This is the longest I’ve gone without my phone. No scrolling social media or internet shopping or anything. Life in a cage or prison cell is about as boring as you’d imagine. Especially if not much is happening. And while being kept in captivity is all sortsof messed up, he’s not actually hurting me. The mattress and cushions are quite comfortable. Even the décor is nice. Though if I wind up dead and buried in his backyard, the joke will be on me for letting my guard down for even a second.
Someone must have noticed me missing by now. Surely. Dean might have the logistics of kidnapping me covered, but he can’t control everything. I had an online meeting scheduled with my boss this morning. Work could have noticed my absence and called the relevant authorities. For all I know, detectives are on their way here right now. However, I highly doubt it. My boss, Kate, is related to someone in upper management. She’s likely to have forgotten about the meeting and gone to breakfast with her boyfriend. Insert heavy sigh here.
From my way of thinking, the best chance of getting out from behind these bars is by making Dean think we’re friends. Just because my social skills suck in real-life situations doesn’t mean I can’t fake it upon this occasion. It will be fine. I can absolutely do this.
“How about you give me my phone for five minutes,” I ask. “I don’t think you understand the stakes here. If I lose my streak on Wordle, I’ll never forgive you.”
It earns me a short laugh. But my captor doesn’t deign to reply.
“What happens if you trip on the stairs and fall and break your neck or something, and I’m left alone in this cage to die a slow and painful death of starvation because no one knows I’m down here, and years from now someone discovers our desiccated bodies?”
He looks at me over the rim of his cup of coffee.
I shrug. “It could happen.”
“There’s an email scheduled to go out each day alerting the local police and other assorted emergency services, and acouple of other places I thought might be useful, as to your whereabouts.”
“You stop it from sending.”
“That’s right,” he says.
“Are they looking for me yet?”
“No. Not that I’ve noticed. But with everything going on and so many people off sick, I’d be surprised if the police had time to knock on doors for a missing person right now. And you’ve also only been gone for fourteen hours.”
“It feels longer than that.”
He grunts in response. Like a Neanderthal.
The TV is on, though muted, with captioning along the bottom of the screen. As the day progresses, the tone of reports seems to be shifting. Things seem distinctly more dire. Like the government is losing control of the narrative. Now they show how hospitals are struggling to keep up. Morgues and funeral homes are overwhelmed by the sheer number of deceased. The woman from the World Health Organization pauses her speech on current recommendations for how best to keep yourself safe to have a coughing fit on air.
My parents must be so scared. Dean can’t be right about the world ending. He just can’t be. I refuse to believe we’re on the brink of societal collapse and most everyone I have ever met is going to die this week, or is in the process of dying. The very thought is like worms in my brain.
“What do you normally do?” I pace back and forth. “When you’re not seeing to the caging, feeding, and care of the modern woman?”
This time his grunt is one of mirth. I have amused him again. Go, me.
“I work as a contractor,” he says. “What about you?”
“Online customer service. How old are you?”
“Forty-two.” He finishes wrapping tape around his hands and starts hitting the speed bag. A move that shows the muscles in his arms. “You?”
“Thirty-three. Are you trying to impress me with the boxing display?”
“That depends. Are you impressed?”
“No.”
He just smiles.
There’s a small chance that byfriendsI actually meantfrenemies. It would seem my acting skills are insufficient for anything else.
I wondered what was going on when he reappeared after breakfast having changed out of last night’s abduction outfit (jeans and a tee) into a different tee, a pair of sweatpants, and some jogging shoes. Perchance he would go running, giving me time to make a daring escape. I would have somehow grown the strength to bend iron bars and liberate myself. Just gone Godzilla on the cage. It would have been so great.
I never did like zoos as a child. All of the watching wild animals pace back and forth behind the bars. Having now been on the receiving end of just such a situation, I can confirm it is complete and utter bullshit. Zero stars. Do not recommend. Big jungle cats mauling their keepers makes so much more sense to me now. I am surprised it doesn’t happen more often.
“Did you grow up around here?” I ask, resting my arms on the bars.
