Magical Me

Ch. 6 - Playdate

Chapter Six

After reading the article about Ray she’d found it hard to breathe again, and her told my parents she needed to go for a walk to clear her head. They were anxious to let her go, but after her mother forcibly wrapping up her knees she stopped arguing. So wearing the flats she’d slipped her feet into leaving her apartment, she left their house.

She tread across their stupid, perfectly manicured green lawn. She kicked clumps of grass as she went. Stupid life. Stupid boys. Why do I always pick the bad boys? Hunter’s a freaking lunatic with a habit of breaking and entering, now Ray’s a freaking murderer. The hardness of the cement below her feet was reassuring.

She took the back roads, trying to avoid the prying eyes of her parents’ posh neighbours. Mind returning to her ridiculous luck, she sighed. It didn’t matter. She’d broken things off with Hunter and now Ray was dead. In some way or another, the hidden evils in her life were gone.

At that moment she began to cough uncontrollably. Being raised with impeccable manners, her hands flying up to cover her mouth was instantaneous and natural. She was coughing so hard she had to bend over, and eventually crouch. Her whole body was shaking. How could it be mere coincidence that the moment she thought of hidden evils her mysterious affliction kicked in again? As the last few coughs escaped she nervously pulled her hands away, searching them for blood. Just as she noticed they were clean, she felt arms wrap around her waist and lift.

A string of profanities escaped her lips thinking it was Hunter. The unseen person carried her backwards as she kicked and flailed. “Screw off, Hunter. I told you I never wanted to see you again.”

There was no answer to her screech but a spine tingling scratch from her right. Birgit spun her head just in time to see the doors of a white windowless van open up. She was thrown into the darkness of the back. Landing on her cut up knees made her gasp in pain. She glanced over her shoulder as the doors began to close, and though she saw no more than a wisp of dark hair she knew it wasn’t Hunter.

Oh no, she thought. Why me? Why today? And in that moment she realized the worst things to ever happen to her always happened to her on this day, June 17. Two years ago she and Hunter had broken up, when she was eight her kitten, Sphynx, had been killed by the neighbour’s dog, today Ray had been killed and now she was kidnapped.

The van’s engine purred as it came to life and the van jolted forward as it began to move at dangerous speeds. Pushed by the motion, Birgit rolled along the empty back of the van. She rolled onto her side, and pulled into a seated position. It was when she took a deep breath to keep from freaking out entirely that she heard someone else breathing.

That was it, knowing someone else was there put her over the edge. Thinking it was someone else who’d been kidnapped she reached out her arms and called out, “Where are you?” She shuffled forward, grinding her teeth at the pain searing through her knees.

“Behind you.” A deep voice said from behind her, and she felt the hair at the base of her neck move. Shivers ran up her spine at the sound of the voice. Whoever it was kept playing with her hair. How could I be so stupid? Of course it wasn’t another kidnapped person, who do you think opened the door? The hand behind her clamped onto the back of her neck and yanked her backwards and onto her butt. “Don’t you want to play with me?”

Birgit was suddenly incapable of forming any words, all that came out was a tiny whimper. Someone in front of her whine, “Come on, Karau. Don’t steal all the fun.” A light flickered and Birgit saw a dark haired woman in her mid-thirties grinning behind the flame of a lighter. From this new light in the back of the van Birgit saw a hand in front of her holding a knife. Panic filled Birgit.

“No.” She stuttered, not knowing what else to say. “No.”

She tried to shuffle to the side away from the woman and the hand holding the knife. The unseen hand holding the back of her neck jerked her back to where she’d been and yanked her head back. She saw an awkward view of a man with wild red long hair, Karau she assumed. He had a scar splitting his right cheek, and a grin that could mean nothing good on his lips.

“No? You don’t want to make a play date? But you look like so much fun...” He drawled, sliding the cool steal tip of the knife up and down the skin by the straps of her dress. Goose pimples rose on her skin.

“I could take my time with her.” The dark haired woman said huskily, making a point of licking her lips as she rolled onto all fours and crawling towards Birgit.

She reminded Birgit momentarily of a wolf, but that thought escaped her when a voice from what she assumed was the front of the van called, “Don’t kill her until I get there!”