07

We were about fifteen minutes away from our destination when my bladder decided it couldn’t wait any longer and needed relief. I hadn’t even drank a lot of water that day, but the thought of waiting another fifteen minutes was horrifying. When I saw a rest stop exit, I recklessly turned and pulled in, making Taylor scream and hold onto the passenger seat in fear. “Emma, what the hell ?” she screeched as we jolted to a stop.

“What ?” I asked.

“What are you doing ?”

“I have to use the restroom.”

“You couldn’t wait until we reached the concert hall ?” she asked incredulously.

“Do you think I’d be using a public restroom if I could wait ?” I wrinkled my nose at the thought of all the germs I would find there. Gross.

“Blech ! You can go. I’ll stay here.”

“I’ll be back in a second,” I said as I exited my car and walked towards the entrance. Jack left his own car and followed me, inciting a bit of annoyance in me, but it wasn’t like I could stop him. He wasn’t doing any harm.

As I was walking inside, I noticed something was off about Jack. He was walking awkwardly, like he had crabs in his pants. I stopped walking to stare at him. He began to fidget, and it didn’t take me long to realize I wasn’t the only one who needed to use the restroom. “Go to the restroom, Jack.”

“I can’t,” he said. “I’ll just go later.”

“Jack.” I gave him a reprimanding look. “Nothing is going to happen in the minute it takes you to use the restroom.”

There was an awkward pause. “It might take me a little longer than a minute.”

I made a face at the implication behind his words and nodded, raising a hand to stop him from elaborating. “I understand. Just go.” Shaking my head, I added, “I told you that burrito you had would come back and haunt you later on.”

He nodded uncomfortably, making a sad attempt to subtly cross his legs. “I know. Would you do me a favor ?”

“It depends…” I trailed off, immediately thinking the worst.

“Could you buy me a pack of Cheez-Its ? After you go to the bathroom yourself, of course.”

I rolled my eyes. Seriously, was there a moment in life when he wasn’t thinking of food ? Dear God. “Fine,” I said. “Just go.”

He nodded and literally waddled over to the men’s restroom.

Sometimes I really wondered if Jack had been dropped on his head as a baby. There was something wrong with him.

As I looked around the rest stop, I noticed an eerie silence. There was a couple walking towards the bathrooms, but that was it. I couldn’t even see any workers or anything, but I didn’t pay too much notice to this. Taylor was right ; I was too paranoid. Ignoring the omens I thought I was imposing on myself, I went to the bathroom, careful not to touch anything because as I said before, these places were disgusting.

After I finished, I went over to the vending machines to buy Jack’s Cheez-Its. Everything I saw in those machines looked downright inedible. Processed junk was my least favorite thing in the world and the calories. Oh, my God, the calories. “I can’t believe Jack ingests this,” I muttered to myself.

I was just about to put a dollar into the machine when a hand holding a red handkerchief cover the lower half of my face. One whiff of the pungent odor, and I knew exactly what it was. It was chloroform. This wasn’t the first time someone had attempted to knock me out with the chemical, and I wasn’t about to let it happen again. I struggled against the person holding me and tried not to breathe, but it was too late. Within seconds of inhalation, I felt my arms and legs begin to go numb, and my knees buckled underneath me. I felt strong arms catch me as soon as I began to slip away. My vision went blurry, the vending machine now just a multitude of rays and lines, and I gave up trying to resist. Seconds later, I saw nothing and felt nothing.

I woke up dazed and confused in an unfamiliar place, my vision still blurry. I tried to sit up and vaguely heard a door slamming shut, but my body wouldn’t respond to any of my commands so I stopped trying to sit up, letting time drag by. It felt like hours, but in reality, it was probably closer to minutes. When I finally came to, I pushed myself up and looked around. I was in an unfamiliar car, but the rest of my surroundings were familiar. I was still at the rest stop ; I still had a chance.

I scooted over to the window, rubbing a sore spot on my leg. That was going to bruise later ; whoever had grabbed me hadn’t been too gentle. Looking out the window, I saw two figures dressed head-to-toe in black. They were standing by my side of the car and looked like they were arguing, probably about some issue they were having with this kidnapping attempt of theirs. Maybe Jack had done something ; I didn’t know. Either way, this seemed like an amateur job to me. At least they’d had the sense to cover their faces with masks.

I tried opening the door, but it was locked, of course. I tried every door, but they were all locked from the outside—child proofed, I was guessing. I didn’t know why I’d expected anything different. Only an absolute idiot would leave a door unlocked.

I was distracted from my failed escape plan when I heard yelling. My head whipped over to the source of the sound, and my eyes widened when I realized what was going on. Taylor had seen everything and was panicking, but so was I. She was going to get herself in major trouble if she didn’t stop yelling. I could fend for myself, but Taylor wasn’t as hard-shelled as I was.

Taylor continued yelling at them in a pathetic attempt to get them to stop, her voice ringing through her window and mine. She was that loud. “Let go of her ! Let go of my best friend, you pigs ! Let her go !”

I sighed in relief when I realized Taylor was in the safety of my car. My reactions were still a bit slow, and my thought processing wasn’t as immediate as it usually was. I’d been panicking over nothing, and I had bigger things to worry about.

“Hey !” she screamed. “Let go of Emma ! Leave her alone ! What did she ever do to you ?”

“Thank God she’s in my car,” I muttered, although you wouldn’t have been able to tell what I was saying if you tried. They’d duct-taped my mouth—another little detail I’d just noticed. I hated chloroform. I felt weak and helpless, and where the hell was Jack ?

I spoke too soon. Taylor decided it would be a good idea to leave the safety of my car and try to make them let me go. What did she think she was going to be able to do ? She should have called Jack. She shouldn’t have done that. It was so unlike her, too ; it was the kind of stupid, reckless thing I would do, not Taylor.

I tried to get her to be quiet, knowing what would happen if she didn’t run back inside the car immediately, but the duct tape on my mouth was a bit restricting. Pounding on the window didn’t work because I was too weak to put much energy into it. There wasn’t much I could do besides bang my head against the glass window, but all that did was give me a headache.

A couple who was exiting the rest stop—the same couple I’d seen when I first walked in—looked over at our corner in alarm, and the woman pawed at the man’s arm, her mouth moving frantically. I couldn’t hear a single word she was saying, but I hoped she was planning on doing something to help.