Taking Hearts

Handcuffs Free

(QING)

We walk along the lonely forest floor maybe for about two to three hours now before he stopped.

We encounter a big flat boulder of rock and he decided to rest there. He sat with the huge backpack on his back. He blindly fish out a bottle of water from the backpack using his free hand. Opened that bottle and drank. I stayed standing in front of him.

"Just how many bottles of water do you have there?"

"Like twenty or more,"

My eyes widened, "Twenty or more?" Why did he had too many water? One bottle held 500 ml of water. Twenty bottles means 10 liters of water. That's a heavy load.

"I fear dehydration. Did you know that a person can die from dehydration?"

I think everyone knew that.

"I read it on the internet while preparing to kidnap you," he added.

He read it on the internet. How...informative. And the fact that he sounded proud of it, is the most mind boggling.

"So you read it on the internet. Did you also look up how to kidnap a person in the net? How about the punishment for it? Did you also research about that?" I asked him as I gritted my teeth.

He nodded solemnly. "I will go to jail anyway. If the company decided to file a charge against me for the millions missing, I will be jailed for that. So I decided to take this risk,"

"Risk? What risk? You only took a risk if I will listen to you which, I should say this now, I have no plan whatsoever to do," I want to shake him. Maybe that will wake him up from dreaming that I will listen to him and maybe save him.

He nodded again, "I understand why you feel like that for now. But I have two days to change your mind."

"Two days?"

"Yes, it's the weekend. No work for you. No one will miss you. I already sent a message to your assistant that you will be "busy" with someone this weekend," he sounded proud again.

I frown, "How did you open my phone? It has a passcode,"

"I guessed," he smiled. "It took me ten tries but I did it anyway. Your passcode is the company's anniversary. It's quite easy especially if you apply some Math on it,"

Yes. Should I applaude him now? I forgot, he is an accountant. Graduated with the highest honor and the first one who almost perfected the CPA board exam. He got 99% on that exam.

That is the reason why we took him into our company. A brilliant mind like his, should work at the best company.

"Where is my phone now?"

"Not with us," is his simple reply. "Besides you can't use it. The cell reception here is really bad," he added gravely.

"And we will hike for that two days?" I asked curiously.

He shook his head, "We will camp too. Later, tonight. Our stop is a camp site."

"I see..." no I do not. That's why I asked the next question, "Why hiking?"

He blushed again, "I always love nature. I planned to take a vacation from work and take a hike. I researched for this place for a while now. This is my dream adventure. To hike and to camp outdoors."