I can only see darkness. Maybe the faint glow of building lights. I am not sure. He carries me aggressively into a room and throws me onto something hard. I think it’s a springy mattress with a quilt. The room smells of laundry soap and carcass. A door slams shut. He yells to me through the door, “You can untie the blindfold now Nicole!” How does he know my name? His voice is scruffy, as if he is trying to hide his real voice. I’m scared.

The last thing I remember is dropping my six-year old daughter off at school for her first day of first grade. She was so excited and couldn’t wait to be back in school to see her friends.

“Hello?” I yell. “Can anyone hear me?”

“Mommy?” A small voice coming from the dark corner asks.

“Isabelle!” I run to her. “Are you okay baby? What happened to you?”

“I don’t know. You dropped me off at school and a lady talked tome and said you were waiting outside for me. Then a man picked me up and took me away!” She cried.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” I wondered.

“No Mommy I’m okay. I’m hungry though.”

“How long have you been here sweetie?”

“I don’t know. I think two days. It’s dark again.” She says holding her stomach.

“Come here. I’m going to get us out of here.” I pray.
One Month Earlier

“Isabelle! Time to go to Aunt Hannah’s house! We’re going to be late!” I called from downstairs.

“Coming Mommy!” My daughter yelled back. We hurried out the door immediately when she reached the bottom of the stairs. My sister has three kids of her own and kindly took my daughter in for the night, while I went to the casino with my girlfriends. I kissed Isabelle goodbye and told her I loved her and would see her in the morning. As I walk down the steps to my car, I look back and blow a kiss to Isabelle. I meet my friends at the casino entrance and we head directly to the poker table. We have our martinis served to us at the table.

A few hours pass by quickly and I’m out of money. I don’t know how much money I have lost but I know this will not be good for me or Isabelle the rest of the month. As I find my three friends in the large amount of people still in the casino at one in the morning, we walk up to our hotel rooms and fall fast asleep on whichever bed we see first. When I wake up, my friends must have gone down to the lobby for breakfast because no one was in the room or in the shower. I got myself up, got dressed, and headed downstairs. There were not very many people in the breakfast room and weird enough my friends weren’t there either. I decided to go back to the room to grab my cell phone and call one of them. None of them answered their phones. Things are getting weirder and weirder. No one left a note or a message on my phone. When I called down to the front desk to ask if they had already checked out, the receptionist had no history of anyone checking out from our room. As I looked around the room, I realized none of the beds had been slept in and everyone’s luggage was still loaded and unpacked. Thinking of my daughter, I loaded everyone’s overnight bags into my car and headed back to my sister’s house to pick up Isabelle. Before I was even out of the car Isabelle runs up to me and gives me a great big hug. I told her to hop in the car while I went to thank Hannah for watching her longer than I had expected. She thanked me, we hugged and kissed goodbye.

Everyday, for the passed month, I have been spending my money wisely but then again, I had no money to spend. I was 15,000 dollars in debt. There was no way I was going to let Isabelle know we were in that kind of trouble. I simply told her we were saving our money so we could move into a big house with a swimming pool. One of Isabelle’s passions was swimming. She was like a mermaid living on land.

On the first day of first grade, we pulled up to the school and Isabelle hopped right out of the car and started running into the classroom when she turned around and bolted back to me to give me a hug and a kiss goodbye. I said to her, “Have a great first day sweetie!” Then she turned around and ran to her class where her friends awaited her. I got back into my car started driving to work playing my Taylor Swift CD when I realized I forgot my phone at the house! I whipped around at the next legal u-turn and ran into my house into the kitchen where my phone sat on the counter. As I was checking my voicemail, I heard the door slam so I swung around and a man’s hand with a cloth of something that knocked me out for however long.

When I woke up, I was being lifted from a trunk into some place, but I have no idea where because my eyes are covered and my hands are tied. A man is carrying me aggressively into a room and throws me on the bed. He yells to me through the door, “You can untie the blindfold now Nicole!” How does he know my name? His voice is scruffy, as if he is trying to hide his real voice. I’m scared.

“Hello?” I yell. “Can anyone hear me?”

“Mommy?” A small voice coming from the dark corner asks.

“Isabelle!” I run to her. “Are you okay baby? What happened to you?”

“I don’t know. You dropped me off at school and a lady talked tome and said you were waiting outside for me. Then a man picked me up and took me away!” She cried.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” I wondered.

“No Mommy I’m okay. I’m hungry though.”

“How long have you been here sweetie?”

“I don’t know. I think two days. It’s dark again.” She says holding her stomach.

“Come here. I’m going to get us out of here.” I pray. I yell, “Help!” It’s useless. The feeling inside of me lets me know that we are in the middle of nowhere and no one can hear me. Lucky for us though, I had given Isabelle a cell phone that is for emergency use only because being a single mother, you’ll never know what you’re going to have to go through. Sure enough, I ask Isabelle for her phone, she pulls it out of her boot. She smiles. I dial 9-1-1. As it rings my heart sinks because I know now that we are safe and the men can no longer touch us. Since I don’t know where we are, I stay on the phone so they can track the phone call, just as I think I’ve been on the phone long enough for them to track us, the man barges in and hangs up the phone! “What do you think you’re doing Nicole?”

“Who are you? What do you want from us? I did nothing to deserve this!” I plead.

“Give us the 15,000 dollars you owe us.” He demands. He pulls out a gun!

“I don’t have your money right now! Please don’t hurt us! I will have your money within 24 hours. I promise, just please don’t hurt us.”

“I get Isabelle until you collect the money!” He barks. Another man comes into the room and takes me to my car.

“Get in the car and drive to the bank!” He points his shaking hand wit his gun at me. Since he is shaking I feel like he is not as capable of hurting me as much as the other guy holding Isabelle hostage. On our way down the road we pass six police cars. I smirk a little bit because I know they are going to save my baby girl. I just need to figure out how to save myself. The only thing I am able to do in this open desert area, is go off the road. Off I go, scaring the man with the gun. He gets so scared he drops the gun right onto my lap. I grab the gun and shoot him. One man down, one to go. I kick him out of my car and race back to the place I came from. I wasn’t too far away so I could see the lights of the police cars way in the distance.

As I approach the house, all police officers are surrounding the house guns loaded pointing at all entrance and exits. I hide the gun I got from the other guy incase they confiscate it from me. I ask one of the officers to let me inside, they tell me know because the guy in there is carrying a weapon. I don’t listen and burst through the door. He shoots me right away! I lay there struggling but there’s nothing I can do. I hear another gun shot, coming from directly above me. The guy holding Isabelle hostage falls to the ground bleeding to death. Isabelle runs over to me and the medics carry me off into the ambulance on a stretcher.