Four Times Saved, page 10
"Yeah." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I need to call them." His hands trembled and he stalked away from us.
"We're right here. As a matter of fact, put it on speaker," Ethan called after him.
Eric paused, looked at us, and hurried into his room to speak to them in private. We waited outside the door. This was a shitty situation for everyone involved, except for the kidnappers. They were loving this. But their reign was about to come to an end. I was trusting this feeling in my gut, even if I had been disappointed over and over again in the past couple of days.
Eric's bedroom door creaked open. His eyes were red, but his phone was now on speaker. His fidgeting gaze told us he was desperate for relief. I couldn't imagine the situation he was in. Losing Lily was bad enough. We didn't have the added burden of knowing that our parents could be putting themselves at risk.
"Hey Mr. & Mrs. Fletcher!" Ethan injected chipperness in his voice. "How are you doing?"
"We've already told Eric how we're doing. Don't tell me you're all going to be worry-horses over us as well?" Mrs. Fletcher said.
"What's a worry-horse?" Ethan asked.
She didn't get to answer as Mr. Fletcher interjected. Although I'm sure she would have given us one of her anecdotes about a horse that used to worry, or in the worst-case scenario, she'd recount times of war. We kept forgetting how ill they both were. This was all so recent. My heart bled for Eric.
"Look, the nurse agreed to let us do this if we were honest with our military friends. As much as it pains me to be bossed around by someone other than my wife..." Mr. Fletcher said.
"Hey!" Mrs. Fletcher remarked.
Eric cracked a smile through the storm on his face. "I'm happy you guys are in the same room again," he commented.
"Yes, well, our military friends only agreed to help us if we had a team of doctors to guide us through this and if we agreed to take our medications. I said, 'all this and we're not even front and center?' They said, 'Yes. And that's final.' So, here we are. Guess all this psychiatry crap and the meds help after all," Mr. Fletcher resigned.
Smiling, I gripped Eric's shoulders. I knew the guilt of leaving them behind had been crushing him along with everything else. He released a breath.
"Yeah, after being butthurt and deciding that this was not about us and it was for a greater good, we agreed. I'm sorry we took so long," Mrs. Fletcher apologized.
"Are you joking?" Matt sniffled. "Thanks so much for your help. You're incredible parents. I know this must have been hard for you. We're so grateful."
"Ah, we're just happy to help. We want Lily back safely and we're doing all we can behind the scenes to make that happen. After all, we can't wait to meet her. We're happy we can do something other than think about the areas where we failed and focusing on everything we've lost. I have faith that this will all work out in the end." Mrs. Fletcher examined her son and her voice cracked, the sole indication that she might cry. "So stop your worry, Eric. We've got therapists galore. Hell, we have so much, we could even give you one."
Eric's lips tilted up and I mirrored him. "That doesn't sound like a bad idea. We could all use one," I uttered. It registered after I smiled that this could be the first time I'd had this genuine breath of peace since this whole ordeal.
"You sound happier. I'm glad." Eric cleared his throat and returned to his room, closing us out of the rest of his conversation with the people we were indebted to.
Matt, Ethan and I managed a half smile. We were getting somewhere. As we were heading off to our own rooms, Eric popped his head out again.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
He nodded and stepped toward us. "I, um. I know this has been a rough ride for all of us. I just want to say I'm sorry I ever, you know, made out that it was through any fault of yours —" He cleared his throat. "You know, for leaving Lily — I'm sorry for blaming you. Of course I know it wasn't your fault. I was just looking for someone to be angry at, because I couldn't make any sense out of it..." He struggled.
"It's okay." I put my hand up. "I understand."
Though I will admit that it stung, I was relieved. His accusations were directed at all three of us at one point and even today, I felt that he still held that grudge.
"Hey, and I'm sorry for trying to force you into getting your parents involved, which led to the crash," Matt dropped his head.
"Come here." Eric holds his arms out.
Matt hesitated, squirming a little, before falling into the hug. Fuck. Yes, we were grown men who cried like babies and we needed hugs right then.
"It's okay. From now on, no more blame. We stick together. We don't fight over who has more of Lily when she gets back either." Eric patted Matt.
"When she gets back," I agreed, making eye contact with Ethan before we all surrendered to the hug.
Chapter 15
Terry
"What the hell have you gotten yourself into now?" my girlfriend screamed at me as soon as I opened the door. I paused in the doorway and took in the wreckage.
"What the fuck happened?" I coughed against the pain wracking my body. I'd been run into by a truck, literally. Those men were strong as fuck. I didn't know what I was thinking, making them angry. This was a fucking bad idea.
"Don't pretend you don't know what's happened! What have you done? And why were they here asking about Lily?" She yelled, taking a moment to look over my swollen eye and busted lip. I had a feeling she was getting a kick out of it, since I'd colored her skin a few times before. It was her fault for not fighting back with her bull-looking ass. She could crush me if she tried. Fucking bitch must love the aggression.
"I don't know why they were asking about Lily!" I yelled. "Get me some motherfucking ice!" I flipped her off.
"Fuck that. You've gotta leave the house, Terry. You can't stay here. I don't want anyone else popping up here looking for you. You could've gotten me killed!" She trembled.
I thought about threatening her, but the truth was, I couldn't hurt a fly right then. I needed an ice bath, some rest, and a plan. This had been taken too far and had gone on long enough.
"I ain't going nowhere. Run me a bath and give me some privacy. Hell." I stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door.
"I'm not messing around this time, Terry! I'll call the cops!" She blared like a foghorn.
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered to myself, pulling out my phone that got smashed after I got several shades beaten out of me. "Come on, man. Pick up the fucking phone!"
To be honest, I almost withered away into dust when I turned that corner and saw Lily's men. There was something in their eyes that wasn't present before. Something that gave me chills. I should've known that other guy was feeding me bullshit, but when I get drunk, I promise people things all the time. It wasn't so crazy to think that I'd been out drinking and met this man, saw how expensive he looked and thought I could score a deal under the table. So, when he showed up, I didn't ask questions.
Fuck, I needed to get in control of my drinking.
Lily's lap dogs weren't as simple-minded as they first appeared. They were dangerous. And that new guy they brought along with them, he switched up way too fast, from charismatic to wild, like a fucking animal. He caught my co-worker like a rat in a trap.
Damn, was he fucking Lily too?
Whatever kind of spell she'd got on these men, I didn't want any part of it. I didn't know what they saw in the girl.
Today was too close. What a fucking relief it was that I'd remembered to clean out the container. I wasn't sure that I had and when Ethan instructed them to open it, I knew I was dead. The breath that left me and got stuck again when I noticed the words 'Help me' carved in the side of the metal wall. I jumped in there so fast, I almost face-planted on the floor, counting every single second until I managed to cover the carving with my body. Relief washed me with cold sweat, but my nightmare wasn't over.
They were convinced I had something to do with it and when they couldn't find any proof, they beat the living shit out of me, hoping to exact some truth. I was approaching seventy years old. My body couldn't take the beating it used to. I spent a couple of hours in the bathroom coughing up blood before going to the hospital. But I couldn't sit still there, not with the threat that they could show up whenever they wanted to. Besides, if I was about to die, I didn't want to do it in a cold, hospital room. I was surprised I was alive, to be honest. Once I got some pain meds inside me, I walked the fuck out of there, with one thing on my mind. Ending this bullshit agreement.
I didn't care one way or the other about whether Lily lived or died. But I did care whether or not I did. And this was too fucking close. There was no way we were getting that money. Lily's pussy-whipped bloodhounds were out for exactly that, the blood of whoever dared to hurt Lily. We were playing a dangerous game with no incentive. It was time to give up, let her go and threaten her not to speak. As if our threats meant anything. Oh shit, what had we done?
Lily
"Don't know why you gotta stay here seventy-two hours. Don't make no sense. You look fine to me." My kidnapper paced back and forth at the door, looking up and down the aisles as if he was ready to make a run for it.
Sucking his teeth, he turned to look at me and I froze. Not yet! Please, not yet.
Gulping, I ran through a list of makeshift weapons in my head and tactics I might use to escape. His phone rang, distracting him a while, but I still couldn't breathe. It was only a matter of time.
"What the fuck do you mean change of plans? No fucking way. We're sticking to it. We're this close to getting our money. So what if they trashed the place and knocked you around a bit, do they know where she is?" He yelled into the phone, jumping as medical staff walked past the room door. But my ears quirked up. Someone was close to finding me.
"Yeah, well if you blow the cover on this, they'll be the least of your worries, you hear me, old man. There's no backing out now!" He barked when the door swung open. My heart jumped too.
"Is everything alright?" The nurse stepped in and looked between the two of us. She scrutinized him for a moment, and her flutter of doubt gave me courage. There might be a way out of this.
Tense and tight-lipped, my kidnapper grimaced. "Everything is fine."
"Actually, I can't feel my legs," I gasped.
Time for the performance of a lifetime. Let's see if I could act to save my life.
"What do you mean? Is there numbness?" The nurse rushed over and started touching my legs. I took great effort not to react. "You're not feeling anything?"
The kidnapper was laser-focused on me; he was boring into my peripheral vision.
I shook my head at the nurse. "In fact, I've been holding my pee in forever, because it's um...uncomfortable using the bedpan." I flashed a glance toward the kidnapper.
I wasn't completely lying about that. I was on the verge of pissing myself because I refused to use the bedpan with him staring at me, so there wasn't a lot of acting involved in that part, except I had to fight the urge to shake my legs.
"Oh, that's not good, must be a kidney issue. Let me see what happens when you try to stand." She wrapped her arms around me, and I imagined that I'd caught a cramp in both legs which had now gone dead. I fell, and it was dramatic as hell.
The kidnapper was scowling at me, and he was trying his best to make eye contact with me. I was doing everything in my power to avoid that eye contact.
I hissed, wincing as pressure built in my bladder, pushing up against my urethra. "Any minute now, I'm about to start spraying pee everywhere."
"Would you like me to ask him to leave so you can use the bedpan in private?" she asked.
"I'd appreciate that, but for the sake of not raining all over this room, can you please help me to the toilet!" I gasped, clenching my walls until the liquid found another escape, through my eyes.
"Sir, please step out of the room and give this woman some privacy," she spoke over her shoulders while hobbling with me to the toilet.
Unable to find a convincing reason to stay, he acquiesced. As soon as he was out of earshot, I took my chances.
"My name is Lily Thornbread, and that man is my kidnapper," I whispered as low as I could manage over the emptying of my bladder.
Her cheeks reddened, but she didn't look at me.
"How are your legs feeling now?" she asked.
I blanked, forgetting all about my legs. Did she even hear what I said?
"Uh," I balked. "Still a bit numb."
"Okay, let's get you back to the bed," she said.
Tempted to repeat myself, I bottled it when I spotted the kidnapper's shadow looming near the toilet door. He was back in the room, and I'd missed my shot.
I watched with disbelief as she left the room, and I was grabbed by the arm.
"Enough of this shit. We're getting the fuck out of here," he snapped. "And don't try to fight me, or I'll kill you."
He pulled me to my feet, and I committed to the charade, falling in front of him.
"What the fuck?" He scowled at me, swiped his hand over his face, and ducked his head out of the room. He dipped out, and I didn't think. I saw my last shot at escaping, and I took it, jumping to my feet and hurrying to the door.
Only to run into him dragging a wheelchair.
He looked me up and down. "Well, what do we have here? It's a fucking miracle." He stepped into the room and grabbed my hair in his hand, shoving the back of my head toward him. "You're playing a dangerous fucking game, missy. Get dressed. You're coming with me."
His odorous breath warmed my face and forced its way into my lungs. I trembled from the cold stare he froze me with.
Chapter 16
Eric
Jumping up from my phone going off, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and balked at the several missed calls. What the fuck? My body must have given up on keeping me awake, but it meant someone was trying to get through to me urgently and I missed it. Pissed at myself, I answered the phone with my lungs throbbing.
"Yes?" My eyes were wide open and I was sitting up as straight as a board.
"Hi, Eric. Calling from the search and rescue team. We thought you should be the first to know, before we put it on the news..." My heart stopped. Good news, bad news, I couldn't deduce it from the soldier's tone. I was a mixture of hope and foreboding.
"What is it?" I screamed these words inside my head but when they left my mouth, it was a low murmur.
"Lily has been spotted at a hospital in Virginia..." The soldier continued.
When I tell you that the light in my room appeared brighter and sounds became crisper, I'm not lying. I hopped out of the bed and ran down the hallway, shouting, "Lily's been found". The guys' room doors banged open and they all met me outside.
"What?! When is she coming home?" Ryan asked.
"Why isn't she home yet?" Matt pondered.
Ethan was silent, gripping his door frame, air caught in his lungs.
"Do you need us to come and pick her up?" My heart started beating again and the force with which it pumped made me realize how asleep and dead it had been lately.
"Mr. Fletcher, I'm sorry. I wasn't done." The soldier maintained her unreadable tone.
"I don't understand..." Cramping rushed to the forefront of my brain as I raised my head to look at my best friends, impatient and waiting for me to say something.
"Well, I'm sorry Mr. Fletcher..." She began.
Starting with an apology? That couldn't be good. A gasp coming from the depths of my soul escaped and my knees went weak.
"It's not horrible news." She offered just as my body began to lose feeling. "It's just that as soon as the nurse reported it and returned to the room, they had vanished."
My brain was on fire and my head wobbled on my neck like a bobblehead. Her words picked me up and tossed me around in an emotional rollercoaster.
"They don't have her." I mouthed to my friends, before turning my back to them, as if that would make me hear the soldier better. And because I couldn't look at their disappointment or their eyes begging me for answers I didn't have.
"Why didn't she restrain them?" I asked, ridiculously.
But Lily was almost home, damn it.
"Don't worry. This is still good news. At least we know not to keep looking in North Carolina. The report will go live all over the news a little later, but in the meantime, we have a team on the ground in Virginia. Both the military and the police force are involved in the search. There's no way we won't find her."
With that, she hung up and I was left in an emotional limbo, my hand with the phone going limp at my side.
"What did they say?" Ethan blared from behind me.
"I guess they have it under control?" I turned to face them. "So, I guess now we just sit tight and wait until we get the call to pick her up."
"Like that'll be easy." Ryan walked up and down the hallway, shaking his head.
"Yeah, but at least we know she's still alive, right?" Matt swallowed.
"Yeah, but what was she doing at the hospital?" I swiped my hand over my face. The pulse beneath my cold-to-the-touch skin was a mere echo.
"The point is she's alive. We don't have to sit around and do nothing. If they say they're onto it, we should assume she'll be home soon, right? So we need to prepare the house for her." Ethan's voice shook a little with his attempt to be in high spirits. "We should go to her house and get some of her stuff, you know her clothes and shoes? She must be dying for some fresh clothes. Or do you think she'd prefer brand new clothes? There's no way she's going back to that house to live. We could get her favorite foods. She might need to go back to the hospital for a check-up though." I think Ethan had forgotten we were all still standing in front of him.
He was lost in his rambling and we were hanging on to his every word, because what else were we supposed to do?
