Disclaimer: I once again don't own the OC, they're owned by FOX, etc. You know the dealio! Hee. Don't forget to review!
*** a few minutes earlier***
A.J. had heard the noise of the squeaky truck door moving slightly, but he had decided to ignore it, instead focusing on the issue at hand. He had taken his gun, which he now kept in his pants, and had started slowly pacing to the truck, beckoning Dawn to join him. She shook her head, knowing full well what was about to happen. She didn't want to see her son get his head blown off. A.J. mumbled a quick: "Shit!", and jumped out of the truck. He took the cover off the belongings they had stolen in the back of the truck, and attempted to search for Ryan there. "Your son is gone." he said snidely. Dawn couldn't help but be pleased. Suddenly, A.J. heard a whimper. It came from the forest.
He knew he shouldn't have hidden out in a forest. They had driven by this park, "Newport's Only Forest", there was a lake, a forest, some benches. He figured he could kill the kid and throw him in the lake. But the damn kid always found a way to avoid death. There was that one time when he was 15, and A.J. had beaten him so bad, he actually thought he was dead, and then Trey took him to the hospital, and the punk lived! A.J. had been so pissed at both his girlfriend's kids. Trey for taking Ryan to the hospital, and Ryan for living.
He took a baseball bat from the back of the truck. It had an autograph on it. Ryan could barely walk. He couldn't have made it very far. He wasn't going to kill him just yet. He wanted him to have a painful death, after all the trouble he'd caused. He tip-toed into the forest. He heard Ryan's voice. "No, no don't call the cops, please Mr Cohen, don't call the cops." There was he was, right in front of him. He could have killed him right then and there, but the person on the phone would have heard the gun shot, and would have certainly called the police. Instead, he grabbed hold of the hitting end of the baseball bat, and with the small end, hit Ryan in the back of the head. He heard him scream, and the cell phone dropped to his side.
"RYAN?!" screamed Sandy. "RYAN ARE YOU OKAY?" he couldn't help but raise his voice. Ryan had sounded scared and hurt, and he knew it would be a better idea to call the cops. But hadn't Ryan said he had run away? He wasn't sure if he meant run away from them or from something much worse.
A.J. thought about throwing away the phone, but then a better thought occurred to him. He wondered how much the Cohens cared about their little punk teenager. He picked up the phone from the ground. "Hello?" he asked pleasantly. "Who is this?" asked Sandy, lacking the pleasantness in his voice. Kirsten and Seth were trying to listen in on the conversation. "It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is that I have something of yours." Sandy closed his eyes. It was the worse of the two. "What do you want?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. "That's a very good question, and one that also depends on your love for Ryan. How much is he worth to you?" Sandy couldn't answer that question. "Are you going to answer?" asked A.J. after a long pause. "Or do I have to kill the bastard?" Sandy immediately let out a loud: "NO!" He sighed. Please don't kill him." He was trying to keep himself from sobbing. "How much is it exactly that you want?" A.J. smirked on the other end of the line. "I want $500,000 if you want the kid intact. Any less and I start shooting. Meet me in an hour at 'Elk Lake'. Bring the money. You come late and I start messing up your kid, call the cops and I throw him in the lake." Sandy wrote everything down as quickly as he could. He wondered if there was a bank in Newport that was still open at 11:00 p.m. He said a quick "okay" and heard the line go dead.
He had been shocked at the flatness in the man's voice when he spoke about killing and innocent teenager. He took the piece of paper that had all the information on it, and put one hand on a table. He hadn't noticed there was a shard of glass on it, and had cut himself. "Oh crap..." he murmured under his breath. Kirsten went up to him and gave him a big hug. "Let me take a look at that cut." she said lovingly. He pulled his hand away. "They're gonna kill him if we don't help him, Kirsten..." he whispered, holding back tears. "What kind of person would threaten the life of a kid?!" His emotions had finally gotten the best of him, and he burst into tears. Kirsten let him sob. He never cried, and he needed to release his pent up feelings. "Sandy..."she whispered. "What are we supposed to do to get him back?" Sandy took the piece of paper from the desk and handed it to her, careful not to get any blood on it. "$500 grand!?" she exclaimed, her mouth opening in shock.
Seth, who had been looming in the background, had suddenly decided to speak up. "Dad?" he asked. Sandy looked up, all of a sudden taking recognition of his son's presence. "Ryan's ok, isn't he?" Sandy attempted to smile, to make his son feel better, but the smile didn't appear on his face. "He's ok, Seth, but...somebody..." the words wouldn't come out. He had barely registered it in his mind, the fact that Ryan had been kidnaped, but to him, if he said it out loud it would become real, not just his worst nightmare. He sighed. His son deserved to know. Maybe Seth could help them, keep them calm. "Ryan's been kidnaped." He gulped. Seth's eyes were clouded with doubt. "Kidnaped? As in, like, stolen? Buh...whah..." random babbling started escaping from Seth's mouth as he tried to comprehend the situation. "They're asking for $500,000 if we want him back." said Kirsten in a voice that was barely audible. Seth stood, still mouth still open in shock. "Where are we going to get 500 grand in the middle of the night?!" he asked, knowing that not even the Newport banks were open at 11:00, although some noopsies had asked of it. Apparently they did not want to have their plastic surgeries during the day.
Sandy suddenly stood up and walked away. Kirsten and Seth looked at each other uncertainly, wondering where the hell he was going. "Sandy?" asked Kirsten, looking at Seth. Sandy didn't respond. Finally, the two Cohens got up and followed Sandy. They saw him fidgeting with a keypad in a room they had never been in before. "Uh, dad...what the hell is this?" asked Seth, looking around at the white room. His father did not answer his question, but instead let out a happy "Got it!" and looked back at them. Seth raised a quizzical eyebrow at his dad. Sandy moved aside a door that Seth hadn't even seen there, and stepped aside to let them view what was inside. Kirsten peered over Seth's shoulder. She was Sandy's wife, and not even she had seen this room. Inside the vault were thousands of dollars. There was money from top to bottom. Surely there was more than the money they needed to get Ryan back in that room. "Sandy, do you want to explain to me what the hell is going on?" asked Kirsten.
Ryan was groggily taking note of his surroundings. He heard the loud sound of the truck roaring, with its crappy engine. He slowly opened his eyes. He thought for sure he'd be dead by now. He tried to lift his hand up to his head, which felt like he had the most intense migraine anyone could possibly have. He found that he couldn't move his hands. He started to get nervous. The strange thing was that he hadn't gotten very worried until now. He felt that he had betrayed the Cohens, betrayed Sandy, by considering helping A.J. and his fool of a mother. He didn't think he had anything to live for, so he didn't even care if he died. But now, after he had spontaneously decided to call his foster father, and he had seemed so worried, it had finally hit him. He had a family. A family that cared about him, and didn't want him to get hurt. If he died, it would injure his family very deeply, and he would never want to put his loved ones through pain.
He finally decided to look at his hands. He was surprised to find that they were bound by rope. "That's in case you try anything again." he heard A.J. say from the front seat, clearly very proud of himself. "Why didn't you just kill me then?" asked Ryan, regretting it instantly. But A.J. simply laughed it off. "Those Cohens really do care enough about you to pay me not to kill you. So I figured I could use that to my advantage." Ryan looked at him curiously and moved his tied up hands down to his pant pocket, where he usually kept his cell phone. He had already forgotten the baseball to the back of the head that caused the phone to go flying. He seemed to be forgetting things easily these past few hours.
A.J. saw what he was doing and took his cell phone from the ledge in front of the steering wheel. "Lookin' for this, kid?" he asked. Ryan looked crestfallen. "Don't worry. As long as your little friends come through with the money, you'll be alright." Ryan sighed. He felt tears about to fall down his cheek, but he fought them back. He was not going to cry in front of A.J., no matter how much he wanted to. He pulled his bound hands up to his face. He started trying to chew through the rope. A.J. had been watching him, making sure he didn't try anything stupid. He grabbed the gun and pointed it at him, keeping his eyes on the road. "Hands down. Now." he said calmly. Ryan obeyed the command and stared straight ahead, hoping this wasn't going to be his last night alive.
A.J. parked near the lake, just in case things got bloody. Some teenagers that were smoking pot had seen them at the park, and looked at them suspiciously. He didn't want anything to ruin their chance at money, and he wasn't about to kill a bunch of rich kids, so he had moved. He sat waiting in the car, hoping that lady luck was with him. The rich folks had to be there in 45 minutes, so he was just lounging as Ryan slept in the back seat. Ryan stirred and opened his eyes. "Hey kid, just relax, alright? We got a real long 45 minutes ahead of us." Ryan nodded and closed his eyes slowly.
Sandy pulled the money out and Seth and Kirsten counted it. They got everything they could to put it in. A big box, a bag, and a suitcase they found on the ground. Sandy said nothing as Seth blabbered on like he always did when he was nervous. "You know I think the ratio is pretty good. You know, of alive kidnapés to dead ones. I-I think that Ryan has a very, very, very good chance, right?" Kirsten didn't answer. Sandy just nodded. "Well thank you for the reassurance." said Seth sadly. "You're welcome." he responded to himself. Sandy looked at him sadly.
Sandy had been thinking about Ryan, but he had finally calmed himself down enough to count quicker. He needed to stop thinking about the bad things that could happen to Ryan and focus on what they needed to do to get him back. Ryan was the only one besides Sandy who knew about the vault. Not even Kirsten knew. Well, now she knew, but Ryan had known before all of them. Ryan had been very distant after the Oliver fiasco, and Sandy wanted to get through to him. When he finally got a chance to talk to him, he asked him if he trusted him. Ryan had sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Well who else am I supposed to trust?" Sandy had not liked the answer. "I don't want you to trust me because you have to. I want you to trust me because you actually do." Ryan just looked at the floor. Sandy had stood up and started to walk out of the pool house. "Come on." he said, making wild gestures for Ryan to follow him. Ryan stood from the bed and shuffled over behind Sandy, keeping his eyes on the ground. Sandy had shown him the vault, and Ryan was shocked. "Aren't you scared that I might tell someone, or try to take it or something?" he had mumbled quietly after they had closed the vault and sat down to drink some coffee. "Nope." said Sandy, very matter of factly. "But there must have more than 3/4 of a million bucks in there!" Sandy shrugged. "I trust that you won't tell anybody." Ryan laughed and finally looked Sandy in the eyes. "Thanks." he said.
*** a few minutes earlier***
A.J. had heard the noise of the squeaky truck door moving slightly, but he had decided to ignore it, instead focusing on the issue at hand. He had taken his gun, which he now kept in his pants, and had started slowly pacing to the truck, beckoning Dawn to join him. She shook her head, knowing full well what was about to happen. She didn't want to see her son get his head blown off. A.J. mumbled a quick: "Shit!", and jumped out of the truck. He took the cover off the belongings they had stolen in the back of the truck, and attempted to search for Ryan there. "Your son is gone." he said snidely. Dawn couldn't help but be pleased. Suddenly, A.J. heard a whimper. It came from the forest.
He knew he shouldn't have hidden out in a forest. They had driven by this park, "Newport's Only Forest", there was a lake, a forest, some benches. He figured he could kill the kid and throw him in the lake. But the damn kid always found a way to avoid death. There was that one time when he was 15, and A.J. had beaten him so bad, he actually thought he was dead, and then Trey took him to the hospital, and the punk lived! A.J. had been so pissed at both his girlfriend's kids. Trey for taking Ryan to the hospital, and Ryan for living.
He took a baseball bat from the back of the truck. It had an autograph on it. Ryan could barely walk. He couldn't have made it very far. He wasn't going to kill him just yet. He wanted him to have a painful death, after all the trouble he'd caused. He tip-toed into the forest. He heard Ryan's voice. "No, no don't call the cops, please Mr Cohen, don't call the cops." There was he was, right in front of him. He could have killed him right then and there, but the person on the phone would have heard the gun shot, and would have certainly called the police. Instead, he grabbed hold of the hitting end of the baseball bat, and with the small end, hit Ryan in the back of the head. He heard him scream, and the cell phone dropped to his side.
"RYAN?!" screamed Sandy. "RYAN ARE YOU OKAY?" he couldn't help but raise his voice. Ryan had sounded scared and hurt, and he knew it would be a better idea to call the cops. But hadn't Ryan said he had run away? He wasn't sure if he meant run away from them or from something much worse.
A.J. thought about throwing away the phone, but then a better thought occurred to him. He wondered how much the Cohens cared about their little punk teenager. He picked up the phone from the ground. "Hello?" he asked pleasantly. "Who is this?" asked Sandy, lacking the pleasantness in his voice. Kirsten and Seth were trying to listen in on the conversation. "It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is that I have something of yours." Sandy closed his eyes. It was the worse of the two. "What do you want?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. "That's a very good question, and one that also depends on your love for Ryan. How much is he worth to you?" Sandy couldn't answer that question. "Are you going to answer?" asked A.J. after a long pause. "Or do I have to kill the bastard?" Sandy immediately let out a loud: "NO!" He sighed. Please don't kill him." He was trying to keep himself from sobbing. "How much is it exactly that you want?" A.J. smirked on the other end of the line. "I want $500,000 if you want the kid intact. Any less and I start shooting. Meet me in an hour at 'Elk Lake'. Bring the money. You come late and I start messing up your kid, call the cops and I throw him in the lake." Sandy wrote everything down as quickly as he could. He wondered if there was a bank in Newport that was still open at 11:00 p.m. He said a quick "okay" and heard the line go dead.
He had been shocked at the flatness in the man's voice when he spoke about killing and innocent teenager. He took the piece of paper that had all the information on it, and put one hand on a table. He hadn't noticed there was a shard of glass on it, and had cut himself. "Oh crap..." he murmured under his breath. Kirsten went up to him and gave him a big hug. "Let me take a look at that cut." she said lovingly. He pulled his hand away. "They're gonna kill him if we don't help him, Kirsten..." he whispered, holding back tears. "What kind of person would threaten the life of a kid?!" His emotions had finally gotten the best of him, and he burst into tears. Kirsten let him sob. He never cried, and he needed to release his pent up feelings. "Sandy..."she whispered. "What are we supposed to do to get him back?" Sandy took the piece of paper from the desk and handed it to her, careful not to get any blood on it. "$500 grand!?" she exclaimed, her mouth opening in shock.
Seth, who had been looming in the background, had suddenly decided to speak up. "Dad?" he asked. Sandy looked up, all of a sudden taking recognition of his son's presence. "Ryan's ok, isn't he?" Sandy attempted to smile, to make his son feel better, but the smile didn't appear on his face. "He's ok, Seth, but...somebody..." the words wouldn't come out. He had barely registered it in his mind, the fact that Ryan had been kidnaped, but to him, if he said it out loud it would become real, not just his worst nightmare. He sighed. His son deserved to know. Maybe Seth could help them, keep them calm. "Ryan's been kidnaped." He gulped. Seth's eyes were clouded with doubt. "Kidnaped? As in, like, stolen? Buh...whah..." random babbling started escaping from Seth's mouth as he tried to comprehend the situation. "They're asking for $500,000 if we want him back." said Kirsten in a voice that was barely audible. Seth stood, still mouth still open in shock. "Where are we going to get 500 grand in the middle of the night?!" he asked, knowing that not even the Newport banks were open at 11:00, although some noopsies had asked of it. Apparently they did not want to have their plastic surgeries during the day.
Sandy suddenly stood up and walked away. Kirsten and Seth looked at each other uncertainly, wondering where the hell he was going. "Sandy?" asked Kirsten, looking at Seth. Sandy didn't respond. Finally, the two Cohens got up and followed Sandy. They saw him fidgeting with a keypad in a room they had never been in before. "Uh, dad...what the hell is this?" asked Seth, looking around at the white room. His father did not answer his question, but instead let out a happy "Got it!" and looked back at them. Seth raised a quizzical eyebrow at his dad. Sandy moved aside a door that Seth hadn't even seen there, and stepped aside to let them view what was inside. Kirsten peered over Seth's shoulder. She was Sandy's wife, and not even she had seen this room. Inside the vault were thousands of dollars. There was money from top to bottom. Surely there was more than the money they needed to get Ryan back in that room. "Sandy, do you want to explain to me what the hell is going on?" asked Kirsten.
Ryan was groggily taking note of his surroundings. He heard the loud sound of the truck roaring, with its crappy engine. He slowly opened his eyes. He thought for sure he'd be dead by now. He tried to lift his hand up to his head, which felt like he had the most intense migraine anyone could possibly have. He found that he couldn't move his hands. He started to get nervous. The strange thing was that he hadn't gotten very worried until now. He felt that he had betrayed the Cohens, betrayed Sandy, by considering helping A.J. and his fool of a mother. He didn't think he had anything to live for, so he didn't even care if he died. But now, after he had spontaneously decided to call his foster father, and he had seemed so worried, it had finally hit him. He had a family. A family that cared about him, and didn't want him to get hurt. If he died, it would injure his family very deeply, and he would never want to put his loved ones through pain.
He finally decided to look at his hands. He was surprised to find that they were bound by rope. "That's in case you try anything again." he heard A.J. say from the front seat, clearly very proud of himself. "Why didn't you just kill me then?" asked Ryan, regretting it instantly. But A.J. simply laughed it off. "Those Cohens really do care enough about you to pay me not to kill you. So I figured I could use that to my advantage." Ryan looked at him curiously and moved his tied up hands down to his pant pocket, where he usually kept his cell phone. He had already forgotten the baseball to the back of the head that caused the phone to go flying. He seemed to be forgetting things easily these past few hours.
A.J. saw what he was doing and took his cell phone from the ledge in front of the steering wheel. "Lookin' for this, kid?" he asked. Ryan looked crestfallen. "Don't worry. As long as your little friends come through with the money, you'll be alright." Ryan sighed. He felt tears about to fall down his cheek, but he fought them back. He was not going to cry in front of A.J., no matter how much he wanted to. He pulled his bound hands up to his face. He started trying to chew through the rope. A.J. had been watching him, making sure he didn't try anything stupid. He grabbed the gun and pointed it at him, keeping his eyes on the road. "Hands down. Now." he said calmly. Ryan obeyed the command and stared straight ahead, hoping this wasn't going to be his last night alive.
A.J. parked near the lake, just in case things got bloody. Some teenagers that were smoking pot had seen them at the park, and looked at them suspiciously. He didn't want anything to ruin their chance at money, and he wasn't about to kill a bunch of rich kids, so he had moved. He sat waiting in the car, hoping that lady luck was with him. The rich folks had to be there in 45 minutes, so he was just lounging as Ryan slept in the back seat. Ryan stirred and opened his eyes. "Hey kid, just relax, alright? We got a real long 45 minutes ahead of us." Ryan nodded and closed his eyes slowly.
Sandy pulled the money out and Seth and Kirsten counted it. They got everything they could to put it in. A big box, a bag, and a suitcase they found on the ground. Sandy said nothing as Seth blabbered on like he always did when he was nervous. "You know I think the ratio is pretty good. You know, of alive kidnapés to dead ones. I-I think that Ryan has a very, very, very good chance, right?" Kirsten didn't answer. Sandy just nodded. "Well thank you for the reassurance." said Seth sadly. "You're welcome." he responded to himself. Sandy looked at him sadly.
Sandy had been thinking about Ryan, but he had finally calmed himself down enough to count quicker. He needed to stop thinking about the bad things that could happen to Ryan and focus on what they needed to do to get him back. Ryan was the only one besides Sandy who knew about the vault. Not even Kirsten knew. Well, now she knew, but Ryan had known before all of them. Ryan had been very distant after the Oliver fiasco, and Sandy wanted to get through to him. When he finally got a chance to talk to him, he asked him if he trusted him. Ryan had sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Well who else am I supposed to trust?" Sandy had not liked the answer. "I don't want you to trust me because you have to. I want you to trust me because you actually do." Ryan just looked at the floor. Sandy had stood up and started to walk out of the pool house. "Come on." he said, making wild gestures for Ryan to follow him. Ryan stood from the bed and shuffled over behind Sandy, keeping his eyes on the ground. Sandy had shown him the vault, and Ryan was shocked. "Aren't you scared that I might tell someone, or try to take it or something?" he had mumbled quietly after they had closed the vault and sat down to drink some coffee. "Nope." said Sandy, very matter of factly. "But there must have more than 3/4 of a million bucks in there!" Sandy shrugged. "I trust that you won't tell anybody." Ryan laughed and finally looked Sandy in the eyes. "Thanks." he said.
