No One Will Know

4. I Will Never Escape

I watch as the little girl, Mia, peels back from her father. I can now see her full face and figure, probably due to the fact that she is now standing perfectly still and just staring at me. She has large, crystal blue eyes, and blond hair in the finest little twist of curls. She looks fragile, and small, like a doll. She wears a purple dress that goes down to her knees and her face slowly works itself into a smile, one that is so fine and cute that if I was just seeing her on the street with her parents, I would probably smile back. That and if there wasn’t duct tape on my face.

“Mommy?” The little girl asks me, her voice so small and surprised. Like she doesn’t know what to do. After a moment, she moves in and wraps her small arms around me, squeezing tightly. “Mommy, why aren’t you hugging me back?”

Clearly she hasn’t noticed that my hands are bound, and that makes her upset. She pulls back and starts crying. “Mommy, did you miss me?” Her voice is so broken that I can only wondering what happened to this child. Unfocused to my current predicament for a moment (you know the whole kidnapping thing), I only remember are the bounds are cut from my arms and the tape torn from my mouth.

The first breath I take with my mouth is heaven, but by the second one I’m focused and fully set on getting out of this hell hole whether I am dead or alive. “Help!” I scream, running towards the large set of glass doors I see towards the back of the house. I see nothing but farmland out the back door, but I don’t care. That’s better than being stuck here. I reach for the door handle and….

It doesn’t budge.

I turn the lock I see, no such luck.

It’s only then that I see that there is another lock on this door, one that only opens by a lock. By the time I realize that I’m freaking out, my breath coming out at a near hyperventilating level. I have to get out of here, I have to. I can’t stay here.

In a moment I’ve grab some heavy object (not even sure what it is) and I chuck it at the glass door, sure it will break. I’m prepared to run, and surprised I haven’t met any resistance from my kidnapper.

It doesn’t break. No cracks appear. Nothing.

By this time I’m crying, tears running down my face because I feel stuck, trapped in this room, in this house that looks so normal it’s creapy. I move on to the window. It’s locked in the same way at the window and doors. I throw a heavy duty house telephone on it. That doesn’t budge either.

Wait…a phone!

I go and grab up another phone, instantly dialing 9-1-1 and placing the phone to my ear. I’m going to get out of here, I am going to do it. I feel an excitement and joy filling me before I hear the voice on the other end, “The number you called does not exist. Nine-one-one is not a legitimate number in our system. Please call one of the seven preprogrammed numbers instead.”

My heart stops. I swear, for a moment, it stops. And I swear for a moment that everything else does too. And when that moment stops, I see him standing there, wearing a grin, and I hear his voice from so far away, it seems, saying, “I’m a bit of a technical genius.”

And just like that, there’s vomit in my mouth again. But this time, I’m able to throw up rather than swallow it all back. And there it goes, all over his shoes. Because I’m so upset, and terrified, and rebellious. Because I just don’t care. Because I’m stuck here and there is nothing I can do about it. He can do anything to me and I can’t escape.

I hear him sigh and frown at his  shoes, unhappy it seems. Well that serves you right, I think. I move to sit down at a couch I see, pulling up my feet and curling up into a ball, trying to figure out what to do. But everything I could think of, I came up blank.

I notice that Mia is no longer here, no longer in the big open, front room. And I guess my crazy kidnapper must be psychic because all he says is, “I sent Mia to her room. She didn’t need to see you having a sick break.”

Sick break? Who says that? And who claims that the only sane person here is pretty much insane? But instead of saying that, I just nod.

There’s no point.