The Series of Unfortunate Events (pt. 9)

There was a distinct smell in the back of this van, almost like concentrated vinyl. I didn't like it. My temples were throbbing and my vision was completely fucked up to the point where I opened my eyes and couldn't distinguish anything including my hands which were less than three inches in front of my face. Everything was so blurry!

"How long have I been out?" My Voice was croaky and my throat was in severe pain from the dryness. I estimated that I was out for at least a few hours, and the reality of it caused me to scowl. I was doing so well and now I was set back. Also, why was I soaking wet? And that smell was seriously starting to give me a headache.

"Half an hour."

I recognised that voice. Oh boy did I recognise that voice. "August?"

"Don't wear out the name," he was chuckling in his seat, so naturally, I kicked it. "Ow. Watch it, I'm driving!"

"Where are you taking me?" I was sitting up now and ferociously blinking. For some reason being upright was making my killer migraine ten times worse and completely fucking up my mojo. How was I expected to concentrate if I couldn't even exist upright without feeling like my brain was leaking out through my heads?! What the hell!

"I'm taking you to meet Salvador in Salzburg. You have been so illusive lately, you know," his tone was conversational, but I could tell he was watching me like a hawk. I could also tell there was more than one person in the back with me, and I could tell that they were all apprehensive. We hit a pothole and I fell back down to the ground, hitting my head again and flinching from the impact. "Oops."

"Why am I wet? Why couldn't I remember anything from the past ten hours? I remembered my goal to get to France undetected, but other than that I remembered nothing. How did these guys find me? And why couldn't I see yet?

"You fell into a swamp, don't you remember?"

"No. How did you find me?" Everything was muddled together and I was so confused about everything. On the bright side, my eyesight was slowly coming back and I could begin to see how many people were in the back of the van with me. If my calculations were correct, this wasn't the only van. If I was ambushed, I would've been able to escape if this had been the only van. There had to be more.

"We saw you on the news and came to get you upon your father's orders. You seriously don't remember being on the news?" well excuse me, mister perfect, it's not like I had a television in the car with me or anything. "Yikes."

Now that I could see better, I could tell that I only had one option if I was going to make it out alive. First of all, I needed to figure out a way to at least incapacitate these people in the back seat. It needed to be quick and efficient, something that would let me hijack the van and allow my escape

I also needed to find a way to wipe out the other vans that were following us. This was a caravan, currently, which wasn't all that surprising. I��m Katarina Montenegro, after all. My father would have spared no expense to keep me safe. It was both annoying and very sweet. For once in my life I had began to learn what it meant to have independent critical thinking! For goodness sakes, I had members of the Italian governmental cabinet at my disposal! The last thing I wanted was to be coddled by my father again.

What I wanted was the danger, the unpredictability of what could happen if I made the wrong move. That's what I wanted. Here I was, kidnapped a second time, but this time I was going to make the right move whilst I still could. If what Augustus said was true and I was only unconscious for half an hour, then we were still in Italy, and if we were still in Italy, this could be to my advantage because then I could take the van to France myself!

My only hope was that I hadn't left anything important back at the car, but then again I wasn't too worried about that because I was sure this man brought a cleanup crew. Nobody would know what happened. It was probably preposterous to think that they'd even left the car there.

Once again, the smell of concentrated vinyl was invading my nostrils at an annoying rate and I wanted to scream at everyone to get me out of the van and let me breathe the fresh, unadulterated air. What was with that scent anyway? Where was it coming from? It was driving me crazy.

"Stop sniffing, I can hear it from here," Augustus grumbled from the front seat. That reminded me that I had to find a way to at least neutralise everyone in this van and the two vans following this one, but how?

"What's the thing that smells like vinyl in here? It's literally driving me insane, I hate it," my nose scrunched up in a feeble attempt to stop the smell from invading my sinuses, but to no avail.

"It's the tarp we have back there. It's new so the smell hasn't worn off yet. Don't even think about laying on it."

That was it! The tarp!

Without thinking, I launched forward and waited until the guards in the backseat stood up. Luck was on my side because they all unhinged a syringe full of what I could only assume was tranquilliser liquid or something similar. When they leaned forwards to attack me with the syringes, I moved and pushed one with my leg, causing her to stumble and trip into her coworker. I don't know if I was simply by instinct or not, but they pressed the top of the syringe and effectively neutralised each other. The same thing happened with the other two. One would think that knocking out two different rounds of guards in the exact same way would be impossible, right? Not for me.

I felt like a fucking superhero.

Augustus was in the front seat cussing and trying to figure out what to do, but I was busy trying to slam my wrists over my knee hard enough to break the zip ties they had to clumsily tied me up with. I knew about a hundred different ways to get out of zip ties, that shit wouldn't hold me.

Once the ties around my hands were broken, I quickly began to work on the ones around my ankles. If education served me, I only had about half a minute to break my ankle bonds, pick up the tarp, and take the steering wheel. The tarp was heavier than expected, but with enough willpower, I managed to drag it over to the drivers seat and throw it over Augustus, who immediately let go of the steering wheel, cuasing the entire van to start zig zagging in the road.

"Freedom!" I yelled again, trying to push him out of the driver's seat and into the back with the others. Yes, somehow, I did manage to pull him out and push him to the floor, but the way his neck landed and he stopped moving? "I think I might have killed him…" Yikes, my dad was going to kill me… oh well! Tis the price! Now all I had to do was figure out what to do with the two other vans. "Here we go."