Chapter 15 – She's Not Safe
Heidi could feel the sunlight on her face as she woke up but kept her eyes closed. Growing up she'd always loved waking up in the morning in her bedroom with the sun shining in her window onto her face. It was one of her childhood indulgences that had stayed with her until today. Travelling during summer vacation with her father on the road with the WWE, Heidi always insisted on sleeping in the bed closest to the window in every hotel they stayed in. A smile crept its way across Heidi's face as she took a deep breath and savoured the feeling of the sun warming her skin. All she wanted now was to brush aside the stray piece of her long brown hair out of her face, but as soon as she tried her actions were stopped by the fact she currently didn't have access to either of her hands. Not knowing exactly what was going on she finally opened her eyes and that was when the panic sunk in.
Heidi's eyes widened in panic as her eyes darted around the room to scan absolutely everything in sight. She had no idea where she was. She had no idea what this place was. She was alone as far as she could see in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. There were bits and pieces of furniture scattered around the room and they were all in the same condition as the warehouse itself. Wooden, cracked and about a hundred years old. The floor was much the same. There were tables, chairs, empty broken boxes. They were everywhere. Then there was the bed that Heidi was currently laying on. The window next to the bed providing the only light in the room from the sunlight still streaming in.
Heidi's breathing started getting more rapid as her eyes finally scanned herself and the bed she was lying on. She winced as she tried to move both her arms again and the reason why was made clear as she noticed the raw, red rope burns around her wrists and around the thick, coarse rope tying them to the bedposts. She wasn't sure whether or not it made her feel any better that her legs were free of any restraint. Wincing again at the rope burns on her wrists made her thankful that her ankles weren't suffering the same fate.
Her brow furrowed as she finally inspected her body further. The clothes currently on her body weren't hers. She recognized her entire wardrobe by sight and by feel of them on her body and the jeans and the shirt on her right now didn't look or feel like hers at all. The jeans were slightly baggy around the hips and around the legs considering she assumed they were meant to be skinny legs. The T-shirt was also too big for her and was a simple plain white. She could see her red strapless bra through the thin cotton fabric of the T-shirt and she thankfully could confirm that the bra did in fact belong to her, as did the matching red panties she could see underneath the jeans where they were hanging on her hips. She did her body the once over and the tears started to well in her eyes as she caught the sight of the silver ring on the ring finger of her right hand. Her birthday present. The one that her father had given her just before she had gone onstage for her Wrestlemania debut, but how long ago had that been? Where was she now? What exactly had happened?
12 hours earlier…
Heidi could feel the tears stinging her eyes. She waited until she was around the corner of the backstage area, well away from Tyler Hadson and his broken nose and Ash Irving and his stinging honest words, before she finally let herself cry. She let the tears fall as they would but covered her mouth with her hand to stop herself from making any noise. The last thing she wanted was for someone to ask her if she was OK. That would only make things worse and that would only make her feel less OK. The very last thing she wanted, though, was for Ash to hear her and come after her.
Heidi knew Ash and she had since she was 5 years old. She knew him better than the back of her own hand and therefore she knew that if he came after her and saw that she was really really upset and a crying mess, he wouldn't leave her alone at all. He wouldn't let her out of his sight, he wouldn't let her brush him off. It was the very last thing she wanted right now. She couldn't face Ash right now. Every word that had come out of his mouth had obviously been something he'd been dying to say for a very long time. Every word had tumbled straight out of his mouth without a second of hesitation. He had spoken the truth and it had stung so bad because it was the truth.
Heidi finally took a deep breath and furiously wiped at the tears in her eyes. What was she doing here? It was Wrestlemania 38! Tonight had been her Wrestlemania debut and she had nailed it! She had absolutely destroyed it out there tonight and the rest of her WWE career started from here on. She was supposed to be ontop of the world and she had been until all that happened back there. She refused to let a stupid fight ruin the best night of her life. She was going to push it all to the back of her mind and she was going to get on with it. She was going back to her father's dressing room, have a shower, get changed and head out to those front row seats out in the arena to sit next to her mother and watch the rest of Wrestlemania 38, including her father in the mainevent. Taking another deep breath Heidi stopped her tears and straightened herself out as she headed down the corridor in the direction of the Orton locker room.
She could never really understand how her father ended up with the most isolated locker room in the entire arena. Apart from DiBiase's locker room around the corner she had just come from, there were no other locker rooms this side of the backstage area and it seemed to always be the case at every arena the WWE travelled to. Heidi supposed it was because her father was the WWE Champion and the WWE Champion got special treatment because she really didn't think her father was that much of a Diva to request a special locker room. However, her father was Randy Orton so the possibility was actually possible. Her mother was forever telling her that the Diva attitude she had, had solely been inherited from her father.
Heidi confidently walked the quiet backstage corridor. These backstage hallways and corridors had been like a second home to her. She knew most of these arenas all over the country like she knew her own house. Every summer vacation gave her an up close and personal tour of each and every one of them. Whether she was being babysat by the off duty WWE Divas in the Divas dressing room, whether she was mucking around with her father in the ring whilst he was warming up, or whether Ash was chasing her in and out of catering, all of this felt more like home most of the time than her actual home in Louisville.
The young Orton sighed as she finally completed the long walk and arrived at the door to the Orton dressing room. Without even second thinking it she flung open the door and walked in. She half expected to see her father straight away with open arms about to congratulate her on her Wrestlemania debut and then she also half expected to see the locker room empty as she knew she couldn't expect her father to make it from the SkyBox to the backstage area as fast she managed to do. However, she didn't see either of her expectations when she opened the Orton locker room door.
The room was pitch black. Heidi narrowed her eyes as she tried to adjust her eyes to the darkness so she could at least see something in the locker room. She'd never walked into an arena locker room that was in complete darkness before. She didn't even think there were light switches in each individual locker room. She was sure that the lights were actually controlled in a control room somewhere else backstage. She probably only knew that because someone like Ash's dad, Chris Jericho, had told her that useful bit of WWE backstage trivia.
"Dad?" Heidi called out as she stood in the doorway to the locker room, a little hesitant about actually entering the pitch black room "Dad, are you in there?"
Heidi held her breath in silence as she waited for a response.
"Dad?" Heidi called out again, growing impatient at the lack of a response she was getting "Dad if you're in there I'm going to kill you because this isn't funny!"
Heidi once again held her breath in silence and waited and waited for a response. Heidi finally exhaled her breath.
"This is actually really annoying and not helping in improving my mood," Heidi mumbled under her breath as she loudly dropped her hands to her side.
The young Orton thought the situation through and decided that her father definitely wasn't in Orton locker room at the present. Usually her father was rubbish at hiding and scaring her anyway and he had been since she was a little girl. Looking to her left and right down either side of the corridor, Heidi didn't see anyone coming from either side. She didn't want to leave just in case she missed her father entirely. She also didn't want to miss anymore of Wrestlemania 38 than she already had so she desperately wanted to get in, have shower and an outfit change before racing out to join her mom and Lillian Garcia front row. Heidi tossed up her options.
She finally decided that she would just head off to the Divas locker room to have a shower and get changed. Her dad would understand seeing as there was obviously something technically wrong with his dressing room and instead of seeing him now she would see him after the show. She would simply call in about 30 minutes after she was showered, changed and heading out to ringside with the security her father had previously organized, and let him know what had happened and to wish him luck for his mainevent match tonight. It was the prefect solution and Heidi smiled at herself as she nodded her head. That was her plan of action.
It was then that Heidi realized that in order to get changed after her shower in the Diva's locker room she would need to retrieve her stuff from inside her father's locker room. She glanced inside the pitch black room again and she could envision exactly where she had put her duffle in the locker room. She knew her cell was sitting ontop of the bag and that thankfully she had decided to organize herself for once so all her belongings were zipped up inside the duffle. Now all she needed to do was get in there and get the duffle out. Heidi stepped forward into the room slowly and cautiously. She was positive that her father wouldn't have left anything sitting on the floor in the doorway but there was always the possibility that he had been in a hurry and just chucked his duffle wherever.
Heidi felt the way infront of her using her feet and so far all was going well until suddenly she heard something fall on the carpet to the right. Heidi whipped her head in that direction and almost instantly froze where she was. She held her breath and listened again and then suddenly it was something on the carpet to her left. Whipping her head to the left Heidi realized that this time in was footsteps on the carpet. Someone was in here with her and it wasn't her father. It was obviously someone who didn't want themselves to be known either otherwise they would have called out in reply to Heidi's questions earlier. Heidi's breathing started to get faster and lighter as her brain switched to panic mode. All she wanted to do was turn heel and run out of the locker room, but she was frozen. Heidi turned around as she heard another noise behind her and then realized that the door to the locker room had been slammed shut behind her and there was nothing around her except the darkness, the silence and the stranger in there with her. Heidi really started to panic.
"HELP!" Heidi suddenly started to scream on instinct "SOMEONE HELP ME!"
Heidi didn't know if anyone could actually hear her but she yelled at the top of her lungs in the hope that someone, anyone would. She knew that she wasn't 100% positive she was in danger. There was no confirmation of that yet, but she could feel that something was wrong. There was something wrong about this whole thing and there was something creepy and scary about it too.
"HELP!" Heidi cried out again, but before she could utter another word she felt someone grab her from behind.
Heidi panicked but before she could cry out again one of the stranger's large hands closed over her mouth. Heidi instinctively bit down on the stranger's forefinger causing the person to let out a low groan and release her mouth to shake the pain from their hand.
"SOMEBODY! PLEASE! HE…." Heidi started to scream again but she was restrained again but this time by a different set of hands.
The first stranger still had a grip on her around the waist from behind and the second stranger now had hold of the back of her neck with one hand and the other was covering her mouth. The second set of hands on her mouth were softer and slightly smaller than the first but just as forceful. Heidi bit down again on the forefinger of the second set of hands and the second stranger, just like the first, groaned in pain. However before Heidi could cry out again as the second set of hands released her mouth, she felt a hand connect sharply and hard across the side of her face. Before she could even react Heidi felt a hand across her mouth again, this time with some sort of cloth. Panicking at what was happening, Heidi kicked her legs and tried to escape from the grip of the first stranger but to no avail.
She felt her legs get weak and the rest of her body followed. Suddenly her eyelids felt so heavy and the next thing she knew they were shut.
Heidi was suddenly snapped out of her thoughts and her flashback when suddenly she heard a loud band over the otherside of the room. Her eyes darted in the direction straight away and panic one again took over the young Orton at what she saw. 3 men had suddenly entered the room. They were all tall. The first two that entered were over 6 foot. They were wearing black balaclavas over their faces to obviously avoid being unidentified infront of her. They were big built too. Their muscular arms barely being contained in their tight black T-shirts that matched their plain black pants and what looked to be steel toed black boots. The last man to enter the room closed the door to the warehouse behind him and Heidi's eyes narrowed at him as he was the only one not wearing a balaclava over his face. He was much shorter than the other two and his face was completely exposed as was his head and the short grey hair covering it. His outfit was identical to the other two men who had entered the warehouse before him. Heidi tried to rack her memory to try and fit a recognition to the face she saw. She so badly wanted to recognize him so she could at least try and figure out what was going on. She needed something here because right now she was completely lost. She didn't know what was going on. She didn't know where the hell she was. She didn't know whose clothes she was wearing and she didn't know who these 3 men were. The 3 men that had obviously abducted her from her father's locker room or so her memory told her. After being what she assumed was chloroformed, she didn't remember anything after that. She had no idea how she had gone from her father's locker room backstage at Wrestlemania in her pretty red dress, to being tied to a broken bed in clothes that weren't hers in a warehouse in God knows where with 3 men she didn't know. If she had been a little scared when she woke up this morning, she was absolutely terrified now.
The 3 men started talking amoungst themselves as Heidi watched their every move. Maybe she couldn't recognize that face and maybe she couldn't see the other two faces, but she could try and at least recognize their body language maybe. Everyone had a unique face and Heidi was hoping that these men had unique enough body language that she could finally recognize at least one of them. One of the men in the balaclava was obviously instructing something to the other two. Heidi gathered he was leader of whatever it was they were doing. The other man in the balaclava seemed to be paying very close attention whilst the man without a balaclava seemed less interested in his leader and more interested in the cell phone in his hand. Heidi didn't recognize the phone. It wasn't her purple one.
Heidi continued to analyse the men as they stood over the otherside of the room talking for at least 5 minutes. Finally the conversation ended as the man without a balaclava dialed a number on his cell phone and then left the warehouse altogether as he put the phone to his ear. The two remaining men discussed something briefly before the leader turned in Heidi's direction as the other man also headed for the door.
Heidi tried to maintain a calm breathing pattern as she watched the man approach her. She didn't want to panic and she definitely didn't want to let the man know she was scared. He approached her and the bed she was on painfully slowly, like he was tormenting and torturing her. Each step of his steel toed boots on the hard wooden floor sent an echo throughout the empty warehouse that resonated in the silence. Heidi tried to look away but found that she couldn't as she stared the man dead in the face. The holes in his balaclava were for both his eyes to see out of and for his mouth to breath. As he got closer she could see the fabric of the balaclava rising and falling with the breath he inhaled and exhaled through his covered nose. Heidi didn't recognize his eyes as he got closer to her but she did notice what appeared to be facial hair and a beard around his face. His hair was fair. A dirty blonde. Or at least his facial hair appeared to be. She could have been wrong though, maybe he was a brunette. She couldn't see enough of his beard to make a 100% positive decision.
Once the man had reached the side of her bed, he broke out into a smile and it made Heidi's stomach churn. Just the sick look in his eyes and the sick smile on his face made her want to throw up and slap him at the same time. He slowly bent down to the level of the bed and took a seat on an empty patch of mattress, the smile staying on his lips as his eyes travelled her body. Heidi grew increasingly uncomfortable as his eyes continued to wander every inch of her. She moved as far to the otherside of the mattress as she possibly could with her feet and her lower body. With her wrists tied to the bedposts though, it made it impossible for her to move her upper body any further away from him.
"Heidi Orton," his voice finally came.
Heidi looked him dead in the eye as he spoke her name. He knew her name.
"Little Heidi Orton," his voice came again, the smile widening on his face as she narrowed her eyes at him.
She hated the way her name sounded from his lips and she wanted more than anything to kick him with her free legs, but she held herself back. She didn't know what to expect from him yet and she didn't want to provoke anything yet.
"Where am I?" Heidi suddenly spoke, surprising herself as the shaky words tumbled straight out of her mouth.
The man's smile grew wider as his hand started to rub a patch of mattress next to his leg.
"That is not something you need to know right now Heidi," the man spoke again, placing emphasis in his voice on her name.
"I want to know where I am," Heidi spoke again, her voice stronger and less shaky this time.
The anger in her body was increasing as she watched him continue to stare at her and smile that sick smile. His hand rubbing the patch of mattress next to him was slowly creeping towards her hip.
"In time Heidi," the man spoke calmly in reply "In time Heidi."
Heidi took a deep breath to calm herself. The way he kept repeating her name over and over and over again was making her blood boil.
"Did you have a good sleep Heidi?" the man spoke again, his eyes watching his hand as they inched closer towards her hip.
Heidi's eyes watched his hand's movement closely as she tried to maintain a steady breathing rhythm. Her eyes then moved to lock with the man's. His eyes were brown.
"What the hell do you want with me?" Heidi asked again, her voice stern.
The man started to laugh as his eyes diverted from hers back to his hand on the mattress. His fingers started to stroke a yellow stain on the blue floral pattern. Heidi tried to move further away from him as she realized for the first time how filthy the mattress underneath her actually was. The man smiled as he noticed her movement and like he was toying with her, he kept moving his hand closer and closer towards her hip.
"Heidi Orton," the man said shaking his head, his eyes transfixed on her hip and her bare stomach which had become exposed when she had tried to move away from him "I just wanna have some fun with you right now."
Heidi looked at the man in disgust as he continued to sickly smile at her.
"Don't worry about all your questions Heidi," the man said, his eyes looking like he was almost in a trance "Right now, I just wanna have some fun with you Heidi."
Heidi closed her eyes as she finally felt his rough fingertips on her flesh. His hand had reached its destination as he placed it on her bare stomach. He started stroking her skin in circles, covering more and more skin each rotation. Heidi tried again to move further out of his grip but it was hopeless. The stinging of the rope burn on her wrists got worse everytime she tried to pull away. The man continued his ministrations on her soft skin until he grew tired of her stomach and started stroking down towards her hip over her jeans. Heidi closed her eyes tighter as she felt his hands start to explore her lower midsection. His fingers focused their attention on her hip before he grew tired of the new spot once more. It was only when his fingers started travelling further down south that Heidi couldn't help herself anymore.
Heidi suddenly lashed out with her legs. She swung her legs over the mattress and started kicking blindly as hard as she could. Her first kick hit the man squarely in the face and it was either her second or third that hit him in the stomach. The man fell off the mattress as he rubbed his head and doubled over to try and stop the pain to his stomach. Heidi's kicks had been relatively hard but it had hurt the man so much because she had totally caught him off guard.
Heidi stopped her legs kicking as soon as the man hit the floor. She started to breath heavily as soon as she'd realized what she'd done and she was scared about what was going to happen next but she refused to let him know that. She didn't want him to know she was scared. The man growled as he got to his feet finally. He re-adjusted the balaclava on his head as he got to his feet. It was then he locked eyes with Heidi and his sick smile was gone. All Heidi saw now was a face full of pure anger. She didn't have time to anticipate his next move and prepare herself. Before she knew it he lunged forward until his face was inches away from hers. Heidi yelped in shock and surprise before he backed off a little. Heidi didn't even have time to catch her breath before she felt his hand connect hard and sharp across her face. Heidi yelped again, this time louder. She closed her eyes and sucked in a sharp breath as she braced herself for another one, however, when the second slap never came a few moments later, Heidi forced herself to open her eyes again.
The man was still there and he was standing next to the mattress glaring down at her.
"Next time you try something like that Heidi," the man spoke, his voice stern and sharp "Next time you do, I won't be so nice."
And with that the man turned heel and walked in the direction of the door. He walked without hesitation and then opened the door and slammed it shut behind him. Heidi watched him the entire way to make sure he left.
As soon as a few minutes had passed since the door slammed shut behind him Heidi finally let out a groan as she was forced to concentrate once more on the stinging of her face. She wanted so badly to reach a hand up and comfort the stinging but the rope on her wrists was preventing her from doing anything of that sort. It was like she'd been resting her cheek on a hot plate it was still stinging so bad. She could feel the coppery tang of blood in her mouth as she rolled her tongue around and finally swallowed. She should have expected that after the force he'd used on that slap. She couldn't believe this was happening. This kind of thing only happened in the movies. This didn't happen in real life. This shouldn't be happening to her. Why is this happening to her? What did they have in store for her next?
A/N: HEY READERS! Hope you guys liked that chapter – it was a little dark and a little creepy but I think it tied lot of loose ends together.
Quick question for the readers: Who does everyone think the three men are? I gave a lot of clues in that chapter so put your thinking caps on and take a guess – READ AND REVIEW AND LET ME KNOW!
Btw, I'm giving you all fair warning that the next couple of chapters are going to be a little darker. This is just for younger readers because it's going to be dealing with a lot of adult and mature themes. Don't want to freak anyone out but I want to give you all warming.
That aside, hoped you liked the chapter. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ AND REVIEW! Thanks for the reviews for the other chapters – love you all heaps! God bless, Mrs Bridget Orton xoxo