The Companion
I was taken on a Friday night. I was returning from a fun night at the club. There was no warning, only a whisper in the dark, before the figure stood before me in the middle of the street.
“You want to come with me,” he said.
“What? Are you drunk, dude?” I answered, still secure in the fact that it was a Friday night in the middle of a busy street. What could go wrong for me here?
He just stared at me with the coldest and deadest eyes I’ve ever seen. “I said,” he stepped closer to me, his breath smelling of something metallic, “you want to come with me.”
“I really don’t.” This was getting creepy, and I wasn’t in the mood for playing games with a possibly high stranger. I tried to step back, but his hand shot out and grabbed my arm so hard it hurt.
“Let go of me! HELP!” I was screaming to the people walking by, but they just kept on walking as if I wasn’t even there. So I pulled my arm back, or tried to, but he was so strong. I was still screaming when he knocked me out.
When I regained consciousness, it took me a moment to realize that I wasn’t home. The surface beneath me was soft but harder than my own bed, and there were two voices speaking near me. I managed to open my eyes, the light from a nearby fireplace sending a bolt of agony down my skull. My head pounded like a hammer, and when I tried to move, I discovered my hands were in handcuffs. They were painfully tight, scratching at the skin of my wrists. As my eyesight returned, I saw that I was lying on a red velvet sofa. Behind me, two voices were arguing.
Oh, I was in trouble. Serious trouble, as in, I got kidnapped by a maniac and his accomplice. Both of them had to be insane, because their conversation made no sense whatsoever.
“Are you sure she’s a Companion? She hardly glows at all,” said one of them, a nasally voice that sounded suspiciously young.
“Yes, you half-wit, I’m sure.” That was my kidnapper’s voice, and it sent chills down my spine. He continued, “She was glowing bright when I caught her, but it dimmed for some reason.”
A scoff from Half-Wit, followed by a growl.
“Do you think I’m lying? How about I smash your fangs in to show you just how serious I am.” It sounded like the two of them were heading for a fight. I hoped I might use the opportunity to get away – if I could get myself up.
A clearing of a throat cut my hopes short. There was a third man entering the room, and he was looking straight at me. He looked in his forties, his skin smooth and his eyes a bright and icy blue. He looked from me to the two men who stood somewhere behind the sofa, where I couldn’t see them.
“It seems our guest is awake at last,” said the blue-eyed man, and he approached me with a slight smile on his face.
“Hello, child. Welcome to my home. What is your name?”
Like hell I was going to respond. Instead, I sat myself up in as dignified a manner as I could with my hands tied in front of me. I met the man’s eyes and stared back at him, until his smile wavered.
“Don’t bother, Brandt, glamouring doesn’t work on her,” said my kidnapper. “I tried several times. She just… doesn’t comply.” I turned my head towards him, my neck still stiff from lying on the sofa. In the light of the room, I could finally see him properly. He was wearing a nasty smile that turned my insides icy, and his dark eyes had no expression. His long black hair was tied back, highlighting his angular face. I suppose some would call him handsome, if they never saw him smile.
“Why is it we can’t glamour you, Companion?” He asked me, and his words confused me so much that I actually responded.
“What do you want from me? I’ve done nothing to you, you lunatic.”
“It isn’t about what we want,” said the blue-eyed man, his expression pensive. “It is about what the Council would want. And they would want her to be brought before them to be auctioned.”
At the last word terror shot through my spine. It was suddenly becoming clear what had happened.
“You’re human traffickers.” The lowly scum of the world who kidnap unsuspecting women and sell them in auctions. I’ve seen Taken. This hardly goes well for the woman, unless her dad is Liam Neeson. Shit, was I in trouble.
My kidnapper laughed at my words. “Nothing so crass. We are but simple, hard-working men who locate Companions and bring them before the Council.” He took a step towards me. “Selling you is their job.”
His eyes roamed over my body, and I shuddered with revulsion and panic. I struggled against my restraints. Not only were they traffickers, they belonged to some high-end crime ring that took girls like me and made them disappear. That had to be this ‘Council’ they kept mentioning.
“Stop wriggling about,” he said, and grabbed my tied arms so hard it hurt. “You would damage yourself. I would hate to see your price go down.”
My voice finally returned, and I found my strength again. I spat in his face and yelled, “Go to Hell!” before kicking him straight in the balls. He crumpled to the floor and I ran as fast as I could to the door, but before I could reach it, something hard and painful struck my back and dropped me. My head smashed against the wooden panels of the floor, and for a moment I saw stars as my head pounded with renewed pain.
“Damn you, Johnny, don’t harm the girl!” It was the blue-eyed man, the one they called Brandt, and a moment later he was kneeling before me and raising me from the floor with one hand. At first I thought I imagined it, but when I looked again, I saw he really was holding on to me with only one hand. I tried swiping his hand away, but it held me so tightly I couldn’t make it move.
He led me back to the couch gently and firmly, sat me down and inspected my head. I wasn’t bleeding, which was something, but I still felt the sting of tears in my eyes.
“Let me go,” I whispered to him. “I will just keep trying to escape and cause you trouble. Just let me go, and we can both get away from this.”
Brandt gave me a sad smile. “It isn’t that simple, I’m afraid. You are a Companion, which makes you a very precious person to my people. Have you ever heard of Companions?”
“What, like escort girls? Because I can tell you now, I would rather die than become a whore to one of your ‘people’.”
Brandt’s eyes grew cold. “Don’t diminish the Companion’s status. It is a position of honor and duty, and those who join our society are well taken care of. You will be rich, admired, cherished by your husband. Doesn’t that sound like a good life? A life of meaning?”
He was delusional. He really believed the women he kidnapped and sold to those rich assholes were happy?
I was just about to spit in his face too when my kidnapper made it back into my field of vision. He wasn’t limping, as I would expect after such a blow, but he was livid. His eyes shot lightning at me, making him look slightly deranged.
“This one won’t see reason, Brandt. She’s just going to keep fighting and spitting at us, unless I explain the stakes to her.”
He leaned over me, his breath smelling of copper and his skin cold against my arm.
“If you don’t behave,” he whispered, “I will take you to the back room and fuck you bloody. I will use you in every demeaning way I can, until all the spirit has left you and you’re a quiet, empty shell of a person. Is that what you want?” He grabbed my face in his hand and shook it. “Is it?”
His words struck true, because I believed him. he was just the type of maniac to fulfill such a threat, and I understood it on an instinctual level. So I shook me head and replied, “No.”
“Good. We’re making progress. Now, what’s your name?”
“Anya.”
“Well, Anya, I’m James, and here is the way this is going to go. You behave yourself, and I keep my hands off of you. but if you become a nuisance in any way, that will change. Do we have an understanding?”
I nodded my head even as I imagined myself tearing out those dark and dead eyes.
Then he smiled at me, and suddenly those weren’t teeth in his mouth, but long and sharp fangs.
“So, Anya, what do you know about vampires?”
