Show Me the Scary Part, page 32
“Yes, his great-grandmother is worth millions,” she answered.
The wetness from my tears caused the tape to fall away from my mouth, and I screamed.
“Fuck!” the man yelled, then slapped me hard. “Shut the fuck up or I’ll staple your mouth shut.”
That made me scream louder, and I watched in terror as he lifted his hand to hit me again.
“Rick!” she snapped. “Just gag him,”
He shoved something in my mouth, then covered it with more tape.
“We need to ditch this van right now; they will be looking for him by now,” the man says.
“Yeah, I know, we’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I didn’t listen to them anymore, I just started thinking about my moms and I cried. What if they never find me?”
* * *
Nadine
“We have to go right now,” I said to the officer.
There was no time to think, my son has been taken.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Thornton, did you not hear what I just said?” The officer said.
“Yes, I did,” I said, grabbing my things. “My son had on a tracking device; we clip it to his belt loop every morning. We have to go and get him now,” I demanded.
We made our way to his cruiser, and I pulled up the GPS, and it locked right onto my son’s location.
Officer Craven called for backup, and he decided to pursue them.
“They stopped,” I said, looking at the GPS on my phone.
“That’s good, that way we can surround them. That’s the best way to ensure your son won’t be in too much danger if we get caught in a speed chase.”
The siren and the lights were blaring as he sped down streets and highways. He ran red lights to get to my boy, and we were going to get him.
It wasn’t long before there were other officers following us. I was relieved that he wouldn’t be the only officer on the scene.
The closer we got, the harder my heart pumped in my chest. I just wanted this nightmare to be over. I wanted my son safe in my arms.
“Alright, we are approaching. I’m going to ask you to stay in the car. I don’t know what we’re walking into, and this will ensure the safety of you and your son,” he says.
The last thing I wanted to do was wait on the sidelines, but I had to listen to the officer.
“Okay.”
The officers were instructed to surround the building; they didn’t want to take any chances.
We pulled up to this warehouse in the middle of this sketchy neighborhood, and the police surrounded it, and it seemed like everything sped up.
“Do not leave this car unless we give the okay?” Officer Craven said before getting out of the car.
In that moment, I just prayed, because that was all I could do.
* * *
Ryder
We stopped at this place, and the big man took me out of the van and into this really scary place. It was dark inside, and it smelled bad. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted my moms.
“Hurry and start the car,” the big man demanded.
“Just put the boy in the car.”
The big guy picks me up and takes me over to this car and opens the trunk. I think he was going to put me in there. I started moving to get out of his arms, but I couldn’t because my arms and legs were tied up. I tried to yell, but couldn’t because my mouth was covered.
I heard the car starting up, but it sounded weird, like when the battery in my mom’s car was bad. The car wouldn’t start, and that made me happy.
“What the fuck!” The man yelled, throwing me into the trunk.
My face hit the bottom hard, and my nose hurt so badly.
“This piece of shit car won’t start,” The lady said.
“I thought you said you had everything figured out!” he yelled.
“How was I supposed to know the damn car wouldn’t start? Get the van, we have to hurry and jump this car so that we can get the hell out of dodge.”
I could hear him running.
My face was hurting badly.
“THIS IS THE POLICE WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR.”
The police came to get me from these bad people.
“Shit! How the hell did they find us?” The man shouts.
“I don’t know,” the lady said.
She sounded afraid.
I heard him walking towards me. When he appeared, he looked at me and started searching my body.
“What’s this?” he said, pulling my necklace out from under my shirt. “Is there a tracker on this shit?”
He grips the necklace and yanks it off my neck and throws it.
My dad gave me that necklace, which was the only thing I had from him.
“Just leave the kid alone, we’re caught, it’s over,” the woman said, coming into view now.
“YOU HAVE 60 SECONDS TO COMPLY OR WE WILL COME IN WITH FORCE,” the police warned.
“We have to give ourselves up,” she says.
He slaps her so hard that she almost falls.
“You stupid bitch, I should have known not to trust your desperate ass. I cannot get fucking locked up again,” he yelled.
He walked off somewhere.
Then there was a loud boom, and I could hear several people entering the building, and then everything went so fast.
They grabbed the woman who took me first, and I could hear the big man putting up a fight, but they got him.
One of the police officers came up to the trunk where I was, and he looked at me. His eyes were sad.
“I found the boy, he’s here, call a paramedic, he’s bleeding.”
He cut the ties off my arms and legs, then he took the tape off my mouth and the cloth that the man shoved in my mouth.
“It’s okay, son, I’m going to take you out of here.”
He knew I was scared, so he picked me up and carried me out of this scary place. I blinked when the sun hit my eyes.
“Ryder!”
“Marshmallow!”
I know those voices.
“Moms!” I screamed.
I looked up to see my moms running up to me. When they get to me, they take me out of the officer’s arms and pull me into a tight hug.
“My baby,” Mom was crying.
“You found me,” I cried as I hugged them back.
I felt them both pressing kisses to my head.
I don’t know how long my moms held me, I was just happy that I was back in their arms.
I never wanted to leave their arms again.
* * *
Whitney
It took forever to get Ryder to sleep tonight; today’s events traumatized him. It traumatized all of us. I won’t ever get over this. Today was the scariest day of my life. I would have died if my son were lost to me forever.
Ryder was only gone for an hour and a half before they found him. His nose was broken, he had deep lacerations on his wrist from the zip ties, and a bruise on the side of his face where that man had hit him.
I don’t know if he’ll ever get over this.
I can’t believe Charlotte kidnapped my son and was going to hold him for ransom. She was holding onto a seven-year-long grudge. My grandmother’s name carries a lot of clout, and when she was fired, she was blacklisted. She couldn’t get a high-end job anywhere, so she decided to get revenge by taking my son.
“He’s finally asleep,” I said to Nadine.
She was sitting on our bed in deep thought.
“That’s good, he needs his rest,” she says.
I walked over to her.
“You saved our son today,” I said to her.
Tears started rolling down her cheeks.
I sat next to her and wrapped my arm around her.
“I just want to go to bed and put this terrible day behind us.”
She moves away from me and pulls back the covers, and gets into the bed.
“Nadine,”
I called.
“Whitney, can you please just come to bed? I don’t want to talk,” she says.
I took a breath and got on my side of the bed. I didn’t expect her to shut down on me like that. I got under the covers, and I looked at my wife, whose back was to me.
I wanted to talk about it; I felt like I needed to talk about it. It was emotional for both of us.
I moved closer to her and put my arm around her.
“I love you,” I said.
She laced her fingers through mine.
“I love you, goodnight, Whitney.”
I buried my face in the back of her neck and pushed aside my worrisome thoughts, and I went to sleep.
An hour later, Nadine and I were woken by screaming.
“Ryder,” Nadine and I said at the same time.
We both jumped out of bed and rushed to Ryder’s room.
When we got into his room, we found him sitting up in his bed, crying. We both made our way to him.
“Ryder, honey, we’re here,” I said.
“They’re going to get me,” he cries.
“No, baby, look at us.” Nadine places her hands on his face. “No one is going to get you.”
He just cried harder; he was completely inconsolable.
I was trying so hard to stay strong for him, but this was breaking my heart.
Nadine and I both moved to hug him; our words couldn’t console him, so we just held him.
It took almost an hour to calm him down. When he finally fell back asleep, Nadine and I just lay on either side of him.
“I don’t want any more kids,” Nadine whispers.
I looked at her. “What?”
“I can’t imagine bringing another child into this world. Not after what we went through today,” she says.
“We can hold off on having a baby; all of this just needs to blow over,” I said quietly.
“There is no way I’m going to be able to get over this.”
“You don’t think I’m torn up about this, but the last thing I want to do is give up on our future,” I voiced.
“This is our future, he is our future. I don’t think it’s wrong for us to put all of our energy and time into the child we already have. We don’t know the lasting effects this will have on him. He is our child, and I can’t imagine loving any other child as much as I love him. He’s all I want, and he needs us. Another child would just get in the way of that,” she says, looking down at Ryder.
I understood where she was coming from, but it’s hard to think about not having any more children.
“Ryder should be our main focus right now, you’re right. We’ll just revisit the subject in a couple of years,” I said.
She just nods and runs her fingers through Ryder’s hair.
“I love you,” I tell her.
Nadine looks at me. “I love you.”
I can’t believe that only a few short weeks ago, we were all so happy, we weren’t the same family anymore. Ryder wasn’t the same child anymore; he had nightmares every night, and he never wanted to leave our sides. He also refused to go to school.
It was hard for all of us; the only reprieve we got was when Nadine’s parents came over for a couple of days.
Nadine and I were stressed out, and it showed.
Ryder had to go to school, so we had to figure out what to do. We had no choice but to withdraw him from school and set him up for homeschooling. He has post-traumatic stress Disorder, so he had to undergo a lot of therapy. It was a long road ahead of us, and right now I couldn’t see an end in sight.
THIRTY-ONE
Whitney
It’s been a few months since the kidnapping, and Ryder has made extreme progress. My biggest fear was that he would have never gotten over this. I know this will always be with him, but now I see that he could live a normal life. He still didn’t want to go to school, which was understandable. Kenya and Deena would come over with their boys every week, and even though the twins were a grade ahead of Ryder, they were still really good friends.
We had to go to trial for Charlotte and her accomplice, Nadine, and I didn’t want to take Ryder, but he had to testify. I thought it would have worsened his issues, but it didn’t. It seemed to make him better, knowing that they were going to jail for a very long time. I was so happy Ryder was getting better; I was so worried about him.
The only thing Ryder was still upset about was the necklace that Scott gave him; it was lost when he was taken. I could just call Scott, but I would have to tell him how Ryder lost it. Knowing Scott, though, he wouldn’t think twice about getting him another one made, with no questions asked. I knew I would have to call him eventually, but I wasn’t looking forward to it.
We were all enjoying a movie together, one of Ryder’s choices. I wasn’t paying attention because my mind was elsewhere.
“Can I ask a question?” Ryder inquires.
We looked at the boy with curious eyes, sitting between us.
“You can ask us absolutely anything,” I said.
“What’s wrong with you two?” he asked.
Yeah, that took me off guard.
“You’re going to have to clarify that for us, Marshmallow,” Nadine says.
“Something’s not right with the two of you. Don’t you love each other anymore?”
“Of course we love each other, Ryder, why would you ask that?” I inquired.
“Because I don’t see it, I don’t see that you love each other anymore.” He looked between both of us. “You don’t hug or kiss or play with each other anymore. I noticed.”
I didn’t look at Nadine or Ryder because he was right, something wasn’t right with Nadine and me. We both knew it. Things have gotten progressively worse since the incident. Things hit a breaking point when we got into an argument one night. We have never gotten so angry with each other before, and we haven’t bounced back from it. We just agreed to keep Ryder out of it, but I guess we didn’t do a good job.
I don’t know where Nadine and I stood, but I can honestly say it doesn’t look too good for us.
“Your mom and I are just fine,” I looked right at my son and lied.
Flashback…
We just came back from Ryder’s therapy session, which went very well. He was making excellent progress. I was so happy that he was doing better. Nadine and I, however, haven’t been doing as well; there was a slight tension between us.
“Since Ryder’s doing a little better, why don’t we call the babysitter and go out? Just you and me, what do you say?” I suggested.
She looks at me. “I’m not ready for Ryder to be without you or me just yet,” she says.
“If we don’t start leaving him now, he’s never going to want to be away from us,” I state.
“How could you want to leave him so easily after what happened to him?” she questioned.
“It’s not like I want to leave him for several days, just a couple of hours. We should have some time alone together to talk about everything that’s happened; we have not connected at all since everything happened.”
“I’m sorry we haven’t connected. I’m just over here worrying about our child who went through a traumatic experience,” she spouted sarcastically.
That pissed me off. “Don’t fucking do that, Ryder isn’t a backseat to our problems. It’s been weeks, and I only suggested we go out because he is visibly getting better. I do not prioritize things over the well-being of my child. I’ve always done what’s best for him despite how I felt. So don’t you fucking dare,” I voiced, a little louder than I expected.
She just hit a sensitive spot.
“You know what, our relationship is never a priority to you, and I don’t know why I thought it would be any different,” I said.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to hear this, because it’s not true and you know it’s not.”
“Of course it is, you did it with school and then work. Now it’s our child. Tell me, Nadine, since when has working on our marriage been detrimental to our child? How could working on our marriage be nothing but good for him?” I fussed.
“I just think we have more pressing matters.”
“Sure, we have more pressing matters. Screw our marriage, right? I don’t even know why I even try.” Tears started to swell in my eyes.
“Whitney,”
“You said what you needed to say, Nadine. You always prioritize what you want. You didn’t talk to me before you decided we didn’t need more kids. I guess that you were right about that, though. We shouldn’t have another child with our marriage in the state it’s in.”
“I gave up so much for this family, but I prioritize what I want? Don’t tell me that I’m not invested in this, in us.”
“You could have walked away, Nadine. I didn’t ask you to stay. I didn’t force you into marrying me and becoming a parent to my son. Don’t stick around because you feel obligated to. After all, you didn’t ask for any of this, right?”
“You’re putting fucking words in my mouth. I wanted this, I wanted you and Ryder.”
I shook my head. “Wanted, being the operative word. Perhaps that’s the problem, you don’t want this anymore.”
“Don’t say I don’t want my child, I love him and I will always want him,” she asserted.
I nod slowly, letting what she said sink in. “Right, so it’s just me you don’t want.”
“Whitney,” she started.
She couldn’t even deny it.
The tears that had been threatening to fall finally did, and I could just feel my heart breaking.
I quickly grabbed some clothes to sleep in, and I started to walk out of the room, but Nadine grabbed my hand, trying to stop me, but I snatched my arm away.
“Don’t!” I snapped, then left the room.
I made my way to the guest room where I would be sleeping indefinitely.
* * *
Nadine
I wondered if everything had always been this hard, and I’m just really starting to feel the effects of it. Parenting, my marriage, and work. It’s always been such a balancing act for me, and I sucked at it. I wanted to be exceptional at all of those things, but I always seem to be failing at it. My marriage was falling apart before my very eyes, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I love Whitney, but I haven’t been that into her lately, and it sucked because no one ever made me feel the way that she does.
