“...and then I signed up for a research project with Professor Pendergast.” Flora intoned in the same quiet voice in which she had detailed the long, and often unfortunate lives of her past incarnations.

From his seat beside the couch she reclined on, the professor set down his pen and looked over the pages of notes he had hurriedly scrawled, listening with rapt attention at the stories. “I’ll never be able to publish this...” he mused to himself as he glanced through the scribbles, pausing here and there where a word or phrase had been written with more enthusiasm then control. Still, they made a pretty panorama: prehistoric earth, ancient Rome, ancient China, Dark ages Europe and sixteenth century Eastern Europe, the golden age of piracy and the wild west, even the 60’s.

He turned and smiled at the coed. “You seem to have a knack for meeting the wrong sorts of people!” Flora, still in her hypnotized trance, said nothing. As he’d discovered with previous subjects, until something snapped her out of the trance, she would only respond to direct questions. Professor Pendergast glanced at his watch. It was just getting past nine. They’d been at it for nearly three hours now.

“I think we can go another fifteen minutes...” he said to Flora. “And I had a few more questions about some of these past lives...” Some of them he was quite eager to delve into deeper, though he had to remind himself to focus on those bits that he could use when he published his findings, and not just those for his own personal...enlightenment.

Before he could ask though, there was a sudden knocking at the door. A pounding really, the kind that insisted it be answered quickly, before the door was pounded off its hinges. The professor threw down his pad and pen, jumped to his feet and ran, fortunately arriving before anything was damaged save perhaps the paint.

Throwing open the door, Pendergast found himself faced by two men, and that term was applied only because gorillas weren’t usually in the habit of dressing in tracksuits and windbreakers, and they didn’t usually greet someone with a predatory smile and a polite, “Good evening. May we come in?” sans politeness.

Pendergast went pale, unable to reply. He was equally unable to stop the two from forcing their way into the house. They stood in the foyer, looking at the eclectic decor, cruel grins on their faces as one of them, the one who had spoke before, casually stated “Boris is still waiting for you to pay back that money you owe him.”

“re-re-Really?” Pendergast stammered. He paused a second, recovering enough to hide at least some of the terror in his voice. “Yes...yes! You know me, I would never hold out on Boris...” Silently, he cursed the day he’d first gotten the idea to fund his research by borrowing money from a loan shark. He’d been quite sure, once he published his discoveries, fame and money would come rolling in. Unfortunately, things hadn’t quite worked out like that.

“Listen, I’ll pay the money back. I swear!” The professor babbled, backing up. “I just need a little more time to get the funds together...” He flinched, hoping whatever they broke wouldn’t be expensive to replace, and wouldn’t be him.

“okay...we’ll give you some more time...” The heavy replied.

It took Pendergast a second before his brain caught up with his ears. “You...you will?” He asked, still not convinced he wasn’t going to get off without some sort of beating.

“Oh yes, But in the meantime, we hold on to your girlfriend as...motivation to pay up.”

“Girlfriend?” It took the professor a second to realize what they were talking about. When he’d backed up, they’d come into view of the next room, and Flora still reclined on the couch. Lost in her hypnotic trance, she’d heard nothing of what was going on in the next room. “You mean her?”

The other man nodded. He spoke to his companion who disappeared outside. Turning back to the professor, he replied. “We keep her until we get money from you. Then you get her back. Take too long, maybe we sell her, to cover what you owe. Understand?”

“yes...yes I understand.” Part of the professor felt he should put up some sort of protest on behalf of his student, but the larger part of him was still celebrating the fact he was, amazingly, going to get out of this with both his knees still intact and didn’t want to screw that up.

So he stayed quiet as the second goon returned, carrying several coils of rope in his beefy arms. He passed a couple over to his partner and they went into the other room, looming over Flora who remained oblivious to them for the moment.

With a skill that suggested practice, the two men went to work tying her up, one her legs, at the ankles and knees, the other her arms, wrapping the rope again and again around her chest, pinning her arms to her back. They seemed a bit unnerved that she made no effort to resist their efforts to truss her up. That was definitely not what they were used to.

About the time they were gagging her, stuffing a balled up rag into her mouth, Flora was finally jarred from her hypnotic stupor. She gave a muffled cry of alarm at the situation she found herself in and started to squirm. It caused no difficulty for her captors though, and they seemed to relax a bit. This was more like what they were expecting. Ignoring her muffled pleas, a rolled up band of cloth was pulled between her lips to keep the gag in and another across her eyes, blindfolding her.

Finished, the goons turned. One of them lifted the squirming coed up, like she weighed nothing, and threw her roughly over one shoulder. Flora screamed in fright, kicking and bucking as she was carried out of the room, across the entry hall and out into the stormy night. The other thug lingered at the door, turning back to Pendergast who had stood by, watching the abduction with helpless fright.

“Remember!” The gangster warned him, sharply. “You have one week to pay the money, otherwise we’ll consider her your payment.” With that, he turned and stepped out into the rain, quickly disappearing from sight.

Slowly, Professor Pendergast walked over to the door. He caught a brief glimpse of a sports car pulling away from the house, the two thugs seated in the front. He didn’t see Flora and wondered if she was in the backseat...or in the trunk. Then he closed to the door.

The professor went back to the study. Idly he collected Flora’s coat and her purse. The goons hadn’t taken them. Pendergast felt rather guilty. Guilty for getting his student into this mess...guilty he was sure he wouldn’t be able to pay the money back in time and what would happen to her then.

He glanced over at the notes he’d taken a little earlier; all of her past lives, and how they’d ended up. He chuckled, morosely. “Maybe some things are just fated, aren’t they?” He said to himself, grabbing the notepad.

Quickly, he thought things over. Flora had talked to him one afternoon at class, after all the other students had left. They’d never called or texted so there was nothing linking him and her electronically or in writing. She might have mentioned where she was going to a friend, but then again she might not have. Either way, he could always say she hadn’t shown up. Soon as he got rid of her jacket and purse, along with his notes, there’d be no way to prove she’d ever been here at all.

“And she squares things between Boris and me.” Pendergast grinned. “And I’m in the clear.” He felt another stab of guilt at the thought of the coed, shipped off somewhere overseas, but soon fought it down. “Yeah...” he added, “can’t fight fate, now can you...”