Chapter 161 – The Crucial Detail – Ellie Daniels

The banging sensation inside my head felt like something was trying to crawl out of it. My vision was blurry, and my sense of orientation was in complete disarray. The resulting combination gave me a severe headache. My head was swimming in pain as I tried to pull myself upright.

There was barely enough wiggle space for me to move around. The constraints to my movement helped me recall my situation. The kidnapper’s vehicle crashed into a ditch, leaving everyone reeling in pain. The vehicles interior was dark. Everyone else inside the vehicle was more or less in the same condition that I was.

This was my chance to escape!

There was light coming from only one side of the vehicle. I crawled for the door on that side. I had to crawl over one of the kidnappers just to reach the door handle. He groaned and pain as I stepped over him to reach the door. The door wouldn’t open all the way. It was only enough for me to pull myself out onto the grass.

I tried standing up from there but cringed back down to the ground in pain the moment I took my first step. It was my right leg. My leg felt like something was twisted or torn out of place. Not only that, but I had nicks and bruises all across my body. I had to pull a couple of pieces of shattered glass out of my arm.

The bruises weren’t causing me all that much pain. Most of my pain came from my leg and my raging headache. I must’ve hit my head really hard to feel this way. There were momentary flashes of darkness in my vision as I tried standing up again.

I felt like I could collapse at any moment.

I couldn’t let that happen. I needed to put some distance between me and my attackers. I turned back to the vehicle to see that one of them was trying to crawl out of the door I opened. He was bleeding out of one of his ears, but still cognizant enough to give me an angry look.

After all, I was the one that caused the crash. He tried to get up after pulling himself out of the car. He fell back down, similar to the way I did just moments ago. I had to escape! I turned away from him and limped across the road. There was a large, unmarked commercial building near the crash site.

I ran inside to hopefully get help from someone that worked at this place. Unfortunately, there was no one around. Either this facility was closed today, or the workers were busy elsewhere. The building was a commercial storage warehouse with crates and boxes stacked several feet high.

There was a good chance that the kidnappers would follow me inside. I needed to make the most out of my surroundings. I limped into the maze of boxes to find a place to hide. The stacks of boxes were taller than me and poorly arranged. This would at least give me some breathing space to call for help.

I pulled out my cellphone and began dialing for help. My signal inside this building was low, but I still had enough reception to get through to someone.

“Hello, this is 911. What’s your emergency?”

“Hi, I’m a student from Cherry Vale Public High School. I was abducted by a group of four men in a black SUV. I managed to escape when the vehicle crashed, but they’re not far behind me. I need help.”

“Can you describe where you are?”

“Not exactly, I don’t know this exact road. They drove around for a bit before the car crashed. I’m hiding inside a storage building.” I said. “I’m able to describe where and when I was kidnapped. It’s along a marathon route that my school is participating in.”

“Please describe it to the best of your ability. We’ll start by dispatching some cars that way and searching for your current position.”

Fortunately, I already knew how to describe the kidnapping location. It was in the same place that I described to Holly earlier. I also knew the time that the abduction attempt happened for the same reason. It probably wouldn’t be hard to extrapolate from there to narrow the search area.

“I’m writing all this down. Hang on a moment please…” The speaker on the other end said. “I’m being told just now that we received another call from someone named Opal from Cherry Vale Public High School. She says that a girl named ‘Suzy’ reached out to her about a kidnapping.”

“Yes! Yes! Those are two of my friends! Suzy managed to escape when I was abducted.”

“Okay, good to know. Multiple police cars are already heading in that direction. Please try to find somewhere to hide while-…”

The phone was flung from my hands as one of the kidnappers yanked me by the arm. He immediately threw me into a stack of nearby boxes, causing some of them to fall backwards. I was already in so much pain that the impact caused me to shout in a high-pitched voice.

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I turned to reach for my phone, but the kidnapper got it first. The screen was cracked, but not damaged enough to hide the caller ID. He could see that I was on the phone with the local police. His face twisted in anger. He threw the phone across the massive warehouse. I heard it crash in the distance.

“All of this for a ransom…!” He said angrily. “This was too much trouble! And you’re going to regret it! The police won’t make it here in time to save you!”

I tried to stand up, but my leg pain made hasty movements impossible. The kidnapper hoisted me up by the collar of my jersey and pulled a switchblade out of his pocket. The moment I saw it I tried to fight it out of his grip. He was so much larger that I couldn’t overpower him. That’s why I went for his eyes instead.

My nails were long enough to give him a nasty swipe across the face. I scratched him hard enough across the face to draw blood. He momentarily reeled back in pain, dropping his knife in the process. He reflexively held his bleeding face with one hand.

“That hurt! You bitch!” He shouted in anguish.

I tried to use this moment to run, but again my leg was slowing me down. He caught up with me in short order. This time there wasn’t much I could do when he put his hands around my neck. I tried scratching his face again, but he held me out at a distance. I dug my nails into his wrists, but it wasn’t enough to loosen his grip.

I couldn’t draw in another breath as he squeezed my neck tighter and tighter. Eventually my desperate attempts to scratch him got weaker and weaker. Was this it? Was this the end? I felt like the life was draining out of me and that there was nothing I could do. My struggling subsided as my vision began to fade out.

Suddenly his hold on me loosened.

The look on his face was one of great shock and disbelief. As he let go of me I dropped to the ground and finally managed to draw in a painful breath of fresh air. I was panting on all fours and soon found the kidnapper was doing the same. It was only then that I saw his own switchblade sticking out of his back.

“Holly!” I shouted when I saw her standing from just behind him. “You saved me!”

Holly gave me a cursory look over, but didn’t say anything in response. Her eyes were fixated on the kidnapper trying to pull the knife out of his back. Holly kneeled down to pull it out for him. He collapsed against the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

The kidnapper rolled on the ground to try reaching for Holly. He managed to grab Holly by the collar, but that didn’t end well for him. This time Holly went for his neck. The man tried to shout, but the attempt was drowned out as he gurgled up blood. Holly stabbed him not once, not twice, but dozens of times.

I was completely frozen in shock as Holly pulled the switchblade in and out of the man’s throat again and again. She started shouting as she stabbed him harder and harder. I had to grab her and pull her away from the man when I realized that she wasn’t going to stop.

“Holly! Holly! Stop! He’s dead! I’m safe! We’re safe!”

Holly dropped the switchblade to turn around and tearfully embrace me. I gladly hugged her back.

“I’m so glad that I made it in time!” She cried. “I’m so glad…!”

We embraced each other while sitting on the floor. I couldn’t help but to get emotional alongside Holly. This was a dangerously close call, and so sudden. The kidnappers set up this trap on the day of our marathon and were specifically targeting Opal. This wasn’t a spur of the moment attack.

I pulled away from Holly.

“Did you see any of the other kidnappers when you came in?”

“No.” Holly said. “I just saw a masked man run in here from a distance. I came in through the side entrance over there near the front.”

“Then the other kidnappers are probably still recovering. We’ll have to hide. I’m pretty sure they’d have no qualms about kidnapping us both, going by what I heard.”

“What do you mean?”

“I overheard them talking… They planned to kidnap Opal, not me. They had a picture of us and specifically planned this on the day of our school run.”

“What?”

“Opal’s parents both have high paying jobs. They wanted to ransom her. The kidnappers messed up and went after me and Suzy instead. They didn’t know that Opal wouldn’t be running today.”

Holly shuddered in distaste.

“Then that means they’ve been watching us all along!” Holly said angrily. “I can’t believe this…! How did I never notice something like this?”

“Don’t blame yourself for not realizing. No one could’ve known that this would happen.”

“You’re right, but…”

Holly stopped talking in order to push me out of the way of an incoming attack. Another one of the kidnappers tried to kick us while we were still on the ground. Holly couldn’t dodge the attack after saving me. She was knocked backwards but recovered quickly.

The kidnapper tried to kick her again but was too slow. Holly took the switchblade off the ground and plunged it into the man’s other ankle. He screamed in pain and fell onto his back. Holly leapt onto his chest before he could get back up. She stabbed him at the center of his neck and brutally cut her way through. Blood poured freely out of his throat and pooled on the floor around him.

The warehouse door opened loudly.

“What was that? Did they run inside here?” A man shouted.

“Didn’t you hear that yelling?! The girl must’ve escaped!”

“How were they not able to handle one little girl?!”

“Let’s look for them! Split up and search these boxes! You start from that side! I’ll start from this side! Tell me if you see the guys or that girl!”

“What should we do with the girl?”

“Forget ransoming her! Just finish her off the moment you find her! We need to get the guys and get out of here before someone sees the wreck and starts asking questions!”

I turned to face Holly.

“It’s the other two kidnappers!” I whispered. “They’re looking for me!”

Holly pulled her switch blade out of the man’s neck.

“They’re looking for you alone. They have no clue that I’m here.” Holly whispered. “We can use this to our advantage.”

“Shouldn’t we hide?”

“I don’t see any other way out of here from this side of the building. They could easily box us in. That’s probably why they split up. We have no choice but to fight.”

Holly’s eyes were practically burning with ferocity. It was normal for her to get worked up during a track race, but nothing like this. The raging spirit behind those eyes was on an entirely different level. The warehouse windows were high. Holly’s eyes appeared to glow in their reflected light.

“I don’t think I can... I... I’m weak.”

“I’ve got your back. Just stay near the wall.” She whispered. “I’ll be right behind you.”