Chapter 3 Behind the Mask

Cielle was silent all the way, and so were her captors. She smelled the aroma of the chicken all over the place, and this made her stomach grumble.

The last time she ate was this afternoon. She envisioned herself eating heartily, but with the fact that she was unexpectedly abducted too, the thought of a full belly-protruding dinner had slowly vanished.

Once in a while, she had contemplated picking out one piece from the bucket, but in the end resisted, feeling more irritated with Theo, who was having the time of his life eating two more chickens.

After half an hour of travel, the convoy of two motorbikes, a black Chevy and her SUV arrived on a narrow dirt road. Cielle's worry worsened, wondering where in Cordova they were.

When Nic pulled the car in a grassy clearing, Cielle finally was able to see the black waters under the moonlight.

They were specifically in a secluded area absent of electric lights or lamps where a short rocky cliff met the pristine salty water. In here, a decent-sized pump boat awaited them-its engine already roaring to life. Still, no light could be seen in the boat except for a built-in flashlight on a small radio.

Through the windshield, Cielle could see someone disembarking the Chevy. Her breath hitched when she saw the boy-Alex-lying unconscious in his captor's arms.

"Let's go," Nic prompted, glancing at her briefly before opening the door.

Cielle's feet however turned cold and stayed rooted on the spot. She, for the life of her, refused to get out of the car, but then she felt something poke her left shoulder. It was a gun.

"Out," urged Theo from behind.

After pressing her lips together in dismay, she opened the car door and slipped out. Nic was already waiting for her outside and just like the last time, he gripped her right wrist and dragged her forcibly into a cleared pathway towards the boat. It was a tug of war at first, with her doing the best to give him difficulty, but Nic was too strong to easily tow her.

"You will only give yourself bruises if you do that woman, " he grounded, giving her a pointed glare.

"If you keep on man-handling me, then that would happen! I can walk properly, you know! It is not like I can escape now, and besides, I can't leave Alex with all of you!"

"Good to know," was Nic's flat tone, just as he abruptly stopped right in front of a gangplank.

"After you," he stated, sweeping his free hand sideways.

Cielle in response mock-smiled at him and rolled her eyes.

Truly, there's no need for the gentleman act at all. He may have the looks, but he certainly counts as being a villain still.

How had he gotten to be with these kinds of people, anyway? She asked in her thoughts, but dismissed the big question at the back of her head when she saw Alex now lying in a makeshift bed inside the boat.

After a deep breath, she walked precariously at first; balancing herself in the plank so she wouldn't fall towards the black water. It was a hard ordeal the whole time because not only that there was no one to assist her, the spot was dark enough to keep her from seeing clearly.

Please don't fall, please don't fall, she chanted to herself as she continued in baby steps.

By the time she boarded the boat, she sprinted towards Alex.

Kneeling, she scooped the boy up, handling him carefully. Just as she placed his head in her lap, two tears dripped in his forehead.

Sad. She felt sad. The boy didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to lose his step-father early in his life; he didn't deserve to be the bait in these men's greed; he didn't deserve this kind of treatment at all.

But not wanting the men to see her breakdown, she wiped the gleaming beads quickly from Alex's forehead with her palm and dried her eyes with the same.

She saw all of them board the boat except for the man who wore the black helmet. He remained standing in the short cliff with the keys of her car and a silent promise of not returning it to her.

"Wow! Ain't this delicious!" Don, who was sitting across her, exclaimed in glee. He snatched one plastic that contained a bucket of chicken from Theo's hands and hurriedly opened it on the wooden floor.

Cielle hadn't even noticed that the goatee man brought the buckets with him, if not for Don's announcement.

She glowered at Don's hands, who ever so greedily took two well-seasoned wings and bit on them with a wide smile. Though it lacked light, she could still see the tar sticking out from his teeth as he chomped the juicy meat.

Others followed after him-Theo, Arthur, and three other men on board-except for Nic, who stood silently at the engine side of the boat, facing the waves as the boat started to move.

Cielle wanted to retch, seeing them eat to their heart's content. Those buckets were supposed to be for her friends and family, but look where they ended up now.

She felt her own stomach growl again, and this made her clench her jaw. Nope. She won't be pleading her case to them. She'd rather die in hunger than to be at their mercy.

Due to the boisterous laughter of the kidnappers, Alex woke up. Cielle noticed him stir, and so she pressed her palm in his sweaty forehead.

"Hey, shhh. It's me, your big sister Cielle. You're fine, Alex. Go back to sleep."

The boy looked up at her and knitted his brows. "I'm hungry, Big Sis."

It must have been the side-effect of the drug they used to render him unconscious earlier or the reality that he himself hadn't eaten dinner too before he was kidnapped.

Cielle blinked a couple of times. Now, this is a predicament she must face.

"I will get you food then," she stated while smiling at him.

After Alex nodded, she turned her attention on the men huddling across her and shouted, "Hey!"

No one seemed to listen.

"Hey! Give one chicken for the boy, will you? He is hungry."

Still, they ignored her.

Nic, who heard her on the first try, turned to look at her silently.

"If you don't, he will get weak and die and you obviously won't get your money," she reasoned, which got an expected response from them.

Don glanced at her, frowned, and then picked a lighter bucket from the batch. He nudged at a skinny man in his left-Arthur-and ordered in a native tongue, "Give this to her."

Arthur gave out a doubtful look at first and then stood up, taking the bucket with him to Cielle.

"Thank you," she said in a clipped tone to which the one addressed just shrugged his shoulders.

Prick.

Cielle then smiled back at Alex, one that hid the worry in her heart, and said, "Here, eat this Alex."

"Thank you, Big Sis," the boy replied, sitting up and biting the white meat off the sole drumstick from the bucket Don had given.

"You should eat properly so that when you leave here, your mother won't see you a thin boy," she stated.

"How about you, Big Sis? Do you have a mommy waiting for you too?" Alex asked whilst giving her a curious face.

With that, somehow, it lightened the gloomy mood she was in. "Yes, I do. They must be really worried about me, just like how much your mother is worried about you now."

"I like to eat spaghetti," suddenly and as carefree as any other kid, Alex expressed. "Can we go to my favorite restaurant now?"

Cielle's mouth dropped. She glanced at the kidnappers consciously, wondering if they heard the innocent request of the boy. They however were too busy eating to even take notice, which relieved her greatly.

"Uhh, uhm, no Alex, we can't. These men aren't nice people. We can't ask them to go there," she reasoned as low as she could to him. What she didn't know was that Nic had been listening and observing them discreetly.

The boy's shoulders, after hearing her, slumped. Cielle immediately attempted to cheer him up.

"Hey, wipe that pout off your face." She tipped his chin up and smiled a radiant smile. "I promise you, when we are done with this...travel, I will buy you whatever you want to eat anywhere."

The boy's eyes beamed with mirth in response. "And mommy and daddy too? Can they come along?" He didn't even recall that his step-father had been gunned to death.

Cielle swallowed a lump in her throat. "Yes," she answered quietly, her smile not faltering for a moment.

"Yaay! Thank you, Big Sis!" And then Alex hugged her tightly.

Cielle hugged him back, disregarding the hard-driven frowns of the men now watching them.

Let them be. Let them show what pain they caused on the boy.

"You're welcome, Alex," she replied, rubbing the child's back to soothe him.

Almost two hours later, their boat arrived at an island off the coast of Cordova. It was a clean island with a white sandy shoreline shimmering under the moonlight. Tall palm trees could be seen everywhere but what caught her attention more was the readily seen small sleeping community. There were probably fifteen roofs she could delineate from the dark, some of which were made of coconut leaves and others, galvanized iron.

This must be their hideout, she thought, and that soon was clarified when from the shadows armed men holding rifles stepped out.