The Wrong Hostage

Eva

The scream dies in my throat, smothered by a rough, leather-gloved hand. One moment, I’m walking under the sputtering orange glow of a streetlight, the cool Chicago mist clinging to my jacket, my mind replaying Professor Albright’s smirking dismissal of my thesis proposal. The next, my world is canvas and pain.

A thick arm hooks around my waist, lifting me off my feet as if I weigh nothing. My messenger bag, filled with library books on pigment analysis, slides off my shoulder and hits the wet pavement with a muffled thud. I kick, my heel connecting with a hard shin, and a grunt of pain is my only reward before my legs are swept out from under me. I’m thrown into the dark belly of a vehicle. The door slams shut, sealing me in a world of darkness and the smell of stale coffee and cheap vanilla air freshener.

The engine roars to life. I scramble to my knees, my hands searching for a handle, a lock, anything. A coarse burlap sack is shoved over my head, rough against my cheeks and smelling of dust and mildew. My hands are yanked behind my back, the sharp bite of a zip tie cinching my wrists together. Panic, cold and sharp, tries to claw its way up my windpipe. I force it down. Breathe. Just breathe.

Think. Don’t feel.

This is a data-gathering exercise. That’s what I tell myself. The van lurches forward. I try to track the turns. Right, then a long straightaway. Another right. Left. It’s useless. I’m completely disoriented. My cheek is pressed against the cold metal floor, the vehicle’s vibrations rattling my teeth.

This makes no sense. I’m a graduate student. My bank account is a joke. My parents are retired teachers in Ohio. This isn’t a ransom kidnapping. It can’t be. So what is it? A random, violent crime? The thought sends a fresh wave of ice through my veins.

My mind flees back to the library, to the only violence I’d faced an hour ago, which was purely academic. Professor Albright, leaning back in his worn leather chair, steepled his fingers and looked at me over his spectacles. “Miss Chandler,” he’d said, his tone dripping with condescension, “while your passion for obscure nineteenth-century forgers is… quaint, your theory about microscopic canvas flaws is speculative at best. It lacks the gravitas of established scholarship.”

Gravitas. His favorite word. He used it to crush any idea that didn’t originate from a text written before 1950. He saw a student. A girl. He didn’t see the hours I’d spent with a microscope, the cross-referenced letters, the painstaking work of proving something everyone else had overlooked.

The van slows, descending what feels like a steep ramp. An underground garage. The engine cuts out, plunging us into an echoing silence. My door slides open. A hand grabs my arm, hauling me out. I stumble, my bound legs clumsy. We walk. The air changes, becoming cool and sterile. The muffled click of our footsteps bounces off concrete. Then, a soft chime. An elevator.

We ascend. Smoothly, silently, and for a very long time. This is no grimy warehouse. This is a high-rise. My confusion deepens, warring with my fear. Where are they taking me?

The elevator stops with another gentle chime. We walk again, this time on something soft. A plush carpet. A key card beeps, and a heavy lock clicks open with the sound of well-oiled machinery. I’m pushed forward into a room, and the door closes behind me with a solid, definitive thud. For a long moment, I’m left standing in the suffocating darkness of the hood.

Then, hands are on me again. A blade slices through the zip tie on my wrists, and my hands fall free, tingling with the rush of blood. The burlap sack is pulled from my head. I blink, my eyes struggling to adjust to the light. I gasp. My breath catches in my lungs, not from fear, but from sheer, unadulterated shock.

I’m not in a basement. I’m not in a cell. I am standing in the most magnificent suite I have ever seen. It’s not a room; it’s an entire floor. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrap around the space, showcasing a glittering, panoramic vista of the Chicago skyline at night. The lights of the city spread out below like a carpet of fallen stars. The floors are polished marble. The furniture is sleek, modern, and looks impossibly expensive. On the wall opposite me hangs a painting. My art historian’s brain automatically catalogues it: a large abstract piece, bold slashes of cobalt and crimson, vaguely reminiscent of a late-period de Kooning but clearly an original by a contemporary artist of immense talent.

My kidnappers are gone. I am alone.

My heart is hammering, a frantic bird trapped in my ribs. I move cautiously, my bare feet sinking into a cream-colored rug that must have cost more than my entire graduate education. I touch the back of a grey velvet sofa. It’s real. This is all real. I run to the wall of windows, my palms pressing against the cool, thick glass. It doesn’t budge. It feels inches thick. Sound-proofed. I am in a luxurious, silent cage in the sky.

On a low marble table sits a single bottle of Fiji water and a glass. My throat is sandpaper. I twist the cap and drink, the cool liquid a small comfort in this insane reality. I explore the rest of the space. It’s a penthouse, complete with a state-of-the-art kitchen with appliances that gleam, untouched. The bedroom is dominated by a king-sized bed with a mountain of pillows and sheets that look like spun silk. A walk-in closet is open, and inside, I see clothes. Not my clothes. There are simple, elegant dresses, cashmere sweaters, silk pajamas. All in my size. On a vanity, toiletries are arranged with hotel-like precision: expensive soaps, lotions, a new toothbrush still in its package.

They prepared this for me.

The thought is more terrifying than a dirty cellar and a single lightbulb. A random attack doesn’t come with a curated wardrobe and artisanal toiletries. This was planned. It was meticulous. But it must be a mistake. They have the wrong person. They must be looking for some heiress, some socialite, not a broke student who spends her nights hunched over obscure archival documents.

I check the door. It’s a solid slab of dark wood with no visible handle on my side, just a smooth, featureless panel. There is no escape. I am a specimen in a jar. A butterfly pinned to velvet. For hours, I wait. The adrenaline fades, replaced by a bone-deep, weary dread. I sit on the edge of the bed, the silk comforter cool against my skin, and watch the distant lights of traffic crawl across the city below. I try to hold onto the anger, the defiance I felt thinking about Professor Albright, but it’s slipping away, eroded by the sheer, bizarre opulence of my prison. The luxury is a weapon, designed to unnerve, to make me feel small and powerless. It’s working.

Then, a sound. A faint click from the hallway. A deadbolt, heavy and final, sliding back. My entire body goes rigid. My breath hitches. I stand up slowly, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, and face the door. It swings inward with a silent, expensive whisper.

A man stands in the doorway. He is not a thug. He is not a brute. He is tall, dressed in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit that probably costs more than my car. His dark hair is styled with effortless precision, and his face is all sharp angles and stark, uncompromising beauty.

He looks like a fallen angel carved from marble and disdain. But it’s his eyes that stop my breath. They are the color of a winter storm, cold and assessing, and they sweep over me with an unnerving intensity, taking in my cheap jeans, my frayed university sweater, my terrified posture. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. He just looks at me, and in his chilling, silent gaze, I feel myself being weighed, measured, and found wanting.