One Good Reason (3 page)

Ava
kicked and screamed as she watched her friend hit the ground hard. Without a
second thought, Ava threw her bag to Olivia and screamed at her, “Run! Run,
Olivia!”

Olivia
caught the bag and instead of running away, she jumped up off the ground
screaming and running for the van, but it was too late. Ava was pulled inside
the van, the doors closing quickly behind her, leaving her with the piercing
sound of Olivia’s cries as the van went speeding off.

“Get
off me!” Ava screamed, as she threw her arms in the air and kicked her legs.

The
masked men were strong and held her down, her antics having no effect on them,
but she wouldn’t give up.

“Let
me go!” she screamed again. The grips on her arms became tighter and she felt a
cloth cover her face with a strong, sweet smelling scent that she recognized,
as her eyes became heavy with darkness. Chloroform.

3 HEARTLESS

Ava held her best friend’s hand as they swung
side by side on the swing seat. They both looked out at the playground,
watching the sun sink lower and lower into the ground, making pretty colours in
the sky.

“Olivia?”

“Yeah.”

“Mummy
said your parents are dead,” Ava said, still holding Olivia’s hand tightly.

“Yeah.
Grams said they died when I was a baby.”

“Do
you remember them?”

“No,”
Olivia sadly replied.

“But
how do you know what they look like?”

“Gram
shows me pictures. I keep one next to my night light.”

“Do
you think they went to heaven?”

“Yeah.
Gram says they watch over me every day, protecting me.”

Ava
thought about this. “Do you get sad?”

Olivia
replied, “Sometimes. But I know they didn’t mean to leave me. It just happened.”

Ava
turned her head to her friend. “I’ll never leave you. We are best friends.”

Olivia
smiled back at her. “Forever and ever.”

Ava
felt her body shake, her dreams trailing away as she felt her body jolt again.
She slowly started to open her eyes, but all that she could see was darkness.
She tried to move her hands, but could only feel the burning rubbing of the
rope that bound her wrists behind her back, and then it all came back. The men
in ski masks, Olivia being thrown to the ground, being dragged into the van,
and then darkness.

No,
no, no. This can’t be happening This can’t be real… I’ve been… kidnapped
, she thought to herself.

She
clenched her mouth tightly to stop an escaping sob. Her worst nightmare had
come true. How could this happen? Why? Why now?

Her
body jolted again. She must have still been in the van and they were driving
somewhere off-road. She tried to move her legs, but they were also bound at the
ankles. She was barefoot, her sandals gone. She could feel her light cotton
dress still on and covering down to her knees, which gave her a brief sense of
relief.

She
tried to focus on the sounds around her. The sound of the van. The tires moving
on a gravel-like road. She heard the men’s voices, they were quiet, but still
loud enough so she could hear them, not that it helped, as she recognized they
were speaking Thai. The only words she knew in Thai were hello and goodbye.

Ava
closed her eyes tightly, trying to stop the tears that were starting to fall.

It’s
a dream. It has to be a dream. I’ll wake up and it will all be over. Please
wake up!
Ava
thought.
Please! Please! Please!

But
she didn’t wake from a dream. This was real.

God,
I hope Olivia is safe
,
she thought to herself.

Without
thinking, she’d thrown her bag to Olivia. Olivia had no living parents, with
her grandparents raising her when she was a child. She worked nights to help
pay for university and if there was a way to get out of this with money, it had
to be Ava’s. Olivia had knowledge of all of Ava’s bank details, so she knew she
could access them to help her, but most of all, she could use those funds to
find a way for Olivia to get home if the worst was to happen. Which in this
case, it did. 

The
bag would have been useless to her now anyway. Her kidnappers would have taken
her money, her passport, bankcards, and the key to the hotel room. They would
have been able to track Olivia and possibly even kidnap her as well. Ava
couldn’t let that happen to Olivia, not her best friend. Ava wouldn’t let her
be thrown into this nightmare. A nightmare Ava had no idea how she could
escape.

Ava
tried her hardest not to cry. Not to feel so helpless, but she couldn’t. She’d
just been kidnapped in a foreign country. They could take her across the
country or only a few kilometres from Phuket and she would have no idea. How
was she going to survive this? What would they do to her?

Would
they…?
She tried
not to think about it.

She
knew nothing. The only way out of this would be if she were smart about it. She
had to find out what they wanted, why her, and how she was going to get home.

She
stilled her tears, knowing they weren’t going to help. She tried to move her
wrists again to see how tightly they were bound, but to her disappointment, she
could barely even twist them, as they seemed to be attached to a pole of some
kind, keeping her in place.

Just
as she was about to test the rope that bound her ankles, the van beeped its
horn loudly. Ava’s body jolted at the sound.

One
of the Thai men yelled something, and then the van began to slow until it came
to a complete stop. Ava’s heart pounded as she listened to the man turn the van
off and the doors open and close.

Silence.

Think,
Ava, think!

The
men, as far as she knew, didn’t know she was awake. If somehow she could catch
them off guard and make a run for it… She’d have to act asleep and hope they
removed the bag over her head or untie her. It was worth a shot, she had
nothing else to lose. She didn’t know where they could be taking her. If it was
a jail cell of some kind, she would have a next to nothing chance of escaping.

She
took a deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating on getting her breathing
to steady. She had to appear to be sleeping.

A
few short seconds later, the doors on the back of the van opened. Ava’s first
instinct was fear, and her breathing accelerated, but she focused on it.

Breathe
in. Breathe out.

Her
eyes stayed closed as the bag on her head was removed. She did her best not to
let her eyes squint in reaction. She could tell it was no longer daylight, as
there were no hot rays burning into her eyelids when exposed from the inside of
the van.

She
felt the arms of someone move behind her, their hands untying the ties holding
her wrists against the pole. Then the same person wrapped one arm under her
knees and the other behind her shoulders, lifting her into his arms.

She
laid still in her capturer’s arms, careful not to make any movements that might
make them aware she was awake.

Her
body jolted against the man’s chest with each step he took. Her ankles and
wrists were still bound. The man was large, his arms holding her tightly
against her. Her hope for escape was fading. Even if she managed to escape from
his arms, there was no way she could run or even crawl away quickly enough. All
hope seemed to be lost, but then the man holding her spoke.

“Why
is she still out of it? She should have woken up by now.”

Ava’s
eyes popped open, as she stared up at the man holding her who just spoke in a
perfect Aussie accent. Without thinking, she quickly wiggled her body, yelling
at the top of her lungs. “You’ve saved me?”

The
man looked down at her, startled by her. His light blue eyes stared at her in
curiosity.  Then he simply looked back up as he carried her up the stairs,
ignoring her question.

Ava
looked around to see several other men, all of Thai origin, standing on the
deck of a very old traditional Thai home, and holding large rifles in their
hands. Although it was dark, the small lanterns lit on the outside of the house
made it easier for Ava to see the men and the house.

She
started shaking her body, trying to get herself out of his grasp, but he only
held her tighter.

“Please
let me go! Please! I’ll do anything you want!” she screamed.

“Yes,
you will,” the man replied, kicking the front door to the house and leading her
down the hall into one of the bedrooms. But it wasn’t like a bedroom she was
used to seeing, it was
bare with
no furniture. The
walls were white, and almost like new. It was dark, the only light coming in
from the doorway, as there was no window. There was no floor either, only dirt.
The only object in the room was a small brown sheet on the ground.  

The
man carried her to the sheet and laid her down. He had a strong build, a body
that required many hours of working out. He wore a white plain t-shirt and
full-length khaki pants with boots. He had short shaven hair and his skin a
dark brown.

He
crouched down next to her, she watched him slowly and cautiously. Then he reached
his hand behind her waist. Her reaction was instant.

She
curled her body into a ball and tears streamed down her face as she pleaded
with the man. “Please no, please no. Don’t do this.”

She’d
been kidnapped. Taken to an old house in the forest, guarded by men with guns.
And now, she was in a room about to be…

“Stop,”
the man commanded.

She
stopped and looked up at him, still sniffing.

He
turned her onto her side, her eyes still focused on his, as he did something
she didn’t expect. He undid the ties on her wrists and then he moved to her
ankles and did the same.

Just
as she was about to speak, thinking this act of kindness meant something more,
he stood and walked to the door, and then turned back at her.

“You
will stay in here until you give me the information I need. If you need to go
to the bathroom, you ask the men outside your room and they will take you.
There will always be someone guarding your room at all times, armed heavily. Do
not attempt to escape. These men know little English, and will not help you.
They are violent criminals who do not intend to help you, no matter what you
try to bargain them with. You will be provided food and water, but only if you
behave yourself, and believe me when I say this to you. If you misbehave in
anyway, or do not give me what I need, you will be punished… to the full extent
possible,” he said sternly.

He
opened the door and walked out, locking it behind him, turning the room into
complete darkness.

She
screamed and ran after him, tripping on the uneven ground. “What information?
What do you want from me? Come back! There’s been a misunderstanding!”

She
hit the wall with her hands and walked along it, feeling it with her hands
until she felt the texture of the wooden door, and then banged her fists loudly
on it, screaming and pleading for help, but nobody came. She was alone. Alone
in her own nightmare.

***

Hayden
pushed the front door open and slammed it, the screams of the girl in the room
he just left trailing behind him.

“What
the hell is going on?” he demanded as he marched up to the tall Thai man,
Aun
, leaning up against the van.

“What
you mean?”
Aun
responded.

“This
can’t have been the hostage you were meant to get,” Hayden growled at the man,
pissed off at the situation he’d been put in.

Aun
straightened up and looked down at Hayden.

“This
is the girl.
Gan
confirmed it before we took her.”

Hayden
clenched his teeth. “I’m meant to somehow believe that, that woman in there, is
a threat to national security and has information on
Thanakorn’s
whereabouts?”

Aun
lifted his cigarette to his mouth and took a
drag. Blowing the smoke in Hayden’s face, he responded, “It is not my place or
yours to ask questions. The girl was confirmed as the one to take.”

He
was right. He had no right to ask questions. He had a job to do. He’d done this
a hundred times with terrorists, but somehow this girl was different. She
wasn’t the usual type. She seemed vulnerable and frightened…

“
Gan
said she worked closely with
Thanakorn
.
She knows everything about him. Maybe she is just a very good actress.”

“Good
actress alright,” Hayden mumbled.

If
it all was an act, then it was a bloody good one. Hayden had to get his own act
together. His emotions were taking over, something he couldn’t afford to happen.
If this girl really did know
Thanakorn’s
whereabouts
and actions, then he had to find out. His superiors had always been right
before on their Intel, so there was no reason why it wouldn’t be right this
time.
Thanakorn
was a terrorist; therefore, this girl
was one too. It was time to get to work.

“Right,
then. You know the drill,” he said to
Aun
.

Aun
nodded at him. Hayden turned and walked back
into the house, the girl still screaming out for help. He would leave her for
now and let the situation sink in. Then he would go to her and she would tell
him everything he needs to know.