So, I suppose I should apologize quickly. My chapters will be relatively short. I find it easier to write in smaller portions, but that does mean that I'll update fairly regularly. Anyway, enjoy!

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I still felt tired when I woke up again. My wrists were throbbing almost as much as my head was, mostly because I had slumped over in my sleep, leaving all of my weight on my wrists, which were still chained. I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. I groaned as my scabby skull throbbed, and struggled back into a sitting position. Skinny was lounging on the bed, smiling at me.

"It's about time you woke up." He slipped casually off the bed and kneeled down in front of me. He picked at the bloody mess on the side of my head, and I sucked in a painful breath. "You probably have one heck of a headache."

"Yeah."

He pulled a little bottle of aspirin out of his jacket pocket and dumped five into his hand. "Here."

I stared at them warily. White spots were still floating across my vision, and the throbbing in my head made it hard to think. But as much as I would've liked to relieve my headache, I'd have to be an idiot to accept pills from my captor, regardless of what the label on the bottle claimed they were. I just closed my eyes and sighed.

"No? You don't want them?" He face lit up with a mischievous smile.

"Not from you."

He pulled his hand away quickly, as if he'd been burned, and the smile slipped from his face. For a moment, I thought for sure he was going to hit me, or force the pills down my throat.

The grin spread across his face again, wider this time. "Smart, kid. Smart." He laughed for a moment, and then downed the five pills dry.

"Your loss," He said, "they were real." Who is this guy?

"Are you going to let me go?" This time he laughed so hard a tear slipped from his closed lid, which he wiped away with one stick finger.

"Let you go? Oh, son, I don't think I'm ever letting you go."

My stomach dropped…dropped right through the floor and towards the center of the earth. My vision went completely white. I'd never see Soda again. I'd never see Johnny, or Darry, or Two-bit, or Dally. Shoot, I'd never get to piss Steve off again. The tears started flowing again, and I moaned once. I knew that tears wouldn't do me any good, but they just kept coming.

When an arm was thrown around my shoulders and started patting my arm comfortingly, my eyes shot open. Skinny was there, looking down at me sympathetically.

"Don't worry. I like you, so I won't kill you." That's comforting. Before I could stop myself, a wad of my spit landed right in his left eye. He recoiled immediately, wiping furiously at his eye. There was no grin on his face, no hint of a smile.

He pulled a key out of his back pocket and before I could fight he had my hands free from the wall and chained together behind my back. He dragged me along the wood floor towards the bed. My bound feet wriggled behind me as I struggled. He pushed me up onto the bed, and sat over me with his knees digging into my elbows, my hands still chained under my lower back.

He looked down at me, the smile returning to his face. "You know," he began conversationally, "I'm a big statistics guy." He emphasized 'statistics guy' with a punch to the face on each word.

"And buddy boy, you are very lucky, statistically speaking. 'Nonfamily Abduction' is what they call this, because we ain't blood. I don't even know you. But I do know that most people would've," his voice lowered to a casual whisper, "killed you by now."

He pulled a blade out from under the mattress and held it against my throat. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my heavy breathing. I'm being jumped again. I'm just being jumped…

"You're also very unlucky, statistically speaking. Most teens are taken by people they know, and most of those teens are girls. Only 33 percent of Nonfamily Abductions are perpetrated by strangers, and only 35 percent of those kids taken are boys."

He was starting to sound like a textbook, just reeling off facts casually like we were in a classroom. I was confused. I felt sick. I wanted to wake up and find out that all of this was some horrible, bizarre dream. I wanted to roll over and shake Soda awake, and tell him that I'd never run away. And then a terrible thought fell on me like a boulder. No one even knew I'd been kidnapped. I ran away. They wouldn't be looking for me, because I ran away.

I ran away.

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