A Mind is a Terrible Thing…

With no means to provide context, time became difficult for Tom to judge. Was it an hour? Two? More? He wasn’t entirely sure, except the more he seemed to focused on it, the slower it seemed to pass. Something about watching a pot of water boil.

There was an abrupt sense of movement, flipping him unceremoniously over onto his stomach followed by a quick flash of light as the fabric swaddling him was stripped away. Rolling to his side, he raised his hand to shield his eyes as his pupils constricted to limit the amount of light getting in.

“It’s about bloody time,” he grumbled, eyes widening as they adapted to the light and he realized the female face looking down on him was not one he recognized.

Climbing to his feet, “Who are you?” he asked, frowning up at the woman leaning forward with her elbows on the table. He would guess she was in her mid-twenties, maybe a little older, pretty, save for the slight almost imperceptible white scar running vertically down the side of her left cheek. She wore her longish dirty blond hair pulled back tight enough he could see darker roots peeking through.

Reaching her right index finger toward him, she prodded him ungently in the belly with her unpainted nail, forcing him to take a few retreating steps

Rubbing his aggrieved tummy, “Easy there jabby,” he remarked dourly, irritated expression on his face. Who was this woman? Where was he? What was going on?

“Remarkable,” she said softly, a look of curious wonder in her moss green eyes. There was a hint of an accent, English?

“Yes, that’s my middle name, Remarkable, and you, who are you?” he asked, his darker green eyes narrowing suspiciously.

The woman shook her head.

Turning his head left then right, he tried to take stock of the dimly lit environment beyond the woman. It was a hotel room, or least the décor strongly resembled the stereotypical hotel room. Odd. Turning his head back toward the strange woman, “You haven’t answered my question, just who might you be?” he said, repeating his request.

Reaching down, she seized him in her right hand, pinning his arms to his sides before bringing him closer to her face.

At this proximity to her face, the scar on her cheek was more prominent, while the exhalation of her breath wafting over him carried with it the smell of fruity gum.

Grimacing against the vice-like hold of her hand, he favored her with a pained look, “Ease up there Crusher, you’re squeezing the life out me,” he wheezed breathlessly. Who was she? Where was his mother? His aunt? The institute? Had she abducted him? If so, how did she even know about him? What about the others at the institute, were they okay? It raised a whole litany of troubling questions.

The woman relaxed her grip slightly, keeping her thumb across his chest while opening her other fingers, verdant eyes studying him intently. The change of grip allowed him to breathe more easily.

“I’m Tom,’ he introduced, flashing his most charming and disarming smile at her.

Setting him back on the surface of the table, she leaned back, folding her arms across her chest, “You may call me Evie,” she stated.

Keeping the devilish smile on his face in the hopes of eliciting more information from her, “Evie,” he said, taking a couple of steps in her direction. “That short for something?” he asked, already knowing the answer but trying to get her to engage him in dialogue.

Shifting her weight forward in the chair, she leaned over him, arms down on the table to either side of him, “This is positively brilliant,” she said half under her breathe, shaking her head slowly from side to side.

Tom took her comment as a positive. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?” he asked, tone confident, curious, not obsequious.

Curling the fingers of her right hand around him, she picked him up again, more carefully this time. In her left hand, she picked up the little case used to transport him, bringing her hands together.

She was putting him back in the case, “Evie?” Tom said, tilting his head to the side, “before you put me away, food, water, potty?”

The woman frowned, leading him to believe she probably had not considered those basic human necessities. Whether she did or not though, didn’t matter, because she deftly slipped back inside and closed it behind him.

Back in the darkness, Tom’s mind was running on overdrive. Why had he been abducted? There could be no other possibility to explain his current situation other than he had been kidnapped. But by whom and for what purpose? Was the intent to ransom him back? Who possessed the wherewithal to be able to pull something like this off? How did they find out about him and the fact he was at the clinic? Someone somewhere must have talked about him or leaked information about his condition. Was it somebody back home? Someone from his circle of friends? Did someone intercept a text message between him and Janine or Tess? It seemed highly improbable. What about staff at the institute? He had only interacted with Dr. Holmstrom and Freja. Were either of them vulnerable to financial persuasion or pressure? That didn’t really seem to make any sense either. What if this wasn’t a kidnapping per se but some other nefarious plot? Human trafficking? The very real possibility he might never again see his family filled him with an almost physical feeling of loss mingled with cold dread. Who the hell was Evie? Buyer? Seller? Plagued with a plethora of unanswered questions, He could feel himself actually shaking inside his containment trying to fathom the spectrum of possibilities. The overwhelming sense of aloneness almost brought him to tears, but rather than submit to desolation, he resolved himself to find a way to see this through. Small or not, he was not entirely without a few tricks up his proverbial sleeves, as long as he could keep his mind from fueling his fears and feeding on itself.

 “No matter what it is,” he avowed verbally as the case moved.