"What the hell?" I grumbled, waking up with the worst pain in my head that I'd ever experienced.
I opened my eyes, and I realized that I was probably better off keeping them closed.
"Hey there, cutie. My apologies, this wasn't how I had planned everything to go. Now I guess I have to welcome you to hell." Allie apologized.
"What did you get me into you bitch?" I roared, the bigger picture slowly coming into focus.
"Back off 'Bea'. I was trying to save both of our asses, more specifically yours. Big brother found us though, and trust me...that's the worst news I could tell you." Alie sighed.
"Where are we?" I asked her.
"Somewhere where neither of us is ever going to escape. If you have a preferred religion, this is where you should start praying. Shit is about to get real" She informed me.
"Don't go putting more shit into her head, Allie. Let her make up her own mind and don't influence her." A young man chided her, entering the room.
"Who are you?" I questioned him.
"The antichrist." Allie snickered.
"Real funny. My name is Ricky." He introduced himself.
He smiled at me and extended his hand. I wasn't sure if he was expecting me to shake it or kiss it, but I knew for damn sure neither was about to happen.
"Hi." I finally muttered, afraid to say too much and say the wrong thing, but also fearing that my silence could be taken negatively.
"Come with me, dear. There are some things I'd like to discuss without Miss Allie in the room." Ricky said, walking back towards the door.
I gulped and looked over at Allie.
"Go or he'll force your ass out of here." She whispered.
Looking back at Ricky, his small stature stuck out like a sore thumb. I could probably take him, but the question was who was coming in after him? It didn't seem worth it to fight right now. Standing up, I said nothing more to him and followed him out of the room.
He walked me down a long and dimly lit hallway, where I noticed door after door, but they were all shut. No noise could be heard except for the shuffling of his large black shoes, and an odd noise that I came to realize was my panicked breathing.
"Here." He said somewhat harshly, stopping at the edge of the hallway to open the last door for me.
I silently walked into the room, and I was very quickly reminded of an old interrogation room from a movie. The lights were even dimmer, there was a metal table in the middle of the room, one nice chair, and one rickety old metal chair. This Ricky character sat down in the nicer chair and nodded towards the not-as-nice chair.
As soon as I sat down Ricky suddenly started rattling off questions a mile a minute. His tone was unforgiving, uncaring, and frankly unfeeling.
"How do you know Ally?"
"Where were the two of you going?"
"Who else was in on this?"
"What was Ally's plan?"
"Why did you agree?"
"Where did Ally get keys to your house if you weren't in on this plan?"
"I don't know! Why am I here?" I asked, trying to keep my voice even and somewhat polite.
"You were in a car with Ally, on your way to sneak out of Scranton." He hissed.
"I was smothered with a pillow and unconscious!" I screamed at him.
"Do not raise your voice at me," He growled. "Those are minor details that I simply don't care about. They're excuses. I don't have time to sit around and explain that to you though. Today is a rather busy day for me, and I have a lot more to worry about and deal with than you and Ally fucking around. Cameron will be with you when he has time." Ricky grumbled, rushing out the door and slamming it behind me.
"Wow. What a prick." I whispered, flipping the bird to the shut door.
For the most part, I had tried to stay pretty even-tempered with him, so I don't think I was in too much trouble with him for that. However, the fact that Allie had just decided to kidnap me and we got caught was really not going to look so great. Had I wanted to escape? Yes, of course. I was waiting for the perfect time to run and escape to San Francisco, and this clearly hadn't been it. I started to think about just how Allie was perceived by these guys. Did they see her as a threat, as someone who needed to be taken out? Would they view me the same now, or would others like this Cameron person I had yet to meet be more understanding?
I mean, being smothered with a pillow and kidnapped had to count for something, right?
My original thought was that the time alone would be good for me and allow me to calm my thinking down, but it only fueled my fears. Every step that I had taken since deciding to leave Maine to try and get to California.
Why hadn't I just stayed at my house? Would my fate have been any prettier?
A knock on the solid door caused my head to shoot up and see who exactly this big bad Cameron was that I had heard so much about both from Allie and from customers at the flower shop. Some stories made me cringe, and I only hoped that those tales weren't true, or were severely over-exaggerated.
"Lord help me." I softly prayed.
When this mysterious Cameron character finally stepped into the room, I heard myself audibly gasp at his appearance.
He was a very tall, slender man, but hardly gangly. He clearly had more meat on his bones than Ricky did, and his ass was something I'm sure many females prayed for. The coffin with wings on his neck certainly grabbed my attention, but my eyes continued to be drawn to the rest of the colorful tattoos up and down his arms and covering his neck. Soft brown eyes harshly contradicted his intimidating demeanor, and that wasn't helped by his towering stature either.
Allie spoke most ill of Roman, but I could tell that this one sure seemed like he was going to be a lot of work.
If any of these guys were the antichrist like Allie claimed, I had a strong hunch that it was the man standing in front of me with the grin of someone who was rather pleased with himself.
"Layla, Layla, Layla," He tsked, "Where do I begin?"