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

I rolled my eyes. “Oh sure, she’s in my age group. You two decide suddenly that you need money and the first thing that comes to mind is, “Let’s go kidnap Rocky Nelson!”

Maya arched an eyebrow. “Well maybe if you didn’t broadcast to the world that you would be putting on a concert without any parental supervision and made yourself so freaking easy to catch, we would’ve chosen something different.”

Ouch. She had me there. That was pretty stupid on my part. I was never taking bodyguards for granted again. I huffed in annoyance and decided not to push my luck.

Nani appeared a second later, knocking twice on the window in the front. Maya nodded and turned back to me. “Maybe this time I won’t have to shoot somebody to save your $5,000 ass,” she said snarkily.

My eyebrows shot up. Five thousand dollars? That’s it? Maybe that was the usual price for a normal person but, hello, I’m a celebrity. That little of a ransom told me they weren’t greedy— they actually needed the money.

Maya seemed to realize she’d said something wrong and sighed. “Try not to run this time, okay?” she said. “I want you out of here as much as you do.”

“I highly doubt that,” I muttered. Maya lifted up the gun— not threatening this time, just annoyed. I shut up anyways. She could always just pistol whip me or something.

To my surprise, she uncuffed my hands. As I rubbed my chafed wrists she glared at me. “Don’t yell for help,” she warned. “Don’t run. Don’t do anything except go inside, got it?”

“You’re the one with the gun,” I told her.

She didn’t seem amused by my attempt at humor. The door slid open and Maya pushed me out onto the street. The storm had passed over and the sky was broken out in purple and pinks and yellows as the sun set over the ocean in front of me. Instead of being in an abandoned town, like before, there were now rows and rows of boathouses lining the beaches and the docks. Cars rolled lazily down the street on my right. I stared longingly at them, wondering if, maybe if they saw me, they’d recognize me and take me home. The hope was short lived as Maya shoved me towards the boathouse in front of us.

This building was more like a cabin than a boathouse. There wasn’t any boat, I noted as we got inside, just an opening where water lapped at the bottom of the cover that had been put over top of it. The cover was sturdy enough that Nani was standing on top of it with her arms crossed, chair in hand. I groaned aloud.

“Sorry,” Nani told me, but she was grinning like she was enjoying this. I scowled at her and sat in the chair as Maya passed her sister the cuffs and she fastened them around my wrists.

Maya looked at her watch, which I noticed was dark blue and white and looked kind of cheap. “They probably found that kid by now,” she said. “Which means they have the necklace and it’ll make its way to your parents soon.” She looked at Nani. “How much do you think?”

“Two hours,” she said.

I looked back and forth between, completely lost. Maya put her hands on her hips, thinking about that.

“Alright,” she said finally. “It’s almost eight now, but I know he’s hungry.”

“Could we not talk about the rock star like he isn't here?” I butted in, annoyed.

Maya gave me a scowl. “Hope you like McDonald’s.”

My stomach churned at the mere mention of that nasty, greasy, icky place. I don’t usually get queasy from fast food restaurants but McDonalds was an exception. So, no, I didn’t particularly like the place, but Maya was already out the door before I could protest.

An hour and a half passed before she came back. I was falling asleep in my chair, except every time my chin hit my chest a loud, curling growl erupted from my stomach and then I was reminded of how freaking hungry I was. I estimated that I hadn’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours, and it was killing me. People actually went weeks on end without eating, using only water to survive? I wasn’t even going to last in the next hour. At the moment, I’d be glad for any food. I would eat McDonald’s without a complaint. Just as long as I got some food into my stomach as soon as Crazy walked in the door.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the way it worked. Maya did walk through the door with two bags, alright— but she had a plastic cell phone and a piece of paper in her other hand, as well as the wafting scent of stomach rebellion, in the guise of chicken nuggets and french fries. She set one of the bags down and immediately Nani dug in. She looked about as hungry as I was. Maya came up to me with the second bag and the cell phone and piece of paper and knelt before me. She pulled out a carton of chicken nuggets, and then held up the cell phone.

“You do one thing for me, and then you can eat.”

I stared at her incredulously. Do one thing for her? She was a psychopathic trigger-happy kidnapper chick. I didn’t exactly have a choice, did I? “What do I have to do?”

“You’re going to call your parents—”

“Dad,” I interrupted, getting tired of that. She arched an eyebrow at me and I flushed, looking away. “It’s just my dad.”

"Alright," she agreed. "We're going to call your dad. I want you to say everything, and I mean everything, on this paper. And then if you're a good boy, I'll let you talk with him. Only specific answers, of course."

I scowled at the 'good boy' comment. "And if I don't?"

She sat back and pulled a knife from out of nowhere, using it to feign filing her nails. "Then you won't eat," she said, shrugging like it was no big deal. "And I can take these, and the rest of the food, and eat them, since I don't want them to waste. Oh, and I'll make sure you won't eat until this entire this is over." Maya leaned forward and smiled a little bit, like she was enjoying the show she was putting on. "However long that takes."

I swallowed. Somehow I felt like her threatening to shoot me was better than her threatening to starve me. I nodded slowly, sighing. "His number is 213-723-9973."

She dialed the number and tucked the phone between my ear and my shoulder, holding up the piece of paper. I swallowed again, hearing the phone ring. I knew Dad probably had the cops over, and they would probably be listening in on every word. Were Shane and Blake there? I really didn't want to think about how they were taking this. They probably thought I was dead.

"Hello?"

My heart stopped. Just for a second, I felt like it lodged in my stomach and dropped, taking both to my toes and back up again. "Dad?"

"Rocky?!"

His voice sounded both relieved and disbelieving. "You scared the hell out of me! Where are you? Are you okay? What happened?"

Maya pointed to the first word on the page and I nodded, swallowing to clear my throat. "They want five thousand dolars. You have until six PM tomorrow to get the money. Bring it in unmarked bills to the beach by Bixby Park."

The next sentence made my mouth go dry. I looked at Maya, who nodded.

"Rocky? You still there?"

I swallowed hard and tried to speak through the sudden lump in my throat. "Have Blake and Shane bring the money. No one else." I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but gave up on the third try. "If they see any cops, Feds, or anyone else, they will shoot me, and you... you will never find my body."

The sharp intake of breath I heard made me feel miserable. Maya nodded at me, mouthing, "Say you're alright."

"I'm okay, Dad," I blurted, choking on my words. "I mean, they haven't hurt me yet."

"Okay, Rocky, it's alright to be scared. We're going to find you, I promise."

I didn't doubt the promise. Before I could answer, Maya took the phone from my shoulder and turned it off. Then she ran outside. Through the window I could see her dropping the phone into the ocean.

“Sorry,” she said when she came back in. She sounded like she meant it, too. “But they can’t hear my voice.”

“I understand.” My voice was hollow.

The silence stretched a bit until she knelt down and grabbed the bag. “Hungry?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

I frowned and awkwardly jerked against the handcuffs. “How am I supposed to eat tied up like this?”

“Simple,” she said, a bit too bright for my taste. “I feed you.”

I stared at her, trying to figure out if she was joking or not. I should’ve known better. This chick didn’t joke. As Maya lifted the piece of meat to my mouth, I turned my head away, pressing my lips into a firm line and staring at the far wall of the boathouse.

Maya growled. “Don’t be such a baby. Eat.”

“I’m not being spoonfed,” I snapped. “It’s humiliating.”

“Well, you’ve shown us what you can do with your hands free,” she said, raising her eyebrows at me like she wanted me to argue. “I’m not taking that chance again. You can either eat, or you can you can not eat. Personally, I could care less. It’s your choice if you want to starve to death.”

I glowered at her, and then back to the chicken she held in her fingers. As if on cue, my stomach growled again, louder this time. It kind of hurt. I sighed. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. If I was going to get out of this,