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 Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 5:06 pm
This is part of a novel I'm writing, and I'm completely stuck. Any suggestions, comments, ideas? And yes, I am aware that it's extremely long.
I turned to the man who had kidnapped me, and stared at him with calm purple eyes.
“What are you planning to do to me?” I asked, my tone sounding colder than I had expected. “Rape me? Kill me? What?”
“I was planning on taking you as a hostage, but…” the man toyed with the gun in his hands, and looked up at me. “Your family hasn’t returned my calls, so I might just end up having to kill you.” I shrugged, unmoved by his threat.
“Aren’t you supposed to put me on the phone, with me all teary-eyed and sobbing?” I asked, eyeing his gun; hoping that it might slip out of his hands and I could snatch it when it dropped.
“Supposedly, yes,” he responded, just as emotionless and collected as I was pretending to be—in reality, I was terrified. “Yet, seeing as you aren’t crying, I can’t put you on the phone until you are.”
“Well, I’m not much of a person to cry, but I did take a whole shitload of acting classes.” I explained, lying a bit to get to the point. The main lie was that I was much of a person to cry, yet a tiny white lie in that sentence was that I had only take three acting classes, which isn’t that much. I would think that I would sob my heart out if this happened when it hadn’t happened yet, but I suppose that someone’s responses are different from what they believe.
Normally, you would expect someone to be terrified out of their mind if they were taken as a hostage like this, yet I guess I never was one to be with the majority. Being the weakling I am; I was too scared to even succeed at crying. No, not even too scared—I was so scared I was in denial.
“Stop beating around the bush,” he snapped, pointing the gun at me threateningly. This might be more fun than I had expected.
“I mean that I could pretend to be all hysterical and stuff, idiot!” I exclaimed, the handcuffs that were clicked tightly around my wrists jingling as I moved.
“Don’t get snappy with me, girl!” the hostage taker shouted, and I heard the gun being cocked by the click. “I’ll shoot, I swear, I’ve done it before!” I raised an eyebrow, and smiled. Oh, much more fun than expected.
“Oh?” I questioned, taking a step closer to him. “Then shoot. That way, you’d be losing your chances at 2.5 million dollars, pure cash, and you’d also have a heavy bounty for killing a minor.” The man stared for a second, and began to slowly lower the gun.
“I’ll wait until your family refuses to pay, then.” He said hastily, “Since they don’t have that much money, which is why they haven’t returned my calls.”
“I see that you base life on opinions.” I stated, sitting down on the plastic-wrapped couch and putting my feet up on it.
“Please,” he said, in a soft tone compared to the gruff one he had been using earlier. “Take your feet off of the sofa; there’s a reason why I have it plastic-wrapped.” I blinked, but reluctantly put my feet back on the floor.
“Why do you care so much?” I mumbled, picking at the lock on my handcuffs with my fingernails. I made a mental note: “Stop biting your fingernails, Ella. You might need them someday.” The man cleared his throat and I looked up, once again staring up at the barrel of a gun.
“Ah, shut up.” I said mockingly, whapping the gun away with my tied-together hands. Just as earlier when I had done or said something he didn’t like, I heard that noise coming from the ready-to-shoot gun: click.
“Do you want to lose your life at the young age of seventeen, darling?” he said, placing the cold metal of the gun to my forehead.
“Don’t call me darling,” I said, “And do I really care much about my life? I mean, dude, if I die, I die. I frankly don’t want to die as an old hag; I’d rather die by a freak accident than by something normal, such as a heart attack or cancer. Plus, how long you live for doesn’t matter, at least, it doesn’t matter compared to how good the life you lived is.” I smiled, happy that I finally got to give someone that speech.
“Hmm…” he whispered, taking my words into some form of consideration. “Those are some noble words.” Just as before, the gun was lowered, yet this time it was set down on a table. “Yet, do you really think that you have lived that good of a life?” His hands inched towards the gun slowly, and I felt my heart sink.
Slowly, I was beginning to realize his plan. He was going to try and get me talking, and then shoot me when I least expected it. Like he had said at the start—he was probably going to end up shooting me in the end.
Yet, what could I do about it? My mind was working faster than Nascar racers, though no good ideas would come easily. My hands were handcuffed together, he had a gun—wait, that was it.
Against my better judgment, I lifted up my foot and kicked him in the mouth, which caused him to stumble back and stand there, shocked.
What now, though? I was beginning to wonder. My hands were tied together, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Damn!” I exclaimed, seeing him inch closer to the gun. Now, it was a battle for life and death.
Everything seemed to be going so slowly, like a movie put into slow motion.
“Damn!” I heard myself yell again, and without even thinking I picked the gun up with my mouth.
“Hand—over—the—gun.” I heard him say, outstretching his hand and staring at me with his icy blue eyes. I gave an involuntary shudder and almost dropped the gun out of my mouth, but I vehemently shook my head.
In response to that, he punched me in the gut, which made the gun drop out of my mouth. I fell down on the ground, and didn’t even bother to try and get up. I closed my eyes, hoping that I would appear back at home, safe, and this all just happened to be a bad dream.
I imagined my cordial foster parents sitting down at the fireplace, with all of my foster siblings, which was seven, gathered around with cups of hot chocolate and spiced cider. That had happened just the other night; my mom was telling all of her adopted children all about her recent trip to Europe. I sat far in the back, mocha in hand, spacing out and thinking about how I would get revenge on Alice, who had called me anorexic just the other day at school.
Oh, how I missed home! I had just realized it, but I had missed everything about home now—the rambunctious kids screaming with laughter, Kelly announcing that she was going out on a date with her boyfriend, the continuous calls from Tanya, and the warm fire burning in the middle of winter.
Yet, I was still here, lying down on the floor.
“Get up.” He said roughly, kicking me in the side. No! I screamed silently. No, I won’t get up! No matter what you tell me, I won’t get up! The thing was, I frankly didn’t even want to get up. I was quite comfortable and content here—in my own little world.
“I said, get up!” I felt something press down on my hip, and I slowly began to open my eyes. Yes, I was still alive.
I looked down to see what was against my side, and, yet again, the gun was threatening to take away my life without any verbal words.
“Look, dude.” I said, staring down at my handcuffs. Oh, such a wonderful invention, aren’t they? “Look, dude. I was having fun playing this little game of your’s at the start, but now it’s getting quite boring. Let me go, will you?” the gun was pressing down even harder on my side, and having that thing pressing down on me was getting irritating.
“Game?” he said, with no more emotion than at the start. “What game? This is life, kid.” I looked up at his eyes, and shivered. Something about them reminded me of someone very close to me—myself. They had that same dark and empty look in them, which made me absolutely amazed to think that I had the same look in my eyes as a hostage taker.
“You…” I was about to call him a name, yet I decided to side with my better judgment this time and not say anything rude to him right now. “I’m sorry.” My eyelids fell down over my eyes, yet I still peeked to look at his facial expression. He had raised his eyebrow a bit and looked quite confused.
“Sorry?” he echoed, slowly beginning to move the gun.
“Yes, sorry.” I said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. “I—I’ve been acting terrible lately. You’ve been so nice to me lately; you’re a saint for returning me to my family.” I smiled at him, opening my eyes and rolling over to face him. “Could you please help me up so I could do this apology correctly?” He blinked, and grabbed my wrists, pulling me up into a sitting position. From there, I stood up and smiled once again.
“Could you please take these handcuffs off?” I asked innocently, “They really are beginning to hurt my wrists a lot. I think I—”
“Stop patronizing me!” the hostage taker exclaimed, getting ready to shoot me. I was getting quite used to this little routine, so I stayed calmer than ever.
“Patronizing?” I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “I’m not patronizing! Just listen to me before you pull this little ‘tough guy’ routine, okay?” The man’s mouth fell down, and I realized that I had said the wrong thing. “That’s no what I meant.” I quickly added, smiling slyly at him. “Now, I think—no, I know I have a way to get you more than what you asked for.”
“How’s that?” he asked stiffly, yet the gun was still pointing directing at my head.
“Well, you see,” I began to explain, a silly grin glued to my face. “My family is rich. Super rich.” The lie came easily—probably because it wasn’t much of a lie.
Before I had moved to my foster family once my parents had died, let’s just say that there way more than enough money to go around for everyone. Yet, since neither of my parent’s had a will, it went to the oldest child of them—which, happened to be my twenty-one-year-old brother who I haven’t seen in years. I’m sure he ran off with some blonde girl and moved somewhere far away with his new fortune—somewhere like California, I bet.
“Your point?” the man asked, and I could see his hand twitch; he was probably debated whether to lower the gun yet or wait for a further explanation. Either that or he was wondering whether he should shoot me.
“Maybe,” I said, “Maybe I could act all sobbing on the phone and work my way to get you more money.” I paused, and he nodded.
“What’s the catch?” he asked rudely, shoving the gun into my neck. Wrong, place, dude, aim for the heart.
“Eh?” I said, glancing down at the gun. “You take my handcuffs off until my parents pay you, say, five million?” He smirked, and took the gun away.
“Sure thing, kid.” He said, grabbing a key form his pants pocket and unlocking my handcuffs.
Freedom, at last. I felt like punching his face, just to prove that Ella Waver can’t be trapped like I was, and that I definitely shouldn’t be messed with.
“Well?” he said gruffly, pointing at the phone.
“Oh, right…” I mumbled, picking up the phone and dialing my home phone number. It had ringed four times before my foster mom picked up, but her voice sounded extremely hoarse once she responded.
“Ella?” she said, and I frowned. “Ella, honey, is that you?”
“Mom?” I said, faking a voice that sounded like I had been crying once a couple of minutes earlier easily.
“Oh, Ella!” she said, and I wished she was here, hugging me as she spoke. “Oh my God, everyone was so worried about you! Dear, where are you?”
“I’m—somewhere, I’m not sure.” I responded, sighing. I had just noticed that I rally didn’t know where I was; I wasn’t even sure if I was in New York anymore.
“When will you be home?”
“Um… when you pay.” I said, frowning. “Five million, to be exact.”
“What? Five million what?” my mom said, and her ignorance made me even more homesick than I already was.
“Dollars,” I said bluntly, and my heart sank when she said nothing in response to that. “Mom? Are you still there?”
“Yeah.” She said, and I was a bit confused as to why she was so silent.
“I’m a hostage, mommy. Please, bring the money!” I exclaimed, in that same crying tone. I slapped my hand for effect, and kicked the leg of the sofa that was near my feet. “Ouch!” I exclaimed, stomping my foot against the ground. “Stop! No!” I slapped my hand. “No! Get away from me! What? What’s that for? Oh my God, you have a gun? Don’t shoot, no!” I hung up the phone, and the man looked quite satisfied with my little act.
“You only had to tell them the money, you know.” He said, and I rubbed my wrists. It was so weird to be using them again after being handcuffed for such a long amount of time.
“Eh, I know.” I said, shrugging. “I like acting and fooling people, though. What’s so bad about raising the chances that they’ll give you the money, hmm?”
“Interesting perspective,” was all he told me before walking into the kitchen.
“What’re you doing?” I inquired, sitting down in a chair, which was also wrapped in plastic.
“I’m going to get a drink, want anything?” he asked, “Champagne? Rum and a Coke? Wine?” I blinked, and rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see it.
“I’m under the age of twenty-one,” I said, kicking at the shag carpet that was on the floor.
“That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a drink,” he replied, tossing me a beer can. I caught it, but didn’t open it.
“Legally, yes, it does.” I said hastily, handing him the beer.
“But,” he said, setting the beer in my lap and taking a seat in front of me on the floor. “You never were one to follow the law.”
“What do you mean by that, you stalker?” I asked, narrowing her eyes.
“It started when you were twelve,” he said, obviously about to go into a long-winded speech about all the laws I’ve broken. “and stole a belt from Hot Topic. To be exact, a black belt with a striped pink guitar belt buckle, and it had cost twenty-four dollars, four more than you had. You had tried to talk the cashier into giving it to you for twenty bucks, but he wouldn’t let you—so, since you wanted it so much, you stole it.” I smiled—oh, the memories.
“I have a guitar that looks exactly like that now… it missing two strings, though.” I said, turning my grin into a frown. “But, how did you know that?”
“Ah, let me continue.” He said, and the beer he had in his hands made a popping sound once he cracked it open. “You had dyed your hair for the first time a few months before, and it was black-and-white striped—it wasn’t even shoulder-long then.” He smiled, he was obviously glad to be toying with my mind. “You had much lighter eyes back then—so lavender they were almost white. You truly don’t know what happened, but somehow, they turned into this almost-black shade of purple they are now. You were wearing…” he paused, as if to be trying to remember. I could tell that he was doing it merely for effect, but I still waited patiently for the rest of the story. “You were wearing nothing too extreme, actually. You definitely had to stand out of a crowd, that’s for sure—you wore faded black jeans with a flared end, a black t-shirt with something about falling out written—”
“Fall Out Boy,” I corrected, rolling my eyes. “It’s a band. I was one of their first fans, ever since their first album came out in ’03. I was almost thirteen then.”
“Yes, whatever,” he said, taking a sip from his beer. “You also wore some black granny boots… I also believe that you had a charm bracelet on.” I nodded weakly.
“Yeah,” was all I said.
“Then, since you got away with that, when you were thirteen, which was only a few months later, as you said, you broke the loitering law and began to hang out with all those bad influences around convenience stores.”
“What do you mean, ‘bad influences’?” I snapped, crossing my arms.
“When you were eleven, you met this Chandon boy.” He said simply, “He was a good kid, but you didn’t start hanging out until you were thirteen and you both started… rebelling against the society.”
“Rebelling?” I echoed, and I couldn’t help but to smile, despite my mood. “Does that make me a rebel?”
“See?” the hostage taker mumbled, finishing off his beer in a single gulp. “You want to be a rebel and whatever else people call you, despite what you say to them.”
“No!” I exclaimed defensively, closing my eyes. “I don’t. know, continue with your stalking-inspired story.” He seemed to ignore my insult, and continued with his tale.
“As I was saying,” he said, crunching the beer can flat with his bare hands and tossing it carelessly behind him. “You had always thought off him as a little goody-goody, but then you found him smoking pot outside of a 7-11, so you decided that he was ‘cool enough’ to hang out with you, am I right?” Once again, I had to admit, so I nodded. “Eventually, when you turned fifteen, you began to smoke pot as well. He was sixteen at the time, you were fifteen, and his girlfriend, Tanya, was fourteen. The two of them were smoking pot and wouldn’t stop annoying you and calling you a chicken, so you eventually gave into peer pressure and smoked.” He grinned. “Am I right?”
“How could you know all this?” I asked, standing up. “I swear, you’re a stalker.”
“Ah, but that’s not half of it.” He commented, still sitting down criss-cross on the shag rug. “You had smoked it two times afterward, but gave it up once you got high.”
“Yeah, exactly.” I shrugged. “I’m not much of one to do drugs, you know.” I turned away from him, and looked out a giant window and saw millions of skyscrapers around.
“Unless you feel trapped, correct?” he said with a smile, standing up. I turned away from him and walked over to the window, staring outside.
“Are we still in New York?” I asked, glancing at him before looking back outside.
“Yes,” he said, “But don’t try and change the direction of the conversation. I said, am I correct?” I glared at him, but that cold glare seemed to have no negative effect on him.
“Where are you learning all this?” I asked, trying to sound more emotionless than I actually was. He held up a small composition book, and I choked back tears. “My journal?” he nodded, and I looked back out the window in fury.
“I found it in your purse when I knocked you out with the bat.” He said plainly, looking around the apartment room.
“Speaking of which,” I said, glaring at him. “Where is my purse? Oh, and give me that journal back, you b*****d.” His expression changed completely, and I shrugged. I frankly didn’t care if he killed me now, to put it easily.
“Somewhere on a street.” He said, “And I still haven’t finished reading about the time that you stole a car and why Tanya and Chandon broke up.”
“You’re reading two stories from it at once?” I inquired, glancing at my journal longingly. All of my life was recorded in that tiny notebook, and there it was—in a stranger’s hands.
“Yeah. So far I’ve found out that you both you and your friend Tanya were involved in stealing the car, and neither of you had a driver’s license.” He shrugged, and handed me my journal. I hugged it to my chest, and glared at him.
“Want to hear the rest of the story, dude?” I said teasingly, rocking back and forth on my heels. He raised an eyebrow.
“Sure, and call me… hmm, Mr. R will do fine.” Mr. R said, and I nodded.
“Sit.” I pointed at the couch, and he reluctantly sat down on the sofa. “Okay, so it all started out with me just running away form the house for a couple of hours. Yet, I somehow ended up wandering around for about four or five hours, and in Connecticut. I found out that Tanya was visiting her grandma there, lucky me. She didn’t want to steal a car, since she didn’t have a license and she didn’t have the guts—but she did have a conscience. She had accidentally tripped so I stole her shoe while she was on the ground and broke the window open, and then I climbed in and toyed with the wires by the brakes a bit.” I smiled. “Yes, hotwiring. So, anyway, she hastily drove the car but we were pulled over for speeding. Since, once again, she didn’t have the guts, I reached my foot across and pressed the pedal down as hard as I could and we sped away from that cop. He was right on out tail, blah blah blah. So we faked a crash and ran away from that crash.” I grinned, snapping my fingers. “The car was a total wreck and I ended up spraining my ankle and getting a black eye, but—hey, we weren’t caught.” Mr. R blinked, and nodded.
“Yes, very well then. Now, we need to set you up a place to stay.”
“Excuse me?”
“Apparently,” he said, standing up and walking towards the bedroom, “you’re going to be here for a while, and you idiotic teenagers need a place to sleep and all or else you’ll complain all night, correct?”
“No, I don’t need a place to stay at all.” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “I won’t be able to sleep tonight, anyways.”
“Why would that be?” he inquired, and I just rolled my eyes at his immense stupidity.
“Um, because I’m a hostage being held for a ransom of five million dollars?” I said sarcastically, leaning back against nothing and ended up falling down and tripping over myself. I glared up at Mr. R, and then slowly stood back up.
“Okay, suit yourself. Stay out in the living room.” He said with a shrug, accepting my attitude for once. “Works for me. Though, sometimes I think that that part of the house is haunted sometimes… you know, moans and creaky floors and such.” He winked at me, and I rolled my eyes. “Whatever works.”
“b*****d,” I mumbled, but he didn’t hear me, or he just ignored it.
He walked out of the room, and I was left standing there, alone.
The question had found its way into my mind, like it had many times before: What should I do now?
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 7:51 pm
Wow, I am really impressed! eek This was such an awesome and interesting story! Both of the characters were just so interesting and I just feel like I really want to read more! I liked everything about it! I mean, the dialogue was just so perfect! I could really hear both Ella (I think that was the main character) and the kidnapper talking! I mean, you wrote this so well, that their voices really came out through their dialogue! And it's also interesting to see the way they talk to each other and the tension building throughout! I really hope you post more because I would really like to read more of this story! You're such a great writer! I loved this story! I really mean it! xd xd and I don't think it was too long either.
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Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:48 pm
XD;; I didn't think that anyone would ever read it.
Thanks. ^^ I've written a lot more, but I still need to edit it before posting it here.
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