Be careful what you wish for pt 1

Adele (March 15, 2015)

'Ugh what happened? Where am I?' 

I slowly wake up and the first thing I notice is that I'm strapped down to whatever I'm sitting on. 

Groaning, I try to sit up from my slouch. Looking around blearily I find that I'm in a moving car. Looking out the window, I see we are driving into what appears to be a parking deck. Turning my head to the left, I see the driver is someone I do not know but something about him looks familiar. 

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye as he parks the car after we have gone up two levels. Turning to me, we just sit there and look at each other for what feels like forever before my brain finally realizes that I should probably be panicking about being in a car with a stranger at an unknown location. 

I quickly undo the seatbelt and push open the car door. I start to scream when once again my nose and mouth are covered with a cloth. This time however I don't immediately black out. I hear through the open door airplanes taking off. 

' We are at the airport. Well at least now I know where I am. Not that it's going to do me much good now.' With that last thought I lose consciousness.

________________________________________________________________________

As I wake up for a second time, I discover I am in a moving car again. Wiping away the drool I feel on my face, I sit up and look out the windshield to see nothing but a star filled sky, road and large dark trees. 

"So beautiful." I whispered in awe at the nature surrounding us. 

"Well, kid that is certainly not what I was expecting to be the first thing you said after sleeping for so long. It's been like 10 hours. I guess the first dose wasn't completely out of your system when you first woke up. It certainly made it easier to get through the airports and the flight without having to worry about you putting up a fight." The driver remarked as he sent a grin my way before turning his attention back to the road.

"I've never been somewhere so naturally beautiful before. If I had my phone I would be begging for you to pull over so I can take photos of the trees and any possible wildlife nearby." I replied as I rubbed the eye crust from my eyes and leaned back against the door so I could face him better. 

"Even if you had your phone, I wouldn't be stopping for you to take photos. Too likely you would try to make a run for it." He retorted.

 "Yes, that sounds like what I should do. Make a run for it when I have little to no information as to where we are or how close civilization is from here. I was definitely not honest in my desire to just take nature photos. I would for sure not wait til we are closer to a town where my chances of getting away from you are higher." I rolled my eyes at him for thinking I was a basic nine year old who didn't plan for kidnapping situations.

'The driver actually looks shocked at my sass and rebuttal. No one knows that I actually have quite the sassy attitude. I just never have had the freedom to be my true self.' 

Grinning, I take this as a point in my favor. I'm adjusting my dress to cover my knees when I realize I'm not wearing the clothes I had on before. Gone is the black jacket, long sleeve blue t-shirt, black jeans and white sneakers. I'm now wearing a long green dress with a white sweater and brown boots. Out of the corner of my eye I see brown hair. 

I pull down the visor to get a better look as I feel myself starting to panic. I look in the mirror and see I am wearing a wig of brown hair on my head and have freckles along my nose and cheeks now. I look just different enough that anybody who knew me would not immediately recognize me. I pull the wig off and throw it onto the car floor as I feel my panic and bile rising.

'Being touched while unconscious was not in the plan. What if he did things to me?!' I close my eyes and do an internal check of my body. 

'I don't feel anything permanent but that doesn't mean he didn't do something. He said I've been knocked out for 10 hours. He could have done anything to me or taken pictures of me!'

"Did you touch me or take pictures when you changed my clothes?!" I screamed as I reach across the car as much as I can to hit him. 

"Woah woah, I may do a lot of things for money but touching kids or photographing them without clothes on aren't things I would do. Even I have my limits." He pulled over to the side of the road. He tried to stop my assault on him but I'm fierce in my attacks.

" I got a lady at the airport to change your clothes and then I used one of those family restrooms to add the freckles and wig." The driver batted away my hands until I stopped my attacks upon hearing he didn't change my clothes himself. 

"Look, me and you are going to be road buddies for the next few hours so this can go one of two ways. You can be awake and enjoy the journey or I can put you back to sleep. Pick your fate now." He says in a no nonsense tone of voice. I can immediately tell he isn't playing around.

"I'll behave and stay awake. Do you happen to have anything to drink? I'm a bit thirsty, sir." I request meekly looking at him. He switches between looking at me and the road as he starts driving again.

"The name is Pete and yea there are bottles of water on the back seat. There should be a bag of snacks back there too. Grab us each a water and the snack bag." Pete informs me as he nods his head towards the back seat. I grab the waters and the snack bag before settling back into my seat. I open both bottles and hand him one before taking a drink from mine. 

I put the bottle of water down before I pull out a bag of chips and open it. It's one of my favorites, salt and vinegar flavored.

"So Mr. Pete, why did you choose to kidnap me? I'm pretty sure I don't know you so I don't think it's personal also you mentioned something about doing things for money. Tell me your story?" I ask as he reaches over to reach into the chip bag. 

After eating a few chips, he glances over at me before speaking. "You are right this isn't personal. Someone paid me a lot of money to kidnap you, fly you to another country and bring you to them. I'm guessing they intend to ransom you."

I could not help but look at him confused and worried. "Someone paid you to do all these things? And we are in another country? This situation just keeps getting worse. Maybe I should have chosen to go back to sleep. This is a lot to take in." I feel the panic rising once again as I lean forward and try to breathe through my nose and mouth. 

'Flippers, I thought I was handling everything well. I can't seem to calm down. I can't breathe. Flippers and all the dinglehoppers. I wanted to be free of them but this was not at all how I wanted this to happen.'

Pete must have taken his eyes off the road for too long because the next thing I hear is a loud horn going off and the sound of metal crunching. I feel strong arms wrapping around me before I once again black out.