Disclaimer: The Characters of the Stephanie Plum Series belong to Janet Evanovich and are used here without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
Challenge: 100_Prompts - Table 100B
Characters: Stephanie, OMC
Rating: Suitable for people over 13
Feedback: ttsmiscellany@yahoo.com

Not Again
By TT

Stephanie suddenly became aware that she was conscious. Given that she couldn't remember losing consciousness, she became slightly worried. She became more worried when she noticed she was sitting upright in a chair with her head tipped foreward and her hair dangling in her face.

Her muscles stiffened as she realized she'd been kidnapped once again.

Trying her best not to release the sigh, she slowly took a mental inventory.

The first thing she noticed was the lack of a gag - definitely a good thing.

The second thing she noticed was that her head didn't hurt that much. She knew better than to try and move it yet, though, or open her eyes. Either of those things could result in pain.

She felt a heavy weight against her wrists and turning them ever so slightly, she determined she was handcuffed.

Other than the handcuffs, her arms felt stiff and heavy, as if they had been in the same position too long, which they probably had.

She slowly inhaled and was pleased to find she could breathe easily. No broken or bruised was a definite plus.

Shifting slightly she felt a dull throb on one of her hips and figured she would have a beauty of a bruise on it.

Her legs, like her arms, were heavy and stiff, almost to the point of being asleep.

Lifting her feet onto her toes, she felt the weight of metal on her left ankle, but not her right.

Curious, she slowly cracked her eyes opened. she looked down and noticed a chain leading from the metal band around her ankle under her chair.

She took a breath and held it for a moment, trying to hear what was around her. A masculine groan from behind her caused her head to snap upward as she turned as best she could to look over her shoulder.

"Donny?" she hissed in surprise.

Stephanie's brain raced as seh tried to figure out what happened.

The last thing she remembered was going after Donny Malcom, an eighteen year old skip wanted for jaywalking. Well, actually, he was wanted for obstruction of justice, but all he had been doing was crossing the street when Officer Gaspic, on his way to a crime scene, whipped around a corner and slammed on his breaks causing him to lose control of his car. He had sited the young man for jaywalking, arrested him for obstruction of justice and carted the poor boy off to jail. Once again, she couldn't help but think Officer Gaspic was on a power trip.

Donny had missed his court date becasue he was at the high school taking his final exam so he could graduate. If he had missed it, he never would have graduated. It never occurred to him that he could ask to reschedule the hearing.

Hearing the young man groan again, Stephanie couldn't help but feel awful about the situation. She had a new stalker, knew she had a new stalker and had failed to let anyone know. Because of that, she'd gotten Donny involved.

When Stephanie realized she had just given away any hope she had of keeping her wakeful state a secret, she decided to take in her surroundings.

They were in some sort of commercial garage or a warehouse loading dock.

Oddly, her only experience with such places was what she had seen in movies, but from the looks of things, they were fairly accurate in their depictions.

Scanning the area once more, she could find no trace of their kidnapper. She tried to think of what else to look for, to try and be aware of her surroundings, but she was coming up blank.

The phrase "aware of her surroundings" brought to mind Ranger. Ranger, brought to mind Rangeman and the tracking device she was pretty sure she still carried. The only down side of that happened to be that she believed the tracker to be in her purse and her purse was nowhere in sight.

So, no Ranger to the rescue. She also couldn't see any cameras or microphones near them. That meant they were, for the moment at least, on their own.

Realizing this might be their only chance to escape she hissed, "Donny." When she received no response, she said in a normal tone of voice, "Donny." When she still failed to receive a response, she shouted, "Donny!"

"Huh? What?" the young man asked, jerking upright before groaning.

It was only when she shouted that Stephanie felt the intense throb of pain race through her skull.

Now that she was aware of it, she could quite easily identify where the kidnapper had hit her. "We need to get out of here," she explained.

"I didn't do anything. You said you were just bringing me in. You.." Donny began to babble.

"Donny!," Stephanie shouted again, though not quite as loudly. "We were both kidnapped. If we're going to get away, we have to try now while we're alone."

"How are we going to do that when we're all chained up?" he asked, moving his hands and foot to make the chains rattle.

Stephanie gave that question a few moments thought. Instead of one of her usual sources of inspiration - movies, television shows, Ranger and Joe - it happened to be Angie that inspired her. Stephanie's niece had just had a birthday party the weekend before. One of the games they played was to put two people back to back and see which team could rise to a standing position first. Remembering how they the winning team achieved their victory she instructed, "You're going to have to lean against me. I"m going to push against you and you push against me. We should be able to get to a standing position from there."

It took many minutes and several tries, but eventually the duo was standing back to back while their chairs had fallen to the floor off to the side.

"Now what?" Donny demanded. "My leg's nearly asleep, our ankles are chained together and the room is spinning. I'm not sure I can make it out of here."

Stephanie slowly opened her eyes, hoping the room had stopped spinning for her too. Having no new insights, she decided to stick with what had worked before. "Simple," she assure. "I"ll lean on you and you lean on me and we'll be OK."

Donny stared into her eyes for a moment, nodded in agreement and slipped his arm around her waist while she draped hers over his shoulders.

Together they made their way out of the building to freedom, or at least to the nearest payphone so they could call for a ride.

End

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