As if the kidnapper had read her mind, Alex heard the door he had entered the room with squeak open. Was he leaving? She listened but didn’t detect it being shut behind him. She turned her head sideways to push her ear closer toward the entrance but got caught by surprise when one of the guards who had been behind her untied her hands. She was lifted to her feet, and the thought of escaping briefly crossed her mind. With her hands freed, she could elbow him off and make a run for the door. Her great escape was nothing more than a pipe dream when the guard pulled both her hands in front of her and tied them together. She swore under her breath for not grabbing the opportunity. Seconds later the blindfold was ripped off her face. Bright sunlight beamed through the open door forcing her to briefly shut and shield her eyes with her bound fists. There were two guards in front of her at the door and two behind her. Her stomach turned upside down. She would have stood no chance fighting off four armed guards in ninja suits.
Pushed from behind the thugs ushered her toward the open door.
“Where are you taking me?” She panicked.
They didn’t answer. Instead, the men pushed her down the narrow garden path to the black minibus that stood parked on the curb in front of the house. Once inside and with the doors closed, she noticed that all the windows had been painted with a thin layer of black paint. Though the van wasn’t completely dark inside, she couldn’t see out at all. She had hoped she’d be able to detect her location. She turned toward the front window of the vehicle, but a black screen had also blocked this off. Disheartened she stayed seated on the floor facing the black screen. Two of the guards sat on either side of her, one of them holding the rope her hands were tied to. It was entirely possible that they were going to let her go and drop her off somewhere in a ditch by the river. But what if they had no intentions on it at all?
She closed her eyes and counted the seconds the van faced forward and how many times it changed gears. She listened for street and background noises, how often the vehicle turned left and how long before it turned right. In a desperate attempt, she memorized every move to the best of her ability. It was roughly ten minutes and several turns later when she heard more commuters and traffic than before followed by the disorderly shouting of a group of merchants. A strong fishy smell filled her nostrils. It rang familiar to her, very familiar in fact. It was the fish market in the center of the town. Excitement bubbled up from within. Her pulse quickened as she realized exactly where she was. Her senses were on high alert. She might not have been able to make use of her sight from inside this bus but she most certainly could use her other faculties to track her location.
Her wristwatch indicated fifteen minutes of driving through the town and Alex had followed the route intently to where the vehicle eventually came to a halt. When they let her out she took it all in. They had parked in the middle of a deserted warehouse facility that appeared to be part of an abandoned factory plant of some sort. The area was deathly quiet apart from a fierce barking dog that was chained to the security fence. Just outside the enclosed space, a faded sign read Khyadamri Inc. in big black letters. The name didn’t ring a bell with Alex at all, so she drew her attention toward the luxury black sedan that was stationed next to a warehouse behind them. The car didn’t have any number plates or markings of any kind.
The hard tug of the rope around her wrists propelled her toward the storage facility behind the sedan. Her eyes concentrated hard on the tinted windows of the sedan in the hope of seeing who was inside, but apart from another ninja costumed driver, she saw no one else. Alex stumbled into a walk as the kidnappers dragged her past the parked car and through the warehouse door. Nothing she had ever experienced prepared her for what she caught sight of next. In the center of the dark warehouse, a bright spotlight illuminated the body of a man hanging from a suspended rope. His hands were tied to the cord above his head, and his limp body had been stripped of his shirt and shoes. The man wasn’t moving. Alex couldn’t quite see his face with his head bent down, but a horrid feeling gripped at the pit of her stomach. Her legs stopped moving as she stood staring across the dark storeroom. NO! It couldn’t be.
The guards pushed her toward the dangling body and shoved her down on a chair directly in front of the man. Positioned lower, she could clearly see his face. The stabbing pain in her heart as she realized it was Sam knocked her breath away.
“Sam,” she let out the faintest of cries.
Sam didn’t move. Deep emotions of fear ripped through her quivering body.
“SAM!” she shouted loudly. “It’s me, Alex!”
Sam lifted his head ever so slightly. Alex stared at his face. It was so badly beaten his eyes were practically swollen shut. Blood covered his mouth and had trickled down his neck onto his chest. Across his abdomen and ribs lay deep purple bruises. It was a ghastly sight Alex knew she would never forget.
“Sam, can you hear me?” She spoke gently, but before he could answer, she swung around to the guards who still stood firmly behind her.
“Let him down you bastards! Let him down!”
She banged her bound fists against the masked ninja’s chest and kicked him in his shin. Within seconds the other guard’s strong arms picked her up and shoved her back into the chair and tied her down.
“You won’t get away with it you beasts! Let us go!” she screamed.
Sam let out a faint groan, “Alex.”
Hearing Sam’s voice instantly stopped her from fighting.
“Sam? Are you ok?” She asked.
He was barely alive. Sam groaned softly again in an attempt to speak.
“Don’t worry Sam. I’m going to get us out of here. Hang tight,” cringing as she realized the inappropriate double intent of her words. “Sorry! You know what I mean,” she stumbled through her apology as she frantically looked from side to side for a way out. The spotlight behind her blinded her from seeing anything other than Sam’s tortured body in front of her.
“Come out, you coward!” She shouted toward the door. “I know you’re in here.”
She tried shuffling the chair around, but it was too heavy for her to lift without the use of her hands. She shouted again.
“Hey! I know you’re in here. Your fancy car is parked outside. I demand you let Sam go!”
Loud contemptuous applause pierced through the darkness behind her.
“This is quite the performance, Miss Hunt,” the kidnapper said. “In fact, I could watch you squirm all day.”
Alex turned her head toward him.
“Yeah well, I’d think twice about that if I were you. Show your face, you coward,” she dared while trying to not let her shaking knees give away the terror that tortured her body inside.
The kidnapper laughed out loud. “You are hilarious, Miss Hunt, acting all tough with me. I don’t think you quite understand the situation before you. Look at him. How long do you think your boyfriend will last, huh?”
Alex looked back at Sam who was barely conscious. His arms were pale as all the blood from his veins had been drained. His wrists exposed lines of raw flesh beneath the ropes in an obvious effort to fight his way out of the tightly bound ropes. He most certainly was too weak to fight anyone off, much less escape, but if there were one thing Alex knew, it was that Sam Quinn was far more resilient than his put together happy-go-lucky demeanor displayed. As if Sam read her thoughts, he pinned his swollen eyes directly to hers and gave her a faint smile. He still had fight left in him, and he knew Alex would fight to protect the relic until the very end.
Welcoming his silent encouragement, she proceeded with new vigor.
“He’s not my boyfriend. Give it up. The golden urn will never be yours.”
How long she could push her boundaries, she didn’t know, but she would push however much the situation allowed. As long as Sam was still alive and able to fight, she couldn’t back down.
The kidnapper snapped his fingers. From the corner of her eye, she spotted movement in the dark. Moments later, two more ninjas approached pulling a squeaky-wheeled trolley behind them. Once they stood in the light behind Sam, Alex noticed the car battery and bucket on top of the cart. At first, she didn’t quite put the pieces together. Gold and blue sparks scattered through the murky shadows behind Sam. Horror paralyzed her body. Sam looked at her briefly before shutting his eyes and lowering his head to his chest. Tears flooded Alex’s tormented eyes. Shocking prisoners into submission had been a torture method used for thousands of years. In his current condition, Sam would never survive it. It could kill him, and no matter how much she wanted to protect the sacred lost relic, she would never be able to live with herself if they killed him.
Alex drew back several sharp breaths in an attempt to suppress her sobs that threatened to overwhelm her entire body as the masked men threw a bucket of water over Sam’s battered body and tortured him in front of her. She vomited across the floor between her feet and shut her eyes tight. Sam’s agonizing screams bellowed through the empty warehouse before she could no longer stomach it.
“STOP! STOP!” she screamed.
They did, and she heard Sam breathe a massive sigh of relief in response. She cried uncontrollably as she watched his near lifeless body dangle from the rafters.
“You can end all of this, Miss Hunt. Tell us where the urn is,” the man’s voice echoed from the back of the storeroom.
“Sam,” she whispered through her sobs, ignoring the kidnapper’s threats.
“Let him down,” she cried which yielded no reaction whatsoever from the man at the back or his posse.
“I said, LET HIM DOWN!” spelling it out with emphasis.
The man snapped his fingers again to which his group of puppets promptly responded. She watched as they cut Sam’s rope above his head and left him to slump down onto the wet concrete floor like a puppet without a string. A second later they cut the cord from her own hands. Freed from the chair Alex leaped forward and lifted Sam’s head onto her lap. He still didn’t move. She wedged her body in behind his torso to aid the blood flow into his arms and rubbed each arm vigorously. Yet he didn’t wake up. If they murdered Sam, she would hunt them down until the end of the earth.
“You killed him, you evil bastard!” she screamed. “You killed him!”
Her voice broke off as the tears poured down her cheeks onto Sam’s lifeless face. She didn’t care now anymore. They could kill her too.
“I will NEVER give you what you want! Do you hear me? NEVER! You killed him, and I will die before I ever let your grubby, greedy paws near that urn!”
The man’s fingers snapped again, and one of his ninjas walked up and launched a bucket of water at Sam’s face, drenching Alex in the process. Sam jerked his head back and drew in a sharp breath.
“Sam! It’s me, Alex. Can you hear me?”
Barely audible he whimpered in response.
“Sam! You’re alive!” drying his face with the bottom of her T-shirt.
“He needs a doctor. You need to get him to the hospital,” Alex demanded.
“Miss Hunt. I told you before. You are in no position to give me any demands. I want the urn, and you’re going to help me get it. Your boyfriend is alive, for now, but only for as long as you co-operate. So, do we have an understanding or not?”
This time, Alex knew she couldn’t call his bluff. This man, whoever he was meant business and he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, even if it meant killing Sam.
“If you don’t get a bed and food in here, I won’t help you. I need to see that Sam is taken care of first. Then I’ll help you.”
“That settles it then,” the man said snapping his fingers once more after which two of his men picked Sam up and another threw Alex over his shoulders.
“Put me down you imbecile!” Her fists hammered against the thug’s back. “Where are you taking Sam? PUT ME DOWN!”
The men carried both her and Sam up a set of stairs to a small room in the ceiling of the warehouse. Alex watched as they placed Sam on a mattress on the floor and moments later a young timid looking female joined them and knelt next to Sam on the floor. With wide eyes, Alex stared at the young girl who couldn’t have been older than fifteen. She looked fearfully at the guards, and Alex noticed several cut marks and old bruises on her arms and face. She had read of the child trafficking rings operating in the East, and it was nauseatingly evident this teenager was there under duress. Alex couldn’t speak as the reality of her kidnapper’s violent and criminal acts hit her. The youth gently started cleaning Sam’s face and torso with soapy water and a clean towel. Sam let out soft groans as she sponged off his bruised and battered body.
“Sam, it will be okay. You’re going to be okay,” Alex managed to whisper.
Just then another young girl came into the room with a tray of noodle soup and water and proceeded to feed Sam.
Alex wasn’t sure if she should be happy that Sam was being seen to or sad that these poor young girls were subjected to a despicable act of slavery.
Perhaps the ninja with the black eyes couldn’t stomach it either because moments later he pulled Alex by her arm and shoved her toward the steps back down to the main level. They walked past the spot where Sam’s body had been tortured, and Alex glanced at the bloodstained puddle in the middle of the floor.
“Now, Miss Hunt,” the voice came again from the back. “I have kept my side of the bargain now it’s your turn. Where is the golden urn?”
Annoyingly the man was right. He did keep his promise in taking care of Sam. There was no escaping this. She would have to comply if they were to ever leave there alive.
“How do I know you won’t kill us after I tell you?” She challenged.
“You don’t. I guess you have no choice but to trust me.”
Alex didn’t answer. In her head, her mind was working overtime to find a way out of this awful ordeal. The truth was that she didn’t know where the urn was either. All she knew was the cipher from the ancient scroll, which would take them somewhere, but not to the final location of the urn. Without the second scroll, it might be entirely hopeless.
“I can see you’re not easily convinced, Miss Hunt. So, I’ll make you a deal. You can lead my men, and once you find my relic, I will give you the address to this location, and you can come back for Dr. Quinn.”
The man’s voice sounded arrogant and filled with deceit, but she was backed into a corner. If she went with him, and somehow managed to escape, she knew she’d be able to find this warehouse on her own to save Sam.
“Fine, but I can’t guarantee anything. Like I said before. There was a second scroll which burned…“
“Yes, yes, Miss Hunt, so you keep saying. I do happen to also know that you possess somewhat of a reputation for finding lost relics without any maps, so I’ll take my chances. Besides, I think I have made it abundantly clear that Sam will die if you don’t help me find that urn.”
Alex looked up at the little room where the young girls were attending to Sam’s health. For now Sam was safe. Hopefully he’d recover enough until she came back for him. She could buy him a bit more time until she found a way to escape.
“I need my bag,” she said finally. “And know this, mister, if you don’t keep your word by letting us go once you have the urn, I will kill you with my bare hands.”
The man let out a callous laugh.
“Oh, Miss Hunt, you crack me up! I have been chasing relics all around the world longer than what you’ve been breathing oxygen and believe me, I have no intentions of getting caught, ever, not by you or the authorities.”
And with that, he snapped his fingers again and Alex was dragged out of the warehouse and back into the black van.