Page 5 of Love Set Free

My fear keeps my eyes locked onto my captor and his gun. I watch as he retrieves a small ring of keys from his back pocket, then flicks through them until he selects a particular key and slides it into a slot on the front of the cage that I hadn’t previously noticed.

He pockets the keys, then bends down and reaches for something by his feet. His eyes flick away from me and onto whatever it is he’s reaching for. His attention is momentarily off me, and the gun is now pointed down toward the ground, also of secondary concern for the kidnapper. The lapse in focus will probably only last a moment, but if I’m going to make a move, try to get myself out of this fucking cage, now would be the time.

The cage is unlocked. I saw and heard him unlock it. He isn’t watching me. He wouldn’t see me move until I’m already moving, and I’d have momentum and surprise on my side.

I...just sit there. I don’t move. I stay right where I am, hunched up and cowering in the corner of my cage.

When I was a teenager, I sat through a meeting with my father and the head of his company’s security. As one does when you grow up the only child of a billionaire. The security head gave me a frank rundown of ways people might try to use me for my money or connection to my father. And while they’d assessed that the threat of a kidnapping was low, they covered the possibility, along with the best ways for me to stay safe and unharmed in case it did actually happen.

Oh, how I scoffed at his cautionary, do-nothing advice. Hadley, stuck in the same boring talk as me at the behest of his almost equally wealthy parents, had also scoffed. We both thought that, if somebody was stupid enough to try to nab me, they’d find their hands full of me being my most stubborn, difficult, argumentative self.

Now, as an adult—a fully grown man of twenty-nine–I’m taller, bigger, younger, probably stronger and fitter, than this man who’d abducted me.

But still, I don’t move. I do exactly what I’d been advised to do, all those years ago. And exactly the opposite of how I thought I’d behave.

Who knew I had it in me to be a perfect, docile captive?

When he stands back up, he has a Styrofoam take-out container in his hand. Logically, I figure he must’ve gotten it out of some sort of bag. Did I see him carrying a bag with him when he moved in front of my cage? I’m usually so good at noticing small details; why is my brain not functioning as fully as I need it to?

Using the hand still holding the gun, he hooks the edge of the front of the cage and swings it open. He places the Styrofoam container onto the plywood cage floor, eyes me for a long moment, then bends down and retrieves a Styrofoam cup, placing that next to the container. One more silent moment of watching me, dark eyes staring straight into mine, then onecorner of his mouth curls up into a mocking smirk as he swings the cage closed once more.

The clang of the metal rings in my head. And the scrape and click as he re-inserts the key and locks me in again stops my breath.

Oh, God. This…this is really happening. This is all real. Not some horrid nightmare caused by a sudden fever, or a hallucination caused by some drug somebody slipped me without my knowledge. It’s all real.

I, Phoenix Oliver Wilding…have been kidnapped.

Chapter Three

Phoenix

The Styrofoam container holds a sludgy sort of stew. There are some mushy orange blobs that are probably carrots and some yellowish blobs that might be potatoes. Or maybe chicken; really, really boiled and processed chicken. It’s hard to tell as the whole thing has very little smell to it and, dabbing a small amount onto my tongue, also virtually no taste other than bland and vaguely oniony and salty, which seems to be coming more from the gloopy gravy rather than any of the actual food bits in the stew. Oh, and plasticky. One mustn’t forget the lovely flavor of plastic and chemicals that the Styrofoam has leached into the food.

Even though I know I need to eat it to maintain my strength, I’m not looking forward to having to eat the sludge my captor or captors provided for me. Pointlessly procrastinating from having to take that first full bite, I pop off the plastic lid on the Styrofoam cup to see what sort of beverage I’d been given.

Huh. I’m expecting plain water. Probably spurted out from some barely functional and horridly rusty tap. Instead, the cup contains beer. Granted, it smells like the sort of low-grade, cheapbeer that’s more piss-water than actual fermented grains and hops. Still, what sort of kidnappers give their victims beer?

It makes me even more curious about the person, or persons, who’ve taken me, but I’m not going to look a gift of alcohol in the mouth. If anything, the added calories and carbs in the beer will likely come in handy throughout however long my unwanted stay in captivity lasts.

“Phoenix? Hey, Phoenix? You okay over there?”

Jackson’s smooth, honeyed voice is all of the deliciousness that my meal is clearly going to lack.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” I reply. It isn’t the whole truth. Obviously. But under the circumstances, I’m as fine as I’m going to be.

Although, even though I’ve more than likely been in this cage for less than a full day so far, I already miss being able to stand upright. Sitting, kneeling, crouching, and even lying down flat are all well and good, but it’s amazing how much I miss being able to stand up and walk around now that I can’t.

“Thanks for warning me about the gun, though,” I add. Then acknowledge, “I probably would’ve freaked out about it if I hadn’t known to expect it.”

“Yeah.” Jackson’s laugh is weak and forced. “It certainly freaked me out the first time I saw it.”

“How…uh…how did you get here? If you don’t mind me asking, and if you know. I know you said you’ve now been here, wherever here is, for two weeks now, but…how did you get here?”

I certainly don’t want to send Jackson off into another emotional tailspin and bout of silence, like the one he had when he realized how long he’s been our kidnapper’s guest, but I want to know more about this man that I find myself trapped next to. And perhaps his own path to captivity will shed some light upon my own.

“Oh. Uh…” There’s a pause, but just as I start to regret asking, Jackson continues, answering my questions. “I won a trip.” Jackson sounds as surprised by his answer as I am. As evidenced by the disbelieving chuckle that comes from him. “It was an impulse, something I probably wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t had a few shots of booze first, but I saw this flyer… Anyway, uh, I entered this contest and won a free trip. To Rio.”

I try to think if I’ve ever met someone who’s won a giveaway prize like that before. But I don’t think so. Of course, I grew up around and tend to still mostly be around people whose family have large sums of money and they wouldn’t need to enter a contest to win a free anything. If they want to fly down to Rio, or anywhere else in the world, they can easily just buy a first-class ticket there. Or fly there on their private jet, the way I so recently had.

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