Chapter 2
Kidnapped
Chains was gone. While we slept she had either taken off on her own or was kidnapped. Either way I needed to fine her. Zoby was gone too, but he came back after a little while upset and barking like crazy.
"Zoby, we need to find her!" I shrieked. He only got more up in arms, and I tried to collect our things but there wasn't much. Shoving a pastry in my mouth, I sprinted out the door and hoped that Zoby would follow. He did. Anxious and determined, we ran out of the hotel and started the search for Chains immediately. Zoby had his nose in the air trying to find a trail. I didn't know where Chains would've gone, so I hoped Zoby's instinct was right and I followed him automatically. Several time he stopped to sniff the air.
"Chains, where are you?" I called sadly into the wind. No one bothered to respond. Zoby had all but given up and was laying on the ground, sniffing the air. He had a heavy look of depression in his eyes. I knew I must have the same look, and I curled up into a ball next to him.
After about ten minutes on the ground my feet got too cold to bear so I jumped up and started running again. Zoby whined a bit before getting up. I didn't bother waiting for him. Chains needed me and Zoby would catch up quickly. Suddenly I heard an engine start from behind me and I jumped hurriedly behind a beat up vehicle. It was bandits, but not many of them. They were patrolling the area, meaning there must be a base nearby, and Chains could be in it. Just as I was thinking this I heard a muffled cry from the back of the jeep and a slap noise.
Zoby jumped around a barked. A few of the men looked his way and started to raise their guns, but I jumped out just in time.
"NO!" I shouted. Several of them looked shocked, but quickly recovered and shot me a nasty look.
"What are you doing out here alone, sweetheart?" One man, who looked at least 30, spat out at me. Disgusted, I started to yell again.
"Let whoever you have in the back out!" My attempts were pretty much hopeless, but I was mad and wanted them to know it.
"What are you gonna to do, give us a kiss on the cheek? Like we'd ever be lettin' the little missy out. Quit your whining and shoutin', 'cuz me old head doesn't like it." A few of the men jumped out with evil grins on their faces. I faltered, but then straightened back out.
"Would you nice men really hurt me, an innocent girl trying to rescue her only friend?" Innocently I batted my eyelashes and shivered falsely, showing how terrified I was.
"Don't see why not. Captured many a miss before you, no reason to stop now." Another man laughed. They were acting like rednecks with no sense of grammar when things only started to get bad no more than half a year ago. What had happened to this world?
"Listen, I'll make you a deal. I'll go willingly and put up no struggle if you let my friend go." They hesitated at my offer. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Zoby was no longer the focus of their attention. He was pulling at the doors to the cage they had hooked up to their jeep.
"How about we take you both?" A younger man said. He grinned, revealing what may be the nicest set of teeth out in this wasteland. The distraction gave him just enough time to pin my arms behind my back. I struggled for the pocketknife in my pocket, but it was no use. My wimpy arms were no match for the man's muscular ones. I let myself go limp, and enjoyed his subtle grunt as he heaved my motionless body into the cage. Laughing at how they hadn't bother to search me, I looked for Chains. She lie in the corner, next to another girl. Carefully I maneuvered my way around the trash and people that lay in the way. Everyone in the cage was young. I wondered to myself what they were going to do with us all, but I decided not to think too hard.
"Chains, are you okay?" Whispering, I pulled her hair from her face. her lip was cut and swollen from where someone must've hit her.
"Cat, is that you?" She mumbled.
"Yeah. What happened?"
"You were asleep and Zoby was scratching at the door, so I opened it to go investigate. The men found me and took the first stuff that they saw in our room. Luckily they didn't notice you asleep, but I guess that doesn't matter now." She gave me a dismal look, and laid back down. My rescue mission had failed, and now all I could do was wait for us to arrive at the base. I watched Zoby follow us through the small windows up top, but eventually even he gave up and he laid by a antique store. It was called Cindy's, and I made a mental note to come back for him if we ever escaped. He had saved my life, and to be honest, I kind of liked his company.
"Cat, can I ask you a question?" Chains pulled me down from my perch and I sat next to her.
"Yeah. It's not like keeping secrets will do us any good."
"Why did you move away?" Her head rested on my shoulder, and I sighed.
"My dad got a job here. You know that." Restlessly I shifted positions to try to stand again.
"Yeah, but he wasn't going to move. He asked you if you wanted to, and you said yes. But why?" Chains persisted.
"It's a long story."
"We have a long road ahead of us."
"Well, it's not because of you if that's what you're thinking. You had lived in England longer, but everything was so new to me. You were used to everything there, and you knew a lot of people. I had grown up in a different universe, but I thought that with your help I could make it through. People laughed at my accent, but I just thought that that meant they liked it. I made friends, sure, but their friends hated me. Every day I was bullied. My best friend was Indian. Her group was all from India and Pakistan, and I was the one white girl with the funny accent. Eventually they got used to me, and let me sit with them. But they bullied me. I don't know why I put up with it. You had it all, and I thought that I would be just like you because we were cousins. But I wasn't it. I guess I was jealous that you fit in so well. Trust me, I wasn't desperate to move, but my parents were happy about the idea and I went along with it." Tired after my explanation, all I wanted to do was nap but Chains wasn't finished with me.
"Do you know why I don't go by Chari?"
"Because you were mad after you realized our parents weren't coming back, and you wanted to do everything to seperate yourself from them." She had told me this before.
"Not just that. You already seemed so tough and prepared, I wanted to try and impress you. That sounds like something a little kid would do, but I was hurt and didn't want to show it." She sighed and put her head in my lap. I pulled the tangled strands apart gently and unconsiously braided it.
"You've impressed me already Chains, just by sticking with me." After that exhaustion got the better of me and I fell into a deep sleep.
About an hour passed before Chains woke me to tell me that we had arrived at the base. I was worried that something terrible would happen to us here, so went willingly out of the cage as to not upset the guards. They pushed us roughly in through the doors.
"Too bad you didn't come with the last batch. You're job won't be to entertain us." One grinned, and the other tried to look annoyed that our job was different. Rolling my eyes, I marched into the base with my head high. The man who had captured us led us to a desk with a impatient man behind it. The desk looked cheap, and still had the price tag to prove it.
"Scavengers." The impatient man yawned. The man leading us nodded, and pointed us in another direction.
"Go look for a lad called Milo. He'll show you what you need to do." It surprised me how casually the men treated us, unlike they had on the way here. They cage I had slept in was full of soiled hay and dirty people. The smell was the worst. I had thought that Chains and I smelt bad from not showering, but the combined smell of the bandits and the people in the cage brought nasty to a whole new level.
"Cat, that must be the supposed Milo over there. At least he doesn't look too mean." Chains grabbed my wrist and pulled me over to him.
"Are you guys the new recruits?" The boy asked. He didn't look much older than me, and had a kinder look in his eyes than the men we had passed on the way.
"Yeah. We're scavengers or something." I answered. Something about his face seemed familiar, like I had met him before.
"I'm Milo. Give me your names, and I'll show you the basics of your new job." He pulled out a clipboard from his bag. I saw a glint of metal in there, too. My hand automatically felt for my knife in my pocket. It wasn't there. Either I had dropped it or a man had swiped it from me.
"I'm Chari, and that's Catalina." Chains sad. I shot her a weird look. She rarely used her real name any more, and I was almost always Cat to her. She simply shook her head, not really giving me an answer for her actions.
"Alright, now let me show you how things are done. Recruits do their jobs or they get punished. You steal anything, and you get whipped. You hurt one of the leaders, you get seven cuts along the arm with your choice, and how deep they will be is determined by the man you've hurt. Escaping also results in whipping. And if you kill someone-" he added a dramatic pause to emphasize his point, "you get kicked out, with no clothes or food, just a knife." Something about the way he said it made shivers go down my spine. After that I realized how warm it was in there compared to outside.
"So what is our job?" I questioned, wanting to keep him from the gruesome subject of punishment.
"You guys are scavengers. Every day we drop you off in a town nearby with an apple and a knife, and come back to pick you up later that day." Milo shrugged like it was the easiest thing in the world.
"Don't people run away?" Chains asked.
"Just a few. And none of them make it. The minute we find them we shoot them down." He shot me a crooked smile. After that I took back any idea I had of him being nice. But at the same time something in the back of my head told me I had seen that smile before.
"When do we start? And what are we looking for?" My head spun with all that I had been told. Everything in me told me to try to escape, but was he serious about everyone being shot down?
"Not so many questions! You start tomorrow, and you each get a list of things we need. If you don't get enough items, you get whipped once. If it happens again, twice, and so on." Milo didn't answer any more questions that we shot at him after that, but he did lead us to our new beds. Really all they were was a blanket on top of a pile of hay. I wanted to ask where they had gotten all the hay from, but Milo left before I could.
"So much for nice." I told Chains as soon as we were alone.
"He's not bad. I feel like I've seen him before." Chains started molding the hay into a more comfortable stack.
"I do too." Chains looked tired, so I let her fall asleep. My head wandered for a while. Where had I seen Milo before? And what was it that I would have to scavenge for in the morning? I didn't have an answer to either, so I tried to clear my head and fall asleep.
Morning did not come when I would like. It was before six a.m., and Chains and I were both groggy. I rubbed my eyes viciously, trying to rid the sleep from them. It didn't work.
"Get up! Everyone has work to do, unless you wanna skip in exchange for a whippin'!" A big, buff man walked in every room and started yelling. I wasn't exactly sure what the base was, but I was pretty sure it was a mall. What could they possibly need that wasn't in here?
"Alright, recruits, everyone come get a list. It's all random, so I hope you like what you get." He winked at me when I reached for a list. I reluctantly grabbed one from the pile. My mind was still fuzzy, so it took me a minute to read it.
Team A
Toilet paper Blankets
Tylenol (Bonus) Batteries
Bandages Water
Everything seemed so hard to find on the list. Tylenol? Where would I find that? And blankets were the first thing anyone went for. At least it looked like I would be in team.
"Cat, what did you get?" Chains showed me her list. It had canned items, water, soap, knives, and containers on it. Those were still rare items, but I was still confused as to where I was supposed to find Tylenol. Surely all of the pharmacies had been scavenged for medicines like that.
"Oh, you're on A and I'm on C. I guess we won't be working together after all." She shot me a gloomy look, hugged me, and ran off to go find her team.
"Team A, over here!" I heard a familiar voice call from behind me. I whipped around. Milo stood calling with two other recruits. Walking over, I studied the list one more time and stuck in my pocket. "Finally. I thought for sure he left me with a small team, and that's never any fun." Milo led us out the door and towards a jeep.
They've treated us better than I expected, I thought to myself. Hopping up in the Jeep, I thought about how lucky I was to not be tortured and used in other ways I wouldn't let myself think about. Scavenging wasn't the greatest way to spend time, but it was better than being whipped.
The girl next to me was named Alice. Up front next to Milo sat a boy named Arthur, but he didn't talk much. Alice, on the other hand, wouldn't stop talking. After about 15 minutes I knew everything from where she had lived to her favorite food.
"Who'd you travel with? My dad is one of the guys in charge back at base, but he likes to make sure I stay busy with jobs." Alice looked at me for an answer.
"My cousin, Chains. My parents are in Mexico." I held back tears. They were in Mexico and I was in the back of a bandit's jeep without Chains.
"Why aren't you with them?" Arthur piped up from the front seat. Alice looked annoyed that he took her chance to talk.
"They left us behind to watch our home." A single tear fell. They had left us behind. We didn't matter to them anymore. No one said anything for a while. Even Alice had the sense to keep her mouth shut.
"We're here." Milo announced, like a dad would on a road trip. We climbed out and started immediately looking for stores. I had rushed towards the town so fast I hadn't even realized that Milo was still back in the jeep.
"Aren't you coming?" The answer was in my head just as the words left my mouth.
"Sometimes I do. But I have to do something first." So my idea was wrong. I thought that he was just going to sit there and wait for us to get everything.
Alice hummed quietly to herself and tried to put a lot of distance between me and herself. The first thing that caught my eye was a Wal-Mart. I shuddered at the memory of Chains and I fighting. Slowly I opened the door and snuck in. Even though I was with bandits, the idea of getting caught was still terrifying.
"Trying to be sneaky?" I jumped. Milo was right behind me, whispering in my ear.
"Where'd you come from?" Using my best demanding voice, I stepped away from him.
"I've been following you. New recruits always try to run away first." He winked. Everything he did made me believe even more that I knew him.
"Alright, you can't stop being creepy. I think I found a few rolls of toilet paper." I reached down and picked up a plastic bag. Sure enough, there were two rolls. One looked a little dirty and had a few squares missing, but beggars can't be choosers.
"Who says I'm creepy, Cat?" He smirked and ran off. How did he know my nickname? Maybe I knew him from school, but Milo didn't really ring a bell. After thinking about it for a minute I realized how much time I had wasted and started running to the next store. There wasn't anything on the list. I ran to store after store looking, but didn't get as much as I would've liked. In the end I found a total of four rolls of toilet paper, two blankets, a packet of batteries, a half empty bottle of Tylenol, some cloth that could be used for bandages, and several bottles of water. I stole a basket from one of the grocery stores to carry all my goods in, and made it back to the jeep just before they started looking for me.
"Alright, Arthur, what'd you get?" Milo pulled out a sheet of paper to record everything on.
"Two rolls of toilet paper, three blankets, no batteries, a few bandages, a few bottles of water, and no Tylenol." He listed. Relief flooded through me. Even if what I had wasn't sufficient, it made me feel a bit more confident in all that I had found.
"That's a decent stash. What about you, Alice?" Milo continued to jot numbers down as Alice listed her items: a roll of toilet paper, several blankets, no Tylenol, a couple boxes of bandaids, several loose batteries, and two bottles of water.
After they were both finished, I proudly told Milo all that I had collected.
"Good job for a new recruit, Cat." He said with a twinge of annoyance in his voice. Was he annoyed that I did so well on my first day? Well, I thought to myself, he's just impressed and doesn't want to show it. I didn't talk the ride home, but I sat in the back with a smug smile on my face.
That night I told Chains about my accomplishments, and she smiled to show she was happy for me, but I could tell that something was bugging her.
"Are you okay, Chains?" I rested my hand gently on her shoulder.
"Yeah." She muttered, and then fell asleep on the mattress. We didn't get fed much, but we were used to hunger and fell asleep quickly.
That night my dreams were full of wolves and bandits. Chains tried to tell me something, but I couldn't hear her.
When I woke up, I knew exactly what she wanted.
...
"How on earth do you expect us to escape this place?" I demanded as soon as we were both awake. Chains rubbed her eyes groggily and shrugged.
"I kinda hopped that you would help me with that part." She yawned.
"Yeah, well I keep in it mind." I hopped up out of the hay and went to collect my rations. It seemed like the meals they gave us weren't ever enough. I gulped down my small portion and looked for the guy to get my list from. He handed me one with similar items to what I had yesterday. The list said that I was on Team B, so I wasn't with Milo again.
"We're trying to see which team you work with best." The guy explained to me, as if I had asked the question.
"I see. It seems like you guys are more friendly than the other bandits." My words shocked me. Saying something like that might make them want to be less friendly.
"Not all of us." He leaned in closer. "You might wanna ask that cousin of yours if she thinks the same thing."
That surprised me. It hit me that Chains wanting to leave wasn't just the want to get to Mexico, but she may have had a hard time with her group yesterday. Or maybe she didn't get enough supplies and was punished.
I pushed away all those thoughts and headed over to my group. There was a girl named Marcie and a boy named Tom. They were nice enough, and the leader, named Joe, didn't talk much. I didn't do as well that day because my mind was elsewhere. Chains might have suffered, and she didn't tell me about it. As soon as my team got back I started searching for her. Her team had gotten back early, and she was waiting in our room.
"Chains!" I called. She turned around and smiled halfheartedly.
"Hey, Cat." She sat down and tried her best not to look sad.
"Are you okay? What's been happening to you on the trips?" I sat next to her and rested my hand on her shoulder. She sighed.
"Well, you might be having the time of your life, but look at this," she pulled up the sleeve of her jacket. Her arm was decorated with black and purple bruises the size of a quarter to a fist. I touched one gingerly and she winced.
"How did this happen?" Concerned, I took some snow that remained on my jacket and placed it on the worst marks. Her expression looked a little less painful, but the snow was really cold and probably made Chains uncomfortable.
"I didn't get enough supplies. The leader promised he wouldn't have me whipped if he could do a punishment of his own. Scared, I agreed and he beat me. It was definitely better than being whipped-"
"No, Chains, you don't deserve to ever be hurt! I promise you that we will leave as soon as I find a way!" I hugged her tight.
"This place is awful, Cat. I eat even less than I did when we were on the road." She started to cry into my shoulder.
"It's ok, Chari, I'm gonna get us out of here." We sat there for a while before I realized that someone had been listening to the whole conversation. "Chains, someone was listening. We need to leave as soon as we can." My voice quivered. She nodded and we both went to get dinner. We were going to leave in the morning, when everything was chaotic from people trying to get their jobs. Until then, we would have to hope that whoever was listening didn't tell anyone and act normal. I forced down my food even though I wasn't really hungry and went to bed. For several hours I stayed up staring at the ceiling. Chains's bruises really shocked me. There was something I had to do before leaving this place.
I needed to know who hurt Chains, so I could complete one final job in that place.