Liza chucked the trash into the trash can and winced as the lid slammed shut.
Dad would throw a fit if he heard that all the way in the house. Luckily, it was after eight which meant he was down at Dancing Dollies, the sad little strip club off the side of the highway. Did he have the cash to throw money at those girls? Not really.
A thousand extra bucks a month would probably help a lot with his favorite pursuit.
Liza was still steaming mad about it. But standing out in the crisp night air washed away some of that anger. It really was a beautiful place. The mountains rolled out all around her. And when she tipped her head up to look at the sky she got a really good idea of just how small, how insignificant she was. The Milky Way stretched out forever, millions of stars and galaxies beyond that.
She would miss this sky. This view. If she ever got up the courage to leave home, that was.
Already she was wondering if it was really that bad to pay rent to her dad. A thousand bucks a month was expensive for a shared room in the Valley. But it wasn’t like she’d have other expenses. Except for the expense of taking care of his sorry ass.
She heaved a sigh and gave one last look up at the stars that kept her company on so many sad nights.
What was that?
There was a small… smudge… in the sky right above Mr. Grady’s house. Was it smoke? But no, she didn’t see anything like that, and the burning smell didn’t tickle her nose.
She blinked and shook her head and couldn’t see the strange blur anymore. Probably just her eyes playing tricks on her.
Liza turned to go back to the house and staggered as bright light washed over her and froze her in place. It didn’t feel like any time passed. She blinked one second and opened her eyes the next, but she wasn’t in her yard anymore. She couldn’t smell the faint whiff of trash from the trash cans. There was no overpowering and refreshing scent of night air and green trees.
Instead, it smelled kind of antiseptic. Like a hospital. Or laboratory. The walls around her were bright white and her heart plunged into her stomach before jumping right back up and beating madly. What the hell was this? Where was she?
She lunged forward, distantly grateful that she wasn’t tied down to anything. There was a door only a step in front of her and she pounded on it, as if this might just be some sort of mistake, as if she had been found unconscious on her driveway, rushed to the hospital, and they forgot they stuck her in this weird little closet.
The door wouldn’t budge.
Had she been kidnapped? Was she being trafficked somewhere? Would anyone realize she was gone?
The thoughts came at her a mile a minute. She couldn’t make sense of any of it and she wasn’t sure that this was all some terrible dream.
With the door not moving she frantically searched for anything she might use as a weapon. If anyone tried to kidnap her, they wouldn’t find her an easy victim.
Her hands trembled and she curled them into fists to hide the weakness. But there was nothing in the room. It was an empty closet.
What the hell was going on?
There was a click at the door and it slid to the side with a whoosh. Liza scrambled out and glared at the person standing in the middle of the room.
He was really freaking hot.
What the hell, Liza? Her mind screamed at her. Now was not the time to be finding weird kidnapper dudes kind of sexy. But he was. Dark hair, cropped close. Large, playful eyes and grinning mouth. Muscles. Lots of muscles. She liked those. She imagined if he took his strange black clothing off she might see a six pack or something approaching one.
He looked like the kind of guy who could scoop her up, hold her close, and keep her safe from the rest of the world.
Now she knew for a 100% fact that she had gone cuckoo bananas.
Whoever this guy was, he was up to no good. She took a step back, but before she could retreat further she hit the door that had quietly closed behind her.
No escape. Not that running into a tiny closet would give her much escape.
“What the hell’s going on?” She demanded. Maybe there was some kind of explanation for this. Maybe she had… She couldn’t figure out anything approaching logical for what was going on right now.
The man said something, but the syllables made no sense. She wasn’t the most worldly person, but she had Netflix. She’d watched a Korean drama or two. She could recognize several languages, even if she could only speak English.
Whatever he was speaking, it was nothing she’d ever heard before. There was a lilt to it, and a bit of a trill. Almost as if he was a bit Scottish. But then there was a click in the back of his throat, and she didn’t think Scottish people had clicks in their language.
Wasn’t their language English?
Now was not the time to be pondering that.
“Who are you?” She demanded again as if that might magically make him understand her.
In her desperation, she looked around the room they were in. It looked futuristic, like something out of a sci-fi show. Almost like a spaceship, or what she imagined a spaceship to be, rather than what they actually look like from what she had seen on documentaries. It was all sleek, and white, and covered in buttons and switches. Was she in Star Trek?
Strangely, it reminded her a little bit of a sports car, though that might have just been the chair in the middle of the room. It belonged in a Maserati.
The hot guy took a step towards her and Liza dodged to the side, giving up on backing into the room she had magically appeared in.
No, not magic. Magic didn’t exist. She had probably been drugged or something.
But that didn’t make it better. She searched for a weapon in here, but there was nothing. Nothing but her fists and her wits.
Well, at least she still had those.
But somehow the man managed to box her in and he stepped closer, so close she could spit in his face.
But she was frozen right there, unable to move. Unable to react.
And she didn’t think he was doing anything to keep her still. It was her own body that was rooted in place, strangely captivated by the man who was smiling at her like she was some sort of wild animal he was trying to save.
No one had ever accused her of being a feral cat before. He raised his hand and she flinched and something like pain crossed his expression.
Oh, did it hurt the big bad kidnapper when she was scared of him? Too freaking bad.
He pressed something behind her ear and pain, no, sound, exploded in her head.
“There, there,” the stranger said. “You’re going to be okay.” He placed his hand on her wrist.
She didn’t know how she could understand him now. She didn’t know what weird shit he was doing to her. And she wasn’t going to waste time trying to find out. Liza reared back and punched him in the face with all of her might, yelping in pain as she bruised her knuckles against the hard bones of his cheek.
But it made him step back.
There was a giant red button on the middle of the display in front of his chair and she ran for that. Giant red button. Emergency. Made sense to her. Maybe that would get her out of this mess.
Or at the very least it would mess up his day, and that was better than nothing.
She went for it, slamming her hand down and then pressing twice more when the man yelled in shock and outrage.
The room around them rocked and suddenly Liza’s ears popped and the floor fell out from under her. She clung to the chair, knuckles white from the force of her grip, and realized she might have just made things a hell of a lot worse.