Trace Ayala

Justin Timberlake

Shayne Burrows

Ellie Morgan

Jay Ayala

Carter Westin

Andie Morgan

Daniel Morgan

I open the door to my… well, our apartment, and roll my eyes.

Why I ever moved in with these two fucks is beyond me. I mean, I did need a place to stay after I got evicted, (I still contend that the shower curtain spontaneously combusted. I didn’t set the damn fire.) but of all the places in the world, I had to move in with Justin and Ellie.

The rent free part doesn’t hurt, but they’re just so… irritating. And not in that, ‘aw, what a wonderful fucking couple’ kinda way.

Those assholes can argue.

In the middle of the night, dead silence, they’ll start screaming about the dumbest shit. He’s breathing on her, she’s hogging the covers. You get the picture.

So yeah, that’s what I currently have to live with.

I’m really not bitter though. Ellie’s cool, Justin’s happy and his bat shit crazy family isn’t constantly on his ass. It all worked out ok, I suppose.

But, and you can call me a selfish little bastard for this… what about me?

I mean, did it ever occur to anybody that I’m tired of being the fucking wing man, or the really funny sidekick?

Cause guess what… I am.

You couldn’t pay me to admit that shit publicly, and if you tell anybody I said it… I’ll deny it til the day I die, but it’s the truth.

But, I’m pretty sure I figured out a way to fix it.

“I’m home.” I call out and toss my keys on the table by the door.

“We’re in here.” Ellie’s voice floats down the hallway, from the living room.

I follow the sound and quickly find her and Justin stretched out on the couch, watching some crap ass cop show. They’re obsessed with that shit, I swear.

“Hey man… did you…. Holy fucking Christ.” His eyes bug out as he turns to look at me and within a split second, two sets of very angry, shocked eyes are resting on me.

Or, the girl next to me. I’m not really sure which.

“Trace…” Ellie begins, slowly rising to her feet. What the fuck did you do?”

I glance at the blonde next to me and shrug.

Maybe I should have taken the gag off, or at least untied her hands before I brought her in the apartment. We’ll chalk it up to a rookie mistake.

“What? It seemed to work out alright for you guys.”

“What have you done?” Ellie’s screech seems to echo throughout the room and I can’t help but roll my eyes.

I’m getting really fucking bored with this interrogation thing.

Seriously… what’s the big damn deal? Justin kidnapped a girl, and nobody seemed to really give a shit. I mean, ok yeah… he got arrested, but he got out of that pretty fucking quick.

Besides, it’s not like the chick even struggled. I grabbed her when she was walking to her car, and she didn’t put up any type of fight. She let me stick her in the backseat of my car, let me tie her up.

No form of protest what so ever.

I’m not really sure if that’s good or bad. There’s some sick fucks in the world, ya know? Like, some people actually get off on that being tied up shit.

Or, maybe she was just in shock through the whole thing, and didn’t really know what to say or do.

Yeah, we’ll go with that.

“Seriously man… what the fuck were you thinking?” Justin sighs and shakes his head sadly. “I really, really don’t get this.”

Oh, that’s fucking rich. The king of bad decisions is judging me.

“Ya know… if you two are so concerned, don’t you think you should untie her or something?” I smirk as Ellie continues to scowl at me. “I could be wrong though. J… you’re the expert here, any advice?”

“Don’t be a prick.” Ellie mutters as she carefully approaches the blonde, who still doesn’t seem too worried about what’s happened.

Shit… what if she’s retarded or something, and doesn’t even understand what’s going on?

Fuckin a, man… leave it to me, I swear to Christ. I would be the one to kidnap a retarded girl.

I wonder if they extend your jail time for that. I mean… that makes it a hate crime or some shit, right?

Ellie unties her hands and eases the gag down around her throat before smiling sympathetically. “Hi… I’m Ellie. Nobody’s gonna hurt you, ok? We’ll get you cleaned up, and take you home, alright? This was just a huge, huge misunderstanding.”

The girl nods slowly, a small smile breaking out across her face.

She’s not retarded…. She’s insane. And she’s gonna fuckin kill us all.

Damnit.

“I’m Shayne.” She’s practically grinning now and I’m getting more than a little confused.

If I recall correctly… this isn’t exactly typical victim behavior. I mean, Ellie fought, tried to climb out windows, damn near broke my fuckin nose, and would scream at Justin like there was no tomorrow.

But this girl… it’s like… she just doesn’t fucking get it.

It’s shock. It has to be. That’s the only reasonable explanation for this, and once it all finally clicks, she’s gonna flip the fuck out.

I can totally handle that part though.

“Alright… Shayne… where do you live?” Ellie kneels down in front of her and smiles sweetly.

Why the hell isn’t she this nice to me or Justin? I eat the last of her cereal or something equally as stupid, and she damn near breathes fire on my ass.

“Umm…” Shayne looks around the room, her smile fading quickly. “I… I don’t… I don’t remember.”

“Ok… that’s alright. You’re upset… totally understandable.” Ellie nods. “Do you remember your phone number… or a relatives phone number?”

“Well…. No.” Shayne shakes her head. “I can’t really remember anything…. Just getting hit in the head….”

“Oh my fucking god… Trace… tell me you didn’t.” Ellie turns to glare at me.

Umm… ‘scuse me while I pick my jaw up off the god damn floor.

“I didn’t fuckin hit her!” My voice comes out a little higher than I expected and I clear my throat. “I saw her coming out of some building… I walked up behind her, covered her mouth with my hand and walked her to the car. She didn’t even fight me!”

“You sure you didn’t bump her into something?”

“Yes I’m sure! I did not hit her.”

“You can get amnesia from shock, can’t you? Like… you go into shock and get all fucked up, right?” Justin is panicking, that much is obvious.

Which is real fuckin funny, when you think about it. I may have freaked out on him a little bit, but I had his back. You’d think the asshole would return the favor.

“Look…. You both need to chill the fuck out. We’ll just sit here til her memory comes back, then we’ll take her back or something. It’ll be fine.” I shrug and reach for the remote before plopping down in my chair.

“Chill out? Are you retarded? You’ve kidnapped someone, you jackass! I didn’t realize idiocy was fucking contagious around here.”

“You’re really gonna do this now?” Justin groans and turns to face his girlfriend. “It was a fucking year and a half ago! Let it go already woman!”

“Let it go? You committed a felony! You kidnapped me. Do you not understand what that means? You could have done permanent damage or something.”

“You came back… which is proof that you’re just as fucking crazy as I am. Now… maybe I’m mistaken, but I think we have something a tad more important to deal with. Or, do you really want to harp on something that is totally done and over with?”

And they wonder why I snapped. Listening to their bickering all the damn time would drive anybody fuckin nuts.

“Sometimes, I really don’t like you.”

“You don’t like anybody.” Justin shrugs and turns to look at me. “Maybe we should just… take her back where you found her.”

“You know she’s not a lost puppy, right?” I laugh and roll my eyes. “She’ll remember something eventually. Just relax. I helped cover your ass, you can help cover mine for a little bit.”

“He’s got a point, ya know.” Justin frowns before easing down onto the couch. “Maybe we should just wait for a couple hours, and if she remembers something, we can take her home.”

“Don’t even try to bring me into this.” Ellie mutters before stomping down the hall to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

“So….you hungry?” Justin smiles awkwardly at Shayne, who seems perfectly content where she is.

“Nope. Did you really kidnap that girl?”

“Who, Ellie? No.. I… well… we….”

“He kidnapped her. He had a nervous breakdown because his mommy told him he needed to get laid, and he nabbed the first chick he saw. It just so happens, she’s a god damn lunatic too, so she hung around, and now they’re living happily ever after.” Shayne giggles and shakes her head in response.

I begin to flip channels quickly, praying like hell there’ll actually be something worthwhile on. I’m telling you man, TV is total shit during the day.

I finally stumble across the local channels and feel the color immediately drain from my face when my eyes land on the images on the screen.

“Witnesses say the assailant bound and gagged Ms. Burrows before shoving her into the backseat of dark blue, late 90’s Honda. The attacker is described as a white male, between 20 and 30 years of age, approximately five feet, six inches tall. If you have any information regarding this disappearance, please contact the NYPD immediately.”

“Well… that’s not good.” Shayne sighs as she looks at Justin, then me. “So, what now?”

“What now? We drop you the fuck off somewhere, that’s what now.” I jump out of my seat, immediately grabbing my car keys.

Shit… I guess we can’t really take my car, can we?

“J… can you…”

“I’ll get my keys.” He frowns and rises to his feet. “El, c’mon… we gotta go.”

Ellie enters the living room just as the alert appears on the TV again. She stops dead in her tracks and stares at the screen, her eyes growing wider with each word.

“She… she’s… she’s on the fucking news already?”

“Yeah, and that’s why we gotta go. Now.”

“I wasn’t even on the news after three god damn days!”

“Cause nobody missed your ass. Can we go before I’m arrested, please?”

It doesn’t take long before the four of us are piled into Justin’s car, heading straight for the scene of the crime.

With any luck, we can drop her off, and she’ll either find her way home, or someone will recognize her, and call the cops.

Hopefully, this amnesia shit will prevent her from ratting me out. Cause let’s face it, I wouldn’t survive prison. I’m short, I’d be somebody’s bitch in about two seconds.

“It was up here… around the corner.”

Justin nods and takes a sharp turn, before abruptly slamming on the brakes.

There are cops everywhere. Blocking the road, scouring the parking lot for evidence, running in and out of buildings.

“We can’t drop her off here. We’ll all go to fuckin jail.”

“And I am so not going to jail for you Trace.” Ellie barks, crossing her arms over her chest. “Justin, go… we can’t do this here.”

Now see… this is all Ellie’s fault. Had someone sent a search party when she went missing, I never would have thought this would work.

Yep… definitely Ellie’s fault.

“We could go to my dad’s.” Trace offers from the backseat and I’m half tempted to turn around and slap him.

“Your dad lives in Georgia, you ass.”

“Point? Fuckin cops ain’t gonna be looking for us in Georgia now, are they?”

I really don’t know how I got here.

Well… scratch that. I know how I got here. I’m just not entirely sure why I stayed. Honestly, there are times where I’m amazed that this is my life, and not because it’s so perfect. Mostly because it’s full of fucking lunatics.

“He’s right, ya know.” Justin sighs, keeping his eyes glued to the road. “Maybe we should go down there for a few days, let all of this blow over… then bring her back home.”

“Oh… good idea! While we’re at it… let’s rob a few banks and kill some people.” I smile sarcastically as he rolls his eyes. “And you know what… we’ll just go hide in Georgia, and nobody will have any idea it was us.”

“Do you really have to be bitchy mcbitch all the god damn time? Jesus Ellie.” Trace kicks the back of my seat and I fight every urge I have to strangle him.

I love how having a brain makes me the bad guy. I swear, these two are like the very worst of the three stooges. I don’t even want to think about where the hell they’d be if I wasn’t around to keep them from doing stupid shit on a daily basis.

“Ok genius… say we go to Georgia… what the fuck are we supposed to do for clothes, or money, for that matter? Your daddy isn’t gonna foot the bill for three fugitives and a kidnap victim, is he?” I turn in my seat to face him, and he avoids my gaze completely. “Yeah… didn’t fuckin think so.”

“Alright… both of you just shut up, and calm down.” Justin frowns, shaking his head slowly. “Here’s what we’re gonna do… we’ll go back to the apartment, pack up some shit, get all of our credit cards, then we’ll head out. We’ll drive to Georgia, stay for a week… then come back.”

See? Fucking morons.

Do they not realize the longer this girl is missing, the worse this gets for us?

Speaking of which… why the hell isn’t she freaking out? She should be yelling and screaming, doing anything she can to get away. Instead, she’s sitting beside Trace like there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.

And ya know… I can’t quite figure out why she doesn’t remember anything either. I was drugged for christ sake, and I still remembered my phone number and where I lived.

Something isn’t adding up here.

“It’ll take days to drive to Georgia.” I mutter and fold my arms over my chest. “We’ll have to stop along the way.”

“I’m aware of that Ellie. I was… well… I thought maybe we could stay at your parents for a couple days. Tennessee is kind of the halfway point, and I haven’t met your parents yet, and…”

Oh great. Here with go with that shit again.

For reasons I will never understand, Justin has this incredibly strange obsession with meeting my parents. He seems to think meeting them will give him a better sense of who I am. Which, I guess is sort of true. After meeting his parents, I knew for a fact that he was fucking certifiable.

It’s not that I’m against the idea of him meeting my family or anything. It doesn’t really affect me one way or the other. My parents are great, Justin’s great when he isn’t acting like an idiot. I know they’d get along terrifically.

I’m just not too fond of involving my parents in this mess. I didn’t even bother to tell them what happened to me, so there is no way in hell I can walk in their house and say ‘hey guys… we’re on the run, just need a place to stay for a day or two. Don’t mind us.’

Yeah… not gonna happen. No matter how cute Justin looks when he pouts at me.

“I’ve never been to Tennessee.” Shayne suddenly manages to remember she does have the ability to speak, and I whip around to face her.

“Don’t you want to go home? I mean… you do realize he’s holding you against your will, right?”

“Yeah… but… I’ve never been to Tennessee.”

Of course. I honestly don’t know why I’m surprised that Trace managed to find the one girl who doesn’t mind being kidnapped. What I want to know is, just where the hell was she when Justin nabbed me? If he’d found her instead… well… there’d be a hell of a lot less stress in my life, that’s for damn sure.

“El… he had my back with you. I owe him.” Justin looks over at me, the puppy dog eyes on full display.

“Umm… you do remember that I’m the one who dropped the charges and got your ass out of jail, correct?”

“Yes. But I’m pretty sure I already paid that debt.” He smirks and I have an awful, awful feeling he’s about to embarrass the hell out of me. “Three words. Work. Christmas. Party.”

Despite the fact that I am dating him… I really do hate him. And so help me god… if he explains the meaning behind that statement, I will murder him.

“We don’t talk about that.” I mutter and am suddenly very interested in the scenery flying by outside.

“Well we are now.” Trace cackles loudly. “Explain.”

“They had this big Christmas party at the publishing office this past year.” Justin begins, already giggling like a two year old girl. “I didn’t want to go, but she made me. We get there… she starts pounding martini’s like you wouldn’t fuckin believe man. So, it’s like… one a.m, she’s plastered, then she just… fuckin disappears. I finally find her… hugging the god damn tree, while every single person she works with takes her picture. I had to damn near pry her off of the thing. And since I’m probably the best boyfriend in the world… I’m apologizing out of my ass, telling them she’d had some cold medicine before we got there and thought the tree was actually me. So, yes Ellie dear… debt paid. In full.

“Are you fucking serious?” Trace screeches, erupting in laughter. “Hugging a motherfucking Christmas tree? Ellie… as soon as we stop… I am getting you hammered, and whipping out the camera. And if you rat me out, that shit is going on youtube.”

“Oh, it gets better.” Justin grins, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “I finally get her out to the car, and she tells me how she’d just had a very in depth conversation with the three, about how it’d been chopped down, taken away from it’s tree family, and she really felt it needed a hug.”

Once this car stops… I am going to find a way to leave both of them stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere. Mark my words. These assholes will pay.

Especially Justin.

“Don’t worry Ellie… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hugging a tree. If I was a tree… I’m sure I wouldn’t mind being hugged every once in awhile.”

Good fucking lord.

This has to be a joke. It just has to be. There is absolutely no way this is actually my life.

*******************

I can safely say I am in the most gaudy hotel room I’ve ever seen. And it’s Trace’s fault.

By the time we went back to my apartment to collect our belongings and got back on the road, it was getting to be fairly late. So, we drove for a couple hours before Trace spotted this shitty hotel in Philadelphia that he swore was the perfect place to stay for the night.

My ass.

The comforter on the bed is straight out of 1968, and everything is covered in roughly six inches of dust. The lamp looks like a lions head, and Justin broke one of the damn chairs when he tossed his suitcase on it.

Needless to say, I am not fucking happy. And it’s Trace’s fault.

“Hope you weren’t planning on taking a shower. We apparently don’t have hot water.” Justin mutters as he exit’s the bathroom and climbs into bed beside me.

“Color me shocked.” I roll my eyes and fluff out my pillow before settling into bed.

“El… I’m sorry, ok? Look… I know this is… it’s fucked up, I know that, alright? I just… it’s Trace, you know? He’s my best friend, and I can’t just… let him deal with this on his own.”

“I just want to know why.” I frown. “Why the fuck he thought this was ok. Why you two are so stupid. Why am I even here when you two are so clearly in love with each other.”

“Umm… I can only answer the last one.” He grins, sliding his arms around my waist and pulling me against him. “You’re here because you like hearing me tell you that you’re pretty.”

“Oh… so I’m a conceited bimbo. Thanks. You’re not getting laid tonight.” I slide out of his grasp and roll over, facing away from him. “Not that you would anyway… god only knows what’s on these sheets.”

“If you want… I’ll buy you a bus ticket and you can go back home. That way… you won’t be involved.” He sighs loudly and fidgets beside me. “If that’s what you want to do, it’s fine. I don’t blame you in the least.”

I wish I knew what it was about him that always manages to get under my skin.

Even when I was a hostage, I couldn’t help feeling bad for the idiot. And this time, it’s no different.

“I’m not leaving you.” I smile when I feel him relax against me. “At least not until they throw us in separate prisons.”