(Jenny's POV)
"Jenny? Jenny, wake up!"
"Mmmm…" I moan, slowing opening my eyes. I shake my head to regain focus. One minute, I'm about to have my first kiss with Frank under the mistletoe, next thing you know I wind up in someone's bedroom. The room is medium-size coloured in red and cream, and white carpet that looks soft and thick to lie on. There's a king bed with a luxurious red tog duvet and matching pillow not far from I am sitting, with a cherrywood drawer next to it. Opposite the bed is a large desk and chair with a flat screen television mounted into the wall. I try to move my hands but my wrists are tied behind my back. "Shit!" I mutter to myself. As I try to wriggle free, I look up at Livi. She's sitting across from me. Like me, her hands are tied behind her back. She looks very tense. "Livi? Liv, what's wrong?" I ask anxiously. I look to see what she's staring at. I freeze in horror. "What the fu…?"
There's a mirror over the desk next to the flat screen TV and all around it are hundreds… of pictures… of… Livi. Fucking hell! The desk is like a shrine dedicated to her. Livi looking cute. Livi looking coy. Livi pouting, smiling, posing and prancing like a human version of My Little Pony in pink stilettos and skin-tight jeans. There are some pictures of Livi with her friends from school and college but their faces are cut out from the pictures. The pictures are taped up kind of slapdash, overlapping each other, spreading out like a cloud from the mirror's edges. Here and there, mixed in, I can see a picture of an exotic, romantic-looking boy in a mustard yellow sweatshirt with a red and blue checked shirt underneath. He looks foreign; his skin under the dark tan had an olive cast. South European, maybe? But when I look at the eyes behind his black-framed glasses, I see that his eyes are blue. Half European then, with a touch of Caucasian somewhere along the line.
Whatever his origins, he is undoubtedly handsome. Like an eastern prince. Broad shoulders, narrow hips with short, black hair, spiked straight up. Nineteen or twenty at most.
I look at the picture, taking in that smiling, good-looking face of this dishy dreamboat. And then I see it; one, stuck at the top, that I hadn't notice before. It's a picture of Livi with a boy at a club, but the head of the male partygoer is replaced by a cut-out head of the gorgeous, but now creepy and obsessive glasses-wearing boy.
Wide-eyed and a tad bit freaked out, I resume to trying to realise my tied-up wrists. Whilst struggling, I turn my attention from the creepy collage to Livi, who's looking uneasy but not as over the top hysterical as I thought she would be.
"Don't worry, Livi," I say, feeling the bounds on my wrists loosen. "When we get out of here, I'm gonna put my foot so far up this creep's arse that the studs on my shoes will be poking out of his nostrils!"
Livi is quiet. She tries to speak, but she can't find the words.
"Livi?"
"Why?" she says numbly. "Why is he doing this?"
"What?! You mean you know this Looney Tune?"
I hear footsteps and the key turning in the door. A head pokes out from around the door. It's the boy from the picture!
"Excellent!" he says, grinning impishly.
The boy enters the room with two of the biggest and burliest men I've ever seen, their heads as round as a football but with little prickles all over, a serious don't-mess-with-me haircut. Make that hairshave.
"Well done, Jeremy and Kyle," says the boy. His English is perfect but it still held a hint of an Italian accent. The boy walks towards me and Livi. He stands in front of Livi. "Hello, darling Livi."
Livi says nothing. The boy puts his hand under her chin so she has to look up at him.
"My, my. Don't you look bella?" he says.
"Hey, Captain Creepy!" I call to the boy. "Get your grubby hands off my sister!"
The boy turns to me and removes his hand from Livi's chin.
"You must be Jenny. Livi has told me all about you," he says. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ellis Molinelli…"
"I really don't give two shits who you are," I cut in. "What I want to know is why you kidnapped me and Livi, and why you have all those pictures of Livi on the wall?"
Ellis turns to Livi. "Should I tell her the story or should you?"
She stays quiet.
"OK, I'll tell her," he says and turn to me. "It all started three months ago. It was the first day of uni. I was feeling very nervous as I'm very far away from home (I'm from Italy) and I had no one to talk to. I felt so lonely. That is until the most bella ragazza in the world approaches me and introduces herself as Livi Brownstone. When I saw her, I was immediately taken by her exotic beauty. Never before had I seen such beauty in a woman. The thought of me approaching someone like her would have mortified me – I could never gather up enough courage to talk to her. But when she came to me, my head was swirling in shock and my stomach was filled with nervousness and excitement. She did most of the talking. I couldn't think of a thing to say. I was just sitting there dying, wishing I could come out with something, anything. Then she asked me if I wanted to grab lunch after lectures with her. So I said yes. We went to a Pizza Express, where we ordered the classic margherita pizza and we talked some more. I tell her stuff and she tells me stuff. It turns out that we like mostly the same things: from the clothes we wear to the music we listen to. It's as if we were made for each other."
"So… what happened?" I ask.
"Livi and I spent the week getting to know each other and I was completely smitten by her. I liked her so much that I plucked up enough courage to ask her out for coffee on Friday, to which she agreed. However, I thought of this as a date and I turned up in a suit, carrying flowers and chocolate. When Livi saw me, she freaked out and she… what is that word? Scappare…?"
"Scarpered?"
Ellis clicks his fingers. "That's it! She scarpered, leaving me standing alone. I never felt so embarrassed. On Monday morning, I went up to Livi and asked her why she ran off when she saw me. Livi wanted us to talk about this later, but I told her that I wasn't gonna leave until she told me. She said that even though she's very flattered, she wasn't interested in me. Then I asked why she wasn't interested in me. Was it because of what I wore that day or didn't she like me at all? And what did you say, Livi?"
"Please don't make me say it, Ellis," says Livi, shaking her head.
"What did you say?" He turns to Livi. His eyes are piercing. It makes Livi acutely uncomfortable.
Livi sighs. "I said that I liked you a lot, but not in that way," she responds quietly.
Ellis nods. "Mmm-hmm. Then you had the nerve to say we should forget that this ever happened. But how can I forget? You and I were made for each other. You are the love of my life!"
"Ellis, we went out once," Livi reasons. "The only reason I spent all week with you is because no one else did."
"We–" Ellis places his hand on his chest. "We connected!" he snaps.
"A-anyway… what happened next?" I ask, trying to calm Ellis down.
Ellis shakes his head, and frowns. "Nothing. Nothing happened. We went our separate ways. I went back to being Billy no-mates, while Livi went to party with her friends and flirted with every Tom, Dick and Harry that came her way. I… I just couldn't get what I did wrong. I was attentive, charming and acted like a gentleman towards Livi… and she throws it back in my face!"
"What about the pictures on the wall?"
Ellis twitches his nose to hitch his glasses into place and moves over to the work desk. "These are from her Facebook page. You see, I've been watching you, Livi." He turns to her. "Not just on Facebook and Twitter… but in real life."
"What?" Livi stammers.
"For the past three months, you, Livi, have been under constant surveillance. I've been following you like a dog wanting to be loved. I would follow you to the library after lectures, where you would study and do some reading. I take the pleasure in watching and observing you. I just love how you'd concentrate hard on your work. Afterwards, I would follow you home. I would stand outside your house – out of sight, of course – and I would fantasize about you, the girl who sits six rows and two seats over from my desk."
"Oh… my… God!" Livi says astonished.
"But uni and home aren't the only places where you would stalk my sister, is it, Ellis? You followed her to St Hope's today, didn't you?" I say, remembering this morning. I had a feeling that we were being watched.
"And il mio Dio did she look sexy and attractive in the furry jacket? Anyway, after you and Livi went inside, I made a call to Rent-a-Thug and got two of the meanest and dangerous men in the business – Jeremy Baxter and his twin brother, Kyle," he says, looking over his shoulder to Jeremy and Kyle, then turning back to me and Livi. "Rental for these guys is a thousand pounds each but luckily, I come from a wealthy family. I also provided them tranquillizer darts to knock everybody out and have them take you and Livi."
I give Ellis the most awful-astonished-appalled look I can muster up. I can't believe that my first kiss was robbed by this crazy little prick because he can't handle rejection.
Suddenly, something comes to my mind.
"Hey, wait a second," I say. "I can understand why you want Livi… but why am I here?"
"Ah yes, I almost forgot!" says Ellis, putting his hands together. "I am so stupido!" He turns to the football-headed twins. "Kyle, get the dresses."
Kyle, who looks the most aggressive than his brother, walks to a door that's located next to the table that Livi and I are sitting at (probably the bathroom) and enters it. He comes out a moment later holding in each on his hands two white dresses, each held on a hanger. One of the dresses is a long strapless gown and the other is a short sheath dress with long white gloves.
"Ellis… what's going on…?" I ask slowly.
"You wanted to know why I kidnapped you, and this is the reason," he says. "You are to be a bridesmaid for the wedding of me and…" He turns his head to Livi.
My eyes bug out of their sockets. As did Livi's; did we hear him right?
"Wha-wha-what?" Livi says nervously.
Ellis moves towards Livi. He gets on his knees, his face inches away from Livi's, and says, "You and me are gonna be husband and wife."
Livi sits there speechless as Ellis' hand caresses her cheek. He has a mischievous smile playing on his lips while staring into Livi's eyes.
"So Livi, how about making me the happiest man in the world and become my wife?" he asks.
She doesn't say anything for a long time. She takes a deep breath and lets it out. Then she says, "No."
This is not the response that Ellis wanted.
"What?" he says.
"You heard me," she says. "I don't want to marry you. Hell, I wouldn't even marry you if you were the last male and I was the last female on Earth. You are nothing but a pathetic little loser who can't handle rejection. You're a creep for following me like a deranged stalker and lastly, you're a lunatic for having all those pictures of me on the wall. So no, I don't want to marry you. Not now. Not ever!" Then she sticks her tongue out to him. "Bleh!"
Ellis is so frozen with shock that he is speechless. He stands up and turns his back to Livi. I give her a triumphant nod. Sighing, Ellis runs his fingers through his hair. He tugs at it ruefully.
"I am so disappointed that it has to come to this, Livi," he says.
Suddenly he turns, and swiftly takes out a syringe from his jeans pocket and jabs Livi's left arm with it.
"GYAA!" she screams.
"Livi!" I scream.
With one tug, the bounds on my wrists break free. Leaping from my seat, I ball my right hand into a fist. It reaches out and I punch Ellis really hard across the face. His head rocks in shock, his eyes popping like they're going to roll right down his cheek.
I feel a hand grab a fistful of my hair. The hand yanks me back and slams me roughly against the door frame. My back arches as it hits the frame and I fall to the ground.
"O-w-w-w-w-w!" I cry in pain.
I look up and see one of the football-headed twins standing over me. He grabs me by the front of my dress with one hand. His other hand is raised into a big fist ready to give me a punch.
"Stop, Jeremy!" Ellis shouts.
Jeremy lets go of me and moves aside. Ellis walks straight up to me, his cheek black and blue by my almighty punch. He takes his glasses off and wipes them with his shirt. He puts his glasses on and takes a deep breath.
"You've got spunk, Jenny… and I like it," he smirks. "I like a girl who has got balls. Maybe I should have gone after you, instead of Livi."
"Fuck you, Molinelli!" I say, sticking my middle finger up at him. Then I demand, "What the hell did you do to my sister?"
Ellis flaps his hand at me. "Oh, it's just a little morphine to make her weak and slightly less able-minded."
I look at Livi. Her eyes roll to the back of her head as the drowsiness kicks in.
"You see, I had a feeling that Livi would say no to my proposal, so before I had my twins kidnap you and my bride, I went to the local chemist and I got me some morphine," says Ellis. "I didn't want it to come to this, but I don't think she left me with a choice." As he says it he turns to Livi, who has conked out. Then he turns to me. "As for you, Jenny… as much as I wanted you to be a bridesmaid at my wedding, it looks like you'll have to be detained. Jeremy?"
Jeremy roughly takes me by the arms. He opens the door to the bathroom and flings me in it. I stumble but I manage to grab the wash basin to stop myself from bashing my face in. I turn and see Jeremy shutting the door. I run up to it and turn the handle, but it won't open. I brace my shoulder against it and shove, but the door won't budge. Something must be jamming the door.
"Ellis, open this door right now!" I shout, hammering the door. "Ellis!"
"Sorry, Jenny. I can't hear you over the wedding bells that Livi and I are ringing," Ellis says behind the door. "It's a pity you can't come to this wedding. You would have made a bella damigella d'onore. Anyway, can't talk. I've got a dream girl to marry. But don't worry, I'll send you a postcard from my honeymoon suite in Tuscany. Ciao!"
"Ellis, you get back here! Ellis!" I shout.
The door to Ellis' room shuts. I beat my fists hard against the bathroom door but… nothing.
"Ahhh!" I yell in frustration and fall to my knees. I shake my head and try to swallow back fresh tears. I can't believe this is happening. That crazy Italian stallion bastard has drugged my sister into marrying him and here I am, stuck in a bathroom and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I'm sorry, Livi. I'm so very sor–
"Mmmmmmmm!"
What is that?
I freeze. I turn around and my eyes darts from the basin to toilet to shower and bathtub, the bathtub covered by the blue shower curtain.
"Hello?" I call.
"Mmmm!"
I stand up and slowly tiptoe to the shower/bathtub.
"Hello?" I call again, more softly this time. Reaching the shower/bathtub, I pull back the curtain and gasp at the sight I see.