Harry and Zara walked down the hall to the elevator. Harry was practically jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect of exploring the city with his beloved cousin.
"So, what are we going to see first?" he asked eagerly as he hopped inside through the elevator's sliding doors.
"I don't care." Zara was already annoyed with his hyper attitude.
"Ummm... okay, let's just start walking down the street and... oh wait! Could we take a cab, Zara? Can we? Can we? I really wanna take a cab. I bet the driver will have some ideas of where to visit and..."
Harry chattered away, and Zara stopped listening. "If he doesn't shut up, I'm going to kill him right here in this elevator," she thought to herself. But by that time, the elevator had stopped, and they stepped out into the lobby. As Harry walked out the door of the hotel, he noticed that the lobby- and the street- was strangely absent of not only paparazzi but also people in general. There weren't even any cabs outside. "It must be later than I thought," he mused. But then a little voice in the back of his head spoke, "But this is New York City. Shouldn't there be some one out besides you and Zara?"
As a tingle started at the base of his spine and worked its way up his neck, Harry shivered. Although he would have never admitted it at the time, Harry was a little scared. The silence was just too creepy.
Zara was just coming back out of ignoring him when Harry leaned his head on her shoulder as they were turning to walk down the street. Before she could stop herself, Zara stiffened her arm with disgust and shoved him away from her as hard as she could. Harry stumbled back into the wall, and Zara pinned him there with her right arm and pulled a gun out of her purse with her right.
"Zara... ow!... what are you...?"
"Shut up, brat," she hissed, putting the gun against the side of his head. Harry made a small whining noise in the back of his throat and then fell silent. She took the gun away from his head and motioned to a large, unmarked black van down the street. The pavement was illuminated with yellow light as the headlights came on, and the van started toward them. Unsatisfied with the speed it was moving, Zara jerked Harry away from the wall and pulled him down the street to close the gap between herself and the van. If anyone had glanced out the window at that moment, it would have looked as though she was giving Harry a friendly hug, instead of pressing the steel muzzle of a gun into his rib cage.
They reached the van, and Harry felt sick. His urge to vomit grew when Zara whispered in his ear, "You'll be with your brother again, very soon."
He blinked at her in confusion. What did she mean? William was safe at Harvard...wasn't he?
Zara saw the fear in his eyes, and decided to make the most of it, even if she had to lie. She set the gun on the hood of the van, and leaned over to open the sliding door on the side. Keeping her arm around Harry's neck in a semi-headlock and pulling him to the open door at the same time, she turned to him and spoke in a stage whisper, "You should have seen the look on his face when I pulled the trigger..."
Harry recoiled in a mixture of shock and horror. "You're lying!" he screamed, and did the only thing he could think of: he bit Zara's hand.
When she felt his teeth sink into the flesh of her hand, Zara let out a screech of pain and fury, and accidentally released Harry from her iron grip. In his eagerness to get away, Harry tripped on the curb and fell to the ground. At this point, the unknown driver of the van was rounding the front of the vehicle. "Get him in there NOW!" Zara snarled.
Harry saw his kidnappers moving toward him, and he rolled under the van, planning to come out the other side. But Zara had forgotten the pain in her hand and dropped to the ground beside the van. She grabbed hold of his ankle and tried to yank him back. Startled, he kicked her in the face with his free leg. Harry heard a crunching noise, and felt something give under his foot. Zara's nose had been crushed by the force of his blow. Zara emitted a howl of rage and let go of Harry, who rolled out from under the van on the opposite side. He ran halfway down the street, then stopped to see if Zara was coming after him. Zara was too busy trying to stop the blood pouring from her nose to chase him herself, but she had no problem giving orders to her henchman.
"Get in the van, idiot! If you can't catch him, RUN HIM OVER!" The man jumped into the van, and Harry whirled and continued to run as fast as he could. He knew that he wouldn't be able to outrun the van, but he just might be able to lose it in the darkness.
"If only there was a place to hide, " he thought. Harry paused and looked back again. The van was bearing down on him, and... "Aha! This alley is way too narrow. It'll buy me some time when he has to stop and get out," he muttered to himself. Harry darted into the alley, realizing too late that it was a dead end. He spun around in circles, desperately looking for an alternate route to safety. Just as the silhouette of Zara's comrade blocked the light entering the alley, a heavy iron door on the side of one of the buildings swung open.
"Come on, boy! Get inside! Hurry!" a voice whispered from the shadows. Harry slipped through the doorway, and the door slammed shut behind him, leaving the helper to face Zara's wrath.
William had finally fallen into a dreamless slumber when he was rudely awakened by a fist colliding with the side of his face. His head snapped, which had fallen forward as he slept, snapped backward and banged into the wall behind him.
Zara was in a rage. Not only had that moron Jeffrey managed to lose Harry, but that little snot had also ruined her face. Anyway, William would pay for what his brother had done to her. Zara charged him, shrieking obscenities. She clawed and punched at his face in a frenzied fury. She was so angry that few of her blows actually touched him, but the ones that did stung horribly.
After only a few seconds ( an eternity to William ), Zara had worn herself out. She stalked away from William and stood gasping for breath in the doorway. "Look at what that brat you call a brother did to my face," she hissed, "It's completely ruined! I'll have to redo all of my surgeries."
Although Zara had said the last part to herself, William had still been able to hear it. An alarm went off in his throbing head. He narrowed his eyes and said hoarsely, "But Zara, you never had surgery..."
Zara gave him a sinister grin. "Maybe it's time to let you in on a little secret. After all, you won't be here much longer." She nodded to someone William couldn't see and pointed somewhere down the hall. "You stay right here, sweetie. I'll be right back with a visitor for you." She slammed the door shut behind her.
William groaned and slid down the wall. "Oh, God," he thought, "please let it be anyone but Harry."
A moment later, Zara was back. As she entered the rooom, she pulled another girl with her. "I believe you two have met," she said, smirking. The girl rushed across the room to where William sat on the floor. "Oh, what has she done to you? Are you alright?" she asked him urgently.
William was flabbergasted. The two girls in his room looked exactly alike!
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