Shit, they’d been taken.
Struggling he opened his eyes. It was blurry and his head pounded even worse the more he tried to wake up. All he could see was a red haze of blurry items. The room started to peek through. Firming edges in the dank place. Smell of wood, both fresh and burnt filled his lungs as he tamped down the panicked urge to leap from his seated position. They were in what appeared to be a cabin or something along those lines. The few sparse pieces of furniture were wooden and appeared homemade. Walls were made of logs with a thick coat of caulk like muck creating an insulation. An iron fireplace sat in the middle of the room. Cold and shadowed with burnt logs sitting in the bottom of it.
His arms were locked onto more than his chair while his back was up against another. Topaz! The thought of Topaz being hurt pushed the fuzz out of his brain. He tried to clear his vision by bending his neck and lifting his shoulder he tried to wipe his eyes the best he could on the leather of his coat.
Leaning forward, fresh wet drops fell on his jeans. This wasn’t the sweat creating circles on his pants. He was bleeding, from his head, maybe that had been the red haze when he woke. Had his stitches broken open or something worse like he had another wound? Someone had hit him hard on the head. What the fuck?
“Topaz?” he called out through a swollen and scratchy throat.
“Onyx, Jesus, they gave me drugs did they knock you senseless?” she said. “I was counting breaths, afraid you’d died on me a few times.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” he grumbled now recognizing he wasn’t on a chair, but instead a stool. The back support came from Topaz the person he was tied to. She wiggled and it pulled on the ropes that secured them together.
Was it a stool? Or a hard floor they were sitting on? His knees were bent, fuck they did hit him hard. They were on a damn floor. Parts of him were numbing in a way he didn’t appreciate. Already having ghost cramps in a leg that was no longer attached, he wasn’t about to lose other parts of his body. Not his fingers, hands and at this point, his head was groggy enough from the concussion, the idea of being assless actually was hitting him. Fear like no other settled around him. Topaz, and himself by default, were in trouble and he had no choice, but to figure this out or they could die.
“Talk to me. Tell me something about you?” he asked.
“What the hell? This isn’t a bad first date.” Topaz’s voice shook telling him they both needed the same thing if they were every going to get out of here. “We need to figure this out. Who did this to us?”
“That’s the first thing you’re worried about? Who did this? I’m trying to get us out of here. I’m all for a little tie up mixed with some slap and tickle, but back to back isn’t as satisfying.”
“Should have known you were a sub,” she bemoaned behind him, but he’d done what he needed, to get her to begin to calm.
“Sad because you are too? I’m up for being a switch.”
“No,” she snapped. “It’s just, why are you asking me questions when we should be trying to get out of here?”
“Give me a moment. Keep talking, I want something to distract me. Tell me about, oh I don’t know, your Grandma.” Onyx curled his fingers up to try to gauge the ropes binding them together to see if he could untie them. They were in knots, but he worked at it, slowly rotating his wrists too, if nothing else, get a bit of sweat going.
“My Nanna is a beautiful and kind woman. Anytime I needed to breathe, I went to her house. In a way, she raised me more than my parents had. She made sure I never wanted for anything, well not anything real important.” Topaz stilled behind him. The silence a deep void between them as if the place she’d gone was dark and dank. “Kinda was the favorite of all the cousins. Me, being a girl and all. In high school, she worked two jobs to pay for my cheerleading and volleyball fees.”
“That explains your flexibility,” he said, finding a tail to the knot.
“Whatever?” she mocked, her body shifting and arms following his to try and angle to loosen the knot.
“I meant handling all the shit at the bar,” he said. “Cheerleading and volleyball. Those two had to overlap. Add in school work to stay eligible and that’s more than a full load.”
“Oh,” she said her voice softening. “It is, and my activities were expensive, way more than my parents could afford.”
“Was she paying to keep you out of trouble or hoping to save money on college? You good enough to play after high school.”
“Cheerleading I was,” she admitted. “Volleyball was more fun with friends.”
Onyx dropped one shoulder as low as he could and blood rushed to his fingers, waking them up with a horrific case of pins and needles. The pain didn’t subside, no matter how many times he opened and closed his fist.
“I remember back when she found out that I had been voted on to the homecoming court,” Topaz continued. “She made sure I had the best gown. She spent so much money on it, we drove all the way to Little Rock to get my dress. I told her it would be fine if she made it like she had the others, but she insisted.”
“She sounds like she really loved you.”
