Held For Ransom

Day 01

The door creaks open and light shines through. A dark figure stands in the way of the light causing a shadow to be formed over his face. He walks over and picks me up by the rope on my wrist. I thrash, kicking my feet into empty space.

"Can someone grab her feet please?" The deep voice says impatiently. Someone does as he says and holds them so that I'll stop kicking. I continue to attempt to wiggle free but it's no use.

They carry me into the room next door, it looks the same as the other except it has a metal pole hanging from the ceiling horizontally. The man somehow puts the rope around the pole causing me to stand up straight with my arms above me so that I'm dangling from my wrists. I look at my right and see that they've done the same thing to Rylie.

A camera sits in front of us. I know what's coming, I've seen the videos. A beating, a whipping, everyday. I'm not prepared for it, I'm not prepared to die. My family doesn't have enough money to pay the ransom, we're not poor but we're most certainly not rich.

The men that carried us leave the room and close the door behind them shutting out the light. I'm used to the darkness by now. After a couple minutes, the door opens and someone turns on the overhead lights. They're bright, it's blinding at first but after I slowly open my eyes they adjust to it.

I see a man turn on the camera and walk over to me.

He gets down on his knees and looks me up and down.

"Well aren't you pretty." He says and gets up enough to where his eyes are level with mine.

I want to slap him so hard he falls into next week. But my hands are tied so I do what I can and spit in his face out of disgust. I'm pretty sure it flys into his mouth. He sighs. I do it again, this time out of hatred.

He grabs my face in his hand and stands up completely, towering over me.

"If you do that one more time you are going to get more than just one beating today." He says forcefully.

"Get your dirty paws off me you son of a bitch." I respond. He slaps me hard. The left side of my face tingles in pain and my eye sight goes black for a minute.

He walks behind me and touches the brand mark on my shoulder, irritating it again.

He grips my shoulder hard enough to leave bruises and leans down next to my ear. His breath is warm and gentle but disgusting. It sends shivers down my spine.

"You are mine. I own you now. And this," he pushes his thumb on that mark, "is just the beginning. Soon, you will have no worth to me and I will be happy to dispose of you." He pauses. "So watch yourself."

He walks over to Rylie and pulls a whip out from god knows where. Where the hell do you even buy a whip?

"Stop!" I croak out.

"What was that?"

"Stop." I drag out. "Don't touch her. Whatever you want to do you can do to me."

"Oh, someone's being brave today. We'll see how you feel about that tomorrow." He laughs slightly and slowly walks behind me.

I look straight at the camera, my eyes pleading for help.

I wait for the first blow to come but it doesn't.

I'm starting to get anxious, I can't see behind me and I don't know when the beating is going to start.

I turn and look at Rylie and that's when the first blow hits. I let out a groan, I can feel my back splitting open but it doesn't hurt that bad, maybe because of the adrenaline. Gary laughs viciously behind me and hits me again. I let out a groan trying to be strong. He hits me for the third time and this time I let out a scream. The slashes over lap, the cuts get deeper, longer. Blood trickles down my back but not enough to start creating a puddle at my feet. I'm halfway done, I'm so close. My body tenses up right before the fourth hit. For the first time I hear the crack of the whip. It's a harder hit than before, I slump forward from the force and a slight cry, from the back of my throat, escapes my lips. Two more. Just two more hits, then it's done. I'm not sure I can make it. I'm not as strong and tough as I seem. My breathing is heavy. It hurts to breathe in, expanding my lungs.