Sprite (Annabelle's Story Part One) (2 page)

Although now, I felt a greater deal of pity for the people that had it done to them. My head felt like elephants had stampeded it.

Suddenly, the engine softened. I tried to push to my elbows to get a better view, but it was nearly impossible due to the net.

With my face pressed into the ropes, I peered through the darkness to a passing street sign lit up by a street light: Pennsylvania Avenue. And then the massive entrance of the Taj Mahal casino momentarily took up the whole windowpane.

That was when it dawned on me.

Atlantic City.

I was still in New Jersey. Which meant, I couldn’t have been passed out for more than—

An aggressive turn of the wheel rocked me into the backside of the front seat. And in less than a minute, the SUV came to a stop.

I don’t know why, but I shut my eyes as tight as they’d go.

I just laid there in the dark with the lyrics about a fairytale day blaring out of the radio. Part of me thought if I didn’t move and didn’t make a sound, the driver would forget I was even there.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

In a heartbeat, the engine died and the music abruptly ended. Without looking, I envisioned the driver quickly opening his car door and jumping out. The shuffling of his feet on the pavement lasted for only a second before the car door behind me opened, making my head that once leaned on it drop backward.

An accent that clearly wasn’t American reached my ears. “I’m going to help you out of the car now.”

Any normal person would scream, kick, do anything humanly possibly to get away from someone who drugged them, kidnapped them, and tied them up. But I couldn’t move. Paralysis from fear was common for me. I trained for months to overcome the sound of the gunshot at the beginning of each race. In the presence of this strange man, I was scared speechless. My body wouldn’t listen to my mind’s cues to fight back.

“If you give me trouble, I’m going to have to drug you again,” he warned. “And I really don’t want to have to do that.”

Finally, I found my voice, but even it sounded foreign. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“I’m trying to help you.”

This statement not only surprised me, but also sent my mind into an avalanche of questions, my horror fueling each.

How was he helping me?

Why was I confined in a net?

What the hell was going on?

Was this some sick joke?

Or was he going to hurt me?

How could I fight back?

Should I—

His hands grabbed my shoulders. I was forced from the car whether I liked it or not.

It was an awkward landing. My feet hit the ground first, my back against him, unable to fully stand due to the small size of the net.

At not being able to see his face, I twisted in an attempt to break his grasp.

“Please, Annabelle,” he said as he strengthened his grip. “We need to hurry.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “How do you know my name?”

“I was sent to save you.”

“Save me?! From who?”

“Shh, we need to be quiet,” he whispered, beginning to half drag, half carry me towards the boardwalk. “Everything will be explained soon. We need to hurry before the Trackers realize you’re gone. They won’t hesitate to hurt you.”

“What? What do you mean? Before
who
realizes I’m gone? Who wants to hurt me?”

“We don’t have much time.”

With that, our conversation was over and my capturer didn’t say another word. Instead, he dragged me at a quicker pace.

It was an eerie kind of night. Cold, dark, and not a single soul in sight. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fight back. I didn’t know who this kidnapper was or who he protected me from, or even if he was protecting me.

Against my better judgment, sheer exhaustion from the events took over and I allowed my body to go limp. I needed to conserve my energy, to plan my escape.

I know, I know… this made little sense. My mom’s voice filled my head, “Fight back!” But, I didn’t see how it was possible. My arms and legs were trapped. I had nothing in which to hurt him. My cell phone was in my swim bag God knows where. The real kicker, no one would hear my screams.

I felt despondent as he took me: up the ramp of the boardwalk, across the wooden planks, down to the beach on the other side. Once we reached the sand, he struggled to pull me along, his arms beginning to tremble at my weight.

Finally, resolve kicked in and my mind raced in an attempt to piece together a way out. From my line of vision, I knew he dragged me away from the boardwalk towards the ocean. The waves of the ocean lapped up onto the shore. It was a sound I recognized from countless trips to the beach.

If I wasn’t trapped in a net, being pulled god knows where, it may actually be soothing. This time, it was different. I wondered if a boat waited or what would happen next. I needed a way to escape. If there was a boat, I’d do whatever it took to avoid it. I just had no clue how.

The frigid water hit me with the burst of a large wave. Quickly, I shifted my hand within the net to wipe my hair from my face, my hand shaking with each movement.

I couldn’t fully turn my head to see what waited for me, but oddly enough, one by one I noticed articles of clothing on the beach. His clothing. His hat, his shoes, his shirt, his linen pants.

My breathing picked up again in terror.

Why did he take off his clothes?

What kind of sick freak was he?

What was going to happen to me?

Before, my puffs of breath were visible in the cold air, but now as I twisted and turned, a constant stream haunted the air.

I made a huge mistake not doing everything physically possible to fight this stranger—this stranger who abducted me. I felt stupid. I felt scared. I thought of Mom, Dad, Lindsey, and of Blake, and if I’d ever see them again. Part of me knew I wouldn’t. The other part didn’t want to accept that.

Tears built in my eyes, mixing with the next wave that hit me. It picked me up off the sand, allowing my abductor’s hands to slip under my arms. I heard him grunt as he pulled me further into the ocean. I kicked; I kicked with everything I had, but it did nothing. The greater depth of the water made my body weightless.

A moment later, another wave hit my body mid-crash—the type of waves where it was necessary to dive through or it meant getting pummeled into the ground. Needless to say, I got knocked around violently.

I feared opening my eyes. I knew my back was all that breached the surface. I twisted from side to side, trying to propel myself onto my back. I yearned to suck in air. Fortunately, a smaller wave rocked me onto my side and I used the momentum to turn the rest of the way.

While I took mouthfuls of the air, my eyes scoured the surface. In jerky movements, I peered to the left, right, and behind me. My abductor was nowhere in sight.

Escape.

But before I could react, a dolphin surfaced directly beside me. I didn’t know if I was in awe or in danger.

The dolphin grabbed the netting and led me—further out to sea. It all happened so quickly. Before I even realized what had happened, another ten maybe twenty yards separated me from the shore

Then it pulled me under.

I’d spent my whole life in the water as a swimmer; almost like a second home. But this was different. I didn’t know what to do. My natural buoyancy pushed me upwards, but the dolphin pulled me back away from the surface and I desperately needed air.

Was this dolphin trying to drown me?

The panic, the veil of blurriness blocking my vision, was unreal. With the little room I had, I frantically kicked my legs to break the surface in search of air, but it was of no use.

It was odd; people have always said that life flashed before a person’s eyes before death.

But mine didn’t. All I thought about was a story I’d heard as a lifeguard—from a guy who drowned and was brought back to life through CPR.

He said after a few minutes he gradually sunk. It was because little by little all the air had left his lungs. He felt his lungs aching to be replenished, making his heart quicken.

Then the only thing left for him to do was inhale. He had no choice, his body instinctively breathed. It didn’t matter that he was under water. But after he did, the water burned his throat as it went down, it filled his lungs, and then he died.

Right on cue, my body forced me to inhale.

CHAPTER FOUR

He also said that after his lungs filled with water, a sense of peace preceded his death. It didn’t hurt anymore. His eyes opened. Then he took one last look up at the surface before his life slipped away.

I was experiencing this moment of peace. I felt weightless, the burning had vanished, and fear no longer consumed me.

Another thing I noticed was my perfect vision. It was nighttime and I was underwater in the murky waters of the Jersey shore, but none of that mattered. I don’t recall this in the anecdotes I’ve heard, but perhaps every experience was slightly different.

I just hung there in the water, within my net. I took gulp after gulp of water and wondered which one would be my last. It couldn’t be long now. Not long at all.

Not long at all…

Okay, I wasn’t dying.

I wasn’t dying?

It felt no different than when I filled my lungs with air. I now breathed normally. The same I would above the water.

Puzzled, I reconsidered.

Was I in a weird state of limbo between life and death?

Was this a dream⎯a really messed up dream?

Then, a slightly distorted voice came from behind.

“Annabelle…”

I jolted at the singsong yet rustic voice. Struggling within the net, I fought against the confines of the net to turn toward the voice of someone else who knew my name – someone with a completely different dialect than the guy who’d kidnapped me. If above ground, I’d have broken a sweat. Being in the water, who knew. Eventually, I positioned myself to set my eyes upon who had spoken to me.

He hovered just below the surface, shirtless. It was fitting for someone who looked like him. He could’ve been pulled straight from a magazine cover.

My eyes shifted upwards toward his face. I discerned his age was around my own. His dark hair hung to his shoulders, swaying hypnotically to the current. Brown eyes matched his hair although his skin tone was similar to my own.

The next detail put my sanity into question. He had a fish tail. From the waist up, he was this gorgeous boy, but from the waist down he resembled a mermaid.

Um, I mean, merman?

I shook my head. The effects of swallowing too much salt water.

Right?

I’ve heard of mermaids and such. I’ve seen the movies; I’ve read the books. But, come on, this was real-life (as spoken from the girl who currently breathed underwater).

It also struck me as odd that his tail was split in two. Instead of legs, fins covered in green scales created his bottom half. All the fictional merfolk…

I guess that was what they were called

… I’ve seen generally had one tail. The only exception I recalled was the logo from my favorite coffee brand, which had two fins.

As I stared at him he remained unmoving in the water about five yards away, his arms stretched out in front of him with his palms raised. It was a mixture of an “I come in peace” with a “please don’t freak out” kind of stance. I saw his lips move, then stop before any words escaped. I took the time to make sense of what I saw.

Finally, he broke the silence, his voice sounding muffled in the water. “I know this is a lot to handle at once, but we need to hurry.”

I spoke in barely a whisper, my own voice sounding foreign once more. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

“My name is Adrian. I don’t have time to explain right now. We just need to get you out of here before the Trackers find us. I don’t think they were far behind you.”

With that, I instinctively craned my head to look back. God knew what I was even looking for, but I think this merman was right. Something or someone was behind me. In fact, three shadows approached from the distance.

My voice raised an octave in my response. “What are those?”

“The Trackers.”

“And what are you?”

“I’m a Guardian and I really need to get you out of here.”

With that, he grabbed the top of my net, forcing me onto my side. His actions caught me off guard. The suddenness of it slowed my reaction time. Kicking out, I tried to free myself from my second abduction in one day.

“I need you to stop. I’m trying to help you.”

“What? This can’t be real.”

“It’s very real and very dangerous. You need to trust me.”

My mind raced as he took his first stroke in the opposite direction from the figures described as Trackers. From my position, I further pieced together the shapes of the shadows. My mind questioned the validity of this—but I knew it to be true. There were two seals and a dolphin in fast pursuit of us. And they were gaining quickly.

My weight and the bent angle the merman swam slowed his progress, a mixture of panic and his struggle written all over his face. Each second allowed the Trackers to get closer and closer. Within a minute, one seal was right behind us.

Suddenly, the seal snapped his teeth and took hold of the net by my feet. I tried to kick at him, but his bite was too strong and wouldn’t budge. Before I knew it, there was an Annabelle tug-of-war. The merman pulled with all his might from one end and the seal from the other.

In the middle, my head rocked back and forth between the two. I really couldn’t believe it. Just this morning, I got ready for school. I had an honors Calculus exam. I had my championships for swim. Now, I was stuck in a net, waiting to see if a merman or a seal would be the victor.

Out of nowhere, a dolphin slammed into the side of the seal and knocked me loose from his teeth. With no one tugging from the other side, the merman flew backwards, landing on a sandbar. In the net, I waited.