Chapter 4
Everything around her was black. Her body ached and everything was black. When she tried to move her body and ebb her aching head, she realized quickly she couldn't. Panic began to set it immediately.
A door opened and slammed shut with a tremendous thud. It vibrated through her and made her movements stop. Breathing shallow breaths through her open mouth, she wondered where she was.
"Hello?" she asked tentatively.
No one responded, at least not to her. Before she could speak again, a man started speaking German.
"I-" she began before being abruptly cut off by another man speaking in the same foreign tongue. She realized quickly they weren't talking to her.
Fear began to seep in once again and her body started to tremble. Tears gathered in her eyes. She cried.
The talking ended. Heavy footsteps came closer and with a sharp yank, the blindfold was removed from her eyes. The room was so bright it took her a moment to adjust. When she had, she was horrified.
"Oh god…" she whimpered.
Two men of large stature stood a few feet from her, one holding the black cloth that had been wrapped around her head. They stared indifferently at the young woman shaking in the chair she was handcuffed to.
The room was void of anything that gave the slightest hint to what it might have been used for and that scared her even more. It was vast, brightly lit… and empty. Nothing good happened in empty rooms with concrete floors.
The large man with the shorter hair said something to the one beside him. The second henchman nodded and together they turned.
"Wait!" she screamed when they opened the door. They glanced briefly at her before walking through the thick metal door and letting it clank shut behind them.
The tears came immediately again. She cried uninhibited, scared more than she'd ever been before when she heard it. A soft groan touched her ears, making it through the sniffs and whimpers. She silenced herself and quickly looked around to find the source.
There was someone else, someone that looked like they were in the same situation she was, and it was someone she recognized. Sitting in a chair across from her, perhaps ten yards off and handcuffed with her arms behind her back was Angela.
"A… Angela?"
The figure with their head down groaned again, but slowly began to come around. Eventually, she lifted her head. Her eyes traveled around the room until spotting the one who'd spoken to her.
"Lauren?" she asked unsurely.
"Yeah," Lauren's voice quivered as she nodded repeatedly.
"Where are we?" Angela asked groggily. She continued to look around and soon noticed the same things Lauren had.
The state of the room led anyone with half a brain to the rational and frightening conclusion.
"I don't know." She replied as she struggled to hold back tears. "There were these guys and they were talking and then they just…"
She was rambling. Angela looked to the young blond and noticed she was verging on a panic attack.
"Hey," she said as reassuringly as she could. Angela forced a weak smile to the woman in her pajamas. "It's okay. We're alright."
"We're handcuffed to a chair in the middle of a dungeon!" she yelled.
Lauren's voice turned shrill and echoed off the walls. Angela winced. She was still nursing a headache and the outburst didn't help.
"Alright," she nodded. "But panicking won't help. You were awake before me, what did you see?" Lauren's mind traveled a millions miles a second, but couldn't find a point to land on. Angela grumbled to herself. "You said there were men, what did they look like?"
"Terrifying." She snapped. Angela fought the urge to be rude, but it was difficult. She understood the fear -hell, she was frightened, too- but Angela knew panicking helped nothing. Lauren slowly seemed to come to the same assessment. "Tall," she said drawing Angela's eyes. "They were tall. One had really short brown hair, the other one had kind of blond hair." She sniffed. "Um… they were speaking another language. German, I think."
"That's good."
"How does that help?!" she shot back. Angela didn't respond. She could see the fear in Lauren's eyes and knew it was beginning to shift to anger. "I'm going to kill those two."
"The henchmen?" Angela asked with a weak smile. "Well look at you taking initiative."
"Not them." Lauren corrected. "Tuck and FDR."
Angela's brows came together. She tilted her head marginally to the side.
"And why, may I ask, would you do that?" she tried to keep her voice calm.
"This is there fault." She laughed frantically. Her anger was turning to disbelief. "It has to be. You know this is the second time I've been kidnapped by Germans because of those two?" Angela's brows rose on her forehead when Lauren hissed to herself, "Damn spies."
Angela wasn't sure she'd heard what she did and the only thing she could think to say was, "Of course they are." Lauren looked at her. Angela laughed disbelievingly and shook her head. "I can't meet one single person that's normal. They've all some kind of malady."
A weak smile tugged at Lauren's lips a split second before the henchmen returned. They sauntered into the room, one of them carrying something that looked strangely like a room service cart, complete with a white tablecloth and something hidden beneath draped fabric.
"Oh god…" Lauren mumbled to herself.
She was right to be worried. The blond man gripped the edge of the draped cloth and snapped it back with a flick of the wrist, exposing all manner of silver instruments. It didn't take a genius to realize they were torture devices. Lauren began to cry again, but Angela kept her composure. With someone else there too, she had something other than herself to focus on.
"Oi! Hanz, Franz!" she called.
The two men large enough they likely had to turn their shoulders in order to get through a door, turned towards the defiant brunette.
"What are you doing?" Lauren hissed through her teeth.
Angela did little more than wink at her before shifting her attention back to the men.
"How's about you let the Barbie go? One hostage is enough, yeah?"
They didn't speak. She knew they understood her because they glanced to each other, but neither spoke. After a moment, the brunette reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a phone. He dialed a number and held it to his ear, all the while keeping his eyes trained on the young woman who spoke to him.
"Ya," he said in a deep voice. He began telling whoever had answered the other end what she'd done and asked what they should do next. He was talking to the boss and Angela knew it.
"Tell him to come see me then if he's so bloody curious." She snapped.
The blond and brunette seemed mildly surprised she understood what they were saying, but the shock fled quickly. Realizing she could understand German, they turned and left to finish their conversation. Angela growled loudly when they had.
"You understood that?" Lauren asked.
"Yeah." She nodded. Angela began to twist her wrists around to feel how tightly she was secured. "You pick up a lot when you travel."
Lauren could do little more than nod. The blonde looked awful, but Angela understood why. She was petrified.
Without warning, the door opened again and the two came back. They walked directly to Angela and to Lauren's horror, lifted her to her feet. Each hooked an arm beneath one of hers and all but dragged the handcuffed young woman out of the room.
"Wait!" Lauren screamed, but the heavy metal door slammed shut without a response.
Angela was led through one winding hallway after another. She tried to commit the layout to memory, do anything that could help her in the end, but there was only so much she could do. This place was a labyrinth -filled with identical halls.
As they took another left down another stark hall, she realized it was a dead end. This one had a door at the end and as she suspected, that was where they stopped. The brunette holding Angela up by her right arm beat heavily against the wooden slab.
"Betreten." Echoed on the other side.
He opened the door and led her inside. Together, the pair set the young woman down in yet another chair with a sloppy drop. She nearly fell out of her seat, but managed to stay.
"Rude." She said simply.
A man, long in years and heavy around the waist, stood on the other side of the room. He eyed the young woman through half-opened eyes. A cigar smoldered from its place between his fat fingers and his stare remained fixed.
"You are not afraid." He said, his accent and jowls weighing down his words.
"Would it help?" she asked.
His thin lips twisted into a smile and something akin to a laugh rumbled in his chest before coming out his mouth as a burst of muffled sound.
"You are very brave girl." He said, pointing at her with the fingers that held the cigar. His smile faded and his features turned dark again. "Or very stupid."
"It's a toss up."
Angela knew that so long as they were busy with her, they'd leave Lauren alone. While frightened for her own safety, Lauren gave her focus. Lauren gave her something else to feel other than fear. Lauren gave her just enough bravery to keep talking.
"Do you know why I bring you here?" he asked, ignoring her comment entirely and instead pressing into the conversation.
"Not really."
"I bring you here because of my sons."
Angela's brows furrowed. She instinctively looked at the men standing near the door.
"What'd we ever do to them?" she asked, turning once again to speak to the Alfred Hitchcock look alike.
"No, no. They are not my sons." He said as he shook his head. Angela found his jowls a little distracting when he had. "Karl and Jonas, those were my sons." Angela didn't like the passed tense reference.
"I don't know who they are." She lied. She'd heard the names before. It was hard not to when the story was barely more than a month old.
"You," he said, again pointing at her though this time the cigar hung from his teeth. "Maybe no, but him," he held up a picture. Angela's heart immediately sank. "And him," he held up another and her heart dropped to the floor. Staring back at her were pictures of Tuck and FDR. "Yes."
Angela's eyes began to water whether she wanted them to or not. Her jaw trembled and made speaking difficult, but she tried.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Angel muttered, "Who are you?"
"I am Tobias," he said. He set the photos down on a small table in the corner she hadn't noticed before and removed the cigar from his mouth. "Heinrick."
"Oh god." She breathed to herself.
"And you and little blond girl," he began to waddle towards her. "Are important to them, yes?"
"Would you believe me if I told you no?" she asked. Blinking, Angela released a tear from each eye. This was worse than she thought and what she thought was pretty bad.
He chuckled darkly again.
"Brave, yes." He seemed to agree with himself. "And no. We have been watching you," he pointed to the two men behind her. "And know you are important."
"What…" she cleared her throat again and tried to remove the quiver from her words. "What do you plan to do with us?"
"If plan goes good, nothing." He replied honestly. "You are not ones I want, but you are special to ones I want. Now, you see why."
"Look, just let the blond go. You don't need her. Use me."
"I think no." he replied. Again her heart fell. "But, if you behave and make no trouble, you both go home."
With the wave of his hand, the goons swooped in again and grabbed Angela. She struggled against them briefly, but they held strong. With a parting glance from her capture, Angela was led out of the room and back towards the dungeon.
The only thing that gave her any comfort was now she knew what was happening, but that was also the problem. Angela prayed internally Tuck and FDR wouldn't do anything stupid. She knew everything could go one of three ways. One, they would be rescued and everyone went home. Two, the women could be rescued at the cost of the men Tobias sought. And three, the most likely and most heartbreaking, they would all die.
Again Angela's eyes began to tear by the time she was led into the dungeon. Lauren had been crying and seemed to calm the moment she realized Angela hadn't been carted off to be shot and thrown into a ditch, but she noticed the look of defeat quickly.
"What?" she asked softly. "What's going on?"
Angela couldn't bring herself to say it.