Page 3 of Take My Crown

“Hey!” I scream, flailing around, trying to kick or punch him, anything to make him let me go but the guy is built like a damn rock and every hit does nothing more than hurt my own hands and knees.

“Fight me and it’ll go very badly for you,” he warns, as he dumps me in the sidecar. I growl at him, shoving his hands away from me as I try to escape the damn sidecar, but he is too quick. In seconds he has handcuffs all ready and waiting. Quickly he snaps them around my wrists, tying me to metal loops in the sidecar so it is impossible for me to get away.

Deftly, he jumps back on his bike, looking around quickly. I wonder what the hell he was going to do if anyone saw him. Fear lodges in my throat when I spot the gun in his back pocket. I’m so screwed. Screaming won’t help me escape a lunatic on a bike with a fucking gun.

Revving up the engine, he speeds away too quickly for me to react.

I twist my head, looking back in the hope that someone had seen me being kidnapped, but all I can see is the milk oozing out of my abandoned rucksack like a puddle of blood, sweeping down the street into the road.

Fuck.

Chapter Two

Ivy Archaic

The mysterious biker zooms off in the opposite direction of Katy’s house and that doesn’t surprise me, but every minute we get further away, the more I start to panic. If I don’t get help now, I’m screwed.

Up ahead, I can see a family out for a walk. I had to get their attention, knowing if he gets us out of the town and into the country lanes, there won’t be another chance.

Opening my mouth, I inhaled deeply, ready to scream at the top of my lungs but a leather-covered hand clams tightly over my mouth but the bike never slows down. I follow the hand to my kidnapper, wishing I could see his face, see if he is as cruel as he sounds.

“I will tell you this once, and fair warning, you don’t want to piss me off,” he warns, his loud voice coming to me from speakers in the sidecar. “My orders are to bring you back alive and I don’t fail at anything. Scream and I will make sure those people never speak a word about you. Try to escape and I will kill anyone in my way to get to you. Your life is over, Ivy Archaic, and for now, you belong to me.”

“I belong to fucking no one,” I spit back the second he lets my mouth go, the anger in voice hazing over the fear pounding through my body. I don’t know if he heard me, he doesn’t react if he did. All I know is that I believe him and I won’t get anyone innocent killed for me.

I slump back in my seat, defeated. For now. If my kidnapper thinks he has beaten my fighting spirit out of me, he has another thing coming. I just have to bide my time. There is bound to be another opportunity for me to get help and I’m going to be ready to take it.

We wind through backstreets and roads next to a few motorways. I guess the biker is trying to avoid any cameras so no one would be able to trace our journey. If he had bothered to ask, I would have told him not to bother. I have run away from plenty of foster homes in the past. I had a history with the police, and the older I got, the less they seemed to care about bringing me back. Now I’m almost 18, there is no way they are going to waste time looking for me.

Gradually, the tired council houses give way to more expensive properties. My curiosity piqued, I start to pay more attention to where we were going. We seem to be heading into the posh side of town, which seems to be a weird place to go. Surely any kidnapper worth their salt would take me to some abandoned warehouse somewhere or an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Okay, maybe I have watched a few too many Hollywood movies, but it still seemed strange that we seemed to be going in the direction of where the rich people lived.

The biker slows his pace a little, letting the engine die down so he can talk to me. Not that I want to hear a thing this idiot has to say. The second I’m out of this sidecar, I’m going to kick him. He didn’t tie my legs up and I swear he is going to pay for that.

I haven’t made a plan for what to do after I kick him, but I figure something might come up.

“We’re about to go into a gated community,” he tells me. “Which means going past the security guard on duty. I’m warning you now–he’s a good friend of mine, so if you think you can get him to help you, you can forget about it. Nod if you’re going to behave like a good girl.”

I nod with gritted teeth, my body shaking with anger. I fucking hate this idiot. Not for the first time in our long journey I wonder why he is doing this. Why me? I’m seventeen and other than being a girl, I’m pretty useless. I’m not even a kidnap worthy girl. I hide my body under baggy hoodies and jeans…because they are comfy. I wear black combat boots and my blonde hair is always up in a messy bun. I don’t even wear makeup. Not for lack of wanting to, but makeup costs money and I’d prefer to spend my money on my guitar.

Driving past a high wall, I notice a few trees which might make it easy for me to climb over. Yes, the most sensible thing right now seemed to be to keep my head down and figure out a way to escape later. Whatever is going on, they can’t keep me locked up forever.

The bike swerves to the left, drawing up next to a security booth in front of a high, ornate, metal gate. A large sign announces that this is Kings Town. Great, never heard of it.

“Hey! Steve!” The biker calls out. “It’s me.”

He lifts his visor, but he is looking away from me so I’m not able to get a look at his face.

The security guard slides the window of his booth open and pokes his head out.

“I see you got the package,” he says. “Nice work. I don’t see your brothers making an effort to pay off that debt to the Archaic’s. You’re a good kid. Any problems picking it up?”

“Nah. Everything ran smoothly,” the biker tells him.

Bullshit.

“Solomon’s going to reward you big time for this one. Might even cancel the debt the Knight’s owe,” the guard says, pressing the button that opened the gate. It swings open silently and my kidnapper slowly drives the bike forward and into this supposed Kings Town.

My jaw drops as I see what is behind the walls. Each property is protected by further walls, but going by their length, they all have enormous gardens. I can see rooftops set far back from the road, suggesting that each house is more like a mansion.

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