CHAPTER 11
1011 Words
CHAPTER 11
“Is this Willow’s room?”
Kennedy managed to swallow down a full-fledged scream and only made a little yelp when her door banged open. She had never seen the student before. He wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt and stared around the room wildly.
“Who are you?”
“Dustin. Are you Willow’s roommate?”
Why didn’t Willow ever pull the door completely shut? Kennedy sighed. “Yeah.” She exited out of the webpages, and when a flush warmed up her face, she reminded herself she hadn’t done anything illegal or shameful.
The stranger’s eyes were everywhere at once and he scanned one side of the room to another. “There’s been an accident. Do you know where her wallet is?”
Kennedy stood up only to remember she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch except for some dry Cheerios. She put her hand on the back of her chair to steady herself. “What kind of accident?”
“She was hit by a car just a few minutes ago. The ambulance is on its way. They need her ID.”
“I’ll look.” Kennedy had no idea where it was, but she felt better about going through her roommate’s personal effects than letting someone else do it. Willow’s top drawer had a journal Kennedy had never seen her write in, some homeopathic cough drops, a few sticks of unburned incense, and a picture of her hiking with some friends up a snow-capped mountain back home in Alaska. No ID anywhere.
Dustin rummaged through the things on top of Willow’s desk. “Here. This must be her wallet.” He slipped it in his pocket. “Do you ... I mean, she’s your roommate. Do you want me to show you ...?”
Kennedy was already slipping on her shoes.
“She was at the crosswalk. The car came out of nowhere.” He bounded down the stairs two at a time.
“You saw it?” Kennedy had to run to keep up.
“Yeah. Wicked crazy.” Dustin looked back at Kennedy over his shoulder as they hurried past the dorms. “I hope she’s ok. Are you guys close?”
Kennedy wondered how to answer that question. Willow and she didn’t share any of the same moral values, but they respected each other’s space and so far had co-existed just fine. A few times they even streamed an action movie on Willow’s desktop to watch together. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, I’m really sorry.” He froze. “I don’t see the ambulance. Maybe they already got her to the hospital.”
“What was wrong with her?” Kennedy wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.
“I didn’t see everything, but it looked pretty bad.” Dustin pointed ahead. “I think I see one of the cars that stopped to help her. Let me go ask him what the paramedics said.”
Kennedy jogged after him. When she caught up, he was bending over, talking to the driver through the open window. “This is her roommate.” He turned to Kennedy. “There’s a guy in the backseat who wants to ask you something.” He opened the door, and Kennedy peered in.
“There’s no one back there.”
Before she could react, Dustin elbowed her in the ribs. She doubled over. He grabbed her shoulder. Air. She needed a little air. Then she would yell for help. She tried to gasp.
Strong, sharp fingers pressed into the back of her neck. She flailed out her arms, trying to remember those dumb self-defense videos her dad made her watch. How could she go for the eyes if she couldn’t even keep her balance?
Her lungs filled noisily with air. “Help!”
Dustin kicked her hard in the belly. She fell into the backseat and immediately stopped struggling when he brought a small knife just centimeters from her chest.
“Shut up.”
She took shallow breaths. Dustin put one leg into the car, and she scrambled backward away from him.
“Hold still,” he ordered.
She bit her lips together to keep from squealing. Breathe evenly. She could almost hear her dad’s voice. Back when she lived in Yanji, she thought his emphasis on crisis preparation was one of his strange, morbid quirks. How many other girls at her high school actually had to role-play kidnapping scenarios? At the time, Kennedy thought it had something to do with her dad’s paranoia about being an American overseas. He seized the stories of one or two US businessmen getting captured for ransom and created a whole atmosphere of fear. Now, she was grateful for his words in her head.
Create as much noise as you can during the abduction itself. Well, that had failed. All she got out was one pitiful yelp. If making a scene didn’t help, the best thing to do was stay calm. They’re going to be tense. You don’t want to make them even more nervous.
And so she sat as the car sped onto the road. When Dustin covered her eyes with a blindfold, she didn’t resist. She tried not to wince when he raised her hands over her head and cuffed her wrists to the neck-rest behind her. When the car made its first turn, she counted her breaths. Over and over and over. Someone would come. Someone would free her. This wasn’t China, with its corrupt police force and neo-communist justice system. This was America. God wouldn’t allow them to actually hurt her. He couldn’t. Her parents were missionaries. She had grown up singing praises in Sunday school. People prayed for her. People admired her. She wasn’t the kind of person who could just disappear.
She shut her eyes, which made her feel a little less powerless in the blindfold. If it was going to be dark, it was going to be dark because she wanted it to be. She clung to her dad’s words as if they were a personal guarantee of her own safety. If they want a ransom, they have no reason to harm you.
The car sped ahead as if nothing had happened. The man in the front said something to Dustin. Kennedy strained her ears. She had to pay attention. She could tell the police what their voices sounded like ...
But what would that do? She remembered her 911 conversation last weekend. The people there couldn’t even trace a simple phone call. Besides, how did she expect them to rescue her when nobody knew she was gone?
The realization hit her in the gut like a cannonball, sending splinters of fear and dread and disbelief coursing through her being. Nobody knew she was gone. She took a deep breath.
This was going to be the longest night of her life.
Assuming she survived until morning.
- Writer
