by Amy Muscat
But then I saw it.
A pregnancy test.
A white stick that had obviously been peed on and used.
Slowly turning my palm over, I let everything drop to the floor.
All but the stick.
With my shaking left hand, I slowly turned it around.
My heart stopped beating.
My breath left my lungs.
My heart shattered into small, tiny pieces.
All I saw was the one word that made my world spin.
‘Positive.'
TWENTY-FIVE
~Peyton~
Pain.
That’s the first thought that filtered through my brain as I came to.
Confusion.
That’s what I felt when I realized I didn’t know what was wrong with me.
Fear.
That was the emotion rushing through my veins as I remembered everything.
It was like I was watching a program on TV and before it starts it says previously on this and shows you what happened in the episodes prior to the one you was watching.
Waking up in bliss next to Keller, taking Ivy to school, coming home, and Keller asking me to move in with him, me saying no, us fighting, going to get a pregnancy test, waiting for the results, but then Keller coming in before I could see if it was positive or not. Then finding out it was Sandra who had sent and kept the letters. Going over to Rob’s house and confronting her, fighting with her, Rob kicking her out. Then Keller and I at a restaurant, eating and enjoying ourselves, then Keller asking me to move in with him again, me saying yes. Then going to the bathroom, looking in the mirror and seeing Andrews’s beady eyes staring back at me with fury and hate in them. I remember my last thought to Keller- silently calling out to him. And then everything went black.
Andrew had me…
Andrew, the fucking creeper, had taken me.
Holy fuck!
What was I going to do?
I blinked open my eyes, squinting past the pain radiating in my head, the first thing I saw was my knees.
Blinking again, I slowly lifted my head up and looked around.
From the looks of it, I was in a house. A rundown house judging by the walls that looked damp and the old ripped furniture.
The whole room had that damp, dark and dreary feel to it.
I shivered as I felt the coldness in the room felt the goose bumps on my arms.
My head throbbed and on reflex I went to raise my hand to it, to rub it better, but I found that I couldn’t.
Startled I bent my head and looked down to see my hands bound to the arms of the chair I was situated in, along with my legs.
My eyes popped open, and I felt the fear course through me again.
Oh god.
On instinct, I tried to free my hands, but all I felt was the rope chafe against my wrists, and the burn that followed.
I felt my heart kick and beat double time.
It didn’t help matters with my head, as that started pounding aggressively, so taking a deep breath I tried to calm myself down. Feeling my pulse subside slightly, I looked around the room again, trying to see if I recognized anything. I saw a window and looking beyond that; all I could see was nothing but trees and grass.
Great. I was in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees and nothingness.
“Sleeping beauty wakes.” A voice whispered in the silent room.
Gasping, I swung my head back to the front of the room and saw Andrew standing there leaning against the doorframe.
He looked like shit.
Like major shit. He’s eyes had dark black bags underneath them; his face was gaunt, his completion was pale and his beard looked like Alan’s in the Hangover.
So, yeah. Total shit.
“Hello Peyton.”
“Andrew…” I didn’t know what to say to him.
“Didn’t think I was telling the truth when I said you’d be mine, did you?”
“Wh-what?” I didn’t even remember him saying anything like that; my mind was blank. My fear came back fall force. “B-but I-I took a restraining order out on you,” I mumbled past my stuttering.
He laughed. Not one of them nice laughs, where you end up smiling. No, this laugh was a bone-chilling, spine-tingling and cold. It made all the hair on my body stand-up.
“What? You actually thought a tiny piece of paper was going to stop me?” He was still laughing nastily, when he dipped his hand into his pocket, and when he pulled it out, he produced a piece of paper. The restraining order.
Then he ripped it up into tiny, minuscule pieces and opened his palm and blew on them, making them flutter to the ground.
“Gone,” he told me with a grin.
“Andrew…”
“What you got nothing to say now that you haven’t got your bodyguard with you?”
I tried to talk, to say anything, but I couldn’t. My mouth felt dry, and my throat felt like there was a hairball stuck in it.
Swallowing the little saliva that I had, I wet my lips, and I saw Andrew’s eyes darken with desire.
Repulsed, I felt my whole body shiver.
“Well?” He demanded.
When I still said nothing, he stormed over to me, spitting mad, and his sweaty hand grasped my face, squishing my cheeks and making my lips pucker.
“Answer me, you dirty whore!”
Flinching from both his words- and his spit flying in my face- I tried to say something, but couldn’t from his hold on my jaw.
Squeezing one last time, he let go and pushed my face away from him- like it offended him.
“Andrew… please, don’t do this.” I begged him.
“Don’t do what?” His head tilted to the side.
“Please, just let me go, please.”
“I don’t think so, Peyton.” His beady eyes were trailing along my body, making me feel sick. “Do you want me to tell you what’s gonna happen?”
“No.” I told him, ‘cause I don’t think I wanted to know what was going on in that fucked up head of his.
“Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway.” He grinned at me before carrying on, “I’m going to phone that man that likes to touch what isn’t his, and tell him to come meet us. Alone of course. And when he gets here, I’m going to show him that you are mine. And then I’m going to kill the cunt.”
“NO!” I shouted at him. He was not taking Keller away from me, not again.
“YES!”
“No you fucking psychopath, you ar-”
The slap to my face was unexpected, and it hurt like a mother.
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that!” His face was inches from mine, and I did the only thing I could think of, I head-butted him.
His head snapped back. “Ahh. You fucking bitch!”
When he lifted his head back up, I saw that his nose was bleeding, and his hand was covering it. That was two people’s nose I had hit and made bleed.
I saw his hand clench, then swing back, before I felt the pain explode in my skull, and everything went black again.
****
Groaning, I lifted my head up from its slumped position and saw that I was, again on my own.
Thank god. I breathed a sigh of relief.
As I looked around I felt my head throb. It was fucking killing me.
Fucking Andrew.
I didn’t know how long I had been here for, but I was starving. And thirsty. I could drink a gallon of water, and I was so hungry I could eat a horse- as Lottie would say.
Lottie!
Ivy!
Oh god, I wonder what she was thinking. She was probably wondering where her momma was.
I started sobbing at the thought. Like full-blown sobbing.
I wanted my daughter. I wanted to hold her tight and not let go.
Over the sounds of my crying, I heard the tell-tale sound of boards creaking.
I looked up through blurry eyes and saw Andrew standing at the doorway again, silently watching me.
“Please…”
When I didn’t reply, but just carried on looking at him, he walked over to me and grabbed hold of my hair and yanked it back.
“Ow, stop.” I whimpered that hurt. My head was still thumping from the multiple punches, so the hair-pulling wasn’t helping me.
“You’ll do as I say, okay?”
“Okay,” I stuttered out, feeling my bottom lip tremble.
He let go, and started pacing, looking like a caged animal.
The look on his face was scary; he looked deranged. His blue eyes were darting around like crazy, and it looked like he was on something.
“Right this is what’s going to happen, are you listening?” At my nod, he carried on. “Right, so I’m going to call Keller’s cell and you’re gonna tell him where to come and that if he don’t I’ll kill Ivy.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“Ho-how do you know about her?”
“Oh… I know a lot about your life Peyton, a lot, trust me. I know that Ivy goes to Sunshine Pre-k, I know her teacher is; Mrs. Adams. I know that your best friend is a Charlotte Carter, but likes to be called ‘Lottie.' I know where you live, I know you work two shifts at the coffee shop, and are now only a barmaid in the club. What taking your clothes off didn't do it for you anymore? Now big, bad Keller is here to protect you and pay for everything.”
I was gaping at him like a fish out of water.
“Wh-who-what? H-how d-do you know all this, Andrew?” I was shitting myself. Totally crapping myself now. He was fucking deranged. Completely psychotic.
“I told you, I know everything Peyton.” He grinned.
“Would you?” I asked him breathlessly, scared of his answer.
“Would I what?”
“Kill my poor innocent child?”
He looked me right in the eye as he said, “yes, I will.”
I swallowed past the bile that rose in my throat.
“I don’t want too, but I will Peyton, I promise you that now.” He said this with such seriousness; I didn’t for one second, doubt him.
He continued his pacing for a couple of seconds then abruptly stopped and walked out of the room.
Where’s he going?
My silent question was irrelevant because a minute later he walked back into the room holding a paper.
“Okay, so here is what you’re going to do, you’re going to recite everything I’ve wrote down on the paper. Don’t say nothing else. If you do, I will hurt you,” he told me, holding the paper out to me, letting me see what he had written.
“Okay.”
“Right let’s do this.” He said slapping his hands together and rubbing them.
He pulled out an old cell phone from the pocket of his jeans and started dialing.
I found it horrifying that he knew Keller’s number by heart.
He pressed a button and suddenly I heard the sound of ringing.
RING, RING. RING, RING. RIN-
“Hello?”
The sound of Keller’s gruff, husky voice made my body react and I instantly felt safe and calm.
But that was shattered when Andrew replied back to Keller.
“Keller, how are you today?” Andrew asked sounding joyous and talking to him like they were old buddies and this was their weekly friend phone-call.
“Who is this?” Keller’s cautious tone flowed through the room and made the hair on my arms stand-up.
“What, you don’t know who this is?” Andrew goaded him.
“Obviously not asshole. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have asked.”
I watched as the rage passed over Andrew’s face before he said, “I’m the person holding a gun to your precious Peyton’s head,” as he said this he pulled out a gun from behind his back and did as he said: he pointed a gun at my head.
I screamed.
I felt my body tremble and felt ice cold fear shoot through my veins.
Oh god, he was going to shoot me!
“Peyton!” Keller’s shout came from the phone and I could hear his panic, by the way, his voice cracked.
“Don’t you fucking touch her, you son of a bitch! Don’t you touch her!” Keller roared into the phone.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Andrew shouted back. “If I want to shoot her I will!”
Just then I heard a bang! A gun shot.
Thinking that he had shot me, but because of the adrenaline, I couldn’t feel the pain yet.
Again I screamed.
“PEYTON.”
“I didn’t shoot her.” As he said this, I opened my eyes and saw that he had indeed not shot me, he had shot the wall.
I blew out a relieved breath.
“I was proving a point that I could shoot her if I wanted. And if you piss me off anymore, I won’t miss this time.”
I sucked in a startled breath, ‘cause from the way he was both acting and looking- I believed he would.
“Now, if everyone could calm down, I’ll pass the phone to Peyton and she can tell you what you have to do.” Gun still in his hand, Andrew pulled an extra chair from behind him and moving so he was next to me, put the chair down and then sat himself down on it.
“You may now speak, Peyton.” Andrew said to me, and then put his cell down on the table. Picking the papers back up he held them out for me to read as I couldn’t hold them, my hands were still tied up.
“Keller…”
“Peyton…”
“Are you okay, baby?”
“I-I’m fine, Kel. How’s Ivy? Does she know…?” My voice broke before I could say anything else.
“She’s fine baby. She’s somewhere safe that’s all you need to know.”
Andrew was staring daggers at me and made a motion with his hand, rotating his wrist around, for me to shut up and read what was on the sheets of paper.
“Keller I’ve gotta read something to you now, okay?”
“Okay, baby.”
It seemed that Andrew didn’t like Keller’s term of endearment for me. As every time, he called me that, he seemed to grit his teeth.
“You are to come here on your own. No cops. If I notice any cops, I will…” I couldn’t say the rest, I couldn’t.
“Say it!”
I jumped and felt the ropes pull on my wrists. It hurt like a bitch.
Whimpering, I hesitantly said, “I-if you don’t get here within an hour… I’m… I’m. No, I can’t,” I told him shaking and crying.
Turning in his chair to face me, Andrew gripped my jaw again, squeezing hard.
“You will say it,” he hissed through his teeth, spittle flying in my face.
“Please don’t. Please Andrew.” I begged through my tightly held jaw.
“Fucking say it Peyton.” His hand clenched on my jaw again and I cried out in pain again.
I could hear Keller’s voice in the background shouting my name.
“Peyton…Peyton! PEYTON! Let her go!” He roared again.
“Say it, baby. Or I’ll do what it is written on the paper” he said putting emphasis on the word ‘baby.'
“Okay…”
He released my jaw and went back to his seat and sat and picked up the paper.
“Read. It.”
“I… It says that if you don’t get here within the hour, he’s- he’s gonna… gonna tie me down to the floor and rape me.” My voice cracked on that vile word, and I felt the bile rise up again. And this time there was no swallowing it.
I promptly turned my head, leaned over and was sick all over the floor. Probably the same floor Andrew was threatening to rape me on.
****
~Keller~
“I… It says that if you don’t get here within the hour, he’s- he’s gonna… gonna tie me down to the floor and rape me.” Her voice broke as she said this.
It felt like the ground had opened and I fell through. Along with my heart.
“NOOO!!” The shout of denial came from my mouth.
I didn’t even think, it was just a natural reflex.
She couldn’t go through that.
I couldn’t go through that.
I was going to kill that fucker when I saw him.
I was shaking, shaking with rage and fear.
Rage for the fact that some sick psycho had Peyton, and I couldn’t do anything until he told me their whereabouts. Or until the fucking FBI locked onto their location.
And the fear of the unknown. Of not knowing if, he would actually do as he said he was going to.
“No! You don’t fucking touch her you bastard!” I turned around and punched the wall. Hard.
Fuck that hurt.
Giving my still clenched fist a shake, I paced back and forth in Peyton and Lottie’s living room.
“Now, now. I don’t think someone in your position should be talking to me like that,” Andrew’s cocky, goading voice grated on my last nerve. “Now that I’ve got your attention, I’m going to let Peyton continue telling you what you’ve gotta do.” I heard a rustling, before I heard his voice again- but this time he wasn’t speaking to me, he was addressing Peyton.
“Now, baby,” his tone was mocking. “Carry on reading. Tell our dear Keller where to find you.”
I waited with baited breath for her to come on the line. I heard clearing of a throat before a small, scared and shaking voice spoke to me and made my heart clench for her. I felt absolutely useless.
“Keller, as you heard, you have an hour before… before he does that to me, the address is 116 Clayton way, Amsterdam, New York.”
I looked over to Detective Berg and the FBI agent who was typing away on his laptop, and indicated for him to tell me how long it was going to take by tapping the face of my watch.
“Almost three hours,” Berg whispered to me.
Fuck me. Three hours! How was I-
“That’s an almost three hour drive! How am I going to get there in an hour?” I asked desperately.
“I don’t know, but you better hurry. Times ticking,” he was chuckling in the end. He sounded like a villain from a movie. The implication of his laugh, made chills rush up my spine and all the hairs on my body stand on end.
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