I looked over the list again and had to roll my eyes again. Apparently Lindsey and Erica did not want a healthy kidney at the end of our little vacation. We had finally done it, graduated college and came out of it relatively unscathed. Erica was nursing a broken heart, but Lindsey assured her and I both that two weeks at Myrtle Beach at her parents beach house was the answer to every problem.
I could use a little fun after all the cramming and finals and the rushed ceremony after news of the 'pandemic' sweeping across the other side of the world. It was far away from us and we didn't have second thoughts about it.
I was in charge of the alcohol for the trip and apparently they didn't plan to be sober any part of the entire two weeks. From each of their lists, they planned morning, noon and evening drinks. I had never been a huge drinker, but when in Rome!
I pushed the heavy cart to the checkout line, looking over the cheesy headlines from The Globe and other tabloids. I glanced up and the man in front of me was looking me over. He was older, much older and actually completely hot for an older guy. Even if he was dressed like a douchebag in a shirt that was too tight to show off his very toned body and cargo shorts with expensive sandals. His watch screamed money and the sunglasses hooked on his shirt probably cost more than my car payment. Since it was night and he didn't need them, they were an accessory and a statement. 'I am loaded'.
His blue eyes sparkled as he gave me a heated smile, looking me over again. I looked away quickly, knowing better than to give an older guy an inch. A single smile and they thought they could come on to you and make you uncomfortable by asking you out or worse, offering money to do something gross.
My freshman year at the university, one of the older faculty members had offered me a $100 bill to put on high heels and stomp on his junk as hard as I could. I still wished I had slapped him harder.
I pretended to look at the sunglasses, angling the mirror so I could see him. He was still checking me out, his look appreciative. His gray hair was styled like the cut was expensive and the gray got darker as you lowered your eyes, until the immaculately trimmed facial hair on his chin was black. I half laughed. Aged hombre chic.
"Looks like quite a party," he said, making me look at him.
"It's a long vacation," I shrugged, then looked at his cart. It was full of fresh fruits and vegetables and a few toiletries. That seemed an odd combination.
"You from here?" he asked, starting to pile his things on the conveyor belt. His smile was still very interested. He was going to be a creeper, I just knew it.
"No," I answered, then pretended to get a text on my phone and focused on it. I opened a text I had gotten earlier from Lindsey and replied to her, telling her I was about to get the alcohol and I would meet them at 7 AM at her place to pick them up. I kept staring down at my phone, peeking up through my lashes to see if he was still being a skeez. He was focused on piling things on the belt and opening canvas bags to put everything in. A rich activist. Right. He probably did it to be trendy.
He moved his cart when he finished piling things on, then stepped back closer to me to reach for the divider. He set it down and stood a moment, looking down at me from two feet away. I could see him in the reflection of my phone and I felt completely weirded out.
"Works better when it's on," he said finally, tapping the top of my phone.
I blushed, realizing I had been staring down at a black screen, using it as a mirror to watch him and he had stood there watching me do it.
I turned my back to him as I started stacking bottles on the belt, mortified. Ugh.
"Have fun on your trip," he called, carrying his bags out, flexing ridiculously as he did.
The clerk smiled at me as she rang me up. "He was hot! Talk about a silver fox!" the older woman giggled.
"Yeah, he knew it too," I said, pulling out my card. This was going to be painful.
I had to push the cart out to my car, the bottles clinking noisily on the asphalt and I saw 'Mr Fox' leaning on the back of a nice truck. It was dark enough that I immediately felt uncomfortable walking past him. I hesitated, looking back inside, but the woman who had been behind me was still piling her overloaded cart onto the belt.
He spoke suddenly, making me jump. "Babe, I just got out of there! You should have called sooner!"
He was on the phone. I let a breath out and kept walking, pushing past him to my car. I opened the trunk, listening to him talk as I set bags inside.
"For how many people?... Yeah, I guess I can do that, what kind?... All of them?... And what kind do you want?... Ok babe, anything for you," he laughed.
I put my cart up as he hung up his phone and reached into the back of his truck, pulling out another canvas bag. I turned and hurried to my car, opening the door to get in as a soft hand closed around my face. I screamed into the cloth that I had mistaken for a soft hand as I was yanked back hard against a tall, hard body. I inhaled to scream again, stabbing at his arms with my keys and a sharp, chemical smell filled my lungs, making me dizzy. I stabbed futily, feeling my strength draining away from me as black closed in.
Pain. Pain and white light. Bright stabbing light.
I groaned, hiding my face from the light and turned over in bed to pull the blankets up over my face.
I sat up, stunned. Not my bed, or my blankets! I kicked the blankets off, breathing heavily as I looked around the large, open room. It was square and there were three huge open windows almost as large as the walls on three of the walls. The far left side of the fourth wall held a door, an old wooden door with two iron hinges that spanned the door. It was stone. All of it. The room was stone, like a castle. The windows had flowing, gauzy white curtains that fluttered in the breeze and I could hear seagulls.
I was nowhere near the ocean! I wasn't supposed to be. Not until we drove the fourteen hours to Myrtle Beach.
Holding my head, I stood up and went to the window to look out. I was three stories up and I looked out at the beach and the ocean. The second window behind the bed that was parked in the middle of the room showed hills and trees and sandy dunes beyond, and further than that, through the trees, the ocean. The third window showed more trees and a long beach stretching down and curving. I could also see a boathouse and a dock, as well as a large yacht out in the ocean itself.
I stumbled back, sitting on the bed, then looked down. I was in a dress. A long, white sundress that went sheer just past my hips to show my pale legs. No shoes. Where had my dress gone? My shoes, my purse, my phone? I stood, looking around but the room was empty except for the bed with the white linens and gauzy canopy.
I turned to the door, terrified that it would be locked, but went to it anyway, yanking on the round iron ring. It pulled open soundlessly and easily and I stared down the blind stairwell that took a hard right. There was a smaller, arched window in front of me and from it I could see the fourth side of the island. I knew it was an island now. There was a helicopter pad with a helicopter on it and another squat, square building with no doors or windows that I could see. Past that, beach and ocean. Straight down I could see the top of the second story of the building I was in. It looked like an old stone fort or maybe a castle. I couldn't tell.
I looked down the stairs, but all I could see was the faint outline of another door. I tiptoed down carefully, my hands on the walls since there was no railing and paused at the door to listen. I heard nothing. Still, I waited, my ear pressed to the wood.
After a full three minutes, I pressed lightly on the door, opening it an inch. Peeking in, I could see that it was the same as the room above, but this room held expensive looking outdoor furniture and tables, arranged to sit and talk in the breeze of the three huge openings.
The breeze smelled like the ocean as I stepped in and looked down the wall to the other door. It was in the same place as the one above, the far left of the room. I circled the room, looking out the windows again as I dabbed sweat off my head and neck. The heat was oppressive and the breeze wasn't helping much. It had been better in the room above.
I went to the other door and it pulled open as quietly as the other two had, but this time there was pitch blackness. There was no window on the wall, just a blind stairwell and another line of light at the bottom from the door at the bottom. I hurried down and listened again, but there was no sound. I was feeling braver, so I peeked out quickly to another square room.
"You are finally awake," Mr Fox said, setting a book down and standing.
I stared up at him, stunned. "You... kidnapped me?!?" I asked incredulously, furiously.
"Some would argue that I saved you. And for the record, no. I did not kidnap you, I was merely an accomplice. Come in and sit down, Holly."
