You Need to Know

James could see around the edges of the blindfold, and he knew he was somewhere dim, dim enough that he couldn’t tell the color of the floors but light enough that he could sense shadows - people - moving around him. They spoke a flurry of foreign languages, jumping from one to the next that James was beginning to suspect, over the pounding of his heart, that they couldn’t understand each other at all.

He’d just been walking along the Thames, admiring the London Eye and the lights along the South Bank, and then it had been just like in the films, a black van, masked men with guns, a black bag over his head. James had kicked and fought for all he was worth, but then someone jabbed him in the neck and his world went white.

And now he was kneeling on the damp cement floor of some dimly lit room while his captors argued furiously. James caught snatches of Russian, French, and German, and maybe something else European - Norwegian? - but there were other languages in there that sounded almost completely made up.

And then a man spoke, in perfectly crisp Queen’s English, like the type MPs and the Etonian-Oxbridge elite spoke, and he said,

“Time’s up.”

Someone yanked the blindfold off, and James had to blink at the cliché, the single lightbulb swinging from overhead.

“Who are you? What do you want?” he asked, keeping his voice level.

“He really doesn’t look all that afraid,” one man said, and he had a bland accent, as if English weren’t his first language but he’d learnt it well.

“He’s an actor,” another man said, and he had an American accent, a strangely familiar voice. “He’s terrified, but he thinks he’s not going to give us the satisfaction.”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” a fourth man said, and James counted six in all.

“That’s what they all say, before they chop a man’s hand off,” James said.

A fifth man started to laugh, turned it into a cough. “He thinks we’re terrorists.” And he reached up, pulled off his mask. “Hello, James.”

James blinked. “You’re –”

“Not actually in a boyband,” Christian said. “We’re here to protect you, actually. You’re lucky it was us and not someone else who grabbed you.”

“Why did you bring me here?” James asked. If Christian was one of his kidnappers, that meant the others were...

One by one, Asia’s brothers tugged off their masks. That familiar voice had been Tobias, then, and of course the Queen’s English was Angel.

“We need a place to hold you until we can arrange for a safehouse,” DJ said, and it was strange, seeing someone James knew as artistic and dreamy and model-vapid speaking with all the efficiency of a seasoned soldier.

“Why?” James asked.

“Like Christian said, to protect you,” Gabriel said.

“From whom?”

“Everyone,” Tobias said. He offered a hand. “Now come on - there are some things you need to know.”

(495 words)