KIDNAPPING!!!
It’s been hard since they left. It’s been difficult for everybody. Andrea doesn’t even know how Kelly is even pretending to hold herself together. She’s upset enough that Chelsea has gone. How on earth Kelly is coping with the loss of her fiancée. She wishes that Kelly would let her in, talk to her, but that isn’t Kelly’s way. Andrea feels particularly helpless about that.
Andrea’s also panicking about something much more selfish. Since Jamie disappeared, she’s realised that she couldn’t live in the castle any more. No way could she afford to pay it. In fact, not a chance could she even afford food. She had absolutely no money, at all. Her bank balance was at 0.
How was she going to survive?
And then… “Oi Rea, got news,” Taylor dropped into a seat next to her. “Eric’s planning to buy the castle. He woz chattin’ bout it at the bar earlier. Vamps really have a thing for castles. ”
Rea listened in silence. She didn’t want vampires to take over. This was her home. Hers. And she wasn’t about to be chucked out of it.
There was only one thing to do.
“Taylor? We’re buying this place.”
***
She’d been scouting out shops for ages. She’d nicked the dungeon keys. Even, when Jamie had gone and the security on his lab had broken and she had taken the chloroform from his collection, she had hesitated. Was this right?
But what else could she do?
She had chosen her victim. It was a boutique clothes shop, selling all the latest designer clothes. Rea had seen the owner pull up in his flash car, seen his wife, who worked in the shop, greet him with a kiss, followed them home and seen their huge house, complete with swimming pools and bowling alleys and an ice rink. These people were minted. And more importantly, the woman wasn’t much bigger than Andrea.
***
She told Taylor what she was going to do, and Taylor, after a lot of side comments and eye rolling, had agreed to help.
They struck early in the morning, as the woman arrived at her shop. It was about 6am; an early delivery day. Absolutely nobody was about. They hid behind a nearby bin as the woman parked, and clambered out of her car.
They allowed her to walk to her shop, to put her key in the lock. And then they moved. Taylor approached her first, from the left. Popping gum, she sneaked up to the woman as quietly as she could, before loudly cracking a piece of bubblegum with her tongue, whilst playing with one of her pigtails, and asking, “So, then, when are yer openin’? Only I was ‘oping to grab them Paul’s Boutique hoodies I love.” The woman’s face creased in disgust at Taylor’s request. Just as she was about to reply though, a hand came from behind her, and clamped a handkerchief doused with some foul-smelling stuff firmly over her mouth and nose.
For a minute, the woman struggled, but Andrea held onto the woman’s head and the handkerchief tightly. Taylor, meanwhile, had grabbed the woman’s arms, to prevent her from attacking Andrea that way.
After that minute, though, the woman was completely unconscious. The girls grinned at one another. Perfect.
Gently, they lowered the woman to the ground, before Andrea picked up her hands and Taylor, her legs. In this way, they struggled up to the Castle with her. Thank god it wasn’t far away.
Once inside the castle, Andrea left Taylor and the woman in the hallway, whilst she ran down to open the dungeons. Once that was done, she rejoined Taylor, and together, the two of them heaved the woman down the steep, dark stairs.
“Had to use that hanky again.” Taylor groaned under the weight. “She was wakin’ up.”
Andrea simply grinned. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed kidnapping people.
“Can’t believe you talked me into this. Again.” Taylor continued to grumble. Andrea’s grin became a silent chuckle. However, once they reached the dungeon door, Andrea was completely serious again.
“Help me put her over there.” She nodded her head at the far corner of the room, where there was an old wooden chair. Together, the two girls propped the woman up against this, and then Andrea reached into the small bag she had already placed down in the cellar, and removed two quite short, but incredibly strong lengths of rope. She bent down next to the woman, and proceeded to tie the woman’s hands to the chair arms, using complicated knots. Then she tied the woman’s feet to the legs of the chair. Finally, she turned back to the bag, and removed one more thing. A bit of her old pyjama top. She proceeded to twist this, and tie it around the woman’s head, pushing it into her mouth to act as a gag.
Taylor had searched the woman’s pockets, whilst Andrea tied her down. Now she showed the emo what she had found. “Oi, look. Cash. And a mobile.”
“Keep the cash. Sell the phone. Not yet though, or it’ll be traced.”
“I know, I know. Keep your wig on, Morticia.” Taylor grumbled once more. “What’re you gonna do with her now?”
A mischievous twinkle suddenly danced in Andrea’s eyes. She reached back Into the bag and drew out a short, sharp, silver dagger. Taylor’s eyes grew huge as Andrea moved over to the woman and bent over her again.
"Hey! Crap Rea, you ain't gunna slit her throat?! Thought this was a ransom thing. Sometimes, you're such a sicko."
Andrea threw her a glance of scorn, and lifted the blade. But instead of drawing blood, she grabbed a hock of the woman’s hair, and sawed through it. Triumphantly, she held it up. “Why rush my fun? I like to play with them first. It’s so much more fun when they’re conscious.”
“You’re a bloody freak, you know that?” Taylor asked, half scared of Andrea. Not that she’d admit it. Andrea simply smiled.
“Let’s go and get some money now. He’ll pay a lot for his dear, darling wife, after all.” She pushed the hair into an envelope, along with a letter demanding money, which she had already written. Carefully, she tucked the envelope flap into the letter to seal it. And then she peeled off one of the latex gloves she had found and worn throughout the operation.
“Shall we get some breakfast? And post this?”