by Drew Sera
Blake looked at Matt and I when we came in but went back to study what was in front of him. Matt and I took up the spot on each side of Anthony. I sat close enough to him so that he could feel me there, supporting him. I looked over at Anthony and the bruising on his neck caught my eye. He was still leaning over, resting his arms on his knees and his shirt collar was off his neck, revealing the marks. I looked at Matt and noticed he had been looking at Anthony’s neck, too. Blake closed the files and leaned on the desk looking at Anthony. He shook his head, searching for words I’m sure.
Anthony got up and collected his folders, returning them to the safe. And once again, he locked it away. When he turned around, Blake wrapped him up in a fatherly hug. Anthony started to resist and tried to push away, but Blake didn’t let him escape. I could see Anthony’s body tense at the contact, and he kept his hands at his side. I watched Anthony shift his weight from foot to foot as he kept clenching his hands. Worries of the worst continued to creep into my head about what happened Saturday. This isn’t like him.
“I’ll admit that I had suspected something on the level of emotional abuse and possibly a touch of physical abuse. But I had no idea. I never would have guessed it was to this magnitude. How the hell did you come to me so calm and put together when you were looking for a mentor to join the club?”
“My dad had me in counseling, and I put all my energy into working out and getting a job. I tried to take care of myself.”
Anthony seemed to be doing okay with his dark past having just been ripped open again. It was the physical proximity to Blake that seemed to be bothering him the most. I’ve never seen him like this. Blake didn’t push with other questions, because he knew Anthony was on edge as it was.
Matt was going to stay the night again even though Anthony and I told him we’d be okay. Again, I was so lucky to have Matt in my life. Matt has been there for me since we were kids, and I could always rely on him. Anthony has been there for me too, but he is just as lost in this as I am.
I found a small amount of comfort each night in touching Sydney’s collar. I kept it on the nightstand, and I would hold it in my hands before I went to bed. Matt walked into my room with some ibuprofen while I was sitting on the bed, holding her collar. I think he thought he was interrupting me and he started to back out of the room.
“No, it’s okay, Matt.” He walked over and handed me the ibuprofen for my constant headache. I felt silly and set the collar down. Matt was looking down at me and apologized for just coming in.
“It’s alright. I was just...I don’t know what I was doing.”
Matt picked up Sydney’s collar and handed it to me. “Whatever you were doing obviously made you feel some sort of connection to her.”
I rubbed my finger over the heart of the necklace and got lost in my thoughts again.
“I hope she knows that Anthony and I love her and that everyone misses her.” I swallowed the ibuprofen and looked up at Matt. Fear seized my chest and I risked voicing it to Matt. “What if it’s all for nothing? I can’t live without her, Matt.”
“Don’t say that, Colin. Holding out for hope is never for nothing.”
He was right. I could tell there was something on the tip of his tongue as he sat down on the foot of the bed. He looked stressed, and I knew he wanted to say something.
“Say it, Matt.”
While my heart pounded in my chest, I prayed that it wouldn’t be bad news. Maybe he had gotten word from the detectives and was coming upstairs to tell me something. My mind was running rabid with shit and when I heard what he said, I felt relieved but saddened by it.
“Gina cries a lot.” I met his gaze and listened to him explain how things at home had been. “She misses Sydney, terribly. Gina has been quiet for the most part at home. I try to keep her close to me, so I can keep an eye on her. My parents have been helping a lot. My dad’s been talking with her, and she’s starting to write in her journal.”
I felt guilty for Matt being over here so much and tried convincing him that Anthony and I could take care of ourselves. He didn’t even give me a response but rather smiled and told me he’d be downstairs.
Around 1:30 in the morning, I woke up with noise from my cell phone. I grabbed it from the nightstand with nervous hands.
702-555-2397: I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
Another video was attached. My heart was pounding, and I felt sick to my stomach. I hadn’t even hit play yet and I was sick. With shaky fingers I hit play. I couldn’t help letting a pained sound escape my mouth when my baby appeared on my screen.
She was tied with her arms over her head. The video did a close up of her back and then down to her butt. I moaned and covered my mouth tightly. The video went to her front, and I saw her cut lip from the last video. It was bloody and looked like it needed to be cleaned badly. Her knees were black and blue, and her head was downward. Paul backed up and then flicked a dragon’s tail against her tummy. She cringed. I felt it.
“Wake up, Everett’s bad slave! I’m making a video for Everett. You wanna say anything? Hmm? I know your throat is probably sore from all your screaming, but you can try.”
He poked and pushed at her, and I felt every fucking jab. He reached up and tugged on her hair pulling her face up to be center of the screen. Those blue eyes were scared and terrified and had some deep bruising. She had a bad bruise on her cheek that made my insides turn.
“Say something to Everett, you fucking bitch!”
Paul screamed and she started shaking.
“Colin…Sir...”
That sweet voice calling my name pulled my heart right out of my chest. Paul slapped her in the face and screamed at her to not call me “sir”. I had to cover my mouth again to keep any noise from escaping. She started again.
“Colin, he has Anthony. He’s hurting him. Please find us. I love you.”
“Don’t tell him you love him! He doesn’t give a fuck about you! That’s why you’re here! He promised to protect you and you turned out not to be worth the trouble. You’re bad, and he threw you away!”
“No, baby,” I whispered at my phone. “Don’t believe him, baby. I love you so much, and I’m so sorry.”
Paul filmed himself hitting her for another few minutes and then the screen went dark and the play arrow popped back up. I stared in shock and horror at my phone. I stood up and held the phone in my hand, unsure of what to do. Tears were running down my face, and I kept wiping them away, but they wouldn’t stop. After a few minutes I made my way downstairs calling Matt and Anthony’s name as I went. I don’t know what I needed or expected them to do. I just couldn’t be alone right now. I held my phone out in front of me, and Matt met me at the bottom of the stairs.
I shoved the phone in his hands and crouched down. I felt dizzy and sick. I was trying to make sense of this. What was she talking about with Anthony? Anthony was safe. He was. Wasn’t he?
“Anth!” I yelled. Matt lowered down to kneel by me, and he tried to put his arm around me. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, he’s in his room, Col. Calm down.”
“That’s not his room!” I snapped, due to stress, exhaustion, and confusion. That wasn’t Anthony’s room though. I hated hearing Matt say that. That made it sound like we were no longer in the V relationship. That meant no more Sydney, and I couldn’t stomach the thought. I didn’t like thinking about that kind of separation. “His room is upstairs!”
“You’re right, Col. I’m sorry.”
Anthony came out of the downstairs room and hurried over. Paul was fucking nuts. What the fuck?
“My phone woke me up. He sent a video.” I let myself lie back on the floor, and I put my hand over my chest and the other over my stomach. I heard the video being played, and I knew Anthony and Matt were watching it.
I tried turning my brain off and rolled to my side and just waited for it to end. I tried to rock myself back and forth, but Anthony put his hand down on my shoulder to stop me from moving. I felt An
thony’s hand grip my shoulder tightly as he watched the video.
“Son of a bitch,” Matt said when the video ended.
I was still on the ground but facing the great room now. Anthony was crouched in front of me and Matt was behind me. In that moment, I didn’t care if I lived or died. Paul Fielding was destroying me. He was taking my baby and Anthony’s sunshine and torturing her.
Anthony sat all the way down on the floor and started to rub my arm, and I felt Matt’s hand on my back. They were trying to give me strength. I couldn’t though. No more. I had nothing left. I just stared blankly into the great room.
“Col, we’re going to find her,” Anthony reassured me. I didn’t say anything back to him. I couldn’t say anything. I felt empty and void of hope and full of fear that soon I’d be seeing a picture of her lifeless body.
26
Wednesday, January 15th
Anthony
After Colin calmed down, and Matt and I helped him back to bed, instead of going back to the guest room downstairs, I felt something pull me towards Sydney’s room. She never slept there, but it was set up as a retreat for her. Somewhere she could go when she wanted to write.
I walked into her room and went to the window and gazed out over the golf course. The sun wasn’t even up yet. I stood there thinking about Sydney until a dull ache in my stomach told me I needed to sit down.
I wasn’t ready to leave her room, so I wandered to the bright blue loveseat and settled back against her superhero toss pillows. I couldn’t help but smile when I glanced at the framed artwork of Batman and Robin sitting on the small coffee table. She played right along with Colin and I about the Batman and Robin jabs.
This whole room screamed Sydney. She had told me that this was the first room she’d ever been able to decorate just as she wanted it. If Colin and I had to work downstairs in the den, she’d often come up here and write or read. Nestled between the frame of Batman and Robin was a clear, glass canister full of green M&M’s.
Fuck, I missed her.
I ached with need to hold her…smell her…touch her…feel her.
I went to her desk and picked up a pocket sized, spiral notebook and a Wonder Woman pen. Sitting back down at the comic book blue loveseat, I flipped through the notebook to make sure this one was empty.
Satisfied that I wasn’t wrecking anything of hers, it began to pour out of me…
My heart seems to beat in my throat like it
wants to choke me to death.
What have I done but make things worse
sunshine?
You are still alone…
I fucking hate this.
Feel like I have been excommunicated.
Cold.
Alone.
I wrote for a while longer. Things were just flowing out of me. Before I closed up the small notebook, I read the last bit that I wrote out loud, just above a whisper…as if she could hear me.
“I can barely breathe without you, sunshine. You ease an ache I’ve had my entire life. It’s an ache that was born out of ugliness…hate…anger…fear. It sits in the center of my body and bled for so many years, like a pipe that had burst. Nothing would soothe it or make it feel better. I knew it existed, but knew that nothing made it any better. Then you came into my life. You began easing the ache that I never thought would go away. You filled me up with warmth and happiness that I never knew existed. And then without warning, I lost you. And I never got to tell you about this ache that I have…or tell you how you make it feel better.”
I closed the notebook and set it next to the M&M canister. I blinked several times to get the tears out of the way and stood to leave her room. I couldn’t move. I sat back down on the loveseat and situated myself so I could lie down. In here, I was close to Sydney and being in here comforted me.
27
Wednesday, January 15th
Sydney
I woke up to a wave of pain running through my body. I slowly moved my arms only to remember that I was chained up. Howard?
No, no that’s not right.
Temporary confusion clouded my head, and I blinked a few times to focus. I couldn’t see! Panic flooded my head, and I scrambled to as best of a sitting position as I could manage. Am I blind? I moved my head to meet my shackled hands and reached for my face. With shaking fingers I felt my eyes to see if I had a hood on. It didn’t feel like I had anything over my eyes, but why couldn’t I see anything?
I don’t know if I felt relief or more panic when I caught a faint glimpse of my hand just inches from my face. I squinted and wiggled my fingers. I could see them. Panic set in again when it dawned on me that I was in a pitch dark room.
Paul had me, not Howard.
I was nauseated and bent over just in time to throw up. There wasn’t much there but bile, and I think I got it on myself. I couldn’t even really see it due to the darkness, but I think I felt it.
I was shackled close to the wall as usual, and I was able to scoot so my back was against it. Even though I couldn’t see much past a few inches in front of me, my eyes scanned the room in terror. I couldn’t see anything!
I closed my eyes tightly and tried hiding my face in my hands, but it was of little or no use. I was on the brink of hyperventilating. I tried to be calm until I heard a faint knocking noise somewhere in the room. I clamped my mouth shut and sat deathly still while I tried to figure out what the noise was and where exactly it was coming from.
Minutes went by, maybe a lot of minutes, and I was nowhere closer to figuring it out. The noise came again. Was someone trying to come in?
“No more,” I whispered to myself with eyes tightly closed and my head tilting downward to protect myself. I began rocking myself when the noise grew louder and more rapid. Was it scratching? Was it Anthony?
Hyperventilating was now in full swing and I tried, I really tried to control it. Think, Sydney! You have to calm down. Colin would say that. He’d hold me on his lap and against his chest and repeat over and over for me to calm down. He’d never get angry with me for hyperventilating. Colin’s voice was never gruff with me. He was always so calm. I willed myself to calm down.
“C-colin…w-would…want…you…t-to c-call…calm…d-down…C-colin,” I panted out loud, trying to will myself to focus.
Colin was always trying to get me to focus. If ever I started to let my mind run away with itself, he’d pull me back in and would help me focus.
“F-ocus, Syd-ney…m-make C-col-in-n…p-proud.”
I swallowed hard. Make Colin proud of me? How could I even think that? I wasn’t focused, and someone who hated Colin and Anthony took me! I shouldn’t have just been sitting there on the bench. I should have been paying attention to my surroundings. I began crying hard and my stomach cramped, causing me to throw up again. Damn. This time I was sure that I got it on myself.
The knocking and scratching noise grew louder again and scared me. What did they want? Where was it coming from?
“Anth-ony…i-is…th-at y-you?”
The knocking stopped, and I held my breath. I missed Anthony’s touch. I missed Colin’s too, but they both touched me so differently. Anthony touched me from the beginning in a way that made me crave it. I ached for it. I ached for Anthony right now and he was somewhere close.
I curled up and shook for a while, thinking and crying. The dark room reminded me of Howard and the closet. I hated being in the closet. This wasn’t much different. I was still trapped, confined, and scared.
I think I drifted off to sleep for a little while. I tried to blink the fog out of my head and momentarily panicked and waved my hand in front of my face. I could see them.
It was still dark though. I didn’t even know what time it was or what day it was. All I knew for certain was that it was dark, and I was in a lot of pain and afraid.
Was I going to die here? Was Paul going to kill me?
Was I afraid to die?
I thought about this for a long while as I sat huddled against the wall. Maybe. I
was afraid of how I was going to die. Would it be painful? I didn’t want to die. Tears began streaming down my face and I wiped them away with the back of my hand. I was shackled, so I had to stretch and lean my neck towards my hand.
The knocking noise that I heard earlier began again. It was scaring me and driving me crazy at the same time. I covered my ears as best as I could and got lost in my thoughts again.
Why have I spent so many days in the confines of metal shackles? I wasn’t a prisoner and yet I was. Howard and now Paul. Depression came over me as I thought uselessly about being trapped by Howard for so many years. Why didn’t I try to leave or ask for help sooner?
I’m hungry and thirsty. I received a slice of toast yesterday and some water, but I was still hungry. My mind flashed to some of my favorite meals with Colin and Anthony. They weren’t at the fancy places or even when he cooked at home. I loved sitting between them in the great room, the three of us surrounding a cheese pizza. I’d give anything to be cuddled between them on the floor of the great room.
The cement floor was ice cold, and I curled myself up into a tighter ball but kept my eyes closed. The less I had to face the fact that I was in a pitch dark room, the better.
I wondered where Anthony was. Is he in a dark room somewhere? Is he hungry and thirsty, too? God, if I could just get next to him, I’d be okay. We’d be okay until Colin found us.
I longed for Anthony’s arms to hold me tight. I missed seeing his flirty smile and being wrapped up in the sheets with him. Would I ever see him again?
I hoped Gina was okay and Paul didn’t hurt her.
Colin.
Uncontrollably, I cried. I wanted to see him. I wanted him to pick me up and hold me close and tell me that this is just a bad dream.
