You're The Only Hope For Me

She sat on the park bench, enjoying the feeling of the sun touching the top of her head, and smiled as she continued turning the pages of the book she was reading. Despite the lovely day, Hazel was surprised at how empty the park actually was. There was a mother pushing a young boy on a swing at the other end of the field and a couple of teenagers sitting down smoking under a tree, but except from herself, those were all. She shrugged and turned her attention back to her book, physically feeling herself leaning forwards into the pages as the action in the story got more intense. She felt a coolness sweep over her, like someone was standing in front of her and blocking the sun. Startled, she looked up and before she got a chance to even see what was happening, a cloth bag was forced on her head and she felt herself pulled down to the ground. Hazel opened her mouth to scream but before she could, she felt a prick in her right arm like a needle.
Everything went black.
-
Silence, wait had there even been a noise? You couldn’t know silence without noise, but Hazel hadn’t been aware of any noise. She opened her eyes but saw nothing. What the-? As her eyes adjusted she could see slivers of light sneaking in through the strands of cloth in the bag which covered her head. Bag? Head? Then a spark went off in her brain and everything connected.
The park. The book. The person. The bag being forced over her. The struggle. The injection.
How long had she been out for? Where even was she? Who was this person, or if there was more than one person, people? She shuddered at thought of the most recent question that had found its way into her mind; what did they even want from her?
Hazel had no idea what was happening, but her sense of direction told her she was laid horizontal, whether across a bed, on the floor, the back seat of a car, possibly a boot, or wherever else was possible, she didn’t know. There was no noise so she presumed she was alone, though still decided against moving just in case she wasn’t.
What could she do? She wanted to fight them but in her current situation, with not being able to see and being slightly slow due to the drug they’d given her she didn’t think it’d be worthwhile.
“No,” she thought “best not even let them know that I’m awake.”
She lay still for an unmeasurable amount of time, and just when she was about to rethink her plan of action, or of no action as she wasn’t doing anything, she heard footsteps. They seemed slightly muffled until a door to the left of her head was opened, thus confirming her suspicion that she was indeed in the back of a car. Another door opened and she supposed her other kidnapper got in, so there was two of them. They obviously didn’t suspect that she was awake as they spoke in normal tones. They were both men judging by their voices, one was sounded slightly high-pitched and American but with a hint of something else she didn’t recognize, the other sounded British with quite a deep, rough voice. Hazel hardly dared to breathe as she strained her ears, trying to hear every word of their conversation.
“Where shall we take her now?” the squeaky American one asked.
“I don’t know, I was planning on here but that’s blown now. Why can’t those shitbags keep to a fucking deal?!” The British man sounded angry and there was a smashing sound followed by the noise of the horn, probably as a result of him hitting the wheel with his fist.
“How about that old abandoned garage?” Squeaky spoke again, “You now, the one that’s just over a mile away from here?”
“Yeah, I guess” The British man replied “But I don’t know, it’s not the most glamorous place” He sighed.
“Well I don’t see you suggesting anything better!” The American man’s already high voice was rising even more with indignation.
The British man laughed,”Woah, calm down, man!”
“Let’s go then!” The other one just about shouted.
“Yeah,” Came the reply, equally as loud, “Let’s fucking go!”
Hazel heard the engine start and recognized the wheezy rattle of a Fiat Multipla, the vehicle turned right and picked up speed along a relatively straight path.
Despite her current situation, she couldn’t help but think “what a shit car” and mentally shook her head in disgust.
She had heard from their conversation that they were only driving a mile, but to her it seemed at least eight times further. Thoughts and scenarios of what was going to happen to her kept stealing into her head, each one more terrible than the last and it was all she could do to stop herself from panicking and bursting into tears.
She felt the car take a sharp right and slow down to a crawl, she steeled herself mentally, trying to prepare for whatever would follow. A sharp pain suddenly stabbed at her head, causing her to cry out.
What had they put in that drug shot?
All too late she realized that she had now as good as told the men she was awake, not that that mattered since she was already pretty much screwed. Though she still cursed herself for responding to the pain so carelessly, and felt the anger rise inside her as the men in the front laughed at her discomfort.
The car stopped abruptly and she was thrown off the seat and landed painfully, again the men laughed. She heard them opening the doors in the front and getting out, still laughing at her. God that squeaky one’s laugh was so annoying she wanted to punch the high-pitched shit in the face.
The door at the end where her legs were was opened and she was roughly hauled out by her ankles, landing painfully for a second time upon the ground, again the men laughed. She felt hands grip tightly onto her elbows and pull her upwards as the British man hissed in her ear “Up, bitch!”
She tried to get up but not before the man had pulled her onto her feet and she stumbled, barely keeping her balance. One of the men kicked her in the back and she fell forwards, both the men laughing loudly behind her. She got back up again and was greeted by a blow to her stomach which winded her, she doubled up, gasping for air and received a slap in the face. The attack was muffled due to the bag but it still stung.
She felt humiliated and tried to continue walking but abruptly hit into something directly in front of her. This turned out to be the American man and he crackled shrilly, anger rose up in her and she lashed out at him but off-balanced herself and fell onto to her hands and knees as the men howled with laughter. Coughing, she was dragged back upwards by one of them and pushed forwards in a cruel manner.
“How long was this going to last?” She asked herself as she trudged forwards, wincing as the men continued to hit her. “What do they even want with me?” She thought unhappily, “and why can’t they just get to the fucking point whatever it is?!”
She tripped and flailed before continuing forwards as one of them whistled, followed by the sound laughter from both of them. Heat rose to her face and for the first time she was glad of the bag covering her so they wouldn’t see. “Guys are horrible” She thought angrily “Men are so disrespectful and controlling. They take advantage of others for their own amusement, just because they’re stronger and they can.”
A hand closed around her arm and she tried to prepare herself for whatever abuse was to be directed at her now, but to her surprise none came.
Instead she heard a voice shout from close by, “What in Heaven’s name do you think you’re doing?!”
The voice was another belonged to another male, gruff and angry sounding, although funnily enough she didn’t feel afraid of the newcomer. Her attackers obviously did though, as she felt the grip on her arm slacken.
A loud noise of impact sounded from somewhere nearby but she couldn’t tell where. Voices were shouting and cursing at each other and there seemed to be a fight happening. She tried to run but couldn’t see due to the bag and slipped upon something, landing hard upon the ground. A body rolled heavily onto her and she tried to scream as it crushed her ribs. The load was pulled off her and she heard a crack, possibly a broken bone, followed by a scream.
“What gives you any right to treat another person like this?” The new voice was accenting every word with blows; they were met with satisfying screams from the victim. “You are a coward. A miserable, lying, power-hungry coward! You command authority by taking advantage of younger people; you are the parasite this world needs rid of!”
The noises quietened abruptly and she sensed someone move nearby to her, she tensed up bracing herself for whatever was about to happen. Though to her surprise, she was gently seated up right and the bag untied and removed from her. This would be the man who had shouted, although she was too afraid to meet his eyes to even look at his face.
“Are you alright?” He asked, sounding concerned.
Hazel nodded and he offered her his hand, helping her up. She accepted and felt herself pulled upright. Still holding her hand, he led over a few meters to where the two men were lying in pain, whimpering slightly.
“These are your attackers,” the man said “Do you want to say anything to them or?”
Hazel looked at them for a moment, taking in the blood and dirt upon their bodies and the ripped clothing that left them slightly exposed. She didn’t know which one was which, but neither did she care. She had nothing to say to them, and was about to turn to walk away when a sudden anger welled up inside of her. Glaring at them, she raised her foot and stamped as hard as she could on one of them, right between the legs and stamped on the other ones face, breaking his nose. They both made noises of pain, and feeling satisfied, Hazel turned away. The man still held onto her hand led her over to some grass where he helped her sit down before sitting down beside her.
“I hope they didn’t hurt you too bad.” The man said awkwardly after a pause and Hazel immediately burst into tears.
“Hey hey hey! I’m not going to hurt you!” The man cried, “You’re safe now, just relax and calm down.” He put his arm around her and held her for a while as she sobbed.
Hazel took comfort in the strength of his arm, the warmth and how unshaken he seemed, gradually the tears ceased to flow. “So much for all men are horrible.” She thought as she sniffed, well this one seemed genuinely nice. “Maybe I’ll make an exception” she thought, smiling inside her head.
“You alright now?” The man asked softly when she eventually stopped sniffing.
She nodded in return, still not meeting his eyes.
“What’s your name?” He added, although she couldn’t see his face his tone of voice sounded like he was smiling.
“Hazel.” She answered, trying very hard not to let her voice shake but not managing.
“Hazel’s a lovely name,” He said in the same smiling voice, “I’ve never met anyone called Hazel before.”
“What about you?” Hazel asked, this time succeeding in keeping her voice level.
“Frank,” He paused and stared ahead of himself for a moment as if he’d forgotten what he wanted to say, then shifted his position slightly on the ground before continuing “Yeah, I’m Frank.”

Notes

Just setting the scene and all y'know XD
Sorry if it's shit, yeah it's my first attempt at writing fanfiction, so yeah.
I hope you liked it anyway, hopefully chapter two will be a bit better!!
Please give me feedback on how it could be improved and so on, it's all really appreciated.