chapter 1

Cleo awoke to find herself bound to a chair, “What the hell?!” she thought to herself before deciding to call out, “Help! Is there anyone there? Please, let me go!” Taking in her surroundings she could see that she appeared to be being held in someone’s basement. Sure, there had been an attempt to sound-proof the room with many of the walls having eggbox foam panels stuck to them but there was also a bicycle, a wine rack, half a bag of cement and the room also housed the boiler for what she assumed was a family house.

“Is anyone going to tell me just what’s going on?” she shouted to no-one in particular, she was aware that she’d been kidnapped and was anxiously awaiting her captor's appearance.



As if one cue she heard some movement behind her, she craned her neck to see who or what was coming but all she could see were the stairs behind her, stairs that began to creak as her captor made his entrance.

“Ah, I see you’re awake.” he grinned as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah, and more than a little uncomfortable too.” replied Cleo, she was beginning to get frustrated with how the rope cut into her wrists and ankles.

“I suppose you’d like to know why you’re here, or who I am?” he asked, still not walking in front of her, staying out of her sightline.

“Honestly, I’d prefer if you just let me go but if we have to go through the formality of all of this then you could at least hurry things along a bit Randy.”



Her captor was surprised, he’d been putting on a deep, raspy voice to try and keep his identity a secret for a little while but he’d obviously not done a good enough job. “I’m not Randy.” he lied, trying to cover his voice still.

“Sure you are, look, there’s an old picture frame over there, it’s dusty but I can still see it’s you in the reflection, even if I hadn’t had been able to tell from your voice. So, Randy from the coffee shop I go to every day who thought I wouldn’t recognise his voice and failed to wear a mask to conceal his identity, mind telling me why I’m tied up in your parent’s basement?”

“It’s not my parent’s basement! It’s mine now! They moved to Florida last year and left me in charge of the house.” he shot back, almost insulted by her remark.

“And you decided to use your new basement to hold someone captive? Bit of a strange option but who am I to judge? So why am I here Randy?” she asked.

“It’s because I’m in love with you!” he said as he swept into view, kneeling at her side so that he could look at her in the eyes.

“You’re not in love with me,” replied Cleo, “you barely know anything about me, if you did, you’d know that getting kidnapped is not one of my favourite things to do. What did you do? Drug my coffee or something? Then when I passed out in the coffee shop you made out like you were taking me to the hospital but instead you brought me here and tied me to this chair?”

Randy nodded, “I had no other choice.” he feebly protested.

Cleo scoffed at the notion, “You could have asked me out on a date.”