny began opening her mouth again and I, despite not being able to see, could tell he was not happy in the slightest. I'm glad we were on the same page but we couldn't act like this. This man wasn't just a guy at a club chatting us up and we had to reject him. This was a guy who had kidnapped us. This was a guy who had us locked away God knows where who could just kill us at any moment because we did something he didn't like.

"Now listen here you little bitch." He hissed as she let out a yelp. I can only imagine he must have grabbed her hair or face as he spoke to her. I held back tears as I heard Penny's whimpering. "You'd better do as I say or I will end you. You're nothing to me, you piece of scum failure of a woman. Now if I say eat it, you fucking eat it!" Again his fist hit the table so hard it caused me to jump. I breathed in and out heavily and terror took over. I dont want Penny to die. I don't want to die. Oh God please can somebody find us? Someone help us...