- Chapter Sixteen -
Kidnapped... By Hipsters? #NewLow
Prepared to denounce any involvement with the heiress when she finally came out of the back room with the owner of the pawn shop, Chloe nearly dropped the bags in her arms. Trained by her line of work and even more so by the incorrigible rogues in her world to make note of the landscape, the first thing that the raven-haired beauty noticed was the boy being tended to by the clerk working the front desk. Bloodied up and crying out for the pain to stop as his body curled into the fetal position, it was tough to tell at a glance what part of the injury was new and what had been there prior. Negotiations with the old woman at the counter put on indefinite hold, the clerk looked to his boss for instructions.
By no means an expert on the matter, she would have started by calling an ambulance. Although, scanning the room thoroughly for overlooked hidden cameras and potential witnesses that could stir up a fuss later, that might not have been in her own best interest. The darling daughter of her partner's ex was MIA and the two hobos with nothing better to do than spend the day hanging out in pawn shops where similarly nowhere to be seen. With so much finally happening, that couldn't have been an accident. Honestly, didn't Daniella know better than to go cavorting with strangers?
Sam is going to kill me.
Chloe had one job where the girl was concerned, and that was to keep an eye on her. Applauding the bang-up job she'd done so far as she exited the premises without a word to anyone else, it really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise that she'd muck it all up somewhere down the line. As her early friendship with Meenu proved, the thief was more than capable of tolerating children - she was just complete shit at managing them. Hence why she was the fun aunt and not in the line of succession to care for Cassie should the worst befall her parents.
Too practiced in the ways of the world by this point to allow herself the naivety of believing that she would just stumble across the heiress outside, the woman checked first in the four-wheeler (putting her purchase underneath the passenger seat and out of sight). Immediate search predictably yielding no results, she glanced around the rest of the block for the most likely of places where a pampered princess would go. Assuming that no foul play was afoot, the teen was apparently under the impression that she would have fifteen minutes to spare, so the getaway driver put herself in the girl's shoes to better understand where she might opt to wander.
Fifteen minutes was not a terribly long time, so anywhere outside of the block was pretty much out. On the downside that still left the laundromat next door, the adjoining discount tax office that would be more like to steal your information than help, and a pizza parlor. On the opposite side of the street was a tattoo place that offered piercings, a thrift shop, and a quaint little dealership that took up two lots. At least now it made sense why the pair of wash-ups were lurking in an pawn shop. The tax place was obviously out of the running, as was the car dealership, but that still left too many options to consider.
Laundromats were boring but full of bright colors, so it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine that that would be something Daniella might be interested in, and as there hadn't exactly been time to grab her wallet, it was free entertainment. Although for that option to even work first the teen would need some below the counter medication, and she just didn't seem the type. Being a teenager once herself, Chloe would have been most attracted to either the pizzeria or the guys in the tattoo parlor. Ah, the sweet memories of enjoying men reduced to tears over a little pain... The thrift shop was a possibility as well, and heaven knows there would be no shortage of clothes to pick from. Little Adler didn't explicitly mention wanting to find something to better fit her frame, but it wasn't difficult to guess that that was on her mind as well.
Without the excitement of nearly throttling a boy to death, it was anyone's guess as to where Daniella might decide to spend her time. Sam would possibly have some insight into the matter, but Chloe was trying to hold off on involving him for as long as she possibly could. Thinking harder about what the teen's mindset might be like after the attempted murder - seriously, she had thought the girl was some sort of reserved snob-type, but after witnessing the aftermath with her own eyes, the woman was beginning to reassess her opinion - the thief realized that with her blood up, ration would be out the window. After a fight, especially a life-or-death struggle, when the blood was still pumping you wanted more action to keep the feeling going; in most instances, that meant finding a little.
Pizza joint it was. Peeking around the corner of the pawnshop into the ally between the laundromat just in case, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so she kept going towards her destination.
Plip. Plip.
Silence spanning for dynasties broken only by the insurgency of busted pipes, before long the only sound in Sleeping Beauty's ear was the shrill ringing of nothingness. To think that once not that long ago she had been ready to embrace that very same void of the damned. But now? Now all the heiress wanted was to see the sun again. Perhaps that sentiment was a tad melodramatic, however, after recently spending long stretches in an unconscious state where time had ceased to mean anything, she was loathe to repeat the cycle. Fair enough, locked in the darkness and stirring with the monster of all migraines - the kind that manifested behind the eyes and refused to leave for anything - it might have already been too late for that.
Waking up not that long ago, the teen found herself in pitch blackness - even after her eyes had adjusted somewhat, it was too dark to make out anything other than dim shapes. Plumbing leaking somewhere near enough to hear the occasional rush of water and the rhythmic quavering of metal, between the lack of light and the damp chill that permeated the air she guessed that she was someplace underground, quite possibly a cellar? One of the nearest and sharpest silhouettes had a broad curve to it, and the only thing she could think of that had a similar shape were casks of wine. Not exactly a telling clue, as most places served alcohol and there were more private collectors in the world than you could count in a lifetime.
At first the young woman had been under the impression that this was merely a bad trip, that her eyes were just closed and she hadn't yet figured out how to open them again. Then she felt the restraints.
Left with virtually no other choice in the matter, Drake found himself praying once more for some kind of emergency call to put him back into the thick of it. Yeah, so maybe that hadn't exactly turned out well the last time he wished to be doing literally anything else, but being more or less finished with everything they could do without the new inventory (some of which was arriving by mail), he hadn't taken into account how much time he'd have to kill while waiting for the heiress to come back. Stooping so low as to contemplate faking a call from his associate to get out of this and go collect the girl early just to get the show on the road, the brunette found himself suddenly missing prison. At least there you could start doing sit-ups without anyone to call you out for it. Or smoke without judgment.
Christ, he really was missing nicotine.
Once again the phrase 'anything is better than this' crossed his mind, and the adventurer wasn't going to dispute it. Sure, he could think of worse fates than listening to Logan, however he still found himself bargaining to the powers that be to intervene. Even if their quality grown-up girl bonding time hadn't seen the duo to the feminine aisles yet, having to carry around the boxes would haven been preferable to being roped into the whole family thing. If Nathan could endure getting the short end of that stick for the rest of his natural life, Sam could handle one day.
"And who all would be there?" Pretending to indulge whomever was eating a hole the size of Wyoming in his brain was a skill he'd learned years ago, and the kid was so amenable that he didn't even have to bring his "A" game. At least his little brother was a challenge.
So over the moon about the pregnancy that he still carried the black-and-white of the sea monkey his babe was cooking, Logan was relieved to finally be able to have this talk. Frankly, the only thing that made him happier was thinking about how close the due date was getting. "Obviously Chelsea, her grandma, her father, her two brothers, Clyde and Stephen." Covering her side of the family, the surfer was too familiar with the living relatives to realize that the gaps may have sounded off to anyone else. In his haste to list everyone of importance off, it wasn't clear if Clyde and Stephen were the names of her brothers or just really good friends. "Not sure if anyone else will be tagging along on their side... My mom'll probably be pissed at first, but it'll be fine. Her husband will see to that, and if he can't cool her off, Pammy Pat will."
Crystal marrying some yutz made sense, and frankly the only surprise in terms of her kids was that she only had the two. Assuming that that was what the blonde was getting at. Jesus the thief hoped so, because any other relation/arrangement just would have been strange. "Pammy... Pat?" Was she back on drugs again? Honestly Samuel didn't even want to know.
Face dead bored save for the mildly raised eyebrow, he had no idea how the blonde had gotten it into his mind that he cared in the slightest about any of this. Yet somehow, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the surfer truly seemed to believe that he was making headway. Why else would he have explained that "Pammy Pat" was just the nickname of Pamella Patrice Duffy?
"Pamela was my mom's mom if memory serves, and Patrice was the name of the wife Father Duffy had before becoming a priest."
Admittedly hearing the name Duffy again after all these years had given Samuel pause. Though not impossible, Drake sincerely doubted that the good Father had abandoned his calling of helping the boys of Saint Francis' for a troubled teen with an illegitimate son. Even if it was true that one of the disgraced black sheep of the flock had been responsible for said offspring... No, it was much more likely that Father Duffy had helped Crystal so often that his son and her just kinda happened.
Practically reading the mind of his biological father, the blonde nodded and confirmed the truth, "Legally I was given my stepfather's name when they got hitched, but my bros told me I should totally use my mom's name on the pro circuit. It is pretty rad."
Nicotine cravings exacerbating his irritability, the ex-con bounced on the balls of his feet. Between Blondie breaking his arm patting himself on the back and the never-ending parade of boring blather, it was just getting to Sam. So what if the kid wanted to build some kind of father/son relationship out of thin air? Plenty of people in the world wanted that, and he'd wager good money that less than two-thirds of the population got what they bargained for. Drake didn't want it, didn't act like he wanted any part of that sort of life, so he couldn't scrape together enough remorse to feel remotely sorry for what came next.
"Listen kid, I'm only going to say this once: I don't care." The grizzled brunette let the tatted surfer have it. In his mind, this day should have come so much sooner than it had. "You getting it into your thick skull that I'm gonna to show up for you is your problem, not mine. I'm not going to be there for the holidays, I'm not going to look through the baby photos, I have no advice to offer or hugs to give." Sam really was over it and dug the ax deeper into the blonde's hopes. "Scratch that - I do have some advice for ya. Just move on and keep looking. Or better yet, just give up and go home."
On the verge of telling Logan that having a father was an overrated notion anyways, his side pocket vibrated. Despite being half-tempted to just ignore the call and keep at the removal while it was effective, the ex-con knew better, that this really could have been something that required his immediate attention. Fishing the device from the vacuous depths of his borderline obsidian jeans, Sam felt like he had been kicked in the sternum when Chloe's name flashed across the screen. Note to self, stop thinking about putting the girl in jeopardy, because every time you do, bad shit happens.
Momentarily considering the extent of his wishes on the young woman and how likely anything non-life threatening was to play out, he answered the call and barked gruffly, "What?"
Put off on how short and callous the greeting was, the woman on the other end of the call clicked her tongue. Clearly there were much more pressing matters than catching Sam at a bad time, however rude was still rude. "Hello to you too."
Burnt out with dealing with the blonde, Drake just didn't have it in him to retort back. In fact, on the note of the surfer, when he peered back around the room after putting the phone to his ear, he saw neither hide nor hair of Logan. Only mildly troubled by the man vanishing from sight after being torn into, he put it out of his mind for the time being. "What is it?" The craving for a smoke was still there, however getting all of that nastiness off his chest had considerably improved his mood.
"We have a little problem." Stalking out of the tax office and feeling as if she would need no less than six showers from entering that untested hive of scum, Chloe leaned against the passenger door of the jeep for the next part. "The girl is gone."
"Hello?" Calling out into the subterranean gloom that obscured sound as well as light, Daniella thought she had heard something or someone (she honestly wasn't sure which prospect frightened her more).
More habit than an actual conscious attempt, she tried to raise her hand out and only rattled the limited slack of her shackles. Unable to see in the darkness after what must have been at least two hours of sitting there, either her cuffs had cloth lining and the sleeves of the coat had been rolled back enough to subdue her or the bonds were applied over the flannel. Feeling the light tug of the fabric over her elbows when she flapped her upper extremities outwards, she only knew that she still had the coat on. The same sentiment applied to her ankles as well, only every time she shifted her legs they didn't make a sound, so it was quite possible they were bound with a different kind of material.
Angel's voice cut through the artificial night like a pair of safety scissors through hair - roughly to the point of not at all, and with rounded edges. "Shush up now. Just making sure that you're still live before the boss gets here. You would not believe how many times someone we've taken has tried to bite out their own tongue or strangle themselves trying to escape."
Strangling one's own self attempting to get away was easy enough to picture, especially in a place that was too dark to know what you'd be up against next, but did people actually try to kill themselves by biting off their own tongue?! Alarmed at the notion that other hostages were scared enough to take such an extreme measure, what terrified the heiress even more was how nonchalant Angel was about it. Now that that words had been spoken aloud, she could imagine how unclean and gory her seat would have been in the light.
Doing her best to not let on how horrified she was by the predicament, Daniella tried to stay strong and be rational about her captivity. This isn't a movie, this is just a scare tactic. This isn't a book, this was just a rouse. Repeating the mantra over and over in her mind, she spoke around the lump that was forming in the back of her throat with as much authority as she could muster, just like Mama explained she had done in the video. Rewinding to the past, that was probably not a real hostage situation and just another sex tape...
"How are you able to know? About me I mean." The teen was quick to amend her question before her jailer went into detail that would have undoubtedly made her sick. Sicker even than reflecting on all the things she'd seen in her young life.
Nail tapping against something of a sturdy plastic nature, Angel explained calmly, "Night vision. You know," close enough to the young woman for her to hear arms folding over an open button-up, the hipster leaned against the chair confining the girl and confirmed by the squeak of the furniture that it was made of wood, "I'm impressed. Ashley didn't think that you would last this long without crying. The shit that was laced into the weed took us a while to build an immunity to, but you went down so quick I thought you might have OD'd. Glad you didn't though."
Considering how much was being given away, she hoped that it wasn't too much to ask for that she could get a little more. Maybe this was just a sloppy outfit (they obviously had done this too many times to be considered newbies), but it seemed to the prisoner that Angel genuinely liked her for whatever reason. "Why?"
Ah, the most commonly asked question of any kidnapping ever. Why. Bringing a hand up that had no less than one ring per finger to caress the teen's cheek, Angel brushed Daniella's cracked lips with a thumb decked in a splendid silver spike. With the limb that wasn't cupping her face, the hipster tucked the hair that had fallen loose of its messy bun back behind her ear. Catching sight of the swallow that matched Ashley's, Angel kissed the ink tenderly before balling up a fist and slugging the girl in the jaw. There was nothing on the planet more annoying than a captive thinking they had the right to know why they had been chosen.
"It would have been our necks." Delivery flat, Angel shoved her head away. "Our boss really has an interest in you. As Ashley would tell you, we're a bit attached to our skins."
Going away from the chair from what she could tell, Angel picked something metallic up off a different wooden surface and carried it back. If Daniella was in any way doubtful about what kind of operation this was or if the hipster meant business, the glacial kiss of steal against her skin put the matter to rest once and for all.