Stolen Flame

by D W Marshall

  I take the envelope and immediately recognize its familiar lavender hue. “It was you,” I say in hushed tones. She was Dominic’s ally.

  “Of course it was. I had the closest access to you. Besides, I know real love when I see it.” Zion takes my hand and squeezes it. “Tonight is my last night here, too. Maybe the three of us can meet up for dinner sometime. That is, if you want to.” Zion gazes at me, unsure of what I might say.

  “Seriously? I’m so happy for you, Zion. Absolutely. You know you’re my girl.” We hug.

  “My real name is Hailey.” She makes a point to whisper in my ear. “You know, Vivian, Dominic is head over heels in love with you. I want you to remember that when you’re on the outside,” she releases me from her grasp.

  I nod my head vigorously at her. It’s amazing how much I love hearing my real name. Before my year here, before losing my name, I always thought it was old-fashioned. My friends had names like Miley and Brooke, and I got the old lady name. I love my name now. It means I get my life back.

  Zion and I return to the family room to find Mason joining in on the fun. I scoop up my plate and find a spot on the couch. I smile at Mason and he smiles back.

  “Ladies, please take a flute of champagne. I have wonderful news,” Mason says.

  We do as we are told, each of us grabbing champagne that’s being passed around on several silver platters. The other girls who were in the kitchen have gathered. I gaze around at the six other amazing young women. All are beautiful, strong survivors.

  “As you know, tonight is your last night in The Chamber. As promised, you will all be delivered home first thing in the morning, just about a week shy of your year. Transportation will be waiting at the airport to drive you to your individual homes. Each of you will receive an envelope with further details and bank account information. I hope that your new bank balances are hefty enough to show my gratitude for your service and also enough to buy your silence. Before you accept these envelopes, the guards will pass around a document called an NDA, or nondisclosure agreement. After signing it, you are legally bound to never speak of the details of your stay here to anyone.”

  “Also, you will be blindfolded until you’re safely in the air. This is a formality that I cannot forgo. Anonymity is the only way to keep this place going.” He raises his glass. We all raise ours. “You ladies were amazing. To The Chamber.”

  We all repeat the words and drink.

  When the evening winds down, each one of us is eager to sleep so we can return home. The seven of us sit together in the family room like we have done so many nights. This time we hang on to one another and cry tears of sadness, relief, and joy.

  We exchange names, addresses, and phone numbers and vow to keep in touch, though I know most of us will want to keep any thought of this place behind us. That may include any people who remind us of it. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

  Sky, Sapphire, and I give our final hugs to the other girls and make our way back to our room. There are large manila envelopes on each of our beds. I am the first to rip mine open.

  “Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness!” I squeal.

  “What is it?”

  Sky and Sapphire are at my side at once. The three of us stare at the bank statement with the four-million-dollar balance. Knowing you might get an unknown sum of money and seeing the actual amount, in your name, are entirely different animals. There’s a note attached that simply says, Thank you.

  Sky and Sapphire run to their beds, tear their envelopes open and squeal in unison. The three of us jump up and down in excitement. Somehow, knowing that we are returning home significantly wealthier makes the future feel brighter.

  I wake extra early. I’m ready to make the move. I’ve said my goodbyes.

  I’m ready to go home.

  There’s nothing for me to pack. After all, I was brought here in only pajamas. Zion honored my request, leaving a pair of blue jeans and a white tank top out for my trip home.

  No more red. One more thing to shed.

  Carson, the guard who took Tyson’s place, leads me toward the hallway. I glance back one last time at what was my life and home for the past year. All is quiet, and there’s not another soul in sight. My roommates were gone before I woke. Carson ushers me into an elevator.

  “Sorry, Flame. I gotta put this over your head,” he says.

  He and I have come a long way from the first night when he entered my Chamber. His treatment of me is significantly more respectful.

  I nod as the hood covers my head, leaving me sightless. It smells fresh. I don’t care. I get to go home. He could put me in an entire body sack and I wouldn’t be fazed as long as my sack-covered body ends up in zip code 89135.

  On faith, I follow him as he leads me. I know the exact moment we are no longer in the great walls of The Chamber because it feels like heaven when the fresh air caresses my skin.

  It’s chilly and delicious and foreign.

  I imagine all the steps that I traversed a year ago will happen in reverse., so I’m not surprised by the car ride, followed by the plane. My emotions are also reversed. On the way here a year ago, I was petrified and willing to die rather than be a tortured prisoner. On my return trip home, I’m optimistic about what my future holds—a future that a year ago I believed was over.

  On the private jet, the hood is removed. The windows are covered, ensuring that I have no idea where I have been over the last year. The only details I have are that the ocean was near and the building was castle-esque. What city, state, or country I was in will forever be a mystery.

  In a way, Mason made separating myself from this experience easier. With no idea where I was, and no one using their real names, including myself, and no knowledge of what was going on in the world, it kind of makes the whole year seem made up, like a dream. Except, I know it wasn’t.

  What about the future of The Chamber? Are poor girls being taken from their homes and lives, as I’m returning to mine? What obligation do I have to stop this from happening to anyone else? Where would I even start?

  Now I add to that. What do I tell my family? Will my parents believe me? Will they accept the limited information that I can give them? What about Liam and Dominic? When I came to The Chamber, Liam’s face was all I saw. He was my strength, and all I wanted to do was return to his waiting arms. I prayed that he would still want me, but after all that has happened, will I still want him?

  When the plane touches down after several long and solitary hours, I am wrought with nerves. Somehow, I never anticipated going home being so hard. It’s April again in Vegas. It must be some kind of weird joke on Mason’s part, sending us home on April Fools’ Day. My birthday is nine days away—talk about coming full circle. I’m more than grown up now. I’m aged by experience, not by choice.

  I rush down the private jet’s steps. The wind catches my hair, gloriously blowing it each and every way. The sun kisses my face. Tears blaze a trail down my cheeks. I’m overcome by this new freedom.

  A limo, not a taxi is parked on the tarmac. The driver stands with the door open for me to enter. I don’t hesitate. I practically run and throw myself inside.

  “First time in Vegas, miss?” the driver asks me.

  “Feels like it, but no. Vegas is my home.” I can’t fight the smile spreading across my face.

  We’re silent the rest of the ride, which scares me, because I don’t want to be left alone with my thoughts. How will I look to my family? The same? Will they know I’ve changed? Will they care?

  My heart wants to leap out of my chest when the limo comes to a stop in front of my house. I’m as nervous as I was during some of my uncertain times in The Chamber.

  This is my home. I’m free. The people inside of this house love me unconditionally.

  “Your destination, miss,” the driver says.

  “Yes, thank you. I wish I had cash for a tip. I’m sorry.”

  “That has been taken care of, miss.” He opens his door, preparing to assist me
with mine.

  “Are you also from Vegas?” I ask him. I don’t know why.

  He halts his exit from the limo. “No, miss, I’m from California. Is everything okay?” He makes concerned eye contact with me in his rearview mirror.

  “Sure.”

  I quickly avoid his eye contact. I know I can’t stay inside this limo anymore, but I can’t go inside either. My heart beats like a drum in my chest. I sit in the limo, the air thick, the only sounds are air flowing into and out of my lungs.

  Armed only with the black satchel that holds my bank account information, I steel myself.

  “Okay. I’m ready.”

  The driver is at my door at once.

  “Thank you,” I offer him when I step out.

  He doesn’t wait for me to walk to the door. He drives away the second his butt hits the seat, leaving me at the curb. I can’t say that I blame him.

  My legs feel like shaky twigs. If I take another step I’m sure to fall.

  So, I stand there, panicking and staring at my house in disbelief. Am I really here? It takes all of the strength I can muster to move forward. I pull my shoulders back, lift my head and walk up the path to my front door.

  I ring the bell.

  It seems like an hour passes by while I wait for someone to answer. I worry my fingers. Come on.

  Shane opens the door and just stands there, staring at me as if I were an apparition. “Mom! Dad!” yells out in shock. I pour myself into his arms. My baby brother towers over me now.

  “My God, Shane. What’s all the commotion?” I hear my mother approaching. “Lord, Jesus! Eddie! Eddie!” My mom screams at the top of her lungs for my father.

  Tears pour down my mother’s face as she grabs hold of me and Shane. We fall to our knees, in a sobbing heap.

  “Thank you for bringing my baby home!” she cries to the sky.

  The last to join in on the reunion is my dad. We finally break our embrace, the three of us wiping tears, and I see my father standing in the hallway.

  “Daddy!” I scream and run into his arms. I have never heard my father cry before. I become overwhelmed by the sounds of his heavy sobs. I join him. He suddenly pulls me away from his embrace.

  “Let me get a look at you, kid.” He examines me. “Are you injured? Were you harmed?” He’s serious in his tone and inspection, angry.

  “No, Daddy. I’m fine,” a sob rips through me.

  “Come sit, baby. You must be exhausted. Lidia, get Vivie some water,” he says.

  My mother leaves and comes back with a glass of water for me. She and Shane sit across from me and my dad on the couch. I take a sip of the cool liquid.

  Let the inquisition begin.

  “Darling, where have you been?” my mother asks.

  Fair question.

  I gaze at the faces of my family and realize that telling them where I’ve been will be harder than anything I have experienced over the past year. Suddenly, I miss my sisters. I send a silent prayer to each of them, that reuniting with their families is an easy task.

  I sit up straight and begin to tell them as much as I’m allowed to say. “Umm…the night I was…taken, I thought it was Liam and Maddie. You know, with the birthday surprise and all. I thought they were coming to pretend-kidnap me. It seemed like something they would do.” Tears escape my eyes. “Daddy, if I’d known for one minute I was really being kidnapped, I would have screamed this house down, so you could have stopped them. I would have kicked and scratched and bit. But I didn’t know!”

  My dad wraps his arms around me and strokes my back as I bawl like a baby. When I regain my composure, I sit back up and continue. “They put a hood over my head, and by the time I realized that something wasn’t right, it was too late. I was already in the van. So I decided not to cooperate, so they would just kill me and get it over with.”

  My mom cries out. She holds on to Shane.

  “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t know what else to do.” My poor mom. “They used some kind of chemical to knock me out, and when I woke up I was on a plane. I don’t even know if I was in the United States. Today is the first day that I have seen the outside since I’ve been gone.”

  “Why did they let you go?” my dad asks.

  “If I agreed to follow the rules, they promised that I would only have to stay one year. I never planned to agree to any terms, until they gave me no choice.”

  “What do you mean, honey?” My mom puts her hand to her mouth.

  “They had pictures of all of us. They threatened to hurt you guys. So I stayed and I did what they wanted. Now I am free.”

  “I’m calling the cops!” My dad jumps up.

  “No, Dad. You can’t.” I follow behind him. “These people are very powerful. This goes high up, and if they find out I said anything, we will spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders. Besides, I don't know the captor's real name. I’m safe, I’m home. Please, can’t that be enough?”

  “Vivie, I don’t know about this.” My dad stands, trying to decide.

  I pull him to sit back down with me. “There’s one more thing. They paid me four million dollars for the year that they kept me.”

  “Why? What did they have you doing?” my mom asks. I can hear the alarm in her voice.

  “I’m home safe. Does it matter, Mom?”

  “Oh, Edward, our baby. Our baby!” She cries again. I believe she has an idea of what I was asked to do now.

  “The cops are gonna want to sit down with you. Once we call them and tell them you are home,” my dad reminds me. “What are you gonna say?” he asks.

  “I will cross that bridge when I get to it. I need to call Liam and Maddie.”

  Someone must have forgotten to lock the door, because ten minutes later, I hear Maddie screaming inside my house.

  “Where is she?”

  She finds me sitting on the couch and tackles me, squealing the whole time.

  “I thought you were dead!” She squeezes me again.

  Before I know it, Maddie is firing off question after question. I don’t get the chance to answer her. I feel the energy shift in the room and my eyes dart toward the entrance. I see Liam. Tears flood my face and I run and fold myself into his arms. I missed him so much. He squeezes me and I fear he’ll never let me go.

  “Vivian,” is all he says. It’s a whisper, a prayer.

  He kisses my forehead. In my dreams, this went so differently. In my dreams, we couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves. In my dreams, there was no Dominic. For a second, I feel guilty.

  We all take a seat in my family room.

  “So, Vivian, where were you? I want details,” Maddie asks, like I was on a date that I didn’t tell her about, and not imprisoned and forced into sex slavery. “I mean, a year... Where were you for an entire year?”

  I recount a similar story to the one I told my family earlier. I leave out the parts that might send Mason’s wrath our way. Fortunately for me, I have no true knowledge of my whereabouts or who took me. I can feel the anger surge through Liam, who is seated to my right.

  “We have to involve the police, Vivian,” Maddie says. “This is insane. Someone kidnapped you from your bed! What if they come back for you again?”

  She asks the question I fear the answer to, but can’t voice. If I’m being honest with myself, I know that the thought will probably haunt me for quite some time.

  “Maddie, please.” I turn my attention to her. “What are we going to tell them? I don’t know who took me. I don’t know where I was. I don’t know how I got there. It’s no use. Plus, if I say anything, he might come back for me. I can’t risk it!”

  “I think Maddie is right, Viv,” Liam says from my other side.

  One look at my father tells me that he’s fighting every instinct not to pick up the phone and make the call. I start to panic. I can’t fathom Mason’s wrath. I know that he won’t stop at anything to make me pay if the police get involved.

  I jump up from the couch with alarm bells sounding in my h
ead. “You…you can’t! I’ll leave. I will walk out this door right now, and I will disappear.”

  The room is getting so small around me, everything is closing in. I can’t breathe. Why are they all standing up and shouting at me?

  I can’t hear their words. I only see their moving mouths. But I can tell from their strained neck muscles that they are not whispering. Blackness is crowding my sight. The last thing I see is the floor coming up to greet my face.

  “Vivian!” I hear my mother. I can tell that she is worried from the shrill tone of her voice. “Honey?”

  I open my eyes to my family and friends around me. My head is cradled in my father’s arms.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “You fainted, baby,” my father says.

  I start to sit up. Four pairs of hands try to pin me down. “I’m okay,” I say. The family room is spinning. “I’m okay. I promise.”

  My brother comes rushing back with a glass and hands it to me. I take a long draw from it. Mmm. The iced water feels cool going down.

  “Listen, we’re not gonna involve the cops right now, aside from letting them know that Vivian is home. The most important thing is Vivian. Understand?” My father makes eye contact with everyone.

  I rest my back against the couch. Thank you.

  Everyone in the room nods.

  We sit in silence for an unknown amount of time. I gulp down the iced water while my family and friends stare at me like I’ve grown a second head.

  “I need some fresh air.” I stand up.

  The room doesn’t rotate, but my head feels light. Everyone stands with me.

  “I’m fine…I just need a minute.” I take cautious steps toward the front door, checking my balance and for signs of another syncopal episode. My legs feel sturdy underneath me.

  The front door sounds heavy when I close it behind me. The cool April winds caress my skin, and I feel better immediately. I find comfort in my favorite porch swing.

  My reunion with my family is every bit as difficult as I thought it would be. What would I do if my own daughter went missing for a year? I’d want to call the police, too. I’d want the bastards who took her to pay.