Captured Heart (3 page)

We went out into the apartment and found Lila dancing around the kitchen. She was wearing clothing that morning, which I would come to
learn
was not a guarantee. As she saw us, she lifted two plates from the counter and sang them towards us.

Poached eggs and bacon
It's what I been makin'
Now's high time that you sat
My dear Ronan and Cat

Sometimes her
songs didn't quite rhyme and her sense of melody was strange at best, but we accepted our breakfasts in good humor and sat to eat. From his non-presence I correctly surmised that Darren had already left for work. It was 10 in the morning by the clock on the wall. It took me a moment to remember that some people still worked ordinary jobs and couldn't sleep 'til 10.

"So," I asked Ronan as we sat down to eat, "What's going to happen today?"

"I'm going to go over to see da," he told me, "and leave the grand plans to him.
I've got a feelin' he's already mapped this thing out in his head and I dinnae want to step on his toes - not yet at least."

I nodded along with what he was saying as I took another bike of eggs. He didn't say so, but I knew that meant I would be staying here at the apartment. Part of me had hoped to come along, but I knew it wasn't to be. This was serious business and while I might be starting to look the part of a biker, that didn't mean I was ready to fight their wars by a long shot. I was a little disappointed but another part of me was uncommonly cheerful. Ronan going off to talk business meant that I could spend the day with Lila. Ever since leaving Baltimore I hadn't spent any time around another woman my age with interests remotely similar to my own. Daisy was fine, but she had lived a life so different from my own that we often found ourselves without anything to say to one another.

After breakfast, Ronan gathered his jacket and his keys and stopped in the kitchen to thank Lila for breakfast. He came back to find me waiting by the door. He stepped up to me and wrapped his hand around my waist, pulling me close for a kiss. He stared deep into my eyes afterwards and said nothing for a long moment.

"I'll be back later," he said. "And I've got my phone. Don't worry about me, Cat."

I nodded. "I love you," I told him.

He kissed me again as if he was compelled by physics rather than mere love. When his compulsion had relaxed he pulled away again. "I love you," he told me and gave me a final short kiss on the lips. With that he turned as I knew he had to and went out the door. I stood near it for a minute listening closely until the familiar roar of his bike's engine came to my ears. I listened carefully until it faded softly into the morning din of Belfast. Ronan was gone to fight his war and I missed him already.

I headed back to the bedroom to find my bag of bathroom supplies. I hadn't had a shower in far too long and I hoped that the water pressure in Darren and Lila's apartment would be up to the task. I found the bathroom to be small but comfortable and I was pleasantly surprised when the water came out of the showerhead strong and hot right from the start. Maybe things weren't going to be so desperate here in Belfast after all. As I undressed, I was feeling better and better about our trip up north. What if I treated the whole thing as an extended vacation? I didn't even know what a vacation meant to me anymore. I hadn't worked in months and with the way I was living I figured the sale of my grandmother's house would keep me solvent for a long, long time. Taking a trip to Belfast was no more exotic than my life had already become.

The warm water hit my skin and relaxation spread through my limbs immediately. I hadn't realized just how tense I had been. The combination of a long ride, a night of heavy drinking and sleeping on an unfamiliar bed had left me sore all over. I stretched out in the shower and pushed my head under the falling water, closing my eyes and focusing only on the sensation of the warm rush around
me. I could have stayed in there all day. As it stood, my shower lasted far longer than maybe it should have. I didn't have any convincing reasons to leave the warm, soothing water, after all.

When I got out of the shower, I dried myself on a towel which had now traveled with me all the way from Baltimore through two major Irish cities. It's strange the kind of things you keep with you and the kind of things you give up when your life changes as dramatically as mine had. In my turn from being just another office drone in a major American city to the girlfriend of a dangerous biker traveling across the length of Ireland, I'd lost track of many of the things I started with, but not my towel. There was nothing special about it, but it was a piece of home that reminded me of where I came from - and where I could always return to.

I finished drying my hair and wrapped the towel around my head. For a moment I was self-conscious about making the short journey from the bathroom to the guest bedroom naked, but I realized that Lila was probably not the sort of person who would mind a little nudity, if she even noticed me. When I'd gone into the shower she was just getting out her yoga mat and it seemed like she would probably be pretty engaged in her routine for the time being. I carefully opened the door to the bathroom and rushed down the hall to the room I was sharing with Ronan. When I got inside and closed the door, my heart was pounding in my chest, but of course there was no reason for it. Lila hadn't noticed me. I grinned wildly anyhow, briefly excited by my own small adventure.

I put my towel on the back of a chair and gathered up the clothes I'd been wearing earlier. I slipped into them, glad that I'd chosen comfortable outfits for our trip to Belfast. I was starting to believe that a naked trip down the hallway might be the most exciting thing that would happen to me while Ronan was out. I didn't much feel like doing yoga with Lila and Irish television leaves a lot to be desired. When I was dressed I
laid d
own on the bed and closed my eyes.
At least I'd have a chance to relax.

My relaxation turned into sleep faster than I could have previously believed. Maybe it was that I was more tired than I knew or maybe it was the warmth of the shower that did it. Part of me thinks it was probably just having the whole bed to
myself. As nice as it was sleeping next to Ronan, there's something to be said for stretching yourself out on a bed alone. Warm rays of sunshine were pouring into the windows of the small room, and something about it was enough to drive me towards an uncharacteristic mid-morning nap.

I woke up some time later, not quite sure that I'd been asleep. I wasn't sure what had woken me, but I remembered a loud sound and rolled myself groggily off the bed. I searched around for my phone, eventually finding it beneath a pile of clothes. I'd been asleep for two hours and there were no messages from Ronan. I supposed that was both good and bad. He'd barely started the work he'd come to Belfast to do, and at times like these, no news was probably good news. Still, something had pulled me roughly from my sleep and I wanted to investigate what it was. I tossed my phone back onto the bed and stepped out into the apartment.

I couldn't hear the tell-tale music that seemed to follow Lila everywhere, whether she was listening to it or singing it. That probably should have been my first clue, but I pressed on anyway.

"Lila?" I called out. "Darren?
Ronan?"

There was no answer from the apartment. Maybe the sound I'd heard was the door slamming as Lila left or something. I rounded the corner into the kitchen and discovered just how far off my guess had been..
I saw her legs first, splayed against the floor in an unnatural fashion. Lila was
laying
there, unmoving against the floor. Her arms were spread out around her in the heap she'd fallen into.

"Lila!" I called out with a shriek. I would have run for her, but just as her name escaped my lips I felt the tight grip seize around my arm. I wheeled around, my wrist held tight, and came face to face with a man I'd never seen before. He was tall and bulky and had an unkempt beard that made him look even wilder than he otherwise might have. I screamed for just a moment, but not long as he pushed his free hand against my face, clamping his large and sweaty palm against my mouth, muffling the sounds I was making.

I tried to pull away but his grip was too strong.
With my free hand I groped for anything I could use to hit him with but came up empty. I barely had the presence of mind to understand what was happening. Even without an improvised weapon, I struck out at him with my fist, but he merely growled at the blows I delivered to the side of his face. For a second I thought I might be able to get the better of him but then I felt a tight and rough piece of cloth slide across my face and he pulled his hand away. There was someone else behind me, pulling a gag of thick cloth across my mouth. I tried to shriek again but predictably failed. Both of my arms were held tight and I turned my head to see the second attacker. He was younger, with short blond hair and cold eyes.

"Goddamnit, Vic," the older one said, "You got her? This is the one."

My eyes widened. What the hell was going on? I was the one what? My eyes turned quickly to Lila, still
lying
motionless on the floor. I couldn't tell if she was dead or just knocked out. Terror
seized me and I began struggling more than ever but my strength was nothing compared to the two of them. The one that had been called Vic held my hands behind my back while the other one tied them together with something. Then he moved in front of me and stared me directly in the eyes.

"Alright," he said, "We're going to go for a little walk now. If you try to scream or run, it's not going to do any good, but we're going to make you suffer for it, alright? Now be a good girl and shut the fuck up."

I nodded, too terrified to consider resisting these men. Maybe when we went wherever it was that we were going, I could choose an opportune moment to scream for help against my gag. At least, that's what I thought my rationale was. In truth, I was too scared to do much of anything.
They started shoving me through the apartment and I craned my neck to take one last long look at Lila. I thought I could see her chest moving with breath and the thought that she might not be dead was instantly relieving to me. Whatever else these men might be, they weren't cold-blooded killers. While I was thinking about who and what they were, my mind clicked on something I hadn't noticed at first - an American accent. I'd been surrounded by Irish accents for so long but still it was easy to just ignore an American way of speaking as being "normal". Suddenly things started to become clear in my mind: these were the men Ronan had come to Belfast to fight. Evidently they'd been more ready for that fight than anyone had guessed.

The one called Vic tightened the gag around my mouth even more, to the point where I could feel it cutting into my lips and the discomfort was such that I didn't even consider screaming. They pushed me out the door of the apartment and down the stairs towards the front door. I was still wearing light clothes and didn't even have shoes on. My phone was still sitting on the bed, seemingly a thousand miles away. I was too shocked to even be incredulous that something like this was happening to me. The danger that seemed to surround the Druids Motorcycle Club had finally caught up with me. I sometimes worried that the violence would take Ronan from me, but somehow I never worried for myself. I was just an innocent bystander, after all. Apparently I was far more than that in this war.

The older one pushed open the front door of the apartment and they hurried me towards a large brown van that was parked on the street. I was thrown into the back and landed hard on the metal floor. I groaned from the impact and rolled off of the lump in the metal that had impacted with my back. I pushed myself against the wheel well and, with nothing else to do, I sobbed. I wish I could say I had put up a great fight and they'd learned not to mess with me, but I was a wreck. I'd never even been mugged before, and that's saying something when you live your life in Baltimore. Being a victim of this kind of thing was far beyond anything I'd come across in my life. I just prayed
that I was right that these men were the other side in the conflict Ronan had come to Belfast to fight on his father's behalf. If they weren't then I didn't know what I was in for. I might never see Ronan again. I might be dead or worse before nightfall. I laid my head against the floor of the van as the engine started and tears flowed from my eyes. I sobbed quietly against my gag, trying my best not to choke on my own tears.

We drove for 20 minutes and I could barely make out quiet words of conversation between the two men who had abducted me. They'd been talking together about something, but it wasn't until long minutes had passed that I realized I should be listening in. When you're safe and comfortable, you might think of how you'd act in a situation like this but you can't really know until it happens. Everybody thinks they'd be vigilant and remember everything, but the truth is that you're so terrified that memories just don't stick. I didn't know where we were going and I only knew the time because I'd checked my phone right before they took me and there was a lit-up clock on the van's dashboard. Wherever they had taken me, it wasn't far.

The van stopped and they each got out without sparing a glance back for me. I leaned upward and tried to get a look out the window but couldn't see anything other than that we were still in the city. I considered yelling but between the gag and the van, I doubted we'd be so surrounded by people that anyone would hear me screaming. Better to save my energy, I thought.
If I was going to get out of this, I had to keep my wits about me. I couldn't just could on things to work out fine in the end. This was a whole new kind of danger - the kind I'd never experienced before. If I wasn't careful, everything I knew could be over in an instant.