by Kylie Kent
Alyssa shakes her head and screws her face up. “First, gross. Second, I think you’re full of shit. You’ve been moping around for the last four weeks trying to get Reilly to pay you some attention and now all of a sudden, you’ve moved on to someone else? Really, Bray?” she questions him.
Bray looks almost pained when he says, “Reilly won’t give me the time of day, so yes, I’m moving on. Let’s go, I can’t keep a lady waiting, it’s not polite.” We both watch Bray as he presses the button, opening the doors on the lift.
Alyssa turns to me and whispers, “I can’t wait to see what excuse he comes up with tomorrow when he needs a lift to the hospital.” Reaching up and laying a quick kiss on my lips she says into my mouth, “I love you so damn much, I’ll see you tonight.”
Holding her tighter I tell her, “I love you more than I thought was possible to love someone. Text me when you get there. Also, I’ll meet you on your lunch break.”
Biting onto her bottom lip, she looks at me like she’s unsure of what she’s about to say. “Umm well … lunch … I kind of already told Sarah I’d meet her in the hospital café. It’s just that I haven’t seen her since before she went to her parents for Christmas and well, I’ve been a shitty friend lately and haven’t really spent any time with my friends. The only one I see is Reilly, and that’s only because she works for you and is always dropping stuff off here.”
I lean down and kiss her, she’s rambling, she does that when she’s nervous.
“Sunshine, you can see your friends whenever you want, you know that, right? I’m not going to ever stop you from meeting up with your friends. Have fun with Sarah and I’ll see you at the club tonight. Also, you are not a shitty friend, anyone who can call you their friend should thank their lucky stars.”
She nods at me. “Thank you, I don’t know how I got so lucky to have you.”
“Come on lovebirds, I have somewhere I need to be. I can’t hold this button forever you know,” Bray calls out from inside the lift.
Laughing at him, Alyssa pulls away and walks into the lift. As the doors close, an unsettling feeling returns to my gut. I try to shake it off as separation anxiety. That’s all it is, I haven’t been separated from her for over three weeks now. She’s safe at the hospital, there is security everywhere there to protect the staff and patients.
Looking at the clock again, I note it’s just nearing one o’clock. I’ve been at the club for the last three hours going over everything we have on Caitlyn. There’s nothing giving any whereabouts to where she could be now, and it’s pissing me the fuck off. The foreboding feeling I have in the pit of my stomach hasn’t left me all day. Something isn’t right, we’re missing something, I just don’t know what. I’ve been texting Alyssa all morning, and now and then she will send a brief response. I have had no response since 11:20 a.m. though. I’m telling myself it’s because she’s busy. Or at lunch with Sarah and just hasn’t checked her phone.
“We will find her, Zac,” Dean says from where he sits on the sofa in my office.
“We have to. She had a fucking headstone made up man. A headstone with Alyssa's fucking name on it.”
I know he already knows this. It was him and Bray who smashed that headstone to pieces when they located it at the small cemetery three hours away in the little rural town. Right next to her mother’s fucking grave. I haven’t told Alyssa that it was actually there, that the photo she received in that dressing room was in fact an actual photo and not something edited just to scare her.
“How the fuck have we not found her yet?” I ask.
Dean may be my best friend, but he is also the head of my security and I want him to do the job I fucking pay him to do and find this bitch.
“I’ve been working day and night on this, not to mention still ensuring everything in this club gets handled in your absence. I know you’re stressed and worried, but Caitlyn is a ghost right now, there’s been no activity on any of her bank accounts. She has no traceable family. Nothing, it’s like she’s vanished off the face of the earth.”
“I know man, sorry. I know the last three weeks haven’t been easy around here. But fuck …”
I’m pulling at my hair in frustration when my phone blares from my pocket. It’s not the ringtone I want to hear right now though, it’s not my sunshine calling. When I look at the screen and read who the caller is my blood turns to ice, knowing immediately something isn’t right.
“What’s wrong?” I ask Sarah as I answer the call.
She should be at lunch with Alyssa right now. The only reason she’d be calling me is if something were wrong.
“Where are you hiding her, Zac? You have to learn to share, you know. She was mine first. I’ve been waiting in this damn café for an hour.”
“Fuck!” I yell out tempted to throw the phone.
Sarah’s tentative voice comes through the speaker. “Zac, she’s not with you, is she?”
“No, she’s not fucking with me, she was meant to be with you right now. Have you tried to call her? Text her?” I ask.
Maybe she’s running late, got stuck in the ER. As I think this, I know that’s not the reason she didn’t show up for lunch.
“I’m heading to the ER now; I’ll ask the nurses’ station to find her,” Sarah says in a huff. “I’m sure she just got held up.”
“Don’t bother, I’m locating her now.”
I place the call on speaker as I open the tracking app on my laptop. It takes only moments before the app loads her exact location on a map. The red dot showing her location is moving.
“What do you mean you’re locating her? How the fuck are you locating her, Zac?”
Ignoring Sarah’s questions, I stand grabbing my keys. Dean is already holding the door open. “Sarah, I’m going to get her. I gotta go.”
As I hang up, I hear Sarah screaming at me, “don’t you dare hang—”
Putting my phone in my pocket, I tell Dean as I make my way down the hallway, “she’s got her, she fucking has my sunshine. Get a team to follow us. We need to go.”
“Where? Where did she ping?” he asks while he loads the tracking app on his phone.
As his app loads, he curses, knowing where she’s heading.
“She’s already got two hours ahead of us.” Stating the fucking obvious, Dean follows me into the carpark behind the club. “I’ll drive, you keep tracking,” Dean says as he climbs into the driver’s side.
I don’t argue, knowing I’ll probably kill us both in the state I’m in if I get behind the wheel.
As we peel away from the club, I pray to a god I don’t even believe in that she’s still alive. That I can get to her in time. Looking in the side mirror, I see not only Dean’s team following behind but also Bray’s SUV behind them. I will get there, I will get her back, there is no other alternative.
A half hour passes and the red dot on the tracker has stopped. She’s at the cemetery, the one where that fucking psycho had a headstone made. I know she’s planning on burying her next to her mother.
“She’s stopped at the cemetery,” I grit out to Bray as he speeds down the highway.
“Fuck, we’re still at least an hour and half out. Put a call through to the men in Glenvale and get them to the cemetery now. She’s there now.” Dean speaks into the headset he has on.
“You have guys already in Glenvale?” I ask him. How did I not know this already?
“I’ve had two guys there on standby ever since we found the headstone, they’re only five minutes away from the cemetery.”
“Thank fuck. I want her alive. Caitlyn, I want to be the one to fucking end her.” I tell him.
“I know,” Dean smirks my way.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alyssa
My head is pounding, I reach up to touch my forehead and find my movements restricted. My hands are tied with rope. What the hell? Trying to look around, it’s dark, I’m in a small cramped space, I’m in a goddamn car boot. Closing my eyes, I try to keep my breathing even
and recall how I got here.
I remember being at work, I was doing obs on an elderly patient. I remember an orderly entering the room and that’s it. I can’t remember anything else. I just need to breathe, stay calm. As much as I want to scream out, I know I need to stay calm. The longer whoever put me here thinks I’m still out of it, the longer Zac has to realise I’m missing and start searching. Oh god, the thought of Zac brings tears to my eyes.
This is meant to be the start of our forever. What if we don’t get a forever? What if this morning was the last time I would get to kiss him? Hug him? I should have listened to him, I should have quit my job and just taken any random job he would give me at the club. At least then I wouldn’t be in this predicament now.
Has he realised I’m missing yet? He will be out of his mind once he notices that I’m missing. I don’t know how much time has passed, how long I’ve been passed out in this car boot. I can hear movement outside and the boot opens, letting in the sunlight. Squinting my eyes, I try to focus on whoever the person is that opened the boot. But I know who this psycho is without even looking. I know it’s Caitlyn. I know she wants to follow through with her threats to get rid of me so that she can have Zac to herself.
“Oh good, you’re awake. I was hoping you’d be conscious when I make you take your last breath. It would be such a shame to not see the look in your eyes when you realise that I won.” She laughs while pulling on the rope that binds my hands. “Get out bitch, it’s time to end this.”
I’m roughly yanked from the car, my legs giving out beneath me as I fall to the ground. Whatever drugs she injected into me haven’t worn off yet. As I’m trying to find the strength to stand, something hits my head making me fall onto my back; my vision going blurry. Not something, a foot. She just fucking kicked me in the head. Grunting, I hold in my cries of pain. I will not give her the satisfaction of hearing my anguish.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why?” she screams into my face, grabbing me by the hair and pulling my face closer to hers. “I gave you the chance to leave him alone. He’s mine!”
She lets my hair go, pushing my head back down to the ground.
Pointing to herself she says, “mine, I know he loves me. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t want you. And once he knows the lengths I’m prepared to go for him, he will know I’m the one he should be with.”
As she’s pacing up and down in front of me, I look around trying to identify where I am. When I look to my left, I know exactly where she’s brought me. I’ve only been here once, when I turned eighteen. I found out where my mother was buried and came here. I haven’t been able to bring myself to come back. Dread settles in deep within me, I’m three hours away from the city. There is no way Zac will know to look for me here. This really is it.
I wanted to have it all. I wanted what Zac promised, to always have a tomorrow together. I wanted us to be a family, an actual family. I wanted to have kids with Zac. I haven’t admitted that to anyone, too scared of what that means. I’ve always thought I could never have kids myself because they would grow up on their own, without a mother, just like I did. But I know that Zac and his family, our family, would never let our kids grow up alone, even if I ended up with the same cancer that killed my mother.
I wish I had told him I wanted his babies. I wish had the chance to tell him how much happiness and love he has brought into my life in the short time I’ve had him. I’ve never felt love like the love that Zac so easily and freely offers me. I’m thankful that I got to experience that kind of love. I just wish I could thank Zac for giving it to me. I wish he could know just how much I love him.
Finding the energy, I sit up and push myself over to lean against my mother’s headstone, I tell her, “he will never love you.” I know I shouldn’t taunt her but she’s going to kill me anyway.
Caitlyn pulls a gun out from behind her back, pointing it at my head while screaming at me, “shut up, shut up, shut up!”
Then I hear the gunshot, I feel a burning, searing pain in my arm, I can’t help but yell out in agony. She shot me. Looking down, my arm is now covered with blood, so much blood. My head is dizzy. I can’t even cover the wound, my hands are still tied together with rope.
I’m trying to figure out a way to get myself out of this situation, trying to free my hands of the rope that binds them together. My arm is burning, tears run freely down my face and my wrists are red raw from the rope burn as I twist and turn them in attempts to free my arm.
Then I hear it, another gunshot. I hold my breath, close my eyes, waiting to feel the pain of being shot again. Waiting to identify where she has shot me this time. The pain doesn’t come. Opening my eyes, I see Caitlyn just before she falls to the ground.
Wait, did she shoot herself? No, she wouldn’t have. My head is spinning. I know I need to stay awake, I can’t give in to the darkness that calls me to close my eyes right now. A man dressed in black stops and squats down in front of me.
“Alyssa, it’s okay. There’s an ambulance on the way. Just hold on, okay?” he says as he cuts my wrist free from the rope. I don’t know who this man is. I don’t know how he knows my name, but right now I don’t care.
“Zac, I … I …I need Zac,” I plead with whoever this stranger is.
“He’s going to meet you at the hospital, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”
I hear the sirens getting closer and I let go. Closing my eyes I give in to the darkness and let it take over me.
Beep, Beep, Beep. Oh god, someone shut off the damn alarm. The noise continues, my eyes flutter open slowly and I take in my surroundings. The smell of antiseptic, the beeps of machines, the chill in the air. I know I’m in the hospital. Confusion wraps around my brain. Am I at work? Why is my head pounding? I attempt to lift my arm but a burning pain pauses my movement.
“Argh,” I groan out loud.
“Sunshine, baby, don’t move. Let me call for the doctors.”
Zac, Zac’s here, he’s squeezing my hand like he’s afraid I’m going to run off somewhere. He reaches above my head, pressing a button.
“Wh … what happened?” I ask him as I look around the hospital room.
“Alyssa, I am so fucking sorry. This should never have happened to you. I should never have let this happen to you.”
Zac bends his head down, leaning his forehead on the hand he has in a death grip. I wriggle my fingers to get him to loosen his grip, which he does, slightly.
“Zac, what happened, why am I in the hospital?” I ask again.
“You don’t remember?” he asks, looking up, concern creeping across his face.
I shake my head no, wincing as pain slices through my head.
“Where the fuck is the doctor?” Zac questions, looking towards the door. “Sunshine, I didn’t do my job. I didn’t protect you properly.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. I close my eyes briefly, the light is really too bright.
“Shit, sunshine. Please open your eyes. Don’t go back to sleep yet, please,” Zac pleads.
My eyes pop open immediately. “Zac, I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I was so fucking scared I was going to lose you. When we discovered Caitlyn had taken you, it felt like my world dropped out from under me.”
I tighten my grip on his hand in an attempt to reassure him that I’m not about to disappear.
“She took you to the cemetery, the one where your mother is. Three fucking hours away. By the time we realised she had you, she was two hours in front of us.”
“How did you find me?” I ask.
Zac shakes his head. He looks a little nervous. “I uhh … well, I …”
I wait for him to decide on what he’s about to tell me. His hesitancy is making me nervous.
“Okay, I had a GPS tracker put into your engagement ring. I’m not sorry either, I know it’s probably all kinds of wrong but it’s also the only reason you’re still alive right now. The only way we knew where you were.�
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I look down at my left hand, where my engagement ring currently sits. I remember it was around my neck while I was at work, so I’m not sure how it landed back on my finger, but I think I could probably guess. I look back at Zac.
“Okay, let’s keep it there,” I tell him, honestly not bothered at all that he can track my location through the ring.
Zac sighs like a weight has been lifted. “Yeah? you’re not mad? Sarah said you’d be pissed when you woke up and found out I had a tracker on you. You can be pissed at me sunshine, I can handle it.”
“I’m not mad, it’s a little disturbing that you did it without telling me. But I’m glad you could locate me easily. I’m glad you got to me before she finished what she started.” As I go to move my arm, the pain shoots down again. “What happened to my arm?”
“Caitlyn shot you in the arm,” Zac grunts out, “and I didn’t get to you in time. Dean had two guys near the cemetery for the last few weeks. They got to you, not me.”
I rub my fingers over his hand. “It’s because of you that those men were there.”
The door to the room opens and a doctor and nurse walk in.
“It’s about fucking time,” Zac bites out.
“Miss Summers, I’m Dr. Ryan. How are you feeling?” the doctor asks, while holding a light pen to my eyes.
“My head hurts, my arm feels like it’s on fire but other than that I’m okay,” I tell him honestly.
The doctor nods. “That’s understandable. You had a nasty hit to the head, you had ten stitches placed on your hairline.” The doctor picks up my chart, noting something on it before adding, “the bullet grazed your arm, and you lost a fair bit of blood, so you will probably feel weak for a few days.”
I take in everything he says. The bullet only grazed my arm, that’s good. Still hurts like hell.
“What about some pain relief. What are you giving her? She’s in pain.” Zac’s question comes out harsh.