Beauties and Beasts Read online

  I put my earbuds in and put the volume on low so I could still hear what was going on around me. After a few minutes, the music started to calm me.

  You’re just being silly, Kathryn, no need to freak out so much. I told myself over and over. It worked for a little while, until a twig snapped behind me. I ripped my ear buds out and turned around only to see a rabbit dart out across the road.

  “Scared-ycat.” I murmured to myself, smiling with relief. But when I turned back around, he was standing right there. My heart skipped a beat, and I slowly took a step back.

  He was tall, well over six feet, and seemed to tower over me.

  “Hello, Kathryn,” the man stated, in a deep, rumbling voice. “Remember me?” He asked with a smirk. I slowly shook my head and continued to back away.

  “Who are you?” I asked, my voice low and fearful.

  “My name is Conan.” He took a step forward and grabbed my wrist. “Long story short, I’m here to kidnap you.”

  My breath caught in my throat. I felt the same adrenaline rush I had the other night when Conan had broken into my house. So I did what any sensible girl would do in a situation like this; I kicked him in the crotch and took off running.

  Unfortunately, I was slower than normal due to my broken toe, and it wasn’t long before the sound of feet smacking against the pavement behind me reach my ears. Bright lights flash in my eyes, blinding me and causing me to stumble. Strong arms wrapped around me from behind, yanking me to my feet. It didn’t occur to me, that they weren’t just random bright lights shining in my eyes, but headlights from an oncoming car.

  I heard a car door slam, then a familiar voice calling out as a shadowy figure ran towards us. Abel.

  A gunshot pierced the air and I watched Abel stumble and fall to his knees.

  “Abel!” I screamed as I tried desperately to break free of my captor's iron grip. He clapped his hand over my mouth to muffle my screams and whispered in my ear. “If you know what’s good for you, girly, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

  I noticed two other silhouettes standing beside Conan. One of them had a gun aimed right at Abel.

  “Wait!” I shouted, ripping myself away from the man who had chased me. “Don’t shoot him, please,” I pleaded, throwing myself in front of the gun. It was a stupid move, but it worked.

  “Please, I’m begging you, don’t kill him! I’ll do anything, I swear. I’ll go with you and do whatever you want but please, just don’t shoot him. Whatever this is, he has nothing to do with it.”

  The gunman turned and looked at Conan, who let out a low growl.

  “We don’t have any reason to kill him,” the short guy said with a shrug.

  “Kathryn!” Abel’s voice was filled with desperation as he frantically called my name.

  “We can’t afford to have him set the cops on us.” The guy with the gun grunted, shoving me into Conan.

  “Wait—I can make him keep quiet. I promise. Please, just let me go talk to him. Don’t shoot him, please. He’s my…” My voice trailed off as my throat tightened in fear.

  “You have one minute,” he snapped, letting go of my arm and shoving me away. “If you try anything funny, I’m blowing his brains out. Got it?” Conan waved the gun in my face for emphasis.

  I nodded solemnly and then turned and limp-ran over to Abel, his body a shadowy silhouette outlined in the bright headlights of his truck. A cold rain started to fall around me as I knelt beside him.

  “Oh my gosh, Kathryn! What the heck is going on?” he asked, reaching out and touching my face. I gasped when I saw his blood-soaked pant leg.

  “I don’t have much time.” I ripped my sweatshirt off and proceeded to wrap it tightly around his leg.

  “What do you mean you don’t have much time, Kathryn? Who are those men?”

  “I need you to just stay quiet, at least until we’re out of sight, or they will kill you. They’re…they’re kidnapping me.” I talked in a hushed tone, not wanting them to overhear.

  “No, I’m not going to let that happen! Kathryn, listen, my keys are still in the ignition. You get in that truck and you go get help. Go, now!”

  “No, I can’t let them kill you. I’m not going to do that, I can’t—”

  “Please, just go! I can’t let this happen to you!”

  “Abel, don’t make this harder than it has to be. I can’t just leave and let them kill you! I…I love you.” I blurted. “I’ve always loved you. So please…”

  “Kathryn—”

  I interrupted him by pressing my lips to his. He touched my faced gently, kissing me back. My heart raced wildly with excitement.

  Oh my god we’re actually kissing! I thought just before Abel pulled away.

  “Now you get in that truck—”

  Suddenly, I was ripped away from Abel. Conan picked me up by my shirt as if I weighed nothing.

  “Your minute is up,” he grumbled, roughly pulling me away. Abel grabbed my hand, but it slipped away, leaving behind streaks of blood

  “Kathryn, no!” I heard a gunshot and flinched as I felt the bullet whiz past my ear. Conan shoved me to the ground and turned to Abel who was now on his feet, pointing a gun at Conan.

  “No!” I screamed as Conan lunged at Abel. I heard the gun go off again, but that didn’t stop me from throwing myself on Conan and trying to pull him off of Abel. One of the other men pulled me off and I started thrashing around.

  “Don’t kill him! Please, no!” I screamed.

  Conan stood up and Abel lay still on the ground. I froze, and it seemed as if the world stopped spinning for a moment. Was he…dead?

  Conan yanked me away from the man who was holding me and held me tightly. My back was pressed into his chest, way too close for comfort. I felt his hot breath on my neck, and a sick feeling began churning in the pit of my stomach. His fingers dug into my shoulders.

  “He’s not dead, he’s only unconscious. If you try to resist me, I swear to God, I will finish him,” Conan murmured in my ear, the feeling of his breath on my neck sent chills down my spine. Not dead…unless I put up a fight.

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down and trying to prepare myself for whatever would happen next. My fingers tightly clutched the sleeves of Abel’s sweatshirt as if it were a lifeline.

  It was too much for my brain to process. I needed to hold it together. I couldn’t let myself look weak in front of these heartless men. My feeble attempts at trying to breathe more slowly to calm myself down didn’t seem to help much, but I was determined to be strong.

  After walking about a hundred feet away from Abel, I was shoved off the road into the woods and we became immersed in the sea of pine trees. Conan didn’t hold me as closely now; he just held onto my arm as if I were a misbehaving child, and pulled me along.

  I slipped on the wet pine needles, and fell to my knees. Conan yanked me none-too-gently off the ground and we kept walking. This happened three or four times before my arm felt like it was going to fall off.

  They were all so much bigger than I was and God knows what their intentions were. I was outnumbered four to one, and afraid they would go back and do something to Abel if I didn’t cooperate. So I just let them lead me along.

  My imagination got the best of me as we trekked through the thick woods, rain pouring all around us. I played through every scenario of what could and probably would happen; comparing my story to those I'd seen in the news, and knowing that the stories usually ended in murder...or worse, didn't help me in my attempts to keep calm.

  It was pitch-black in the woods, but the men seemed to know where they were going. I continued to slip and bump into trees and trip over rocks and branches and things.

  I’m not sure how long we walked through the woods, but after what seemed like an eternity, Conan said that we would stop. He let go of my arm and I dropped to the ground, overcome with exhaustion.

  The rain had stopped, and the sky began to grow lighter. I assumed it was probably around seven in the morning
.

  “You should get some sleep,” Conan told me, sighing as he sat down on the wet ground. I scooted further away from him, and shook my head. He laid down and closed his eyes, keeping very still.

  My teeth chattered and I rocked back and forth, trying to stay warm.

  “Lay down, Kathryn,” Conan commanded, not moving or opening his eyes.

  “N-nno,” I replied, my voice shaking. So much for trying not to sound afraid.

  “Lay down,” he spoke more harshly. I huffed and moved farther away from them before finally laying on my side, not liking how vulnerable I felt lying flat on my back.

  Pulling my knees to my chest for warmth, I felt something sharp dig into my stomach. I hissed, and reached in my front pocket to find my knife. Of course! How could I have forgotten it? Not that it would do any good since they had guns. Figuring they might be able to see it in my pocket in the morning once it was light out, I shoved it in my sneaker.

  It was hard to keep the tears at bay now that I didn’t have anything else to focus on. My hands were trembling as I zipped Abel’s hoodie up all the way. It still smelled faintly of his cologne, and I was able to close my eyes and pretend that he was lying next to me.

  *~*~*

  The next thing I knew, someone was roughly shaking my shoulder. My first reaction when I saw Conan crouching beside me was to sit up and push myself away from him. My throat felt tight and tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t help but glare at him and shove his hand away when he offered to help me up.

  Apparently, I still wasn’t moving as fast enough for him because I was soon jerked to my feet.

  Now that it was light out, I could now see what Conan actually looked like. I guessed he was at least thirty, with curly, dark brown hair and stormy blue eyes. Something about him seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place where I had seen him before. The others were complete strangers. Two looked closer to my age, while the other was closer in age to Conan.

  About an hour after they woke me up, we came across a huge parking lot. That’s when I felt even more confused. They kidnapped me to…go shopping?

  “Liam, you stay here with Kathryn. We’ll be back soon.” I looked over at the guy named Liam who I was supposed to stay with. He sported a buzz cut, and was only slightly shorter than Conan with huge, intimidating muscles.

  I couldn’t help think that under different circumstances, I may be able to find him extremely attractive. However, seeing as he had just kidnapped me and I was pretty sure he was the one who shot Abel, well, I wasn’t thinking the happiest of thoughts towards him. There was no way I was going to stay here alone with any of them.

  “Why can’t I go in too?” I asked meekly, limping after Conan.

  “Because I don’t want you making a scene,” he replied without even turning around.

  “But I, um, really have to go to the bathroom,” I blurted, feeling my face grow warm from embarrassment.

  “C’mon, that’s the oldest trick in the book,” he scoffed, turning around to look at me. “Look, there’s a tree over there.”

  “There is no way that I am pissing behind a tree when there is a bathroom, two hundred yards away.”

  “Better get used to it, love.”

  “Please, I promise I won’t make a scene,” I pleaded, trying to make eye contact with him.

  “Fine, I’ll take her to the bathroom and we’ll meet up with you guys.” He shoved a piece of paper in the one guy’s hand, then grabbed my arm. We walked in the store and he pretty much shoved me into the bathroom door.

  “Wait a second,” he said, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me back out.

  “What?” I asked, shrinking away.

  “Cell phone,” he demanded, holding out his hand.

  “I don’t have one,” I lied. He scowled and roughly pushed me up against the wall.

  “Get your hands off me!” I shouted at him as he patted me down, trying to find my cell phone.

  “Liar,” he said smugly, pulling my cell phone out of my back pocket. It clattered on the floor, and in one swift move his foot came down hard on it.

  My lip wobbled as I realized that he had just crushed my hopes of calling for help. But as I thought about it a moment, I came to the conclusion that the battery was probably dead, or ruined by all the rain last night. Actually, I was way more angry and upset about him molesting me to find the phone, than I was about him smashing it.

  “Don’t touch me again,” I said through gritted teeth, shoving him away and running into the bathroom.

  “Hurry up,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall.

  I did a double take when I saw my reflection in the mirror. Was that really me? I looked absolutely awful.

  There were dark circles under my eyes, pine needles sticking out of my hair and my clothes were covered in mud. Not that my appearance mattered much now. Looking publicly acceptable was really the least of my worries. Really, the only thing—or only one, rather—on my mind was Abel.

  What if Conan really did kill him? Or what if another car ran him over or something?

  My stomach bubbled with nausea and I almost threw up in the bathroom sink.

  Don’t think like that, Kathryn, he’s okay. I told myself, trying to calm down. Freaking out now is only going to make things worse. Just calm down.

  I splashed my face with water and ran my fingers through my hair to try and get the tangles out, before finally relieving myself. The whole time, my mind was occupied with trying to find a way of escape. I pulled my knife out of my shoe and rubbed my finger over the smooth metal. Conan would probably knock it out of my hands before I even got the chance to take a stab at him.

  Unfortunately, there weren’t any windows in the bathroom. But, upon further inspection, I found a little vent above one of the stalls. It was small, but I was determined to open it and see if I would be able to crawl through.

  As quickly as my shaking hands would allow me, I used my pocket knife to unscrew the vent cover. I stuck my arms up and tried to pull myself up. You can just imagine how well that went.

  I slipped and one of my feet went in the toilet. Luckily the person who used it last had remembered to flush, but I was still absolutely grossed out.

  With a growl, I got down and stumbled over to the sink. I managed to get my wet foot and pant leg in there. Squeezing some soap onto my hands I did my best to try and rub some of the nasty toilet water off.

  Just when I remembered that Conan was still outside waiting for me, the door flung open and he came barreling into the ladies' bathroom. The first thing he saw was me doing my weird little split thing with my foot in the sink. We stared at each other for a good minute. He looked completely befuddled.

  “What the—?” He looked at me then looked around. His gaze fell on the bolts and vent cover that were lying on the floor. He looked up at the open vent that I had tried to climb through, clearly putting two and two together.

  My face got hot and embarrassment flooded through me. I felt the need to explain but I was at a loss for words. The man probably thought I was a complete lunatic.

  He closed his eyes, and threw his head back with a sigh. “So, you tried to escape through the vent?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “And then you fell into the toilet right?”

  I nodded my head slowly, unable to meet his eyes.

  “I should have known.” The amusement in his voice irritated me.

  “Okay, you need to leave now. This is a girls' bathroom and you’re way too hairy to pass for a female.”

  “I’m not leaving,” he said, rubbing his fuzzy chin in an almost defensive manor.

  “This’ll be fun to explain to the next chick that walks in here.” I hobbled over to the little hand dryer and turned it on.

  After a few seconds, Conan grabbed my arm impatiently, and pulled me out of the bathroom.

  “Hey! My shoe is still wet!”

  “Deal with it.”

  “Conan, anyone seeing you pull
ing me along like this is going to suspect something.”

  “Oh, would you like to hold my hand?” he asked sarcastically.

  I bit my lip, trying my best to hold in all the insults on the tip of my tongue that were waiting to be hurled at him.

  As we walked around the store in search of the others, I tried to come up with another plan to try and get away from my captors.

  “Conan, shouldn’t we put the vent back? It’s the decent thing to do—”

  “Do I strike you the type to care about common decency?” he snapped.

  “Hell no. But what if someone gets suspicious because of it and they call for a storewide search for the culprit and no one’s allowed to leave and they—”

  “Fine we’ll go put the stupid vent back as long as you promise not to speak anymore,” he said, exasperatedly throwing his hands up in the air.

  Turning on his heels and once again causing me to fear for the well-being of arm, we were now headed back in the direction of the bathroom. I had to turn my face away to hide my smirk.

  “Go put it back if it’ll make you shut the hell up. You have ten seconds,” he barked.

  I all but ran in the swinging door and started to kick one of the toilet seats until it finally came off of its hinge and clattered to the floor. It wasn’t as heavy as I had hoped, but I was sure it would still stun him at the least. With small, quiet steps, I tiptoed over to the door, raised the toilet seat over my head and waited, counting the seconds to see how long it took him to come barging in like last time. Barely thirty seconds later, the door swung open.

  “Kathryn—”

  WABAM! I smacked him right on the head. He fell to the ground, groaning. I whacked him once more for good measure, before bolting out the door.

  The bathroom was in the very back of the store. Escape suddenly felt like a marathon.

  There was a loud crash behind me and quickly jumped behind a shelf, praying if it was Conan tha he wouldn’t see me. Loud footsteps thundered past me, and I slowly peeked my head around the corner. When I saw that the coast was clear, I continued running down the aisle.

  I looked behind me to see if I was being followed and unfortunately, I didn’t see the shelf of glass jars filled with caramel and hot fudge in front of me. Glass shattered everywhere, and my hands burned. There were a few big cuts that were bleeding all over the place, but I had no time to stop and take care of the wounds. Shards of broken glass crunched beneath my feet as I stood up.