The vehicle screeched to a stop so suddenly that he toppled over onto his side. He stayed there, listening to the sounds of two doors slamming shut.

Another door opened. Someone grabbed his ankle. He heard a snap as they cut off the plastic tie.

“Get out,” a male voice said. Southern accent. They’d taken him from Georgia, but Lennon had no way to know if the accent was local to the area. He was from Los Angeles. Everyone down here sounded the same to him.

Fucking Georgia. He’d told his dad that his time was better spent in one of the Rust Belt states, but the senator had insisted.

Georgia’s going to turn our way, I just know it, his dad had said, overly optimistic as usual.

Actually, maybe it would now. Nothing drummed up sympathy for a candidate like having their only son kidnapped.

Lennon briefly wondered—hopefully—if maybe his dad’s campaign had done this. A sympathy kidnapping! Not a bad idea, come to think of it.

No, his dad’s campaign manager would have come up with a much posher kidnapping. They would have locked him up in a nice apartment. There would have been food, at least. Cal Franklin would absolutely kidnap someone to win an election, but he’d do so with a smile and a bottle of champagne.

“Out! Now!” the Southern accent yelled.

Lennon struggled to sit up and then scooted forward until his legs hit air. He planted them on the ground and stood, slowly.

“Can I have some more water?” he asked. They hadn’t gagged him. There probably wasn’t anyone around to hear him scream.

“No. We’re almost there.”

Where? He wasn’t stupid enough to actually expect an answer, so he didn’t ask.

The blindfold was yanked off, and he blinked and squinted in the sudden light. It was morning, the sun rising directly in front of him.

They were at an airplane hangar. A small plane sat not far away.

Screw his hunger and weak limbs. He was not getting on a plane to be dropped off in some foreign country.

He took off running.

He made it three whole steps before one of the men dropped him flat on his ass.

He gasped as he hit the ground. The bearded face of a man appeared above him as he rolled over.

“Don’t be a pain in my ass and make me drag you to the plane,” he said. No Southern accent. This one could have been from anywhere in America.

It seemed like a bad sign that they weren’t wearing masks. Lennon tried to memorize their faces.

The other man roughly dragged Lennon to his feet. He screamed, and his voice cracked. If there were manliness awards for kidnap victims, he wasn’t getting one.

He made the men drag him. He was nothing if not a pain in the ass.

They wrestled him up the steps and into the small plane. There were only four seats, facing each other on either side. The bearded guy shoved him into one and strapped him in.