Edge of Chaos (15 page)

Kayla wakes with a
start. Instantly she knows something is wrong. She listens intently as she
feels around her nightstand for her handgun. When she locates it she flicks off
the thumb safety and sits up in bed, pointing her weapon at the closed door to
her room. All she can hear is her own breathing and her heart pounding
annoyingly loud against her rib cage.

She remains frozen
in that position for what seems like forever to her and still she doesn’t hear
a thing. Taking a deep breath Kayla exhales with relief and slumps back down in
her bed. She sets the gun on her night stand and closes her eyes; what a relief
that was.

Moments later an
explosion literally blows her bedroom door clean off its hinges! Her eyes fly
open just in time to be blinded by 1100 piercingly bright lumens from the
tactical flashlight just feet from her terrified face. Had she been able to
see, she would have seen she's facing the business end of an ever popular Glock
17 9mm, suppressed handgun.

Instinctively her
left arm covers her eyes while her right hand reaches for her weapon. She
nearly has it when a booted foot kicks her nightstand over, spilling the gun to
the floor. All she has left is her voice so she unleashes one hellishly long,
loud scream right before a rolled up sock is stuffed in her open mouth. She
begins kicking but her covers render her legs useless.

Strong hands from
her attackers seal the sock by wrapping duct tape around her head just before a
dark stale smelling hood goes down over her head. The claws come out. She
scratches in every direction just trying to find a fleshy target, but she is
just not strong enough to fend off her larger, stronger, well prepared
assailants.

Her hands are
quickly bound behind her back and her legs are similarly fastened together at
her ankles. Kayla continues to thrash about as rough hands pick her up and
carry her out of her house. The whole time not a word is spoken by her
kidnappers. The whole affair seems to last only a couple minutes leading Kayla
to believe these men are professionals and not just some random drug crazed
hoodlums.

She tries to
concentrate on her kidnappers' every move. She has seen movies where the victim
was able to lead police to her attackers by memorizing turns, stops and starts,
and the amount of time that elapses from when she was snatched to the time the
abductors reach their destination. Just as she is feeling a sliver of hope a
nasty smelling rag is pressed against her nose. She tries not to inhale, but
when a fist slams into her soft stomach she automatically gulps the foul
smelling air in through her nose. She passes out almost immediately. So much
for her plan to memorize her assailant’s route.

When Kayla begins
to come around it takes her a minute to orient herself. For a second she thinks
it’s just a bad dream; that is until she opens her eyes. She is sitting in a
hard wood chair in the middle of a large warehouse of some sort. All around her
are wooden crates varying in size and shape. She looks around for any clue that
would identify her attackers or where she is, but none of the crates bear any
markings.

The stale air
around her leads her to believe that this building is probably not used very
often. If she had to guess, she figures the building to be about 60 or so feet
long and about half that wide. There’s a single staircase going up along the
far wall so the building is at least two stories high. The only windows she can
see have been sealed off to keep any sunlight from entering the building. She
is grateful they at least left the lights on for her.

It’s not long
before sitting in the same position without being able to move becomes an
issue. At first she is not concerned. After all, they could have tied her in a
standing position like she has seen before in movies. But after a couple hours
every place on her body that the chair touches begins to ache. Try as she
might, she just can’t seem to relieve the discomfort by wiggling around. An
hour later the discomfort becomes something for more than that. It is just
downright painful! Before today she never would have thought that sitting in a
chair could be considered torture. The fact that they have removed her sock gag
tells her that she must in a fairly secluded area and they are not concerned at
all about her making any commotion.

Along with the
pain comes panic. She remains as calm as she can manage but superwoman she is
not, and pretty soon her mind begins to get the best of her. She begins to
imagine all manner of awful things that her captors might end up doing to her.
To make matters worse, she can’t imagine what anyone could even want from her.
She has no money and no family to pay a ransom. She doesn’t know anything
about…anything so what could anyone want with her. Sure they could torture her
but she won’t have any information to give about anything. This just does not
make any sense to her at all. And that’s how she tortures herself over the next
several hours before her kidnappers finally decide to show themselves.

Kayla has just
decided to tip herself over in hopes of relieving some of the pain from sitting
so long in one position when with a loud screech a door behind her opens. From
the sound of the footsteps approaching her she guesses there must be two or
three people coming up from behind her. As she waits she finds herself in an
awful dilemma. Should she keep her eyes closed, or should she try to see her
kidnappers. If she keeps her eyes closed they may actually release her someday.
Of course then she’ll never be much help to the police. If she sees them and
escapes she’ll be able to help the police. Of course…according to any movie
she’s ever seen about kidnapping, if she sees their faces she has basically
sealed her own doom; they’ll have no choice but to kill her. She shuts her eyes
tightly as they walk around in front of her.

“You can open your
eyes Miss Underwood,” says a gruff voice.

“Oh no…then you’ll
have to kill me,” she replies. “Unless you have masks on…do you have masks on?”
She asks as a glimmer of hope begins to blossom in her heart.

“Just open your
damn eyes girl!” Another voice demands of her.

Reluctantly she
obeys. Standing around her in a semi- circle are five members of the Suicide
Kings motorcycle club. They are the most powerful outlaw biker club in all of
central California, and rivalled only by the Harbingers another club spanning
central and northern California. While the Harbingers claim more territory,
they are not nearly so numerous and they are not tolerated by the other lesser
clubs. The Suicide Kings on the other hand have alliances with several of those
lesser
clubs like the Devil Dogs and the Crazy 8’s. Both those clubs are
located in northern California and are at constant odds with the Harbingers.

Kayla recognizes
three of the men standing before her though she doesn’t know their names. A
fourth she has never seen before and the fifth man she knows all too well. He
is the Kings president Gunnar Madsen, a violent sociopath who nearly killed her
the night Luke left her dying in her own house. Of course it clicks the second
she sees him. He thinks that she and Luke are still an item and wants her to
tell him where he can find his son. Well, he’s about to be in for a nasty
surprise. She hasn’t seen Luke in nearly a year and hopes to not see him ever
again.

“Comfortable?” He
asks, seeing her fidget as she tries to gain some measure of relief.

Kayla laughs. “And
here I thought my nice warm bed was comfortable. Give me another night sitting
here and I’ll never be able to sleep in a bed again.”

“Ah a sense of humour,
that’s good,” he replies. “Too bad we’ll have to beat it out of you.” He
signals to one of his men who produce a backpack full of all sorts of fun
utensils. He lays them out on the dirty floor so she can see what he has in
store for her.

Kayla promises to
herself that she will be brave. She will keep her mouth shut and only scream
inside. But oh those tools. One look and her mind is running a thousand miles
an hour. The evil man lays out a pair of pruning shears first; it’s quite
obvious what they’re used for. Next to them he sets a small drill and a half
dozen drill bits of varying, terrifying sizes. Kayla begins to shake and
despite her earlier promise, a soft moan escapes her tight set lips. Without
missing a beat the man puts two razor sharp knives next to the drill bits and
for a grand finale, he puts a small belt sander next to the knives.

I’ll bet,
she thinks to herself,
the
man
who invented those tools never in a million years believed they would end up
being tool of torture. No way, it takes a sicko like Gunnar to imagine something
like that!

Gunnar (the
Suicide Kings President) kneels down in front of Kayla so as to bring his eyes
level to her own. Hi picks up a nasty looking drill bit and fiddles with it in
his hands as he begins talking.

“So Miss
Underwood, I’m sure you can imagine what some of these things here can be used
for, but if you’re not sure, feel free to ask Kurt here. I’m sure he will be
quite happy to describe each tools unique purpose.”

With each passing
second Kayla’s resolve begins to weaken and her terror gains a stronger
foothold in her mind. She clamps her mouth even tighter as her stomach begins
to sicken with fear. Then it occurs to her. Who cares if she gets sick? It will
be a pleasure to vomit in Gunnar’s ugly face.

“So where shall we
sta—”

Kayla begins to
vomit. The first spasm of her stomach unleashes a torrent that splatters all
over Gunnar’s motorcycle boots. Suddenly the room is cloaked in deadly silence
as Gunnar takes a step back from her. Too bad it didn’t land in his face Kayla
thinks to herself. The Kings president gives her a single evil look before he goes
around behind Kayla and walks away. She hears his footsteps as he leaves, then
she hears the door as it opens and closes.

Is he really
not coming back?
She
thinks to herself.

Not a single word
is whispered around her, and none of the four people left in the building even
so much as shifts their feet. A few minutes later Kayla hears the door open and
close behind her. She listens as the footsteps come closer and closer to her.
Still, no one says a word. When Gunnar comes around in front of her again he
has changed his boots to a pair of brown work boots.

When he finally
does talk his voice is laced with venom and gives Kayla the chills. It’s like
his voice just reaches down into her soul and chokes the life out of her. She
has heard evil before. She has heard anger and menacing before, but nothing
like the pure malicious, malevolent, and terrifying voice that is addressing
her now. She can even see the effect he is having on his fellow brothers as
they actually take a step back away from him.

“I suppose you
think that was a clever thing to do Miss Underwood, but let me assure you,
there is nothing you could have done that would have put yourself in a worse
position than what you just did. I don’t often personally involve myself when
it comes to torture. I usually am content to let Kurt have his fun but today I
am going to give you my full attention.”

Kayla keeps her
mouth shut, now wishing fervently that she hadn't just puked on the sadistic leader
of the most powerful outlaw biker club in all of California.

“I’m not sure you
really appreciate the gravity of your situation Miss Underwood, so I have asked
Kurt to put together a special video for you to watch. After you’ve seen this I
think you will have a better grasp of the situation here.”

Kurt pulls a
laptop computer from his backpack and fires it up. Kayla waits anxiously,
wondering how watching a video could possibly make her feel any worse. The
video begins with a blacked out screen. For the first ten seconds that’s all
there is; no sound no picture, just a black screen. Then the screaming begins.
It’s so loud, so horrific that Kayla as well as one or two of the brothers
actually jump a little.

The sound is so
intense and heart wrenching that she almost cannot believe it’s real. The
screams go on for maybe two or three minutes before they stop. Well, not
completely stop. There’s a soft mewling that continues unabated until the
picture changes and the black screen disappears and is replaced by video of the
woman screaming. A burly biker is holding her chair while another holds her arm
extended in front of her. A third biker approaches her with a pair of pruning
shears. The moment the girl’s eyes lock on the shears she begins screaming
again in earnest.