Oops - CinderScoria (the best books to read .TXT) 📗

/> The man blinked slowly into the darkness of the hotel bedroom he was currently staying in. “I assume you aren’t calling me at this hour to reprimand me for my lack of television use.”

There was a dry chuckle on the other end. “True enough. The girls. The boss thinks they’ve resurfaced.”

That got his attention fast. The man sat up, wide awake now. “Is he sure this time?”

“Positive. Turn on the news and you’ll know why.”

It only took a couple of seconds for the man to grab the remote and turn on the TV, switching to the local news station. A puzzled frown sat on his lips. “I don’t know. This seems a little upscale for two teenagers to pull off.”

“They’re that good,” the voice on the other end said. “That’s why he’s so sure— those girls are the only ones smart enough and ambitious enough to succeed.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Use the boy, this… Rocky Nelson. Find him and you find the girls. The boss wants them dead and the keys retrieved.”

“Understood.”

The voice on the other line hung up, and the man was left to stare at the television screen, where still shots of three teenage celebrities flashed repeatedly, the anchorwoman’s voice full of false panic and sympathy. A slow smile spread across his face.

This could be fun.
Chapter One

Once, when I was thirteen, a bunch of girls raided the boys locker room, grabbed the few of us guys that were in here, and tied us to trees. They took pictures, but that was the most harm done. We even sat down with the girls and laughed about it afterwards, getting our revenge by pelting them with water balloons. That’s probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to being kidnapped.

This was nothing like that.

I woke up abruptly, enough to make me smack the back of my head against something metal. My ears still rang from the feedback burst. Everything was disorienting and confusing, so I didn’t realize I couldn’t see at first. Then, once I got my bearings, I realized there was a cloth around my eyes.

A blindfold? I tried to reach up to take it off and discovered my wrists were handcuffed behind me. My heart rate sped up, and that’s about when I realized that whatever situation I’d gotten myself into, it could be dangerous.

Voices drifted in, assaulting my ears. It appeared to be two people— two women—

arguing. I lay still and tried to listen for words that would tell me what happened, but they were foggy, as if I couldn’t focus on the individual voices. Then, I realized with a shock that whoever was arguing was talking rapid Spanish.

“What—?” The word slipped from my mouth before I had a chance to think about what I was doing. Immediately the voices stopped, and there was a deafening silence as I waited for something to happen. Fingers closed around the blindfold and yanked it off my head.

“Ow!” I whined, blinking in the sudden light. It took me a second to focus on the girl in front of me— she had her faced pressed up so close to mine our noses were almost touching. “Whoa! Lady, space!”

She back up, and I saw her for the first time. She couldn’t have been much older than me, with copper skin and sleek black ringlets resting on her shoulders for hair. I caught a glimpse of annoyed, dark brown eyes, like crystallized chocolate, as she finally came to rest on her heels. The girl didn’t say anything, just stared until I shifted uncomfortably, looking around whatever they were keeping me in just to avoid those chocolate crystals.

It looked like the back of a van, but it must’ve been in park mode because it definitely wasn’t moving. The walls were bare and metallic, so, definitely a van. No windows except for the windshield and the side windows on the driver and passenger sides. I got my first look at the driver of the van, and then I got a real shock. It was another girl, except she was young— young like, Blake young. She was avoiding my eyes but the energy coming off of her was a lot less hostile than the girl in front of me. They were both Hispanic. But the younger girl’s hair was a lighter red-brown, although it was still dark. I assumed they were sisters, or at least related.

“So, are you fans or something?” I ventured. “Because if you wanted an autograph, all you had to do was ask.”

My voice cracked a little bit, betraying just how freaked I was about this whole situation. I had a feeling that the girls weren’t fans, which was then confirmed when the older one pulled out the unmistakable sleek form of a gun. She stopped me from scrambling into the side of the van by placing the barrel right up to the center of my forehead, execution-style. My limbs seized up and I froze, despite every nerve of my body screaming at me to move and get out of the path of the crazy homicidal kidnapper chick.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Pure, blank, white terror coursed through me, and I didn’t even know what to think, no last thoughts or words to remember me by… not that anybody would catch those last thoughts or words. I just cringed against the chilled metal of the gun, waiting for the bullet that would tear apart my skull and send me off to see my mom again.

But it never came. A good ten seconds passed before I cautiously opened my eyes again and the girl was half-glaring at me, but I could see the tiniest hint of amusement in her face. The gun was still pressed my forehead, and she kept it there until a couple more seconds had passed. Then she said, “Shut up,” and put the gun away.

The girl up front said something in Spanish, and Crazy Chick answered. Unfortunately, I couldn’t decipher what was being said— not that I’d be able to concentrate after what’d almost happened anyways— because I’d taken sign language in high school instead of the cliché Spanish everybody else took. The conversation continued like I wasn’t even there, but it wasn’t until Crazy Chick had moved up to talk to her sister or whoever she was when my body finally went limp. I had the strongest urge to cry, or have a hysterical fit, but I forced back the scream rising in my throat and tried to think through exactly what had just happened. Crazy Chick was just messing with me with the gun, but I got the feeling that she would actually shoot me if I tried anything. That was fine by me— I didn’t know how many scares it would take to send me into cardiac arrest, but one was definitely enough.

Another wave of panic surged through me. I’d been kidnapped by Spanish-speaking teenagers who definitely weren’t fans. Blake and Shane—with any luck I was the only one being held hostage and my brothers were safe, but who knew? Maybe they were terrorists sent by aliens to try to break our spirits and just wanted me to think that they were okay. Hell, what did I know? I’d been kidnapped by psycho chicks!

I took another deep breath. I was starting to freak out, and that wasn’t an option right now. Right now, I had to figure out how I was going to get out of this mess. The younger girl put the van in gear and started to back the car out, while the older girl turned back to me.

“Shut up,” she said again when I opened my mouth. I shut it with quiet annoyance. Shutting up was something I wasn’t exactly used to. Not to brag, but I was used to people hanging on my every word. I tried not to take it personally, though. She wanted me to shut up, fine.

Ten minutes later I had to press my lips together tightly to keep from saying anything. The panic had ebbed a bit, and now I was desperately curious, questions on the tip of my tongue and wild, wild theories running through my head. But Crazy Chick was staring at me again with that creepy intense look on her face. She barely blinked the entire time we’d been in the van, so I kept my eyes on my lap as I sat Indian-style, leaning against the metallic wall of the van. The younger kidnapper put the van in park and turned it off, looking at Crazy Chick. The girl jerked her head once towards the door and the driver opened it and hopped out. The door had barely closed when Crazy Chick turned back towards me and pulled out that nasty gun again.

“Out,” she said, motioning with the gun at the sliding door of the van.

I blinked at her. A thousand smart-aleck comments came to mind but I bit them back. Pissing off the crazy kidnapper was probably not the best idea. “I can’t,” I told her honestly.

A perfect eyebrow arched and disappeared into the girl’s long bangs. “Pretty sure you can.

Get out.”

Look at that, she could speak more than two words at a time. A small twinge of a Spanish accent hinted in her voice, which probably would’ve been sexy if she wasn’t holding a gun in my face and threatening my life with it.


I jingled my cuffs from behind my back and gave her a pointed look. Her eyes rolled and she reached around me and grabbed a hold of the chain between my wrists, jerking it and turning me around forcefully. I yelped and crashed backwards, almost landing in her lap, except she was already up and moving, grabbing the handle of the door and sliding it open. Then she grabbed my shoulder and hoisted me up and