by Anna Lewis
“Then what is this?” I screamed. “What are we doing here? Why have you taken me back if you don’t even want me?” Silence – a long and agonizing silence. “Why do you even want me here?” I had to ask, I needed to know the truth. “Is it because I met someone else?”
But all I heard was stomping footsteps, leaving the room. He was leaving me behind with no answer, and it was as if he didn’t even care.
I hung my head in fear, feeling the tears trickle down my cheeks. I was starting to lose hope, to feel like this was going to be the end for me.
Was I even going to get out of here alive?
I started to really think about my life, about everything within it as if I might never get the chance again. I thought back to that massive falling out with my parents over something so stupid and pointless, the one that made me run away from them and end up in Jon’s arms. It felt like I’d spent my entire life running from my problems, which had landed me in this mess.
Sure, I couldn’t blame myself for being kidnapped, but it seemed like I had a part to blame.
If I’d just faced things, sorted them out in the right way in the first place, then this would never have happened. Maybe Jon had freaked out because he never had his closure. Maybe that was why he’d come for me now.
But I wasn’t really bothered about him, not any more. I was wondering if I would ever get the chance to make up with my family. We’d been going through my typical teenage rebellion when I’d run off and I’d refused to speak to them since. I couldn’t believe how petty I’d been, and now I might never have the chance to make up for that. I might die in this basement, and that would be the end of it. My mom and dad would find out about my death, and that would be that.
They wouldn’t get their closure either.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I resolved to myself that if I ever did get out of here I would make some changes. I would be a better person, act better and be a more functioning person. I’d spent so long wrapped up in my own selfish misery, and I wouldn’t do that for any longer.
If I got out of here of course…
***
Aaron
The police took all the information that I had, but after a few days it was clear that the investigation was going nowhere. They didn’t have any of the equipment that they needed, and that was a huge problem for me. It meant that my evidence was useless. I had the CCTV footage, but the van’s registration could not be read with the police’s equipment, so there was nothing more that I could do with it.
It was incredibly frustrating, and slowly driving me insane.
Of course they did run a media appeal, and I had very high hopes for that. Someone out there in the world had to know what had happened to her, or someone would recognize the van, but so far the help lines had remained frustratingly silent.
I couldn’t take that, it wasn’t enough. I needed Chantelle safe, I needed her back with me, I needed her in my arms and I needed to know exactly where she was. This not knowing was sending me around the bend. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t do anything without her face in my mind.
So I ended up taking matters into my own hands, and I pored over the phone book and Internet to find the most expensive private investigator around.
A brash voice answered the phone when I finally decided which one was right for me. “Hello?” it said.
“Is this… Rick Heath?” I asked, knowing that it was unlikely that was his real name. Private investigators always used aliases to keep themselves safe, I’d heard.
“Yep, that’s me, what can I do for you?” His tone was all business, which finally filled me with a confidence. I already felt that if anyone could do this, then it would be him.
“Have you heard of the Chantelle Neve case?” It had been all over the news, so I was sure that he had.
“Yep,” he snapped back quickly. “I’ve seen bits of it on the news – the girl that got kidnapped, white van, right?”
“Right. Okay, well I’m her… boyfriend and I have some CCTV footage that contains the number plate of the van, but I can’t see it and the police can’t either. I feel like this is the key to the entire case. If someone had the right technology, I felt like I could get her back to me.”
“Okay, I will be over soon.” He replied almost instantly. “Just text me your address. Now you understand that my prices are a little higher than my competitors.”
“It isn’t a problem,” I said quickly. “I can afford it.”
I didn’t even care; I would pay anything to get her back to me.
***
The good news was that Rick managed to decipher the CCTV footage enough to work out what the number plate was. The bad news was that it had led nowhere. We couldn’t work anything out about it, which meant that whoever we were dealing with was a mastermind criminal. Someone who knew exactly how to hide their tracks, which left me even more frustrated than before.
Rick was on the case, and I was trying to be confident about that, but it felt like it was taking far too long. I had no idea what Chantelle was going through, if she was okay or not, and that was sending me wild.
I’d become obsessed by the mystery, thinking only of Chantelle, and eventually it started to dawn on me that it was for a reason. We might have only had that one night together, but I’d been pursuing her for months, getting to know her more and more every single day.
It was obvious, I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to miss it before.
I was in love with her.
The woman that I loved was in serious danger, and it felt like there was nothing I could do about it.
“Fuck!” I yelled out in frustration. How was it possible that the first person I’d ever truly been in love with was gone? I’d finally gotten her to agree to date and to open up to me, and now she had vanished, stolen away from me!
Whoever had done that to us was going to pay – that was for sure. I wouldn’t rest until they did. They took her from me, and now I was mad. I was angrier than I’d ever been before and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t even take my anger out anywhere, on anyone, which made it even harder to cope with.
What on earth was I going to do?
***
Chantelle
The days slowly became weeks, and it seemed like no one was looking for me. I was having to accept that I was on my own in all of this, and that it was up to me to get out of here. If I wanted to live, if I really wanted to escape this, then it was on my shoulders. I couldn’t sit back and wait for something to happen, I was going to have to deal with it on my own.
It was a tough pill to swallow, but one that wasn’t as bad as what I was going through in that damn basement.
The one good thing was that it seemed like my captor was becoming increasingly confident in the fact that no one was looking for me because he started to leave my hands and feet untied after meal times, instead of tying them up again as he had at first. I didn’t comment on it, I just let it slide, hoping that one day it would lead to my advantage.
I didn’t make my move right away because I was scared that it was a trap, and that it would lead to me getting hurt, but after a while I felt confident enough to peek out of my blindfold, only for a split second.
As I did it, I expected a blow to the head. I even winced, waiting for it to come, but it never did. So I looked again, for a little longer. And again, and eventually I became confident enough to tear it from my head.
I glanced around, drinking in my surroundings, finding exactly what I was expecting. It was a dark and damp basement, filled with rubbish and abandoned items. There were no knives or guns in obvious view, which was a good thing, but I needed to get out of there right away before anything bad happened to me. I felt like any day now I could end up dead.
After that, with a racing heart and a dry mouth, I ran up to the door that had kept me locked in for such a long time, but just as I was about to break free, I quickly found everything fading all over ag
ain…
“What the fuck?” The voice shrieked as my body hit the ground once more. “Do you actually think that you’re going to get out of here alive? What is your problem?”
“What do you want?” I begged as my vision went in and out. “Why won’t you just let me go? You can’t want anything from me. This is pointless.”
“Oh you have no idea,” the voice sneered. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” I insisted, pleading now. I knew nothing, didn’t he see that?
“You’ll find out soon enough,”
And then I felt my body being turned over and I finally saw the face that had been keeping me trapped for all this time.
“Oh my God!” I screamed loudly, unable to believe what I was looking at. It didn’t make any sense whatsoever…
***
Aaron
It was actually like something from a movie, a ransom note made from cut up newspaper. I actually couldn’t believe it when it fell through my door.
‘Give me what I want and you can have her back.’
It gave me hope – communication at last; that had to be a good sign. Sure, it was crazy, but I needed that. It was something to grasp onto, something to hold dear to me. She had to be still alive for this note to make sense, or there would be no point, which finally negated my biggest fear.
She wasn’t dead – that was what I’d been afraid of and I was so glad to find out that she was alive.
Although it also meant that this was more to do with me than her, which meant that whatever imprisonment or torture she was being put through was because of me. That probably meant that she wouldn’t want anything to do with me after all this. Why would she? Surely she would blame me for what had happened to her.
But that wasn’t the biggest problem here. If she didn’t want me, I would have to cope with that, as long as she was alive. I just needed her to be safe. If I focused on that end goal, then I had something realistic to concentrate on.
I wanted to respond to the note right away, but I made the mistake of going through the right channels first. The police were insisted that I did not respond to it, that I would only make things worse if I did anything about it, but I wasn’t going to have that. They told me that they would deal with it ‘the right way’, but I wasn’t falling for that. They hadn’t done anything for me so far, and I wasn’t going to rely on them now. I needed more, I needed something more set in stone that I could rely on.
I instantly called Rick and sent him the details. “Set up a meeting,” I told him sharply. “I want this done now, whatever it takes. I need this to end now.”
“Are you sure boss?” There was a bemused tone to his voice, but he knew that I was serious – I’d made that very clear over the last few weeks that I would do whatever it took to get Chantelle back. “What did the police say?”
“Fuck the police,” I practically growled. “I don’t want this done on their terms and in their time. This is a time sensitive issue, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to her while I’m waiting for things to happen the right way.” There was a break in my voice – one that shut Rick up with his concern right away.
“Okay, I’ll arrange it.”
When he was gone, I slumped back onto my sofa, just thinking. I knew that there was nothing I could do now, and I just had to wait.
I remembered her face, her lips, her cute hair… everything, and I wished more than ever that she was by my side once more. How the hell was I supposed to cope without her here? I needed her in my life and I couldn’t have her taken away by anyone. It wasn’t fair.
I tried to imagine her safe, but no longer with me, but I couldn’t get that picture to form. It might have been my end goal, but I couldn’t actually imagine that happening. I needed her to be my girlfriend, my wife, my everything. That was the only future I wanted for us.
That is, if I ever got to see her again.
***
Chantelle
It wasn’t Jon.
After all that, after I was so convinced that he’d come back around to get revenge on me for everything that had happened, I was wrong. I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t him, but the evidence was standing very clearly right in front of me.
The person that I found myself faced with was a female face – and one that I knew very well.
“Shelley?” I asked, staring Jon’s cousin in the face. “What the hell is this? What is going on here? Why? What…?” I scooted backwards, moving my aching body backwards despite it screaming out at me.
“It’s you,” she shrieked with a manic look in her eyes. Had that always been there? “You’re ruining everything.”
“What?” I gasped, unsure as to what she was talking about. “Ruining what?” I tried to rack my brain, to work out exactly what it was that I was supposed to have done wrong, but I was coming up with nothing.
Was she that mad because I’d run out on her cousin?
“Me and Jon,” she stated simply, as if it was totally obvious.
“You and… your cousin?” I was confused now, and I was pretty sure that was plastered all over my face. “Are you like… together?” I couldn’t help but shudder at the weird, twisted mind game that I was so clearly involved in. None of it made any sense, and I didn’t know what to think about any of it.
“He isn’t my cousin,” she laughed nastily. “He’s my lover. He always has been.”
Of course.
I remembered being introduced to her one night when I walked into a bar with my friends – in the early days of our relationship when I’d been allowed to do things like that – and I’d seen them sitting there laughing and talking. He’d told me then that she was his cousin, and I’d never doubted that. I’d never bothered to give Shelley much thought, even on the occasions that I’d seen her afterwards.
I just trusted Jon, and by the time I no longer trusted him, she wasn’t even a feature in my mind – only my own safety was.
Now, she was on some crazy one-woman mission to ruin my life. I couldn’t believe how crazy this world was. Why was all of this happening to me?
“Why?” I whispered sadly.
“He is obsessed with you,” she sniped at me. “He still loves you and I want him to be mine. Only mine. You’re ‘the one who got away’ and he can’t stop thinking about you.”
“What are you talking about?” I shrieked, feeling incredibly pissed off now. “I don’t want him anyway. Does he know that I’m here?”
“Of course not,” she hissed, but I could spot the guilty look that crossed her face which led me to believe that maybe he did – what a lowlife! How could he just leave me here with this psycho? “But don’t worry. I’ve contacted your new lover. He’s going to pay for you, to set you free, and then me and Jon can get the hell out of here, far away from you.”
“Aaron?” I asked, my heart pounding. If Aaron was on the case, I felt sure I would be freed in no time. I finally felt a sense of relief that flooded through me, as my future didn’t seem quite so dark after all, which was why I allowed her to walk from the room without any more questions.
Fatigue started to come for me, and I lay my weary head down. It was like my brain had finally cleared with the possibility that I might be freed, and I actually managed to switch off for a decent night’s sleep.
***
All of a sudden, I wasn’t in the damp basement anymore, I was back in Aaron’s home which was the only place that I wanted to be in the entire world.
I knew that I was dreaming, but I didn’t even care. This felt perfect, and I glanced up to smile at him with happiness coursing through my veins.
You’re my hero, I thought, looking into his eyes. You’ll be here for me soon enough.
With that, my entire body felt on fire with desire. I wanted him – dream or reality – I wanted him once more, just in case we never got the opportunity again. I didn’t like thinking such dark thoughts, but they were there all the same. I needed to be smart about all of this after al
l.
Suddenly a burst of bravery overtook and I pulled him closer to me, no longer wanting that distance there. I needed him, and now that he was here with me, I was going to claim him as my own so I pressed my lips up against his with a deep and fiery desire.
That thick, muscular body pressed up against me and I lost the ability to control myself. He was so gorgeous, so hot and I grasped at him hungrily.
“Oh God,” I groaned, “I need you. I can’t wait to have you, you’re so amazing.”
He wrapped me up in his arms, and I felt safe and sexy all at once. All the danger that I was actually in melted from my mind as I became increasingly convinced that he was already on his way to get me. Nothing else mattered because this dream could become a reality soon enough, and that was all that I needed.
After a few moments, his hands began to work their way over my body, working every one of my curves, sending bolts of desire racing right through me. It was like I was reliving that one special night all over again, and that felt perfect.
He pulled back from kissing me, just long enough to tug my dress up over my head, shaking my hair out as it went. As soon as he dropped the garment, his eyes fixed back on me, making me feel so sexy and desired. Ever since Jon and his abuse, I’d always wanted to hide away, to keep my appearance hidden from the world, but now I wanted Aaron to keep on looking and never stop. I loved the way that I felt with his eyes upon me – it was a sensation that I didn’t think I would ever get bored of.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered into my ear, giving me the strength that I needed to carry on. I knew that even when I was awake his words would get me through this. Whatever Shelley’s plan was, however deeply involved Jon was, it didn’t matter. Aaron would keep me strong. Even if it was only the thought of him.
Back in my fantasy, Aaron began to tug at my underwear, wanting them off my body, but I quickly gripped his hand in mine to stop him. “No, not yet,” I whispered, shooting him a seductive smile, one that I hoped he would like. “I have something that I want to do first.” I was enjoying being this version of myself, and I wanted to take it one step further. I wanted to act out how I would behave if I ever did get to see him again.
