Bayley got out of the van, warily looking at the group of people standing twenty yards away.
Stephanie McMahon looked back at her with an expression of slight impatience on her face. She was flanked by three muscled up lackies, who were obviously there to do anything that might vaguely represent dirty work. Stephanie certainly didn't look like the kind of woman who would be keen to mess up her perfect manicure. Even standing in a deserted, disused train yard seemed to be so far beneath her, but it was the ideal place for a deal like this to go down. All four of the McMahon entourage wore expensive business suits that risked an encounter with dust the longer they stood there.
One of the van's rear doors banged open, followed by the other. Bayley heard Becky doing her utmost to protest into her gag as she was dragged out by Charlotte.
"Shut up, bitch. Make a good impression for your new owner." Charlotte was taking so much pleasure in taunting their victim.
Ankles unbound, but wrists secured behind her back, Becky was shoved forward by Charlotte as Ronda closed the van's doors. Bayley made eye contact with Becky for a moment and had to look away out of a sense of guilt. It was obvious what the future held for her at the hands of McMahon: A long time in captivity, forced to complete her genius idea totally for the benefit of the woman who was holding her, followed almost certainly by death. McMahon wouldn't be stupid enough to let her live.
"Move!" Charlotte barked at Becky, who was plainly scared half to death of even approaching the four people who awaited her with nothing but cold expressions on their faces.
"Ronda," Stephanie finally acknowledged when the trio approached her. Bayley hung back, standing near the van.
"Stephanie. This is Becky Lynch, as requested."
Despite Becky's resistance, Charlotte forced her to walk right up to Stephanie so that they were face to face. Bayley saw the look in the rich businesswoman's eyes. She resembled a hawk looking down on a mouse that it was about to devour.
"Hello, Becky," she grinned cruelly, seeming not to notice the thick towel tied in her mouth. "You're going to make me a lot of money. At least, you'd better."
With that she nodded to one of her men, who walked over and took Charlotte's place, holding Becky's bound wrists to force her forwards. One of the others had walked over to an SUV with black tinted windows that was parked nearby. He opened one of the rear doors, ready for their prisioner to be forced inside.
"Excellent work, Ronda," Stephanie said casually. "I believe I owe you a million dollars."
Ronda just smiled deferentially. The leader of the team of kidnappers was still a long way down the pecking order compared to McMahon.
"The same account as before?" Stephanie asked, receiving a polite nod as a reply. She pulled out her phone and spent thirty seconds tapping away at the screen. She then turned the phone around for Ronda to see the display. "One million dollars. That concludes our business."
"Thank you, Stephanie," Ronda said.
That was that, Bayley saw. Stephanie turned and headed for the black luxury saloon car that was parked next to the SUV, while Charlotte and Ronda made their way back to the van. Bayley's eyes lingered on the SUV. The huge man who was now in charge of Becky had reached the open rear door with her.
Although it was pointless, Becky tried to resist again, struggling against being bundled into the vehicle. The last Bayley saw of her was when she looked back towards the van and they made eye contact. Becky's eyes were wide as saucers in fear and she screamed for help into her gag as loudly as she could. Help was never going to come.
Bayley jerked awake with a gasp and sat up on the bed. It took her a few disoriented seconds to figure out where she was and what was happening. A bad dream, she realised, taking a deep breath. She'd had a bad dream about handing Becky over to McMahon for the second million dollars. It was strange that it had been a bad dream, given that was the reason she was there, and why Becky was tied to a bed in the next room. If things had gone according to plan, a handover like the one she'd just dreamed about would have already happened by now.
"Can't we just get this over with?" she groaned to herself as she got up off the bed. Even though she had slept on top of the blanket, she had still been sweating during the bad dream. She really needed a shower. One thing she was definitely sick of was her hands sweating in the stupid gloves that Ronda insisted on being worn at all times. Admittedly, the idea of leaving no fingerprints behind made sense, but it was just another inconvenience that Bayley didn't need.
Feeling irritable to the extreme, she walked over to the bedroom door and opened it. Before she walked out into the short hallway, she heard Charlotte's voice coming from the living area, in mid conversation with Ronda.
"...a fucking waste of time. You've spent half the day making calls and you've got no concrete offers. People either don't want the stupid bitch, or they can't afford her. You should have gone along with me when I said we'd be better off killing her, dumping the body and taking the million bucks between us. Like I said, it's not our fault McMahon got her ass arrested before we made the exchange. That million is ours."
Bayley wasn't sure why she decided to linger in the doorway and listen to the conversation rather than going and joining them, but she was soon glad she did.
"Even if I thought that was a good idea," Ronda replied, "There's no way Bayley would go for it. I can't force her into killing Becky. That's not what any of us signed up for. If killing was involved, I never would have approached Bayley at all."
"Yeah, well, it's pretty damn obvious that was a mistake anyway," Charlotte said sullenly. "I knew she would end up feeling sorry for Becky. It's fucking pathetic. The minute we go out to get supplies, she's in there taking her gag off and changing it for tape to make her more comfortable. I soon put that back the way it was supposed to be. Who gives a fuck if she's comfortable anyway? Honestly, I can see Bayley becoming a liability before we're done here." There was a pause before Charlotte went on. "It makes me wonder, why don't you and I kill the pair of them and split the million between us?"
"What?" Ronda demanded, clearly shocked at the suggestion.
"You heard me. Bayley's going to end up getting us all in the shit by coming over all sympathetic to Becky. There's no room for that sort of crap on a job like this. Besides, you can't even find anyone who's willing or able to pay us close to what McMahon offered. I say fuck it, kill the pair of them and take half a million each. All we've got to do is dump the bodies somewhere, and we're already in the middle of nowhere out here."
Bayley was horrified by what she was hearing, and found herself considering making a run for the van as soon as she could get her hands on the keys.
"No," Ronda decided firmly, after another short pause. "We're not killing Becky, and we're certainly not killing Bayley. What the fuck is the matter with you? Someone will take her, even if it's for less than we were originally supposed to get. Now stop talking about it. Kill Bayley," she finished, obviously shaking her head in disgust.
But Bayley had noted the short pause before Ronda had started speaking. She had considered the idea, even if only for a brief moment. What if Charlotte kept wearing away at her and eventually talked her into it? No, Bayley decided, she wasn't going to hang around and wait for that to happen. The first chance she got, she was out of there, and if she could, she would take Becky with her. Not only did she not want their captive to be murdered in cold blood - that was too heavy a burden to have on her conscience. The dream about handing her over to McMahon had been bad enough - there was also still the chance of making a lot of money from a potential buyer, if she could find one.
Becky was startled awake by a gloved hand clamping over her mouth. "Shhh," the kidnapper whispered to her as she made a very faint moan of protest behind both the hand and her gag. "I'm not here to hurt you. I need you to stay absolutely silent. I'm getting you out of here, and we're making a run for it. Can I trust you?"
It was Bayley. If there was one of the three kidnappers that Becky was going to trust, it would be her. She didn't know what the hell was going on, but the idea of getting out of the room that she'd been tied up in for more than a day sounded good. She nodded her head as much as she could with the hand pressing down on her.
"Okay. I'm going to untie your wrists, then tie them again behind your back," Bayley whispered to her after taking her hand away. "Don't try to struggle or call out, or you'll get us both killed."
Becky nodded again, then Bayley untied her wrists from the bed as promised. She sat up, and her wrists were secured behind her back with one of the lengths of rope.
"Alright, now I'm going to untie your ankles so you can walk. We're going to go outside and take the van. You'll have to lie in the back. Don't make a sound on the way out. Ronda is asleep in the bedroom next door, and Charlotte has fallen asleep in the chair in the living room. If either of them hear us, we're dead. Understand?"
Becky nodded for a third time. She had no idea why Bayley had decided to take this course of action, but she would rather put her life in her hands than those of Charlotte and Ronda, as her partners were apparently called.
Bayley untied her ankles and the two women sneaked silently out of the bedroom, with Bayley standing close behind Becky, who didn't even try to look around at her surroundings. She could see the front door at the end of the hallway, and that was all that mattered. They reached the door and were presented with the first problem. It had to be unlocked and opened without alerting either of the sleeping women. To Becky's immense relief, Bayley managed to unlock the door with barely a sound, and it didn't squeak on its hinges as it opened. Things were going their way.
They walked outside. Bayley didn't bother risking closing the front door. By the time she fired up the van and alerted her so-called former friends as to what was happening, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.
"Now," Bayley whispered. "When I open the door, get inside and lie down. I'm going to have to jump in the front and get us out of here fast. As soon as they hear the engine, they'll know what's happening."
Becky gave her usual confirmation.
Bayley stepped ahead of her and opened the van's rear door, which squeaked slightly, doing neither of their nerves any favours. Becky climbed inside and lay down on the wooden flooring as she had been instructed.
Sighing with relief, Bayley shut the door as quietly as she could, then ran around to the front of the van. Jumping into the driver's seat, she fired up the engine and hit the gas so hard that the wheels span up on the gravel before the large vehicle actually started moving.
Inside the cabin, Charlotte heard the engine start up. It only took her a split second to process what was going on when she noticed that Bayley wasn't in the room with her. "Fucking bitch!" she raged, sprinting from the room. She noticed Becky's empty room on the way past it. "Ronda! We're being fucked!" she screamed as she raced outside. The van was already disappearing down the gravel track.
Bayley drove as fast as she could on the uneven surface, with only the van's headlights piercing the total darkness of the moonless night. Looking in the mirror, she saw Charlotte running after them in the red glow of the tail lights. Damn, the girl was fast when she got going. She was actually gaining ground. She moved like a fucking Terminator when she had to.
"Where's the damn road?" Bayley asked desperately. Then she saw it up ahead. They had made it. She turned onto the road and pressed the accelerator to the floor.
Breathless, Charlotte reached the road only seconds behind the van, but she knew the chase was over as the engine roared and it sped off. She bent over, hands on her knees, trying to get her breath back. After gasping in a few breaths, she screamed at the receding tail lights. "I'm going to kill you both! I'm going to fucking kill you!"