Hands bound and on his knees, Ashley focused on his staggering breath as he watched the pair of shoes in his eye line. They belonged to one of the men who had roughly dragged them to the second floor office, and his intense interest in the black shoe laces were all that was keeping him from looking up and catching sight of the gun in his hand again.
He felt as though he was living a re-enactment of one of the nightmares that gripped him during sleep paralysis, all too real and all too raw. The man behind the gun was different this time, a different setting and time but the idea that the outcome would be the same was what was causing an increasing panic to rise within him.
“I need to get out of this room.” He said lowly, only half-attuned to his current predicament while the other half of him relived a trauma that had plagued his every move for over a year.
Declan could feel his heart pounding in his ears and he tried to focus on his breathing to get his heartbeat down to a more normal pace. Of course, that’d be a lot easier if there wasn’t someone holding a gun at them and keeping them hostage in some office. ‘Easy, easy,’ he thought to himself, trying to focus on his breathing again. And the fact that Tessa was in the room with him, still alive and breathing. Was she at home, safe and sound with the baby? No, but at least she was here in the room with him so he could keep her safe.
The sound of footsteps drew his attention back to the present and Declan watched the masked gunman walking around them, though he made sure to keep his head down while doing so. He had been reckless enough to try to get between the man and Tessa when they were being herded up here and all his actions did was earn him a hard whack with the butt of the man’s gun.
Seeing the look on Hannah’s face and hearing what one of the other hostages was saying spurred Declan into speaking himself. “Everything’s going to be fine. Help will be here soon,” he said in a low voice, not being able to keep himself from trying to help the others somehow. Help had to be on it’s way, right? There was no way a huge room of people could just be snatched up with no one alerting the police.
So many questions were running through Matt’s mind as he sat with his hands tied behind his back, his chest heaving up and down, adrenaline rushing through his veins. He tried to twist his hands, any way to get some slack on the zip ties would be fantastic, but all the plastic was doing was cutting into his skin. His brown eyes flicked from the man in the mask to the other people in the room… Ashley, Tessa, Declan… the others he didn’t recognise but he knew they were distressed. As the leader of one of the gangs, he felt like he needed to do something to protect these people. He could just about hear the muttering between the two kidnappers that this was to do with gangs. Matt wondered where Rosalie was and hoped she was safe. God, he needed her to be okay.
“Let’s start with a little game of introduce yourself,” one of the masked men said, pointing his gun at all of them one by one. He went round in a circle like he was trying to choose who was first to go. Matt glared at him, his hands clenched into fists and his jaw clenched too. God he just wanted to knock these people out. How dare they do this? Who did they think they were?
“Are you Diamonds?” He asked suddenly. “Or are you Hearts?” Matt knew they weren’t Hearts, but he couldn’t give away his position.
One of the men laughed. “It’s not your turn to ask questions.” He stepped forwards towards Matt, punching him in the face. “Although we don’t need to ask you who you are, Matthew Hartwell. Funny that your friend was killed by the Diamonds and then your wife shows up dead too. You must be great to be friends with.” The man turned his attention to Tessa, holding the gun to her. “And you? Who are you?”
