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When Booker first got nabbed off the street, he thought it was a regular kidnapping, an I-want-something type of kidnapping and he was down for that. It‘s always Andy or Nicky getting held for ransom and Booker’s not jealous, that would be stupid, but it is a little insulting that no one thought he was worth holding for ransom. Hell, Joe’s been kidnapped more this decade than Booker has in the past century! So he didn’t resist too much when a couple of guys jumped him and shoved him into the back of a van.
One of his captors smacks him in the back of the head and Booker grunts into his makeshift gag. Later, when the others come and rescue him, he’s going to complain so much about how they couldn’t even buy some regular duct tape for him. They had literally grabbed a T-shirt off the van floor and shoved it into his mouth, securing it at the back of his head with some poorly tied knots. It tastes like week-old sweat and he wants to spit it out, but he also wants to know how much money or how much value the thing they’re demanding has before he attempts any escapes. A tiny voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like insecure!Booker says that he also wants to know how long it’s going to take for the others to realize he’s gone and come rescue him. He does his best to ignore that stupid voice.
Hands snake their way under his arms and haul him up onto his feet. They’re surprisingly careful as they help him out of the van and march him to a clearing where a marble slab rests on top of an old dresser.
“How the hell did you get this here?” Booker asks. It comes out muffled through the gag but they seem to understand him anyways.
“Greg’s dad is a carpenter,” the van driver says, pointing to a guy at the edge of the clearing. “Real nice guy.”
They lay him down on the marble altar face-up and tie his hands and feet to each corner. He’s not going to lie, he feels a little bit better about the cheap gag now that he’s lying on the cold marble. They probably blew through all their funds on this slab. It’s got to be at least $1500. Andy and Nicky never got something as fancy as this!
Greg cuts his shirt open with a kind of ease that reminds Booker of EMTs and nurses. He supposes that it shouldn’t be such a surprise that these weirdos have a regular daytime job. It’s not like kidnapping people to sacrifice in the middle of the woods is a reliable source of income. It’s probably not even a reliable source of entertainment with how much planning goes into each sacrifice.
Sacrifice.
Shit.
Booker shoots up into a sitting position. Well, he tries to. He gets one inch off the table as he strains against the ropes for several seconds before slumping back down in defeat. He cranes his neck up to get a better look at his hands and grimaces at the intricate work he finds there. The knots holding his limbs down are far more sophisticated than the one barely holding his gag in place. That one had been tied by passing one end under the other, pulling it tight and then repeating it once more to create the world’s simplest double knot. These ones looped around his wrists look like they belong in the back room of a fancy BDSM club.
“My dad likes to fish. He taught me the best knots to secure a boat to a dock,” Greg tells him with a small smile, like they’re on some date or something. Booker rolls his eyes. Good for you, Greg, good for fucking you.
Van Driver clears his throat as he takes his position at the head of the marble slab while everyone else forms a loose circle and Booker has to crane his neck again to look at him. There’s a booger in his right nostril, he immediately notes, dry and huge, covering almost the entire thing. Booker frowns into his gag. How has Van Driver not felt that yet? It has to be disrupting his airflow. Maybe Van Driver is a mouth breather? It was stuffy in the van and the clearing isn’t particularly close to the parking lot either.
“We gather here today to thank God Kaysani for another decade of good fortune and health,” Van Driver begins. “I speak from the heart when I say how truly thankful I am for His endless love.”
“For Nicolai and for us,” the group recites, and before Booker has the chance to process just what the hell they chanted, they all proceed to smack the marble with enough force that Booker’s palms almost ache in sympathy.
The noise rings throughout the clearing, causing several birds to fly off into the distance with startled chirps. It’s a little sad that Booker feels envious of them. He really should have fought a little harder before being shoved into the van. Now he was tied shirtless to a marble slab in the middle of the woods, about to be sacrificed to God Kaysa—no.
Hell no.
This has to be a joke.
It has to be.
Because there is no way that he just got kidnapped by the Kaysani Cult.
“For Nicolai and for us,” the group chants again before smacking the altar, pulling Booker out of his thoughts.
Any uncertainty Booker had is effectively banished when Van Driver pulls a scimitar with a gold hilt out of an old wooden case. It’s old. The leather handle is frayed, the blade is worn down and there’s a chip on the hilt. Despite all this, it’s easy to see that it’s been well cared for.
Okay, this is humiliating, Booker will admit, staring at the weapon he spent months lying about. There was a tense three-week period when Booker was convinced Joe was going to cut his head off for losing his favorite sword. This was after Andy had already confessed after too many glasses of whisky that it was the body that regrew if the head wasn’t reattached right away. To this day, Booker still considers those weeks as the scariest moments of his life.
All those months of cold sweat were for nothing, Booker realizes glumly, because now he’s going to get his head chopped off by a bunch of lunatics that are part of a cult he accidentally created. Man, he was really hoping to go a little longer before being decapitated. Preferably, until the end of his very long life.
Van Driver seems to finally be done with his speech, because he hops onto the altar and straddles his waist. This close, Booker can’t help but eye the booger. Without meaning to, his nose scrunches up.
“I think his nose is itchy,” Greg pipes up from Booker’s right.
“Oh, yeah, that sucks. Here,” Van Driver rubs the area below his nose a little roughly. “Better?” Booker blinks up at him. What is wrong with this group of people?
“He stopped scrunching his nose, so I’d say yes,” answers Greg.
Van Driver grins down at him. “Awesome, don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
If they had met anywhere else, Booker would probably say that these were good people. He probably wouldn’t have minded their company and he definitely would’ve at least invited Greg back to a hotel room. Is this Stockholm Syndrome? Booker idly wonders, eyeing the way Van Driver adjusts his grip on Joe’s scimitar.
Good news, Booker is 80% certain that his head will remain attached. Bad news, he might have additional nightmares for a couple nights. He sends a silent apology to Quynh. She doesn’t deserve to suffocate in her dreams too.
“For Nicolai and for us,” Van Driver promises.
“For Nicolai and for us,” everyone repeats, slapping the altar.
Van Driver raises the scimitar across his body, ready to slash down against his throat in one swift movement. Fuck, Booker hates this part. He clenches his teeth around the gag, shuts his eyes and-and Van Driver slumps down on him, knocking his forehead against Booker’s nose.
Pain blossoms in his nose and Booker grunts into the gag as tears begin to spring up in his eyes. Broken noses always made him cry.
All around him, the cult is screaming. Booker isn’t paying any attention to that. He doesn’t need to. Instead, he’s concentrating on the steady throb that pushes more tears into his eyes with each pulse, on the way his right shoulder is starting to strain with the additional weight, on the warm wetness trailing down both of his cheeks, confident that one of the tracks isn’t from his nose.
It’s Andy that rolls Van Driver off of him moments after the last scream cuts off with a gargled cough. By then, his nose is completely healed, only one trail remains, both shoulders are beginning to ache and Booker is smiling around the gag. One hour and sixteen minutes. That has to be the fastest rescue.
She cuts his arms free, slices the gag off and hauls him into a tight hug. Booker doesn’t hesitate to hug her back just as tightly, burying his face in her neck. She smells like clean skin. Booker can’t even remember the last time she skipped the small dab of perfume.
From behind, two arms wrap around his waist. Joe. Booker would recognize this hug even dead. Following those two arms are Nicky’s and Booker can’t help but laugh.
They’re in a field surrounded by a bunch of dead bodies and they’re having a group hug.
“Don’t ever get kidnapped again, Sebastien,” Joe mumbles.
“I’m just trying to even the score,” Booker jokes. Too soon, he realizes, as three sets of arms tighten around him. “You guys didn’t have to kill everyone.”
“Yes we did,” Andy answers. “They took you.” She says it so simply that Booker’s throat burns with something unfamiliar, something that he wants to swallow until it dissolves in the pit of his stomach, never to be inspected again. He doesn’t trust himself not to blurt out something embarrassing, so he bites his lip; he finds it a little funny that he already misses the gag.
They pull apart slowly, like memory foam that has been vacuumed sealed and taken out of its bag, stiff and curled and determined to always stay that shape, but slowly and with time, the foam begins to expand, filling the spaces it once occupied, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think that the creases that now interrupt the smooth expanse were always there.
Booker sits up on the altar, his feet swinging in the open air. “How’d you find me?”
Andy raises an unimpressed brow at him. “I can hunt down a pack of lions. You really think a group of morons can outsmart me?”
Booker opens his mouth to respond but is cut off by Nicky snorting and pointing to the large opening on the other side of the clearing where Greg was standing, wow, 15 minutes ago. “We followed the tractor marks.”
Andy smirks. “Like I said, morons.” Booker can’t help but smile goofily back at her.
They pile the bodies around the altar, adjust Van Driver so he’s the one tied now, draw a semi-accurate pentagram that spans the entire field, and set everything on fire.
The walk back is one of the most awkward moments of Booker’s life, and it’s all Nicky’s fault.
“You made a fan club for Joe?” Nicky has his I-think-this-is-hilarious-and-I-will-fuck-with-you grin on, which is all eyes and a tiny bit of lips.
“Fan club?” Booker splutters. “That wasn’t a fan club! That was a mother fucking cult!”
“They were talking about majestic curls and doe eyes,” Nicky says and crap, how long did Booker tune Van Driver out?
“They were going to sacrifice me!”
Joe bumps Nicky’s shoulder with his own before throwing an arm around Booker’s neck. “Aw, don’t be jealous! It’s sweet that Booker made a group that worships me!”
“You deserve to be worshipped,” Nicky immediately quips back.
Booker shares a look with Andy, it’s one full of exasperation and fondness, they then proceed to make loud retching sounds. He laughs when Joe tightens his arm and ruffles his hair while Andy yelps as Nicky digs his fingers into her waist, right where she’s the most ticklish.
All in all, Booker thinks as he playfully slaps Joe while Andy maneuvers Nicky into a headlock, he’d probably do this whole day again.