STALKED AND STOLEN

Chapter 13

The van eventually pulled to a stop around three hours later. Pete and Jay jumped out after giving Tommy Blue Eyes a concerned look. There was a tension between everybody. We were all on edge, I could just feel it, thick and heavy in the air.

After they left Tommy slid down the wall next to me and pulled out his cigarettes.

“Wanna try again?” he said, holding out the pack for me to take one.

My head spun to look at him and I eyed him up.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No. Just wondering if you fancy choking yourself again.”

I snatched a cigarette and he lit his up. He passed me the heavy metal lighter and I copied. This time, though, I didn’t even try to inhale the smoke. I took a drag and blew the smoke back out. Tommy watched me with a smirk, and my fingers ran over the initials on his lighter.

“LS. Who is LS?”

“My nanna. And I need to get it back, because when she realises I took it she will have my guts for garters.”

I found the thought of him having a very stern nanna hilarious, although I tried not to let it show.

“Your granny kicks your arse?”

He didn’t reply, he looked down at his cigarette and smirked. We both knew he was going to get slapped upside the head after his antics the past couple of weeks.

“So, it looks like this is going to be over today. I know I’m a bit of a dick, but I just want to say sorry, on behalf of all of us. I hope this experience doesn’t follow you in a negative way throughout your life.”

I wanted to scoff at him. If my dad wasn’t strict enough before this, he was definitely going to go to extremes after it. I’d be lucky if I ever saw another human again.

“That’s it!” Pete screeches as he got back into the van.

Tommy and I sat up straight and looked at him.

“What’s wrong?” Tommy stubbed his cigarette out into the pot in front of us and stood up.

Pete dropped a large black holdall onto the floor in front of me. It landed with a loud thump that vibrated through the floor and up my legs.

“Open it. Go on, open it!” he shouted, pointing at the bag.

Tommy looked down at it like it was an alien, while Jay slid the door across and stormed to the drivers seat.

Pete picked up the holdall again and threw it with force, aiming it at it. I braced, my arms protecting my face, but Tommy jumped to the side and caught it before it hit me.

“Open it!” Pete shouted.

Hesitantly, Tommy knelt down and slowly unzipped the bag. I lowered my arms and leaned to look inside. I saw piles and piles of money. Tommy put his hand in and pulled out at least five hundred pounds. He then dropped it like it was hot, and when I looked at his hand it was covered in red. Instantly my heart sped up. I thought of blood. Pete had killed my mum or dad!

“Yeah, that’s right. They set us up! It was a dye pack. They put a dye pack in the fucking money. It’s fucked it’s all fucked!” he waved his arms wildly. He ripped off his mask in fury, revealing mid length brown hair and a wonky nose that had obviously been broken more than once.

“This is your fault, Princess,” he growled. He pulled a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at me.

“Hey! How could she have known?” Tommy said. He stood up and went face to face with Pete.

“She knows! And they knew if they fucked us over the bitch would die.”

“Back off!” Tommy shouted. The van swerving knocked all of us sideways.

“Get out of my way, Tommy.”

As the pair have a stand off I curl up in the corner and wished I was back at home watching my crappy video tapes and reading my books.

“And we aren’t actually gunna do that!... OK. Think of it this way, if you kill her, we got no leverage. Now use your fucking brain and calm down.”

Pete spent at least a minute breathing heavy, staring at me. I didn’t have to look at him directly to know his eyes were burning holes into me. He reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled a phone up to his ear.

“What was that, Willy boy?” he growled down the phone. “I told you anything like this and she’ll get a bullet to the head.” Pete lifted his gun, aimed it at the back doors of the van and pulled the trigger. The noise went right through me and my hands shot up to cover my ears. I didn’t realise until now that tears were streaming down my face.

“I swear to god, you try anything like this again your daughter will be delivered in a body bag. You hear me?... What? You don’t trust me?” he threw his head back in laughter and stormed towards me. “Tell daddy you’re safe for one more day.” He dug the pistol into my head and my heart raced. My hands and body physically shook and my voice caught in my throat. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see Pete or his gun. I could only smell the alcohol on his breath. He pushed the phone onto my ear.

“Dad?” I whimpered down the phone. “Just give then what they want and they’ll let me go.”

“Zoe, it wasn’t me. Tell them it wasn’t me. I gave every penny they asked for to the police! Tell them I will get more money and I’ll deliver it myself. Are you ok, Zoe? They haven’t hurt you, have they?” his voice sounded like I hadn’t ever heard before. He sounded like a broken man.

“This is your last chance, old man,” Pete shouted. Je snatched the phone away and walked to the front of the van. “The next co ordinates are...”

“Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you,” Tommy said. I begged to differ.

“What on earth is a dye pack?” I asked. I wiped tears off my cheeks and sniffled.

“Simple terms? It goes in with the money and when the signal goes off it goes bang inside the bag letting chemicals and dye out. It ruins the money, and dyes the criminals the same colour.” He looked down at his own red palm and tried to wipe any excess off onto his pants.

Well, that was just my luck.

“One more night, Zoe. Just one more night.” He handed me a bottle of beer and I didn’t hesitate to take it.