The Price of Love

◆ 5 ◆

"Shut up, you'll wake her!"

"She has to wake up sometime, stupid! It makes no difference-"

"Guys, this is literally so ridiculous-"

"Shut up, Phoenix!"

"Tommy, tell me that one more time, and I swear on everything I love, I'll slap you so hard you won't be able to taste any of Lee's lemon squares for the rest of your life."

"Hey guess what, Phoenix?"

"What?"

"Shut the fu-"

The thumping sound of flesh hitting flesh, followed by high-pitched screaming, jarred me out from between the fine line of sleep and consciousness. Startled, my eyes opened, momentarily blinded by the strange glare on the floor, a water puddle reflecting the fluorescent light from above.

With a start, I fully regained awareness, thumping back to reality so suddenly that my heart jolted into a fast staccato beat. Wide-eyed, I stared at the scene before me. The voices I had heard belonged to three strange-looking men, all staring at me with similar expressions of alarm. One of them was holding another in a headlock, both frozen in place when they noticed me wake.

Another wave of panic ensued when I realized I was binded to the wooden chair I sat upon, my hands forced back and bounded by what felt like a plastic ziptie, thick rope wrapped around my torso and to the back of the seat, loosely tied. I could feel the same fibrous material cutting across my ankles. A hysterical scream bubbled up when I noticed my bare legs staring back at me. I was dressed in nothing more than the silly lace lingerie that was supposed to go with the gown, which was nowhere to be seen. A dull ache lingered in the side of my neck. 

All that put together with three strange men didn't make for a very good wake up call.

In the silence that followed my brutal revivement, the events of last night came rushing back to me. With a creeping sense of dread, I remembered the explosion and my parents falling to their knees, clutching their throats from where blood flowed freely. I remembered the chandelier crashing into a million pieces and the smirk on Beau's face as he handed me over to the men wearing hideous pig masks, and then I could remember nothing more but inky blackness.

How much was I worth? If this was a hostage situation, and the chips were most certainly lining up to look like one, then how much would my father be willing to pay to get me back? I was worth more than, like, $10, right? Maybe $10 and a McChicken or something, at least.

"Um..." A weird looking guy, the one standing beside the two still frozen in mid-fight, stepped forward. He was long, lanky, and had a cleft in the middle of his chin like a movie star, but the persona that radiated off him was pure ridiculousness. He reminded me of a noodle or something. "...hello? Daph-"

"What?" I was beginning to feel the familiar prickling of hysteria. Struggling against the bounds proved useless- I couldn't do anything if my hands were tied. But that was easy enough to deal with. "Are you kidding me? Let me go! What's wrong with you? What? No! Who are you? What's going on? Oh my God, I can't believe this-"

The two in mid-fight untangled themselves from each other and stepped in place with the noodle man that had spoken, looking rather nervous. The shorter of the three was a man with light brown hair sticking up like duckfluff with a matching scruff to boot, the other had dark hair and ears that stuck out. He looked strangely foreign. For a hostage situation, they didn't look very much in control. In fact, they stared at me with petrified expressions. It would've been funny if I hadn't been so scared of them  in turn.