Puppet {ManxMan}

CHAPTER 48

I woke up with a splitting headache and a dry mouth that tasted like metal. My body was turned onto its right side, and my cheek was pressed against something smooth and cold, and even half-conscious I could tell my wrists were bound painfully tight with rope. For a while I was going to fall back asleep, the strange movement and vibrations of the surface I was on were very soothing, until wherever I was lying suddenly jolted and lurched, sending me into the air before slamming back down hard enough to make me cry in pain, groaning and rolling onto my stomach.

"Demi!" a familiar voice gasped out, and I rolled my head to the side before peeling an eye open so I could see Dakota sitting a few steps away against a wall of some sort.

"The hell happened?" I groaned, and he shook his head, holding up his bound wrists.

"We decided to go on vacation, Phoniks Vidroh just wasn't cutting it for us."

I decided not to comment, pushing myself onto my knees and reaching up to hold my head as I looked around, shocked to realize we were in the back of what looked like a van. It was basically empty besides us, so I gaped at Dakota, who sighed and dropped his head back.

"Fer-de-Lance," he explained, "They didn't say much. When you were out they just grabbed you, and they grabbed me because I was dumb enough to try and fight them off, so we both got abducted by Brazilian aliens."

"They're from Brazil?"

"No, I don't know, it was a joke, come on," Dakota sighed at me and I shrugged, lowering my hands to look at the rope, "Don't bother, nearly ruined my teeth trying to bite through it," Dakota sighed, and my hands fell to my lap.

"We have to get out of here," I decided, trying to stand but immediately falling on my back from the bump the van ran over.

"Um, don't stand up maybe," Dakota said, and I glared at him.

"I shouldn't have thrown the stupid knife," I snarled, sitting up and tugging furiously at my wrists, "God damn it, I told Kailas I'd be right back. Why on my birthday? Why does everything happen on my fucking birthday? Am I cursed?"

I turned my head when Dakota grunted and saw him tugging at his boot, so I arched an eyebrow, "What are you doing?"

"Hating myself," Dakota scoffed, "I'm a fucking idiot for not remembering I had this, God he'd be so pissed off at me. As if I'd just leave it," my eyes shot open when he slipped the pocket knife from his boot, hitting the little button on the side to open it, "Here, I can get you free."

"Holy shit, Dakota," I grinned at him and held my hands out, "You're more prepared than I thought. I'm a little surprised they didn't take that."

"Yea, luckily they didn't check my shoes," he said, but it sounded half sarcastic.

He sawed the rope from my wrists and I rubbed at the raw skin before taking the knife to help him, unable to stop my eyes from landing on the side of the handle, mostly because I could feel the engraving beneath my thumb.

"What'd you stop for?!" Dakota snapped, and I went back to sawing the rope away, yanking it from his wrists before closing the knife and looking down at the handle, just long enough to read the name before Dakota grabbed it back.

When I looked up at him, his face was red and twisted up, "Who's Ronnie?"

"Shut up," he said simply, shoving the knife back into his boot and standing up, leaning against the wall of the van, "There should be a release handle in the inside of the door, we're lucky we're not in an actual trunk. Although the new hybrids had some cool emergency kidnapping release thing in the trunk, those were kind of awesome."