Never Safe ✔︎

Chapter Two

    I awaken to the sound of a door slamming shut. I jerk upright and see a man walking towards us. I quickly tap Ari until she wakes up. She slowly sits up and looks at me confused as to why I woke her up. So, I tilt my head towards the man who is unlocking the cage, and when she sees him her eyes go wide. She instantly sits up completely as we wait for the man to come towards us. I could only see his broad outline until he comes closer. I get a better look at him and he looks to be in his mid-forties. He has a scar streaked across his right cheek and long black hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in days. He is carrying a tray with what is supposed to be food but looks more like a pile of mush. He sets it on the floor in between Ari and I and turns around and walks towards the door without saying a word.

"What do you want?" I ask quickly, trying to stop him before he leaves.

"None of your concern" He says in a deep voice.

"It kind of is" I mumble under my breath. He seemed to hear me and turn around. He walks towards me and bends down to where I am. The next thing I know, the scar faced man slapped me across the cheek before continuing to walk out the cage and door while locking it. I feel my cheek and there is now a burning sensation on my cheek where his hand was. My eyes start watering as I hold my cheek. I try to stop myself from crying to avoid scaring Ari.

"oh my goodness Wynter! Are youokay?" Ari says looking at me fearfully once the man left. I nod my head showing that I'm fine even though my cheek burns really bad. We stay silent for a few minutes, while I think. Since the kidnapper didn't have a mask on, he must not be worried about us identifying him later on. Which could mean they either plans on killing us or they just weren't smart enough to think it through. But, with all of their cautious actions I'm leaning towards the first thing. I try to stop thinking so negatively and stare back at the food.

"Let's eat" I say bringing the tray closer to us and picking it up. Unfortunately, the kidnappers were smart enough to not give us silverware. Which means that we will have to use our hands, and probably make a mess, but I'm so hungry I don't care what I have to do. I think the food is supposed to be some sort of mashed potatoes, but there are different sorts of vegetables and what looks to be mac and cheese mixed in. I feel like someone just put all of someone's leftovers in a pile and decided to give them to us to eat. I use my dirty hand to scoop the food and put it in my mouth. It tastes old, but I'm hungry enough to not complain and reach for another scoop. Ari follows and starts taking some and before we know it all the foods gone. We end up having to wipe our hands on our clothes, so now food is all over my hoodie and her sundress that has a rip on the bottom.

"Now what?" Ari asks me.

I look at my watch and the time is 9:32 A.M. which means the police and my dad should be looking for us by now.

"Dad will have called the police by now and they should be on their way shortly, just hold on." I say to Ari trying to make her feel better but doubting my own words. "I really have to go to the bathroom" I say smiling, trying to change the subject.

"Me too" Ari says with a small laugh.

"Let's ask the man when he comes back, it will probably be around lunch" I state. Ari laughs a little louder this time. "If I can make it that long" she says. Now it's my turn to laugh, as Ari looks at me with a smile.

"Let's talk to pass the time" I suggest, trying not to get bored. Ari agrees and we start talking about random things that don't really matter. It started with school, and how we're excited to graduate.

"I can't wait to graduate" I say.

"If we graduate" Ari says with a serious look on her face. Since she is sixteen, she technically shouldn't be graduating, but she took summer school two summers to catch up to me. Also, she has always been really smart, so it wasn't that hard for her.

"Don't talk like that, we will get out and graduate. We only have a week left anyway" I say. "What are your plans?" I ask, even though we have talked about it many times already. But I could see her starting to become overwhelmed, so I gave her a distraction. We agreed to graduate a semester early.

"You know, we were already accepted to the schools" Ari says rolling her eyes.

"But I want to hear it again" I say urging her to continue.

She rolls her eyes again but continues. "I want to go to Duke and after I graduate, hopefully I'll live there and become a interior designer. What about you?" Ari asks questioning me.

"I want to go to college at Stanford in California and become a lawyer. And after college I might move to Paris with you." I reply smiling before continuing. "And we can be roomies."

"What happens if I already have a roommate picked out" Ari says wiggling her eyebrows playfully.

"You better not, who?" I ask, hoping she was joking.

"My boyfriend" she says trying to keep a straight face but fails miserably. I follow, breaking into laughter.

"I almost thought you were serious. And I was about to freak out"

"You seriously believe that I would have a boyfriend."

"Um... yes, you're ridiculously gorgeous." Ari is the prettiest person I've ever seen. She has bright blue eyes and platinum blonde hair; her personality is also pretty great. We have similar personalities where we can be really shy with people we don't know well. What surprises me the most is that she has never even had a boyfriend before. Most of the time people mistake us for siblings, since when Ari moved in people assumed my parents adopted her. We look nothing alike. My eyes are a boring brown and I have long curly brown hair.

"Thanks, but you're way prettier than me. You have such nice long hair and a great personality" Ari says looking at me sweetly.

"Ari, we need to make a plan." I say, getting serious.

"What kind of plan?" she asks.

"To escape when we go to the bathroom" I say, smiling at my plan.

"OK, what's the plan?"

"We are going to attack the man after we go to the bathroom" I state. "On the way back before he locks us up, you'll distract him while I knock him out with this food tray" I say continuing.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Ari asks.

"It's our only option right now"

"How much longer until he'll be back?" Ari asks motioning to my watch. It was 10:54 A.M. "He should be back within the hour" I reply hopefully.

You'd think that we would be terrified of him coming back, but we really have to go to the bathroom and are desperate.

"What do you want to talk about now?" Ari asks.

I think for a minute about everything. Ari is two years younger than me in age, so I've always felt like her older sister.

"I hope the boys at least brought our bags home" I say trying to help her think positively. She smiles at me and thinks for a minute.

"You're right, I had some pretty cute clothes"

"I know, and it took us so long in the mall, we need to have something to show for all the time we took" I say to Ari.

"True, and I think that we actually had some good finds for college" Ari replies.

I think about all of the clothes I bought, and Istart to realize how bad of a situation we are in. I start to think abouteverything else I am missing, but I am brought back to reality as the dooropens and the same man with the scar walks in. He walks up to the cage andstarts opening the lock on the cage. I look at Ari and we nod our heads,silently agreeing to the plan.