Chapter 65 CHAPTER 067
Amelia POV::
I taste the salt in my mouth before I gain consciousness fully. It doesn't alarm me as much as the tight binds eating into my wrists and ankles. I am bound to a cold metal chair, and the room is bare with dull walls, dark except for a lone light bulb that keeps fluttering. It could as well have been off. I can't judge the size of the room because of the dimness, but I get the sense that it is a huge building. A warehouse, probably. And I am confined to a corner of it.
Panic floods into my bloodstream as the last of my consciousness slids into place. I feel a revolt so foreign that it shocks me to the core.
Tyler. At my apartment complex. Those cold, emotionless blue eyes. The sneer that marred his face, transforming his usual handsome features into a severe hateful mask.
That scream I heard before passing out was undeniably Ashley's. My heart slams around in my ribcage with the implication of what it meant for Tyler to have been in my apartment. For Ashley to have called me out of the safety of Linc's house, knowing he was waiting for me there.
I remember how she sounded when she suddenly changed her mind when I told her I was already on our street. Panicked. Hesitant. Scared.
Oh God. But it can't be. Oh God. Please. Ashley.
Bile rises to my throat, and I bend over to retch, but nothing comes out. My stomach is empty. I didn't eat breakfast. I don't know how long I have been here. I have no concept of time, there are no windows and my head hurts in a scary dull way that could either mean serious brain damage due to the impact of whatever Tyler hit me with at the base of my skull, or just extreme stress at the situation.
Ashley set me up.
The realisation makes me hurt almost physically. I bend over at the waist, trying to squeeze into the heartbreak so it doesn't consume me. But it is futile. The thought takes my breath away.
Ashley is my best friend. My sister. We have lived together for three years. She has been a rock during my hard times. And I have been the same with her. I believed I knew her. That we knew each other. That we were ride or die. She was my person. How could she do this to me? It doesn't add up. Nothing makes any sense. I wrestle with what seems to be real and what I believe shouldn't.
This can't be. There must have been a misunderstanding. Something must have gone awfully wrong somewhere. Why would she do this to me? Did she really love Tyler that much? Did they have something much more intimate between them that I wasn't aware of?
To join forces with him and betray me like this? Oh God. How could I have been so blind?
My brain freezes. A wail escapes my mouth. I don't know when the tears start falling. My face is soon wet, and my nose is running. And because of how bound I am, I can't even wipe my face. I can't move. I can't believe this.
And yet, this is my reality. I am here right now because Ashley set me up.
As soon as this absolutely insane thought settles, my brain kind of moves on to the next problem. The main problem.
Tyler has kidnapped me.
He must have known that I would tell Linc all along. That I didn't plan on dancing to his tune. Didn't intend to run around looking for huge sums of money to pay him off. If Tyler and Ashley were in on this all along like I am yet to fully grasp, then he knew. He had been staying in my apartment whilst Linc had Hernandez looking everywhere but under our very nose. Oh God.
I have been kidnapped.
Another wave of panic induced nausea washes over me. I am just coming to terms with the severity of the situation, and I can't believe it. Can't understand it. Tyler has cold-emotionless eyes, and he genuinely scares me but I didn't peg him to be this kind of messed up. To be a kidnapper.
This is too far. This is a proper crime he is committing. And for what? Because I didn't send him money?
I guess Ashley is not the only person I didn't know at all. That I figured wrong. Nobody would believe that Tyler can go this far, I am finding it impossible to believe myself. But the taste of blood in my mouth is very real. The dull ache behind my head is real. And the tight knots around my wrists and ankles are very much real.
My brain scrambles but nothing makes any kind of sense. I feel dizzy as the fluttering lightbulb keeps going on and off. My eyes are open but my vision is very poor. The headache spreads to my eyeballs and it is torture to keep my eyes open for long. I shut them tight, hoping that when I open it again, I should be able to see better in the darkness, it doesn't work.
I feel like there is something I must be missing.