The Butterfly with a Broken Wing

Hi! Long time reader, first time poster. I've always had a kidnap fantasy and thought this would be a good place to share my first story. This story is not a BDSM or rape fantasy -- but more of a stockholm syndrome/reluctant fantasy. There is no sex in this first chapter. I don't know where I'll take this story yet, but I have a few more chapters in mind and am open to feedback! Thanks for reading. :)

The dim light from the desk lamp was all that illuminated Claire as she sat scrawling out formulas onto her notecards. It was just before 11 p.m., and the Dodge dealership where Claire usually manned the front desk had long since closed. From time to time -- and usually when her college roommate was hell bent on blasting music until midnight -- Claire would sneak up the carpeted staircase of her dealership and mooch off the wifi for a few extra hours of study. This was -- of course -- not allowed, but she knew the HR ladies left their desks at 5 p.m. sharp and wouldn't know the difference.

She hated this musty dealership anyway, and the staff were hardly better. Owned by a family who employed mostly their own teenage children, many of them found a sexist joke the epitome of humor and thought the Dodge Ram was God's gift to America. Claire savored the hours where she worked the desk alone, handing car keys to the service boys and flirting with them through the window.

Well, really just one boy.

X was a mechanic who was hired a few months before Claire, and his smirk was enough to make Claire go weak in her office chair. His technician shirt hugged his tanned arms just right, and his thick head of curly black hair framed his face perfectly. His six-foot-one frame and broad shoulders towered over her at five-foot-five.

He must've known how cute he was. He would routinely lean his muscled arms on the glass windowsill of her office that overlooked the service bay, peering through his long dark eyelashes at her. She swore he would request a customer's car keys just to watch her get up from her chair and walk over to the wall where they were organized. She would pout and protest, but secretly she didn't mind. She loved flipping her long wavy hair over her shoulder and taking her time at the car key wall, letting him get a look at her. X was short of Xavier, but she didn't know much about him beyond that. Even then, she'd only managed to glean this scrap of info from the technician schedule she looked over regularly to check if he was working. He was mysterious, and always managed to distract her from her line of questioning. She wondered what he was hiding.

Claire snorted over her notecards and pushed her glasses up on her nose. She would have to stop thinking of X if she was going to finish her biology flashcards tonight. She was in her final semester at her university, and midterms were killer this year. Sighing, she checked the time on the ancient digital clock the HR lady had on her desk. It was 11 p.m. on the dot. Normally Gavin the night guard would have arrived by now, and Claire would have to scoot past him unnoticed, but he had called out earlier today. Something about a car issue. How ironic, she thought. She always caught the late night bus home, and she knew the last one would be coming soon.

She stood up from the desk, adjusting her dress as she did so. Today she wore a simple short black dress with a rounded white collar, black sheer tights and heeled Mary Janes. Her favorite gold necklace with a tiny butterfly swung from her neck as she leaned over the desk and packed away her things.

Just as she was about to zip up her small black backpack, she froze. From down the stairs, she heard the unmistakable sound of jingling keys coming from her front desk cubicle. Knowing full well this building was not old enough to be haunted, this left only one option: An intruder.

She listened carefully from the desk, trying to hear over the sound of her own heartbeat now in her throat. Maybe she'd imagined it?

She heard soft hissing -- a whispered conversation. Her heart dropped from her throat into her stomach. More than one intruder, she thought.

"Which one is it? It's got to be here," whispered a male voice.

From downstairs, Claire heard the rattling of more keys on the wall.

"It was red," whispered back another voice. "And it had blue dice on it."

"Found it!" said the first voice in a triumphant whisper. Claire thought it sounded familiar.

"Are you sure about this?" said the second voice.

"Dead sure," the first hissed back. "Don't ask me again if you know what's good for you."

This time, Claire was sure of it, it was X. She also remembered the red keys with the blue dice. They belonged to a local businessman who had dropped off his 2021 Dodge Challenger Hellcat that day for an oil change. He had come in late in the day, and she told him they'd have to hold the car overnight due to a service back up. He had thrown a fit, but eventually relented.

Claire stayed silent as they rummaged through the office, hoping they'd just take the keys and go. She did not care enough about her minimum-wage desk job to give a shit if something was stolen, but she certainly valued her own life. She couldn't fathom why X was doing this, just last week he told her he planned to apply for head mechanic when the position opened up. It seemed like he'd changed his mind about that.

She heard the door of the office click shut, and knew she'd have to make her move fast. Claire mentally went through her options. The front desk cubicle was a dead end just to the left of the staircase she needed to go down, while the office backroom was to the right. If she made it quietly down the stairs, she could head out the door of the office backroom, hustle down the showroom hallway and out the side door.

Either way though, she would have to cross paths with whoever it was if she wanted to leave this cramped upstairs office tonight.

Taking a deep breath, Claire slung her bag over her shoulder and moved slowly and carefully down the stairs, treading softly on the carpet as she did so. Looking to her left, she breathed a small sigh of relief to see the front cubicle was dark and empty. She tiptoed across the office, and then suddenly froze as bright fluorescent lights clicked on and illuminated the whole space.

SHIT. She had forgotten about the motion sensor lights. The fluorescents would surely flood through the glass of the cubicle into the service bay, where the Hellcat was still parked. How could I be so stupid?! She thought. She crossed the office in two steps and ripped open the office door. She hurled herself down the hallway toward the side door, hopping the half step into the showroom while pulling out her phone.

"I'll have 911 ready on my phone just in case, and try to make it to the bus stop as quickly as I can," she thought.

The showroom was devoid of anyone as Claire walked through it, and it gave her faith. She was nearly at the door now.

"Claire?"

Fuck.

She spun on the spot. X was leaning against the showroom wall, staring at her. He wasn't wearing his uniform, but a tan t-shirt and black jeans. A gold chain was visible under his collar. Claire realized she'd never seen him in regular clothes before.

She tried to arrange her face into a casual expression.

"Oh hey X!" She said, too loudly. "What are you doing here?"

"I was just going to ask you the same thing," he said, coolly.

He had a different look to him -- still the same sly smirk he always wore when looking at her, but somehow colder this time.

"I just had some studies to catch up on," she said. "Midterms are just around the corner and you know how my roommate likes to blast her music. HA" she laughed -- too loud again. "I thought I'd use the wifi here tonight, but I was just leaving. I'll have to sneak past Gavin on the way out."

She was grasping at straws now, hoping he'd buy it.

"Oh I heard he called out today," X said, smoothing the front of his shirt.

"Oh really?" She squeaked back.

"Yeah, pretty sure you told me that actually," X said. He was looking at her intently now.

"Oh weird," she said lamely, before continuing, "Well I think my Uber is almost here anyway so I really should get going." Claire gestured at the door with her phone still in her hand.

"In fact I think I see him now!" She turned and feigned looking out the window for the nonexistent Uber driver.

That was a mistake. She turned back around to find X much closer to her, now just three feet away. His dark green eyes sparkled in the dim light of the showroom, his jaw set.

"You're Ubering tonight?" he said. "Don't you usually take the bus?"

"Yeah I'm just tired from all that studying," she replied, trying to subtly take a step back from him. His stare was starting to make her feel uncomfortable. She glanced back down at her phone, tilting it away from him so he wouldn't see. The screen still had 911 ready to go.

"Should I press call? But X wouldn't hurt me, right? I had nothing to do with this, I don't even care about this damn dealership," she thought.

"Yeah it says he's almost here!" She said again, putting her phone down quickly and taking a bigger step back. She was now just two feet from the side door. He moved toward her, and she could see the veins in his arms tensing.

"Claire, I can see the reflection of your phone in your glasses," he said icily.

A chill ran down her spine. Dropping all pretense, she turned and attempted to run the last two steps to the door.

Claire's fingertips were inches from the push bar when X snatched at her, gripping her left upper arm with a vice-like grip. She yelped as he pulled her back sharply. In a last ditch effort, she brought her phone back up to her face with her right hand and tried to unlock it to press the call button. X was too quick for her, and whipped it out of her hand before tossing it to the ground. It skittered across the showroom floor on it's face before disappearing underneath a showroom car.

X now had both her upper arms in his, and forced her to face him.

"Why did you stay here tonight." It wasn't a question, it was a statement. He was looking at her as he had never before, with anger and frustration twisting his handsome features. She was frozen staring into his stormy green eyes, and he shook her slightly.

"I- I just wanted to get some work done," she stuttered out, tilting her head up to look at him and trying to remain calm. "Listen I honestly don't care what you're doing here, I just want to go home!"

The last part of her sentence came out high pitched. He looked into her eyes, searching them.

"I wish I could believe that, but you were going to call the police Claire," X said flatly.

"No! You don't understand!" She said, adrenaline was beginning to kick in now. She began thrashing in his arms, her already short dress shifting up her thighs. Glancing down, she brought her knee up and tried to knee him in the groin. At the last minute he shifted to his right, but she still managed to make partial contact. He groaned, but only tightened his grip on her. His fingers surely bruising her arms, she cried out.

"Claire stop, it's too late," he said. He seemed only to be getting more calm as she got more riled up.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" she yelled, twisting underneath him. He pushed her up against the showroom wall and she felt her fear increase.

"Stop fighting me," he said, leaning down to try and look her in the face, a single black curl falling onto his forehead, but she was wriggling too much. "You're going to get hurt."

"You're the one who is hurting me!" She said defiantly.

X pressed his large frame against her, pinning her against the wall with his legs and chest. She was terrified now.

What if he didn't just want the car?

She tensed and shut her eyes, waiting for him to attack. But he used the added pressure of his body to slide his hands down from her upper arms to her wrists. Gripping them, he pulled them together behind her back. In one quick movement, he moved his weight off of her and spun her to face the wall. Her face scraped the wall as she turned. She kicked out again, this time behind her, but she felt only air.

She was panting now, both with adrenaline and the energy of trying to fight him off. Using her waning energy to his advantage, X wrapped his muscled right forearm around her neck and upper torso, and kept her wrists tightly grasped in his left hand. There was a beat of silence in which Claire stood there in total shock.

"Ok. Move." He commanded.

He turned her back down the hallway, his body flesh against her backside as they walked forward. Busy wiggling in his arms, Claire didn't notice the half step into the hallway. Her right Mary Jane slipped off the step sideways and she felt pain shoot up her leg from her ankle. She yelped, but he kept moving, compensating for her dragging weight.

Passing the office door, they reached the service door into the mechanics area. X kicked at it and someone opened it from the other side.

Claire saw the shocked face of a young man she didn't know, no older than 18, looking back at her. X pushed her over the threshold and into the service bay, shunting the guy to the side. Claire realized he must have been the other voice she heard.

"Grab the zip ties from my toolkit, will you?" X boomed at the kid, and he ran off.

Claire was limping a little now, and fear had taken the place of most of her adrenaline. What just happened? Thirty minutes ago I was studying biology, she thought.

X pulled her over to where the Hellcat was parked in a service bay and forced her down to the stained concrete floor. Her ankle was weak, and Claire had no choice but to sit on the ground and stretch her right leg out in front of her to alleviate the pressure. She was only a foot or so from the Hellcat's front right tire, and surrounded by heavy equipment and mechanics tools.

X kept his hands tight on her wrists, squatting behind her where she sat. The kid returned and wordlessly handed X a few thick black industrial zip ties. Claire didn't have much energy left, and didn't fight as X wrapped a zip tie around her wrists and pulled it tight. She was fighting off tears now, but couldn't let them fall. X moved around to face her.

"Lean against the tire if you need to," he said in a low voice, trying to catch her eye. She wouldn't look at him.

He sighed and got up, walking away behind her. 30 seconds later, she heard the back door to the service room open and the unmistakable sound of more people entering, men. She knew she was in trouble, X's statement of it being too late was ringing in her ears. What did he mean by that? Would he kill her? Or worse?

It's a stupid car. She thought, looking at the Hellcat next to her. My life is worth more than a damn car.

An hour ago the thought of X hurting her, let alone killing her, would have made her laugh. But now, she felt anything was possible. She didn't dare turn to look at who else had arrived.

"What the fuck happened Xavi?" someone said close by. This was a man's voice, older than X. Claire had never heard anyone call him Xavi.

"I thought you said this would be a done deal?" The man said.

"I thought so too, but shit got complicated," X replied. "It doesn't change anything, I am still going."

"But how?" Another man asked.

"I've got a plan," X said evenly.

The first man laughed darkly. "Yeah right you do. We don't have time for mistakes, Xavi, you know what's at stake."

X didn't reply. There was silence for a moment.

"I know what to do," X said. "But I need your help."