Through the thick curtains, Becky could see that it was light outside. That meant she must have somehow gotten a few hours sleep - a big surprise given how uncomfortable she was with her wrists and ankles bound. She hadn't had a visit from any of her kidnappers since the previous night, when she'd been taken to the bathroom by the one who seemed to be in charge of the team. Becky had chosen to refer to her as the leader. The other two were certainly deferential to her.
Taking stock of her situation, she decided it was a good thing that she'd been left alone. The leader had told her she wouldn't be harmed if she didn't give them a reason. So far at least, she had lived up to her word. But why was she being held in this place? What was the point of it all? They had made no demands for information regarding the BL-04 chip, which would have made sense. In fact, they had shown no interest in talking to her at all. Had someone else ordered the kidnapping? That was the only thing that seemed to make sense. These people were probably going to hand her over to others in exchange for a previously agreed amount of money.
Being passed over into the custody of someone else didn't appeal to Becky at all, but she knew there wasn't anything she could do about it. It was pretty obvious at this point that the three woman team knew what they were doing and were not going to take chances or make mistakes. They would leave her right where she was, tied up, gagged, until it was time to hand her over to whoever the other people were. Crying in despair would have been so easy as she thought through her dire situation, but Becky forced herself to stay strong, pointing out to herself that crying would change nothing anyway.
Minutes ticked by. Becky didn't bother trying to free her wrists from their bonds. She'd spent long enough doing that the previous night, and all she had accomplished was to make the ropes rub and bite into her wrists, making the restraints a lot more painful than they had originally been. The same applied to her gag. Forcing the towel or the sock out of her mouth simply wasn't possible, much to her frustration. After being in place for so many hours overnight, the towel was now soaked through with her saliva, which made it feel even more unpleasant.
Letting her head roll to one side, her eyes settled on the night stand. It had been moved away from the bed, well out of range of where she might be able to reach it by swinging her legs around. Some of the objects on top of it were what interested her. Several bottles of water and a small assortment of chocolate bars. Feeling both hungry and thirsty, she longed for one of the kidnappers to come in and offer her something. She also needed to pee. The humiliation of lying there soaked in her own urine simply wasn't something she was prepared to endure. There was only one thing to do: take the risk of making one of the women come in and see her. Doing so might make them angry, but she decided she would do her best to look cooperative once someone came. Surely they had to realise they needed to give her food and water regularly, or why had they stocked up on it?
"Hmmmph," she tried to cry out, only realising when she heard how weak it sounded just how sore her throat was from lack of water.
She tried to clear her throat, then bit down hard on the towel as she tried to scream again, putting every bit of effort into it that she could manage. "Hmmmmmmppppph!"
There was no reaction. Becky began to wonder if the women were even there. That thought was panic inducing by itself. As much as he wanted to be free of these people, she needed them right now.
Footsteps out in the hallway. Thank God, she thought. Someone was coming. Lifting her head to look at the door, she found herself hoping it was the gentle one; the only one who had treated her with anything like compassion so far.
The door opened. Becky's heart sank. Although the kidnapper was still kitted out in her all black attire, including ski mask and gloves, Becky could tell which one it was straight away because of how tall she was. If she could have chosen any of the three not to come, it would have been the bloodthirsty one. This woman seemed to almost enjoy the prospect of hurting her, apparently wanting any excuse to do so without facing the wrath of the leader.
"What the fuck don't you understand about being quiet?" she was asked nastily.
"Nmmd tm pmmh," Becky mumbled, hoping that she was somehow understandable.
"For fuck's sake, why me?" the woman groaned to herself, then reluctantly trudged over to the bed.
Becky rested her head back on the pillow and lay perfectly still, wanting to look as compliant as she could, desperate to avoid provoking the dangerous woman at all costs. She had to be carrying the knife on her somewhere, and that thought scared Becky half to death. Then, to her immense relief, one of the other women walked into the room and stood by the door, keeping an eye on things.
"I'll untie your wrists, then. Try anything, I'll fuck you up good."
When her wrists were untied, Becky didn't dare to move until she was told, even to aid the circulation to her hands, which had now been fully restored, bringing pins and needles with it.
"Sit up then," she was ordered impatiently.
Becky sat up and her wrists were quickly secured again behind her back. The bloodthirsty one then crouched down and untied her ankles. While the going was good, Becky tried to gesture to the bottles of water with her eyes. "Mmmph." Frustratingly, her message wasn't understood this time, probably because the woman simply didn't care what she wanted.
"What, you're trying to tell me you need your mouth to piss? Shut up and move, before I change my mind."
Five minutes later, as Charlotte tied Becky to the bed once more, Bayley walked out of the bedroom and removed her ski mask. "I talked Charlotte into giving Becky something to eat and drink," she told Ronda, who was sitting on the couch, typing something on her phone.
"Congratulations," Ronda replied with disinterested sarcasm. "I'm more interested in what's going on with McMahon."
"Still no answer from her?" Bayley sat down next to her partner on the couch and took a look at her phone's screen.
"No. Not from either of her numbers. Something has to be wrong. We should have been told where to meet her for the exchange by now. I'm just looking to see if I can find anything on the news about..." Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened.
"What?" Bayley asked urgently.
"Oh shit," Ronda breathed. "She fucking got arrested. Oh shit."
"What?" Bayley repeated, taking the phone when she was offered it. She read aloud from the news website that was on the screen. "Respected Connecticut businesswoman and financial expert Stephanie McMahon arrested on suspicion of money laundering and arranging the murder of a lawyer, among other offenses."
"We're fucked," Ronda mumbled, still trying to process the news.
"It says here," Bayley went on, "That the feds had an agent on the inside at McMahon Industries, who managed to access some encrypted files on McMahon's laptop. They have concrete evidence of what they describe as a multitude of offenses. Ronda, what are we going to do? There's no way we can contact anyone who might be associated with Stephanie now. Anyone could be compromised at this point."
"I know, Bayley," Ronda snapped at her. "Just shut up, will you? I'm trying to think."
Charlotte chose that moment to walk out of the bedroom, locking the door behind her. "Happy now, Bayley? Your girlfriend had plenty to eat and drink."
"We're in the shit," Ronda said, looking up at her.
"Why?"
"McMahon got herself fucking arrested. They've got evidence on her for all kinds of shit, according to the news. We can't risk contacting anyone in her organisation. There's no way to know who can be trusted, who's compromised, or anything."
"Shit," Charlotte breathed, taking a seat on one of the two chairs in the room.
Silence descended on the group while they all tried to think of a way forward. A few minutes later, Bayley was first to speak. "Becky can't only be valuable to McMahon. There have to be other people out there who would take her."
Charlotte grunted derisively. "Great idea, genius. What are we going to do, start calling up technology companies at random and saying, 'We've kidnapped an inventor, she's yours for a million bucks.' I'm sure that wouldn't get us locked up. I say we kill her and cut our losses."
Ronda looked at her with an expression of distaste on her face. "What are you talking about?"
"Exactly what I said. Kill her. Dump the body. We've got McMahon's million dollars. It's hardly our fault she didn't show for the exchange. I say we keep the million, kill the girl and move on."
"No way," Bayley said, horrified. "Ronda, we can't do that."
"No one's killing anyone," Ronda said decisively. "None of us signed up to this job to start killing people."
"So what's the plan then?" Charlotte asked, somewhat downbeat.
"I have a lot of contacts," Ronda said thoughtfully. "I'll put the word out that we've abducted an inventor named Becky Lynch for Stephanie McMahon, and we now can't complete the deal, for obvious reasons. Anyone who wants to get their hands on whatever piece of electronic shit she was working on can take her off our hands for a million dollars. Hopefully someone will bite. Like Bayley said, she's obviously worth a lot of money. Or, should I say, her work is."
"Yes, I like the sound of that," Bayley said. "You know a lot of people, so hopefully someone will pay up. I'd even take less than a million at this point, just to get Becky off our hands and put this whole thing behind us."
"Let's see what offers we get, then we'll make a decision as a group," Ronda said, bringing an end to the discussion. She gestured towards the room where Becky was being held. "For right now, we need to prepare for the fact we're not getting rid of her today, or probably for a while. Assuming someone does want her, they'll need time to get the money together and meet us somewhere for the exchange."
"Great, locked up in this shit hole playing babysitter," Charlotte complained.
"Stop fucking whining," Ronda snapped at her. "You can come with me and make yourself useful. We're now going to need more supplies than we have here. We need to get food, drink, and anything else we might need. Bayley, it's a long run to get anywhere with a decent sized store. You're going to have to stay here and keep an eye on Becky. You are not to untie her under any circumstances until we get back. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes," Bayley confirmed. She thought about saying that she wasn't an idiot, but Ronda was in no mood for smart answers, as Charlotte had just found out.
"Good. I'll get another burner phone, too, and get rid of this one. I'll make my calls when we get back. Come on, let's go," Ronda told Charlotte as she picked up the keys to the van and headed for the door.
Bayley sighed when she heard the cabin's front door close. What a mess this job was turning into. She had been in two minds about taking part when Ronda had made the offer. It was a decision she regretted now, despite the fact she had a third of a million dollars to her name, with the possibility of the same amount to come again. None of them had bargained on things going wrong on Stephanie McMahon's end of the deal.
Another thing she hadn't been prepared for was for their target to be someone of a similar age to herself, or especially someone as stunningly attractive as Becky Lynch. If they had met in a bar, Bayley wouldn't have hesitated to buy her a drink. Instead, though, the poor girl was tied to a bed, gagged and terrified. She had no idea where she was, why she was there, or what was going to happen to her.
Guilt began to weigh heavily on Bayley. Ronda had been specific and insistent about not untying Becky, but she hadn't said anything about not sitting with her or talking to her. That wouldn't hurt, would it? Anyway, she reasoned, it was the humane thing to do.
Decision made, she put her ski mask back on and headed for the bedroom door.