This wasn’t the first time. Booker had been in a few ViewTube videos and had earned his own small group of followers. What was it that they called themselves? Oh that’s right, the Booker’s Hookers. Honestly he didn’t care for the name all that much because it made it sound like he owned a brothel, but what was one to do? But rather than stifle the creativity of his fans, he let them be. Tangent aside, he knew that if this were one of those people, they would have absolutely no problem speaking to him.

To be fair, the same went for Nessa’s fans. Whenever they were out, when they came across someone that recognized her, they were usually pretty upfront about wanting pictures or autographs (or be hit on by Nessa). Suffice it to say, their fans weren’t shy.

Booker tilted his head, watching the person, smirking a little to himself as he pointed them out to Nessa. His sister took the moment to peer back and observe but something definitely seemed off about the situation.

>>”Okay, that’s weird. I don’t know if she’s doing that because she’s a fan or she’s trying to document the low-tier of society I associate with.”

He turned back, giving her an exaggerated, unamused look. ”The offense!” A small slap with his napkin followed before he dropped it with a grin and glance back. The person offered a kind of meek wave before turning, lowering her head, and walking away as she held up her phone to ear to talk. Booker shook his head. ”Maybe my dashing good looks scared her away? Or maybe she could smell all the hate and bile you’ve been spilling on that shirt the last few days?”

Over the years, Nessa had gotten better at navigating the public eye. She was more of a natural introvert, but she could manage for a time around people and push the extrovert button a little harder when a fan engaged her. On a practical level, it was good to not have a reputation as a stuck-up b*tch. On a personal level, she generally liked her fans, as awkward as they could. She did her best to give them a good impression of her.

The woman with the phone seemed uncomfortable with Nessa’s attention. She supposed some of her fans were still that awkward, but she tried not to dwell on the apparent picture taking and meager wave. ”You know, it occurs to me that she could have not been taking a picture. I just kinda believed your assumption.” It seemed plausible. ”Which would, of course, make me that awkward girl who waves at people who aren’t looking at them.” Of all the bad tropes to be.

The wave got the woman moving away, taking a call. Perhaps she was just stopping to pull up a number or check a map. Nessa banished most of her curiosity, (bordering on suspicion,) and returned her focus to closer things. Her ice cream. Two people taking seats a couple of tables behind Booker. The fact that they had only ordered waters? What an odd choice at an ice cream shop, but perhaps they were just thirsty and decided it a good place to rest.

Once again, no reason to overthink. ”People are weird,” she decided aloud before licking at more of what was left of her ice cream.

Booker’s keen eyes watched as the woman walked away, turning the corner. He was joking at first, yes, but now that she had rounded the corner and was gone, he couldn’t help but replay the scene in his head. There was just something...funny about it. He didn’t quite know what it was, but it was enough to get his attention the more thought power he put behind it. While anyone could have mistaken the scene, Booker had a perfect memory, one that allowed him to remember the most minute details.

That woman was taking their picture. He could see it as clear as day.

>>”You know, it occurs to me that she could have not been taking a picture. I just kinda believed your assumption...Which would, of course, make me that awkward girl who waves at people who aren’t looking at them.”

Booker shook himself out of his thoughts and turned his gaze back to Nessa. She was returning to her ice cream cone, something that took him a second to realize. He hoped his mouth to say that the woman was certainly taking their picture but if there was one thing that the man with the perfect memory learned was that you don’t correct people; they tended to agitate them. Not that Nessa wasn’t used to it, but she wasn’t having the best of times so he silenced himself.

”I wouldn’t worry too much,” he said as he glanced back to her, grinning. ”You have so many other qualities to be awkward about.”

The woman hadn’t returned. Booker kept his eyes forward, watching the corner that she rounded and back down on the other side of the sidewalk. There was no sign of her. She hadn’t returned. Great, now he was questioning himself. She certainly had her phone pointed at them but...maybe the picture was a little paranoid sounding. Hrm...

>>”People are weird,”

His brows furrowed as he turned back to his sister. She had returned to her ice cream. He didn’t notice the couple she was musing about and inquired. ”Who’s wei--”

Booker only saw black after that.

Vanessa’s attention was stubbornly checking on the people at the other table. It was probably rude, but something just struck her as off. It would put her mind at ease if she could get eye-to-eye contact and catch a glimpse in their heads. It was invasive, but it undeniably granted peace of mind to see someone’s intentions.

She missed the two people walking out of the shop because she was pre-occupied. They were the ones who walked to the Bookman table. Before she could react, she felt a prick on her neck. Her vision quickly darkened as she saw something similar happening to Booker. The two at their own table were getting up, but they were already fuzzy black blobs in Nessa’s vision by that point. She was out.

---

Eventually Nessa stirred, feeling like she was suffering the most painful hangover of her life. What happened to her? Who were those people at the ice cream shop? She tried to figure out what she could right away.

Movement was restricted. Her arms were behind her back, and in some way, she was tied by her wrists. She also awoke with her side against a cool surface. Not stone; it felt like something artificial against her arm. She wanted to know more, but she found herself pretty limited, which was concerning: she could not see.

When she felt her eyes open, the darkness was a shot of panic through her. Was she somehow blinded? Were her eyes still in her head? She opened and closed her eyes rapidly, and it hit her—her lashes were brushing against something. She was blindfolded. That was bad, but infinitely better than the other possibilities.

She needed to figure out where she was, and why she was taken. Except it was not just her, she realized with a pit in her stomach. ”Booker? Booker, are you here?” she called out anxiously, unable to see her surroundings as she awkwardly sat up.

Booker was a big guy. That much was for certain. For anyone who was planning on any sort of drugging in order to commit a kidnapping, they needed to make sure that the man was down for the count. Observations and trackings would note that the librarian, despite the stereotypes surrounding his profession, actually took very good care of himself. He worked out, he lifted weights, he boxed, and he had a high I.Q. All those were warning signs and signifers that he was the one who needed to be taken down and taken down fast lest he put up a fight and cause a scene.

That was probably why the drugs were so potent. He didn’t see it coming. They moved fast, slipping by before his sister noticed and inserted the needle into his neck. There was a momentary panic and the pin-prick which caused the librarian to stand but it was quickly defused as the potent concoction worked its way through his system, saturating every square inch and causing him to collapse into waiting arms.

Of course, Booker wasn’t aware of any of this. He didn’t feel his massive frame being carried away, he didn’t hear people gasping and muttering in the streets for those few precious seconds that the event was visible, and he certainly wasn’t away of which direction the vehicle took them away. Even as he was seated in his chair, Booker wasn’t aware of his hands being tied of the blindfold slipped over his closed, emerald eyes.

In his drug-induced stupor, he vaguely caught the sounds of people arguing, the subject being the validity of keeping the two of them in the same room or not, but the details were lost in the thick, soggy muck that filled his brain. His muscles refused to move, his brained worked like it was crawling through muck, but through it all, all he could wonder was where was Nessa? Why wasn’t she talking?

>>” ”Booker? Booker, are you here?””

The words cut through the darkness but even then they were hard to focus in on. It was like he was trapped in a dark, cotton lined-room, floating in a pool of water. Vaguely he knew where the sounds were coming from but it was too hard to pinpoint. He heard the panic though. That much was clear but the exact words were lost upon him. His head hung, he could tell that, but it was as if all the strength had been sapped out of his body and even if he wanted to move his head it was near impossible.

Weakly, after a few moments, his dried lips moved, barely forming words as the whisper of a breath rolled out from his throat. ”N...N...Ness...a…” He sounded like he was coming off of a three-week bender of roofied alcohol. His sister’s name was slurred but it was the best he could muster.

The seconds waiting for a reply felt like anxious hours. Nessa was unsure if she would be more scared for herself or Booker if she really was at own, but fortunately, she was not. Booker did not sound like he was in the best condition, but knowing he was alive banished some of her darker worries. Now she could focus on the worries on her plate.

She had no clue where she was or what happened to them. They were knocked out and taken. It was the opening premise to a movie, not what she should be doing with her day off. ”I don’t know what’s going on; I’m blindfolded. Can you see?” The words came out slowly. Her head was still foggy from whatever was used to knock her out. She hated being so unaware of her surroundings. She couldn’t mind read and she could not see. Not that she knew if there was anyone to read.

That realization sank in; she did not know who was in there with them. ”Is anyone else here? What do you want from us?” The young woman called out, possibly calling to an empty room.

Frustrated, Nessa tipped herself over, trying to press her head against the cool flooring. She could not know how well the blindfold was secured on her. If she was really lucky, maybe she could loosen it or move it off one of her eyes. ”Book, are you okay? Did they hurt you?” She was ready to start hating someone, but she had no inkling of who the “they” in their situation was.

The trouble with being as strong and as healthy as Booker B. Bookman was that it was hard to judge the right cocktail to keep him conscious and complacent. Too much and he would be a mindless mess, unable to keep his eyes open or understand a single word; too little and his rage would hardly be contained. In this case, they tried to lean a bit more towards the former as opposed to the latter. And so a meek and disoriented mess was what they had initially achieved. Hence the waiting.

Booker knew something was going on. Even as his mind drifted in and out of consciousness he knew that something wrong was going on. His mind struggled to fight off the effects of the drugs but for all of his mental prowess, it wasn’t exactly an easy battle to win. That is until his sister started to call out.

>> ”I don’t know what’s going on; I’m blindfolded. Can you see?”

He grunted weakly, sighing as he tried to catch a steady beat of breath. At most he could mumble in response as he tried to fend off both his own panic and hers. Something was wrong. Something was definitely and most certainly wrong.

>>”Is anyone else here? What do you want from us?”

No response except for the echo of her own voice in an empty room. Booker tried to remember, tried to delve back into everything that had happened but he was quickly coming up short. The last he could recall was having ice cream, then chatting with his sister, and...someone else? Someone was watching...Ness? Both of them? And then...blackness. Blackness and a pinprick in the neck. Dammit, what happened?!

His heart pumped hard, coursing through his veins. Anxiety was feeding him the worse case scenarios and as his blood pressure raised, it seemed almost as if the drugs were growing less and less potent. A few more seconds and Booker could feel the movement of his tongue in his mouth and the ache in his dried throat. It was the worst feeling imaginable, but it was a start.

>>”Book, are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

He grunted. His head lulled for a second as he tried to lift it. It felt like his head balanced on the tip of a paper cone but he managed some kind of balance. Weakly he did the only thing he could do -- respond.

”I...I don’t feel so good…” he said between hard blinks under his black bagged face. ”Drugged with...something...I...I don’t know.” Cautiously he attempted a calming breath before calling back to her. ”I...think there’s a bag...over my head. Can you…? Can you see? Nessa...are you...okay? Are you hurt?”

As the thought that his sister could be in danger flew through his head, he found himself shaking to keep himself under control. It was at times like this that he certainly wished he was a mutant so that he could burn, break, or phase through whatever was keeping him bound. His sister. He needed to keep her safe. That was his job!

”Nessa…” he started to say. But he stopped. A door creaked. A heavy, menacing door that sounded metallic and echoed like in so many horror movies. Images flashed through his head as he tried to keep from imagining the brands of psychotic serial killers who could possibly have them in their clutches. He tried to squirm more but while his mouth and neck were working, the rest of his body still felt as useless as wet noodles. ”Hey! W-Who are you?!” he shouted at the approaching footsteps. Hearing them move across the room towards Nessa location Booker began to panic more. ”Hey! L-Leave her alone, goddammit! **** off!!”