Contained by Love

Prologue

Prologue 

 “Are you sure you don’t want to come with?” asked Ryan. The sun shone in his face and he squinted his blue eyes at me, the same blue eyes that gave me butterflies.

“No, I’m happy to lie in the sun for a while, and I’m not really hungry. You guys go. I’ll see you when you get back.” I settled back down to lie on my towel.

“Okay. We’ll only be a couple of minutes. Bye.” Ryan waved and I watched as he and my two other best friends, Anna and Bea, walked down the beach.

I shut my eyes and wondered what it would be like to kiss Ryan while I listened to the rush of the waves as they hit the shore. The rustling of bushes behind me made me sit up. I turned, thinking my friends had forgotten something. “Hey guys, what did you—“ What the hell? My friends weren’t there, but two overgrown, bearded, suited men were. One grabbed my arms. I kicked out and twisted, my arms burning where his fingers dug in, but he was too strong. The other thug jammed a sock in my mouth, pushing it so far down I gagged.

 I had no idea what was in store for me, or where I was going but, I didn’t put up a fight. Of course not, being the obedient good girl I am. Or maybe it was the heart-wrenching fear I felt  in the pit of my stomach that made me freeze up.

    I was in a daze when they picked me up at ease and shoved me into their car. I was aware of the rope cutting into my wrists and the pain in my head.

   I looked out the window as we drove away from my life. The beach where I was sitting a mere twenty minutes ago was shrinking into the distance. I could still make out three miniscule figures I called my best friends – Annalise, or Anna as I called her, Beatrice, or Bea by my terms, and finally, Ryan. Beautiful, caring, sweet Ryan. Even though I didn’t know what love was yet, I definitely liked him. And I was positive he returned the feelings.

   But my friends were no longer visible. They had already disappeared into the background. The car hit a bump in the road, and I was jerked to the other side. But I didn’t want to be away from my friends, or my family. Or my dog, named after my favorite movie character, Jack Sparrow. I wanted my mother to embrace me and tell me it was only a bad dream. I wanted my father to ruffle my hair and give me a reassuring smile. I wanted my friends to hug me. But most of all, I wanted the freedom to go back to the beach and live.

   I knew I had to escape somehow. My eyebrows crease as I look  around the car for something to get my ropes free. All I found was a paperclip and some string. I hastily tried moving my wrists, but the rope wouldn’t budge. Luckily, my hands were bound in front of me and not in back, because I would have never stood a chance. I reached over for the paperclip with much difficulty. It wasn’t easy bending it when my hands were so close together, but after a couple of attempts, I had successfully turned the paper clip into an S figure.

   Next, I spit spat out the sock as quietly as I could. But the men must’ve heard some kind of spitting noise, so they turned around. I feigned sleep, and they turned around again. Here was the tricky part. Getting out of these ropes. I took the paper clip into my mouth and searched for a weak spot in the rope. I found one located directly beneath my index finger. Using my mouth to navigate, I started poking holes into the rope with the paperclip. I’d hoped that by doing so, it would become so weak that I could just pull hard enough and it would come loose. My plan worked. After I stopped making the small holes in the weak spot, I pulled with all my strength,  and the ropes broke free.

    I rubbed my aching wrists and rapidly untied my feet. The men weren’t even talking, just staring out into the road.

   I groaned internally when I realized this was the end of my great escape. What was I going to do now— , jump out of the car? Come to think of it, what did I have to lose?

   I quickly checked over the men’s shoulders and saw that we were going twenty-five on a freeway. Even if I died, I couldn’t go down without a fight. This is what I was thinking when I jumped to unlock the door and rolled out of the car.

  I hit the ground with a hard thud and cried out. Each breath I took caused my sides to protest.

   I must’ve broken a rib or two in the fall. But I knew I had to keep moving; the men had already stopped the car when I got to my feet and started running on the open road.

   I was so blinded by adrenaline and pain that I didn’t think to run into the forest, where I could simply hide. Instead, I made the colossal  mistake of running away from the men, still a target, still accessible through open fire. I had about a minute’s head start, but it didn’t help me much because of my ribs , which slowed me down.

   Even if my ribs was were fine, it wouldn’t really make much of a difference. What was a short, underweight, fifteen year old girl against two sumo- wrestler sized men that looked like they came out of The Matrix?

   Nonetheless, they didn’t even have to catch up with me because as I looked over my shoulder, I saw one of them pull out a strange looking device. I really did not want to find out what it did. But I guess I had to, because he pulled the trigger. It wasn’t a gun, however, so I didn’t get shot. Something worse than a bullet came out. It strongly resembled a net used for catching fish, but it was connected to the gun and the net was open. And it was headed in my direction. I tried to pick up my pace, but before long, the net caught up to me and pinned me down. It felt extremely heavy and I couldn’t even lift my hand. I tried looking for some sort of button on the net which would let me go, but instead  my eyes focused on the small circular round objects  at every corner.  I was about to find out what they did. The man pressed a different button and all the tiny circular things produced a gas that knocked me out faster than I could say, “crap”. 

A/N: This is going to sound corny, but I actually had a dream about this story last night and I thought it was a great idea. I have some really good ideas for it :)