Chapter 4: This Is Kidnapping
When school ended for the day, Keeley was about to head towards the subway station as usual. She had to take three connecting trains and walk another six blocks to get to and from school every day.
Her dad hadn't been happy about this at first—he was overprotective since her mother and brother passed away in a mugging gone wrong when she was younger—but Keeley insisted that he needed to go to work and that everybody went to school like that.
He relented when she promised to check in with him every twenty minutes since it took more than an hour to travel each way.
A hand shot out and grabbed her by the arm, hauling her into a waiting limousine. A kidnapping?!
She wasn't even one of the rich students here but if soone just went by the uniform and grabbed her by mistake…
"I know karate!" Keeley shouted in a panic.
This was only partially true. She quit when she was ten. Her karate skills were extrely rusty but if worst ca to worst she could aim a decent kick.
"Do you really want to use it in here?" a cold, slightly amused voice asked.
Aaron. He stared at her with an eyebrow raised as if she was stupid and it made her flush slightly.
"What are you doing? I have to go ho."
"I'll take you there. Based on everything I heard earlier, the subway sounds terrible. I don't know how you can even stand it."
His words were disdainful, haughty, and raised Keeley's hackles. Millions of New Yorkers used the subway every day! It was a perfectly valid mode of transportation!
"That's unnecessary," she sniffed. "Let out."
"Drive, Carlton," Aaron said loftily, ignoring her demands.
The car sped away from the curb and Keeley jolted forward and practically landed on Aaron's lap.
She imdiately backtracked and put her seatbelt on since there was no way she could leap out into oncoming traffic while they drove. She would find a way to get out the next ti they stopped.
"Why are you doing this?"
Keeley had no idea what was going through the young man's head. Brooklyn was nowhere near the Upper East Side. There was absolutely no point in going that far out of his way to take her ho. Weren't rich people supposed to value their ti?
"I don't have to explain myself to you."
A typical Aaron answer. He was always like this! At first she thought it was part of his charm. He was so aloof from everything that she thought he was an intriguing mystery to be solved.
How idiotic she'd been. There was nothing mysterious about Aaron at all. He was ant to be taken at face value. He looked cold and emotionless because he WAS cold and emotionless.
Keeley kept her thoughts to herself, waiting for her chance to escape. Unfortunately it didn't co. She realized that the child locks were on—only the driver could unlock the car.
"This is kidnapping. I ought to call the cops on you," she muttered.
Aaron actually smiled. A real smile. In the past she would have been moved by it but in that mont it gave off a sinister vibe.
"I'm sure they would believe you."
It was the sa excuse he used before Keeley died when she threatened to go to the police with her suspicions about him and Lacy colluding to cover up her father's death and it sent a shiver down her spine.
She chose to keep quiet after that. No use goading him. She would give him a fake address in Brooklyn and walk ho, no matter how long it took.
Aaron ignored her from then on, flipping through an edition of Ti magazine as if it were perfectly normal to abduct a classmate and see them ho. What teenager in their right mind read that sort of thing anyway? Children of rich businessn were weird.
It was even weirder that he kidnapped her only to ignore her for the majority of the ride. There wasn't really a point if he didn't even want to talk to her. His logic was beyond her.
Keeley's attention was out the window as they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. Even with traffic, her commute was practically cut in half.
"Let off here," she said when she saw a random apartnt building several blocks from her own.
"Thank you for the ride," she said begrudgingly. "But don't do this again, it's weird. I don't even know you that well."
"You will," he said confidently. "We are desk mates after all. See you tomorrow."
There was nothing inherently wrong with his words but they gave Keeley a sense of foreboding. What exactly had she done to attract this creep's attention?
Was it because she protested the seating chart and he got offended? They hadn't t any other tis! She would have to be more alert tomorrow.
Keeley trudged the extra six blocks ho though the winter wind bit at her face. Warm for January her foot.
After taking the often undependable elevator up to the 13th floor, she unlocked the front door of the apartnt she shared with her father and sighed with relief. Ho. At least Aaron didn't know where she lived. She felt safe here.
Her father ca ho an hour and a half later as she was stirring a bubbling pot of pasta sauce. "Hey Dad, how was work?"
"Sa as usual. Did you make atballs?" he asked hopefully as he draped his coat over the coat hanger.
"What do you take for?" she replied with a laugh. Homade atballs using her mother's recipe had long been a favorite for both of them.
They laughed and talked over dinner and Keeley felt herself relax. Today was an anomaly. Aaron would lose interest in her soon enough; he certainly had before. Out of sight, out of mind.
She could change the place she ate lunch and her route ho after school. Then all she would have to do is ignore him for one hour a day. One hour was totally doable.
Reviews
All reviews (0)