Gold Dust

chapter ten: in the trojan horse

I groaned as someone I’m assuming Matthew, if that even was his name, pulled me out of the backseat of the car. He grabbed me by my arm, dragging me alongside him. My body felt weak and I couldn’t fight back. It was almost like I had been drugged. I could barely walk or even move my arms. The world was spinning and nausea had overtaken my body.

All the voices around me sounded the same. I couldn’t tell how many people I was surrounded by but it was definitely multiple people. I groaned as my head pounded. Next thing I knew I was shoved down into a seat and the bag was pulled from off of my head. My vision was blurry for a moment. I blinked a few times trying to steady my eyes. What had they given me? I don’t remember Mathew slipping me anything.

“This is the man,” a voice said from behind me. I glanced around to see a shape walking towards me. The haziness began to fade away after a few moments and I could clearly see a tall man standing on the side of me. He was an older man with short peppered gray hair. He stepped over towards me, resting a hand on my shoulder.

“Hello Robert,” he said extending a hand to me. I reached out to shake his hand, but my perception was off. I just touched air. He chuckled, a small laugh filling the room.

“You drugged him a bit did you?” he said glancing over to Matthew in the corner.

“Eh, I didn’t want him to fight too much,” Matthew retorted folding his arms across his chest. I glanced around the room I was in for a moment. The musky smell of moth balls filling my nose. I was in some sort of a basement. Was I prisoner? Were they going to kill me?

“Where I am?” I groaned my eyes flicking to my kidnappers.

“Where? Hell,” Matthew chuckled resting a hand on my knee. “Get comfortable.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the older gentleman smirked. “So how long have you and Antonio been seeing each other? You know I always knew he was a little funny.”

“Me too,” Matthew muttered nodding his head.

“So which one of you is the woman? Huh?” the man questioned grabbing my chin. I didn’t respond averting his gaze as he continued to patronize me. I didn’t know what he hoped to gain out of this. Antonio and I broke up. I told him I didn’t want to see him ever again. I hope they weren’t going to hurt him. He was overprotective of me and they knew that. He was overprotective over anyone close to him. 

“You know you’re quite pretty,” he said a grin creeping across his face. “You must be the woman. Hey! How long you think before Antonio realizes we have his little boy toy?”

“Well how about we speed up the process?” Matthew retorted pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Perhaps we should send a little incentive.”

“Do what you have to – I’m going to call the big man,” the older man disappearing up a flight of stairs. I struggled in my seat as the door slammed shut behind him. The chair along with myself went crashing to the ground as Matthew walked towards me, shaking his head.

“I won’t hurt you too bad,” he said pulling the chair up from the ground with me in it. I swallowed hard as he punched me right in the face. He chuckled as I groaned in pain. I could taste blood in my mouth as he punched me again and again and again. My face was throbbing after a minute or two.  I could feel blood dripping out of my nose. My eyes could barely open. Just as he was about to hit me again, I heard the older man’s voice again, followed by the sound of footsteps.

“So did you send a picture yet?” he mumbled. “I think you beat him up enough.”

“Of course I did,” Matthew retorted quickly snapping a picture of me with his phone. I dazed off a bit as the pain from my face was excruciating. Every part of my face ached. I could hear Matthew shouting over the phone, but I couldn’t quite understand what he was saying. It just sounded like a bunch of jumbled up words. I couldn’t concentrate. I felt dizzy.