The Gemstone Pirates

[Big-City]

A book written by someone named Amanda Clark. I couldn't find anything else written by her.



No illustrations, but this is a book where the main character, a 13-year-old girl, snoops around to try to find evidence of some criminals, and gets captured and tied up, and stays that way for a long time!

I haven't finished reading it yet, but I'll post content from it:

The store looked like most jewelry stores do – display cases of jeweled necklaces, rings, bracelets and such.  It appeared there was a small section of very expensive beads to one side.  As I stepped in, a man in a suit stepped out of the back.  He was clean-shaven, dark haired, and very, very white.  It looked like he spent all of his time indoors in air-conditioned rooms.

“Hello, young lady.  What can I help you with today?” he said politely. “I… I was just looking.  I am thinking of getting my Mum a necklace,” I thought quickly.  I hadn’t planned on answering even the most basic of questions.  “But I don’t want a diamond.  I was thinking more of a musgravite.”     

“Really?” he said the word slowly, methodically.  The man didn’t know whether to take me seriously or not.  His eyebrows had lifted when I said musgravite.

“How stupid of me!”  I thought, glaring inwardly at myself.  Now I raised his suspicion!  No one knows that stone!  Not any thirteen year-old girl, anyway.  But it was the one I remembered.     

After a moment of watching me carefully, the man remarked:  “Now that’s an odd request for a young lady.  How is it that you know of the rare gem musgravite?”

“I learned about it in school.  And I thought it was pretty.  The name is so close to the Musgrave Ranges of Australia that I visited last year, so I remember it.  I forget the names of the other gems we learned about.”  I couldn’t help but give myself an imaginary pat on the back for the quick lie.  It seemed I had a knack for it.

“Oh, I see,” the man said, still studying my every move.

After a long pause of silence that felt like forever, the man wandered to a display case on the far side of the store, next to the section showing the beads.

“We have two necklaces made of the rare gem you are asking about.  And one ring.  There are more in our other stores throughout the Caribbean if the cuts and settings of these are not to your liking.  I must warn you, they are quite expensive.  The gem is rare, as I said.  The cost reflects that,” he explained.

I followed him to the display case.  I bent down to look at the items the man had gestured toward.  The stones were radiant.  I leaned a little more, trying to get close enough to really admire them.  Suddenly, I had the funny feeling that someone was very, very close to me.  I straightened up and I saw movement in the reflection of the display case glass.  I started to turn to see what was giving me the feeling.  In a flash, I felt a large, gloved hand cover my mouth, and a strong arm grab me around my middle!  With my arms trapped against my sides, I was utterly helpless as he lifted me off the ground.  I tried to struggle loose, but I couldn’t move!   The person who grabbed me was too big and too strong!  I tried to scream, but my cries came as a muffled grunt instead.

The man with the suit held the door open to the back area.  I was carried to a second room – a storage area – and the man with the suit followed the man carrying me.  He held a piece of white linen.  The hand that was across my mouth released its firm hold only to be replaced in an instance with the white linen.  The man in the suit tied it back behind my head, gagging me with it in my mouth.

He then tied ropes around my ankles, and bound me with ropes around my middle, replacing the grip of whoever was holding me with his arms.  As the ropes were secured, I was thrust into a chair and the two men tied me once again, this time to the chair.  As I was thrown into it, I looked up and caught a glimpse of the man that had grabbed me.  It was Frankos.

I had never been more scared in my life.

That's the initial kidnapping. The story then proceeds to go back and forth between Zoe's perspective in first-person and showing the other characters' story in third-person.

The men left me alone, tied up and gagged in the back room.  Frankos and the man in the suit had locked me in, while they sorted out the gemstone inventory and packed it to be transported.  Frankos had come into the store to pick it up.  That’s when he’d seen me.  It was why Jim had been in earlier.  Before he left the room, he gave the chair I was tied to a hard push.  It rocked onto two legs and almost tipped.

“I’ve seen you a little too often lately,” he spat at me coldly.  “This will teach you not to nose about!”

He told the suited storekeeper that he would take me with him when he had all the gemstones gathered.  As they sorted the stones and packed boxes, I heard them speaking in muffled voices.  Then I heard another door open, and I heard the unmistakable sound of a van door sliding shut.  I heard another door opening.  Then I heard more footsteps in the short hallway between the back store room where I was tied, and the front show room.  They spoke to each other again, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.  I kept praying Aunt Sheila was sending help.

“I should have been more careful!” I cursed myself silently.  “I should have listened to Freddie!  I shouldn’t have lied!”

Frankos returned to the room I was in abruptly.  He never said a word.  He untied me from the bindings to the chair, leaving the bindings on my arms and legs, and lifted me up.  I tried to kick him and scream, but to spite all my wiggling and squirming, his tall frame enveloped me.  I was exhausting myself trying to fight.  I collapsed to a limp body, ceasing to try again.  I needed to save my wits and energy for struggling when I had the right opportunity.

Frankos carried me to the back door of the shop.  He shifted me clumsily over one shoulder to free one of his hands to turn the handle.  Outside, the van was backed right to the store.  The back doors were opened and Frankos tossed me inside cruelly.  He threw a large, dark woolen blanket over me and slammed the vehicle doors.  He stormed around to the front of the vehicle and climbed in.  Frankos turned the key in the ignition and was drove off in a flash.

It was sweltering under the blanket, and with the gag still in my mouth, I had to focus on breathing instead of the intense feeling of terror that was welling up inside me.

Later cut to the protagonist again:

The van skirted along the curves of a smaller Barbados road with great speed.  I could tell we were on a smaller road by all the turns.  The major highways were straighter than this, and not as bumpy.  I felt very nauseous as well as near to suffocation under the wool blanket.  I almost threw up twice.    I kept trying to pay attention to the curves and any other detail of the drive I could concentrate on, but it seemed to make my nausea worse.  We had several minutes of starting and stopping, waiting for traffic lights, but we must have left Bridgetown now.  We were driving with greater speed, and no stops, but I still estimated we were on a smaller road because of all the turns and the bumpiness.  I also felt we were heading north, but we had taken so many turns that I felt less and less certain that I actually had an idea of the direction we were heading.

After what seemed like a long, long time the van started and stopped again.  I thought we were likely at traffic lights, and so therefore in a town again.  “How long had we traveled?”  I asked myself.  “Long enough to be in Holetown?  Long enough to be in Speightstown?”  I wasn’t sure.

Again we drove faster.  There were no stops.  Curves and bumps and an overwhelming feeling of nausea, disorientation and fear were all I could process.  The sweltering heat under the blanket had made my entire body wet with sweat.  My wrists and ankles were aching with stiffness and were starting to feel raw in several spots.  I had to pee.

I felt the starts and stops again.  The van slowed, and I heard the sound of tires off the pavement. We were driving on grass.  The van halted, and I heard the clicking sound of Frankos unfastening his seatbelt.  The door of the van opened, and Frankos climbed out.  I heard footsteps walk past the van, and I heard another door open and close in the distance.  It was the door to a building.  I couldn’t see from under the blanket, but with Frankos gone, I dared to squirm around.  I tried opening my knees enough to capture a section of blanket and squeeze it between them, and wiggle.  I did it several times, and felt the blanket move a little.  This would take forever to pull the blanket off, so I changed tactics.  I started to roll.  I rocked back and forth, trying to judge the space I had between the boxes.  I could make it to my side.  I let myself rock again to return to my back.  Then to my side again and to my back one more time.  The third time I rolled to my side, the blanket fell from my face.

The coolness of the air hit my sweaty cheeks and brow.  It felt delicious.  I looked up.  I could see it was starting to get dark and I could see a few tree tops, but that was it.  I was considering how I could maneuver to sit myself up when I heard the door open again in the distance.  I remained still.

The back doors of the van opened.  Frankos reached in and pulled the blanket off, not noticing my exposed face.  He bent his head down to avoid bumping into the top of the van, and put one knee up so he could reach far enough in to grab me near my rib cage.

I did not fight being lifted.  I concentrated on looking through the dimming light at my surroundings.  As Frankos carried me in a cradled position, I looked over the back of his shoulder at a garden.  In the shadowy light, I recognized it as the back of Ned’s shop.  I was in Speightstown.

Arriving at destination:

I was dropped on a sofa in a back room of the bead store.  A little apartment had been set up with a kitchen, a bedroom, and a small seating area that had a television set on some storage crates turned upside down.  A bathroom was visible through a doorway next to the seating area.

Frankos rolled me over with a jerky motion and untied the gag.  He caught several strands of hair untying it, and pulled them painfully out as he worked the knot.  He succeeded in loosening it after a few moments, and he took it off.  He flipped me back so I was facing up, lying collapsed on my spine, still bound at the wrists with my arms behind me and bound again at the ankles.  I rubbed my lips and the corners of my mouth on my shoulder, trying to wipe the awful dryness and taste away.

“Don’t you think about making a sound,” Frankos said coldly, shaking his index finger at me.  Then he lifted his forearm and faked a motion as if to smack me across the face with the back of his hand.

“I have to go to the washroom,” I announced nervously but just as coldly.  My voice was hoarse from my extremely dry mouth.  I looked him right in the eye. Frankos seemed uncomfortable. He thought for a moment. “I guess,” he finally answered.

He went to a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a large butcher knife.

“What is that for?  Is he going to stab me?” I panicked silently.

He lifted his coat back to expose a handgun tucked into an inside pocket.

“Don’t even think about trying to escape,” he warned.  He pressed my shoulders down, intimidating me with his strength, and then lifted on the back of my left shoulder blade to turn me on my stomach once more.  He used the knife to cut the ropes.

He sawed the bindings of my ankles. “Keep quiet and still, and maybe I’ll leave these off for a while,” he barked at me.

When I was free, I pushed myself up weakly and turned around to face him.   He gestured to the bathroom, and I stood up shakily.  My ankles felt wobbly for a few steps, as I stumbled to the bathroom, but I walked out of it.  I rubbed my very sore wrists.  The bracelet Sunny had given me earlier today had cut into me.  Frankos followed me, holding his gun out to warn me I shouldn’t try to run for it.  I went into the little toilet area, hoping for some privacy.  I waited until I shut the door between Frankos and me, then I silently cried for a moment.

It was truly only a moment.  It was a release of the feelings of fear and frustration building inside, but I knew I had to pull myself together and think.

“I wonder what signal I could send, a message I could get out, anything,” I thought.  I scanned the bathroom ceiling, floors and walls.  No cupboard, window, trap door.  Just a small medicine cabinet.  I turned the faucet on to muffle the sounds as I slowly opened the cabinet and peered inside.  There was a bottle of aspirin, a toothbrush, a bar of soap, and a shaving kit.  I opened the shaving kit.  There was a small razor blade in an outside pocket.

“Asset Number One,” I told myself, taking it and sliding it into a gap between the sole of my sneaker and the bottom of the insole.

I used the washroom, and splashed water on my face and neck at the sink.  It felt wonderful after all the sweat and tears.  I drank heartily, appreciating moisture on my tongue again.  I saw a towel hooked on a nail beside the sink.  It looked fairly clean so I used it to pat my face dry.  I hung it back on the nail, and opened the door.

Frankos had sat down on the chair matching the sofa he’d dropped me onto.  I came back obediently to the sofa and sunk in.  I rubbed my wrists again.   The bindings had opened a sore in two places on my right wrist where the pirate coins of the bracelet had dug into me during the trip.

“Thanks,” I said.  I was glad he let me pee.  I guess he could have left me to wet myself.

“Yeah,” he muttered.  He got up and paced the room.  “I have to tie you up again.  Sit in that chair.”  He pointed to one that was a few meters over, in the kitchen area.  It was a sturdy wooden chair with no arms.

I got up and obediently walked to the chair.  I remembered the handgun was not far away.  I turned around when I got to it, bent my knees and lowered my body to sit down. Frankos had found a nylon rope that was thicker than the one he’d cut off me a few moments before.  He reached for my arms, brought them behind my body and the back of the chair, and tied my wrists together.  I whimpered as the rope bit into my raw skin.

“I wish I had taken off the bracelet!” I scolded myself silently for the third time that day.  The beads began digging into my skin immediately with the pressure of the rope.

He finished tying my torso to the chair as well as then he straightened up and left the room.

Pretty fun so far!

[Big-City]

Continuing the story:

I sat for a few minutes after Frankos left, and just listened.  He hadn’t gagged me again, so I had my voice if it meant anything.  I heard him get in the van and I heard the engine start.  I listened to it drive away, and then I listened for any sounds in the shop other than the hum of the appliances in the kitchen.  I heard nothing.  So I screamed for help, and then paused to listen closely for any response.  I screamed again.  Nothing.

I tried to move my wrists.  I had some freedom.  I had tried to hold them apart when he had bound the second time, but he’d tightened it so much I was surprised to see any movement.  The knots must have loosened with the nylon rope as he made them.  I curled the ends of my fingertips awkwardly to try to feel the knot.  I could just reach one edge.  I tried to reach the opposite hand.  Not much more feel there.  I tried pulling my wrists apart and turning them.  It didn’t seem to do anything helpful.

I turned my attention to the rope around my torso.  I looked down at it.  The knot was behind me too.  I twisted from side to side with my shoulders.  I could wiggle a little more.  I was cramping and feeling strained from the efforts of twisting to gain a small amount of freedom.  It was exhausting.  I took a break and looked carefully around the room.  The butcher knife was on the counter!  I tried to stand up and realized that Frankos had forgotten to tie my ankles together.  I could move!  I pushed the chair along the floor toward the counter.  I stood as much as I could being tied down, and tried to pick up the knife with my mouth.  It didn’t work; the handle was too big and I ended up pushing it further away.  I kept trying different ways to get the knife positioned and stabilized enough to cut at least one of the ropes.  I finally had to break again and rest a minute to rethink my strategy.

It was during this break I heard the van again.  I quickly slid the chair back along the floor close to where it was when Frankos left, and tried to quiet my breathing down.  My heart was racing.  The door opened again, and Frankos walked in.  A man was following him.  It was Jim!

Frankos eyed me suspiciously, but remained silent as he marched through the doorway that led to the store.

“Ned said they were all here,” he muttered to Jim as they went out of sight.  “I have the stuff from Bridgetown in the van already.”

The two men came back with boxes, and several sacks.  They shuffled through the doorways to the outside, awkward with their arms filled with boxes.  They deposited it all into the van.

They went through to the store again.  Frankos watched me as he passed.

“So what is with the kid?”  Jim gestured a thumb towards me as he followed Frankos into the store for another load.

“Like I said, she has been around the Tour place on The Wharf, I saw her that day we met on the beach and now I found her at Chronicles.  I don’t know what she knows, but I know she knows too much.”

“Well, what are we going to do with her?”  Jim asked, irritated.  “She’s ruining the plans.  We can’t leave her here.  Ned will be implicated.”  His British accent was very strong with the word ‘implicated’.

“Ned’s in,” Frankos shot back.

They came back through with their arms filled once more.  I was careful not to react to anything they said.  I wanted them to keep talking, and it seemed the way I was sitting, they were not paying any attention to the fact I was able to hear them.

“I know Ned’s in, but do you think for one moment if he’s caught that he won’t rat us out?”

“So we take her with us.  We get her on a cruise ship, and have Jesse throw her overboard when they reach the Atlantic,” Frankos reasoned.  “Then she won’t be traced back to anyone because she’ll never be seen again!”

“Okay.  It’s a plan.  I didn’t want to get involve in killing, but I’m not letting a kid take me off my road to fortune either.”

“Oh my GOD!!  The Atlantic?” I thought in terror.

The two men came back into the apartment.  Frankos went to a closet in the bedroom.  He pulled out a pillow case. He picked up the cloth he’d gagged me with earlier, and gagged me again.  I feared for my life more than ever.  He untied the bindings to the chair and paused as he noticed he left my ankles unbound. Jim noticed it too. “Lucky she didn’t escape.” Frankos grunted.     

“I just needed a few more minutes, and I would have escaped,” I thought.  I felt foolish I hadn’t been able to get away when I had the chance.

Jim helped Frankos secure the ropes.  As they worked on my ankles, I played frantically with the ropes around my wrists.  I had loosened them enough that I had my thumb hooked on the pirate coin bracelet that Sunny had given me earlier that day.

Frankos picked me up roughly, and as he did, I thrust as hard as I could with my thumb away from my wrist, breaking the bracelet.  I saw it on the floor as Frankos threw me over his shoulder and followed Jim out the door to the van.  They shoved the pillowcase over my head, tied it loosely around my neck and wedged me in the back, between all the boxes and sacks.  The woolen blanket was tossed over me once more as the back doors slammed, and I heard both men climb in the front of the van.  The night air was cool enough the blanket didn’t suffocate me as much this time.

Also, notice the emphasis on nylon rope. Like the author found it important to note... And the fact that nylon rope specifically made it a little easier for her to move. I wonder how the author knows that...

[Big-City]

Continuing it more:

I was fighting off passing out.  I was having a difficult time breathing, and between the gag and the painful position my body was tied in, I was feeling very ill.  To top it off, I had to try to stomach Frankos and his unsteady, erratic driving.

It seemed a longer drive than the one from Chronicles to Speightstown when Frankos first snatched me.  I had lost all sense of the direction we were traveling.  I felt the most alert when I focused on each turn and tried to estimate how long we went each direction, but my mind kept drifting and my eyes grew heavy.

Frankos and Jim had been silent.  I wondered if they were silent because they didn’t want me to hear anything, or if they had nothing to say to each other.  The van began to slow, and I felt the turns and stops seem more like we had arrived somewhere.

It was only a few more stops and turns before I heard Frankos put the van into park and turn off the ignition.  The two men got out – I heard both doors open and slam shut.  The back doors of the van opened.  They pulled on the rope that bound my ankles, and slid me down towards them.  The pain the pressure on the bindings as they tugged, when my circulation was already being cut off, was excruciating.  I cried out, but the gag caused the sound to come as a muffled whimper.  One of them grabbed my body, keeping the blanket and pillowcase wrapped around me so I couldn’t see where I was at.  I felt my heart rate go up, and I felt a cold sweat wash over me. I heard the footsteps of the two men – the one carrying me, and the other.  A door opened.  It sounded like a wooden door with a screen, then another.  A heavier door.  A typical Barbadian cottage had two doors like that.  I heard their footsteps on tiles. Another door opened, closed, and I was flung on a hard mattress.

“We’ll lock her in here until morning,” Frankos muttered.  “The cruise ship docks at eight in the morning, and leaves again by ten or eleven.  This one is coming from Pointe-A-Pitre, in Guadalupe.  She’ll be on it when it leaves.  Jesse will take care of the rest.”

“I’ll help you unload the stuff.  Then I’m going to head somewhere in St. Lucy.  Lie low for a while,” Jim said sternly.  “You do the same, as soon as Jesse has everything.  Someone is bound to be looking for this kid.”  I heard the door shut again, and a key turn in the lock.

“Cruise ship?”  I thought.  “They must be sending a load of gemstones on a ship!  I hope someone has made Freddie talk,” she prayed.  “He’s going to me my only chance of getting rescued!”  I wouldn’t allow myself to think about what Jesse was supposed to do with me.

Instead, I turned my attention to rolling around to shake loose the blanket and rub the pillowcase off my head.  I couldn’t hear the men anymore.   They were unloading the van and I was left alone for the night.  That meant every moment I had, I needed to spend on trying to get free!

And the threat grows more intense!

I was rolling around on the floor, and I finally shook loose of the blanket that had been wrapped around me.  I discovered the corner of the bed was useful in pushing the pillowcase up and off; however, I had fallen off in my attempt to do it.  Falling had pulled the blanket down most of the way, and rolling a few more times did the trick.  Finally free of the cumbersome wool covering, I stopped to look around.

The room was dark in the black of a Caribbean night.  Any moonlight was blocked by the heavy blinds covering the windows.  I could see the blinds because there was a little light coming from the end of an extension cord plugged into an electrical outlet.  It was the kind of extension cord that lit up to show it was working.  I could see a nightstand beside the bed with a lamp on it, and a TV in another corner of the room, on a small table.  Beside that was a bookshelf, with a collection of DVDs and Blu-Rays on it.  I studied each part of the room again, as my eyes adjusted to the dark.  I looked for anything that could help me cut the ropes that bound me.

My neck burned from straining to see.  I went limp for a moment, on the floor.  Tears were burning in my eyes, but I didn’t want to let them surface and roll down my face.  I had a chance alone, and I wanted to use it before I ended up on a cruise ship, thrown overboard to drown in the Atlantic. “C’mon!  Zoe!  FO-CUSS!!!” I told myself.  I had Asset Number One, the small razor blade I found in the bathroom cabinet of the apartment, but I needed my hands free to retrieve it from under the liner of my shoe.

I saw a small knob on the drawer of the nightstand.  I wondered if I could hook the rope on it and then wiggle out of the ropes.  I squirmed, like a worm across the floor toward the side of the bed to try it.  I rested once, but managed to reach it.  I twisted and wrenched my body to get on my knees and get turned around so my back was facing it.  Then l lifted my hands up as far as I could behind me and fished around, feeling for the knob.  It took about a minute, but I felt the rope connect and hook. “Perfect!” I thought.

I started to work my left wrist up and down.  It was stabilized now, and I made some progress, but it was not very long until I felt the burning and tearing of my shoulder muscles from the pressure.  I rested for a second, stretching tall on my knees to take the pressure off my shoulders. I tried again.  I felt the drawer’s knob hook tighter, and I pulled my right wrist this time.  The drawer gave, and I fell forward, turning my shoulder just in time to break my fall, narrowly avoiding crashing straight on my face.

“Shoot!  Now I’ve ruined that chance!”  I was upset.  I lay, collapsed and uncomfortable on the floor.  My upper body was twisted so I was somewhat on my side, but from the waist down I had fallen quite directly to the ground.  I lifted my legs up so I could swing them to face the same direction as my torso.  I opened my eyes again, and took a third look around the room.  I could see no other object that might help me to freedom.

As I lay in the distorted heap, I thought I heard a shuffling in another room.   “Were they back?” I wondered.

I was breathing heavily from my effort a moment before, so I held my breath to try to hear all the noises in the other room.  Nothing.  I took a breath.  I held it again.  I listened.

Footsteps.  Then a vehicle’s door shutting in the distance.  Then nothing.  I took another breath.  I held it once more.  I heard nothing.

I stayed quiet for a few minutes, trying to think of another plan.  I wiggled around and found I could approximate sitting on my bottom, and press my back up against the side of the bed.   I had to slouch because of my arms trapped behind me.  It was much more comfortable, although I wanted my arms free more than anything else at the moment.  It was hard to concentrate past the aching and discomfort in my shoulders.

I hung my head down for a second, trying to alleviate the pain.  It was when I lifted it again that I noticed the shining object that must have fallen out of the drawer.

It was a woman’s curling iron.

“Maybe,” I thought.  “Is the risk of burns worth it over the idea of dying?” I asked myself.  “Absolutely,” came the answer.

It took several minutes to maneuver myself around to take hold of the curling iron with my hands, and squirm toward the electrical outlet I spotted beside the bookcase.  I held onto the cord, and felt behind me to plug it into the outlet with the limited flexibility of my fingers.  I managed, and felt considerable accomplishment as I saw the glow of a small red light on the curling iron signal that it was heating.

Oh damn, she's willing to do anything to escape!

[Big-City]

And the escape attempt continues!

It was slow going.  I burned myself three times already.  I was trying to burn the ropes on my ankles first, so I could figure out a technique before I had to do it blindly behind me, on my wrists.  I had managed to hold the curling iron sort of between my feet, and set it on the rope that held my ankles together.  The challenge was trying to apply pressure with the iron against the rope, so it would melt or burn it.  It was tricky, and that was how I received the second and third burns.  The first one was the worst burn, and I got that when I was maneuvering the iron between my ankles.  I longed for some egg whites to soothe it.  I had once burned my hand on the hot stove, and Mum had put whipped egg white on top. The relief was immediate.  It soothed and healed the burn quickly, and kept the scar to a minimum.

I twisted one toe downwards to try to press on the iron, when I heard the outside door open to the cottage.   I could hear voices faintly.  I quickly shook the iron from its position between my ankles and pulled the cord from the outlet as I squirmed past.  I wiggled toward the bed and was halfway there when I heard the key turning in the lock of the bedroom door.  I froze.

The door opened, and the light that streamed through from the hallway must have made me visible enough from the doorway.

“Still there,” Frankos grunted, and then sniffed loudly.  “Something smells like it is burning.” “Probably the stove,” a voice commented.  I didn’t recognize it.  “Dottie was here earlier.”

The door shut.  I heard the lock turn again.  Their footsteps retreated only into the next room.  I heard them sigh as they sat down on something.  Someone plumped a pillow audibly and sighed again. “How long?” the unfamiliar voice asked Frankos.

There was a pause and I heard Frankos respond.  “About nine hours,” he responded.  “Might as well get a little sleep.  I hope you’re not discovered missing on the ship before then.”

“Not going to happen,” the stranger replied. “I have no friends.”

“Nine hours?” I thought. “Until the 8am cruise ship departed?  And was this the Jesse guy they spoke of a couple times?  The guy that was going to throw me into the Atlantic?” Frankos got up hastily and stormed heavily across the room.  “Stove is disconnected,” he snarled.  “Couldn’t be it that smells.”

“OH NO!” I panicked.

I heard footsteps again.  The key turned in the lock.  Frankos turned on the lights this time, and looked about the room. I looked up into his angry face, as he took in the scene.  The pillowcase and blanket off, the drawer of the nightstand on the floor, and the curling iron across the room.

“What is this?” he demanded furiously.  He stepped over me and marched to the curling iron.  He picked it up by the barrel and dropped it in an instant when his hands registered the heat and he felt the searing pain of the burn it left on his palms and fingers.

“You little wench!” he shouted.  I closed my eyes tight as I saw him rush toward me with his fist flaying.  I felt him lift my torso up, and I realized he was about to smash my head against the floor.  I felt a heavy painful blow to the back of my skull.  I didn’t have time to feel the pain, at least I don‘t remember feeling it then.   I blacked out.

It must have been several hours before I woke up again. “I’m being carried!” was my first fuzzy thought.  “No…pushed.  On something with wheels.  I was moving… On a cart?  A trolley?”   I came in to and out of awareness several times before I fully remembered what was going on.  I thought about struggling free.  Then my aching head and very sore body convinced me it was best to remain under the pretense that I was still unconscious.

I heard the clip-clap of feet on a wooden boardwalk.  I thought I could smell the water of the seaside but it was difficult to tell.  There was a gag in my mouth again, and I was under a blanket.  I felt the sensation of being ‘packed’ in, and imagined I must be surrounded by boxes or luggage of some sort.

“We have a load of food – Bajan sugar, coconut water and some other supplies for Jesse Halibak.”  I heard a voice say.  It sounded like the stranger at the cottage last night.  The trolley had stopped moving. “I’m being loaded on to the ship!” I thought wildly!  Before I could think any further, we were in motion again, and my pounding head took me to blackness once more.

Escape attempt thwarted, and the kid is even knocked out, almost Nancy Drew-esque!

[Big-City]

And the suspense continues.

I woke again in a darkened area.  I opened my eyes, but there was only black.  I wondered if I was still unconscious.  I blinked three times and felt I had control of that, and could count how many times I blinked, so I thought I must be conscious.  By default, I concluded I was in a darkened room.  I could hear movement and voices further away, but nothing so close I could distinguish anything but a fan that was near to where I lay.

My head was pounding, and I felt dizzy and nauseous.  My wrists and ankles were sore and starting to swell it seemed from the ropes rubbing and cutting into them.  My shoulders and hips were longing to stretch.  My mouth was cracking and desperately dry.  My tongue felt heavy and thick; the gag made me feel like I was choking.  I let my eyes close again, and drifted back to unconsciousness.

I woke up again.   I wasn’t sure how long I was out.  I felt slightly better; at least my head did.  My body felt worse.  The nausea and dizziness was better, but my dry mouth was awful.  My lips were cracking and burning with discomfort.  I wasn’t sure I could feel my right wrist and hand at all.

I saw no light, as before.  I did another blinking test to make sure I was conscious.  I was.  I could hear some voices again, but they were happy and laughing.  It sounded like there were kids nearby as the giggles grew louder.

“I hear girls laughing!  Young girls…like my friends and I are at a sleepover!”  The sound was musical to me.  “Oh.  But that must mean I am on the cruise ship.”  Now my thoughts filled with dread.  “And that means I am about to be thrown overboard into the Atlantic!”

I heard the voices of the girls get even louder.

They must be walking through a corridor towards this room!

“MMMMmmmmmmMMMMMmmm!!!!” I tried to shout.  The gag in my mouth and the dryness only permitted a muffled sort of grunt to come out of the back of my throat.

“Hey, did you hear that?” a girl with a southern American accent asked.

“Hear what?” asked another southern girl, stifling her laugh and pausing to listen.

“MmMmmmmMMMMMmmmmm!!” I screamed out.

“That sound! I think it’s coming from the storage room here!”

“I wonder if it’s an animal.  Maybe something they keep to feed us for dinner!” The voice broke into laughter. “Katie! Be serious! Listen!” the first girl pleaded.

“MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmMMMMMmmmmmmmMMMMMmmmmmm!!” I put my biggest effort into it.

“I heard that!  You’re right, Dakota!  I bet it is an animal!  Oh, we need to rescue it!” Katie sounded desperate now.

I heard the knob turning back and forth.  The door rattled but did not open.

“It’s locked. We need to find a key,” Dakota told Katie.

“But we can’t ask a staff person!  If it’s an animal we are supposed to be having for dinner, they aren’t going to let us save it!” Katie begged.

“No, you’re right. But we have to try to do something! Let’s go!” I could hear the girls run down the hall.     

“Please let them figure it out!” I prayed.  For the first time since I walked into the Chronicles of Pirates, I felt a glimpse of real hope.

What. No, seriously, what. There were parts of this book I thought were a little weird and didn't make sense (no wonder it's self-published and Kindle-only), but really, what. The two random kids hear mmmmphhhing and think "it's an animal, so let's save it so it won't be killed for food." I... I can't.

I waited for a long time.  I did not hear the girls again.  I began to think they must have been distracted by another adventure on the cruise ship.  Maybe they were sunbathing on deck.  Or swimming in the pool.  I wished so badly to be with them.  Or on the beach with Sunny.  Or sitting in the lobby of our hotel, knowing Mum was in her office, and Dad was in his, and all was well.  Tears filled my eyes.  I let them fall.

I tried to wipe the tears on my shoulder.  I rubbed my face, and then started trying to push the gag out of my mouth.  It was tied much tighter than the first time.  I could hear the faint murmur of voices in the distance again.  Sometimes I thought I heard dishes clattering.  I wondered if I was near a dining area.

I stayed very still and rested.  I listened carefully to every sound.  I tried to think what each noise came from.  A fan, close by.  In this room.  Voices now in a constant hum, far away.  The occasional sound of china and silverware.

Suddenly, I became aware of another sound.  It was the sound of a key in a lock.  The lock to this room.  I held my breath.   I didn’t know what this Jesse person looked like, or what he pretended to be on the ship to disguise what he was really up to.

“Shhhh,” someone hissed. “We need a light.”

The voice was only a whisper and I heard the door shut quietly.

The light flicked on.  I heard it.  But I didn’t see light.  What I saw was the darkness become less dark.  I was encased in something!

“I don’t see anything!” a voice exclaimed.  I recognized the voice as the girl named Dakota this time.  They came back!

“MMMMmmmmmmMMMMmmmm!” I was frantically making noise. I tried to kick out.

“There!” Katie shouted.

And there was a shuffling, a shifting of things, and suddenly I was looking up to two blonde girls, who screamed and shot back out of sight when they saw me.

“MMMmmmm!” I tried again.

One of them peeked into sight again.  “We have to help her,” she said, turning to speak to the other girl.  I knew the voice; I must be looking at Dakota.  She peered down at me.  “We’re going to help you,” she said, nodding in assurance.  She reached down and took the gag out of my mouth.

“Thank you,” I tried to say.  My mouth was so dry that it came out as a raspy groan instead.

Dakota moved some more boxes to get closer.  She saw the bindings on my ankles, and saw my arms behind my back.

She turned again to face Katie.  “Katie, find a knife.  Or scissors.  Use the password when you get back.  I’ll open the door for you.  Be careful!  Don’t let anyone see you, and don’t tell anyone what we’ve found.  Not yet.”

I heard the door again. Katie had slipped out.

“My name is Dakota.  We are going to get you untied.  Who did this to you?” she looked at me with so much compassion. 

My eyes flooded with tears again. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t make a sound.

“Your mouth?”  Dakota looked at my cracked and dried lips.  She glanced up and looked around the room.

“I see some water!” she jumped up, spotting it.

Dakota returned with the bottle of water.  She opened it, and held it to my lips. It spilled onto my chest, and down the side of my cheeks, but I managed to take several sips.  Dakota took the bottle away.  “I don’t want to make you choke,” she explained.

“Thank you,” I tried again.  My parched throat made the words this time, although the words were scratchy and hard to understand.

There was a sound at the door.  Dakota spun her head that way.

“Peppermint!” I could hear Katie in the hall.

Dakota stood up and went to open the door.  Katie came in with a big butcher knife.

“I stole it from the kitchen,” she explained.  “They were cutting up the meat for dinner.”  She made a face of disgust and stuck her tongue out.

“We are vegetarians,” Dakota explained, as she noticed me watching Katie make the face.  She took the knife from Katie.  “Help me hold her up to get her arms.”

Katie helped push me over on one side so Dakota could reach the bindings on my arms.  She cut the rope after a moment of desperate sawing.  I rubbed my raw wrists, and then I bent my knees to rub my ankles.  I sat slowly up, lowering my knees and rubbing my wrists again.  Dakota passed me the bottle of water. I drank the whole thing down.  I wiped my face with the back of my hand.

“Thank you,” I repeated.  What else can you say when someone rescues you like that?  “My name is Zoe.”

“Zoe, we need to get you out of here,” Dakota said, touching my shoulder kindly.  She was a pretty girl, about the same age as me.

I felt too tired and sore to explain, disagree, agree, or anything.  I trusted these girls.  I let them take charge. Katie went to the door.  She held the handle, as Dakota helped me stand.  I felt dizzy, and as soon as I stood vertically, I stumbled on weak ankles.  I collapsed down, leaning heavily on Dakota as I steadied my balance.  I took some small steps toward the door.  Dakota put her arm around my waist, and lifted my arm over her shoulder.

Btw, my Kindle app warned me that I'm approaching my copy limit, but fortunately, this is the end of Zoe's ordeal. Rescued by two vegan kids who mistook her at first for an animal going to be cooked for dinner, and wanting to break in to rescue her for that reason. Yes, really.

Anyway, the book was stupid, but the kidnapping element was fun and very entertaining to read! So, there's that!