by Ciara Shayee
She’d finally felt safe enough to break down, to release the emotions she’d hidden on the ranch for the sake of Grace and Marley.
It made sense, but Indie hated that she’d lost precious days with her family when she’d already missed out on so many.
That said, as she watched Laker and Marley together, she was glad they’d had a chance to bond. They were so precious together. Despite Megan’s warning that Marley was becoming used to watching too much television, she was allowed to watch her Spongebob DVD during the evenings. She always did so ensconced in Laker’s arms, head pillowed against his chest, Mr. Bunny in one hand, the other wrapped around Laker’s fingers. He doted on her, and in turn, she worshiped him.
It really was adorable, and Indie hadn’t yet been able to capture it on camera even though she’d tried many times. Someone had provided a cheap digital camera, and they’d abused it a lot since, having printed the full SD card three or four times in just a few days. As Riley pointed out, they had a lot to celebrate and document.
One sunny day almost two weeks after the motel fire, Indie and Grace found themselves alone with Marley for the first time since escaping the ranch.
Reagan was in a therapy session with Megan and Peter had gone with one of the FBI agents on a grocery run. Laker was making the most of the facilities, abusing the shower and a borrowed electric shaver to tidy his beard. He was long overdue a trim, and it had taken Marley’s teasing tugs on his now-long beard for him to realise.
Wrapped in a blanket on the bed nearest the window, Indie and Grace snuggled Marley between them, poring over the pictures the OB/GYN had printed out from her scan earlier in the day. The baby was a little on the small side, she’d confirmed, but it was nothing to worry about. He or she had plenty time to catch up, especially now that Indie was eating regular meals and under far less stress than before.
“She has Marley’s nose,” Grace said quietly, tapping said button-nose when Marley tipped her head back to grin at her.
“‘She?’”
“Yep. I’m betting team pink. I think this one’s a girl.”
Indie sighed, tilting her head. She had no idea. Reagan had told her he’d been right guessing both of Penelope’s pregnancies. He’d known Archie was going to be a boy from the beginning, and had declared Indie a girl during the first scan when she’d been a total diva and wouldn’t let them see her face.
Shouldn’t she know? Or have an inkling?
When she was pregnant with Marley, she’d been utterly terrified, and the idea of gender hadn’t crossed her mind until very late on. With this little one, she could know right that second if she called Dr. Nancy. This pregnancy was already so different from her first.
For one, she was safe and had medical assistance this time.
They came to the end of the sonogram pictures, and the top of a photo underneath caught Indie’s eye. She moved it to the front, smiling wide when she took in the image.
It was Marley and Laker, their heads hunched together like schoolchildren sharing secrets. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the floor-to-ceiling window across the room and had a stack of wooden blocks between them. Indie didn’t remember seeing them like this, so it must have been taken while she was asleep. They were lit from behind by the setting sun, which brought out the blonde highlights in Marley’s otherwise dark locks, and made Laker’s dark chocolate hair shine. The blocks between them were in a haphazard tower formation but slightly blurred. They were falling. Marley’s face was drawn in shock, Laker’s eyes crinkled with amusement. Clearly, he’d had a hand in the destruction of the tower and was finding Marley’s subsequent reaction funny.
Marley huffed a silent laugh, reaching out to touch Laker’s hair and looking to Indie in question.
“He’ll be back in a little while, baby girl,” she promised, glancing towards the door and finding herself disappointed that he didn’t appear. She missed him, Indie realised.
Marley pouted, but took the photos from her mother’s hands and flicked through, pointing out herself to Grace in every picture.
Meanwhile, Indie held the picture of Laker and her daughter, memorising the scene so she’d never forget what it looked like to see Marley happy, to see her content and with people who adored her.
One day in the future, she hoped to see the same scene only in a place she tried to pull from memories years old, faded from lack of use. She hoped to see Marley playing with the little boy she knew was named after her as closely as possible. Carl, because that was the name Penelope and Reagan had picked if they had another son, and Roman because it was the name chosen by Peter and Karen if their baby was a boy.
Running amok in her dad’s garden, making a mess with toys in the living room she and her brother had once trashed as children…
It was all so tantalisingly close now. Indie couldn’t wait for it to happen.
Little did she know, the day her wishes would come to fruition was fast approaching.
The day they’d get to go home was coming.
chapter fourteen
Two weeks and four days after the girls’ rescue, they began preparing for their return to England.
Both of them had been cleared for travel by the doctor, including Indie now her nutritional needs were in hand and she’d gained a few pounds. The packets of protein and carbohydrate-rich food the doctors prescribed didn’t go down well, but Indie knew it was for the benefit of the baby growing within her. She did as she was told, and along with Grace, she forced them down and tried not to think about the next one until it was time.
For Grace, the thick drinks weren’t such an issue. She was still desperate to get to that elusive ‘normal’ she longed for.
Late in the afternoon, Riley left for New York to finalise the travel preparations. Before he tore away from the hospital amidst a cloud of dust, he shook Reagan’s and Peter’s hands, promising that when he returned it would be to oversee their journey home. Left outside the hospital watching Riley’s black car speed away, Reagan and Peter felt themselves relax with the relief his promise brought them.
“You feeling okay?” Peter turned, facing his best friend.
“I don’t know,” Reagan shrugged, looking bewildered. “I’m just…I’m overwhelmed, I think.”
Peter nodded, empathetic and understanding his tornado-like emotional mood-swings.
“All this time our goal has been to get the girls back. Now we have them, and it’s just so different to how I pictured, you know? We never wanted to think the worst, but maybe we should’ve. Just to be prepared, you know? This whole situation, it’s not what I imagined at all…” Reagan trailed off.
In all their searching, they hadn’t thought to imagine Indie and Grace in this state, with a five-year-old in tow and an unborn baby on the way. Sometimes, when he looked at his daughter, he was still shocked to see how poor a state she was in, her bones still too visible in places, her face still a little too gaunt. It stressed him out to be so unsure of how to act around her; around Grace, too. He hated feeling awkward when he desperately wanted to just be. In his and Peter’s minds, there would have been a tearful, smiling reunion with a million hugs. In their naivety and hope they now realised were foolish, they’d assumed the girls would be healthy and returned to them in the same state in which they’d been taken. It hurt for them to admit, even just to themselves, that they weren’t all the girls needed right now. Indie and Grace needed more than they could give, despite their best intentions.
“You’re right, it’s not what we imagined,” Peter began quietly, reaching over to clap his friend’s shoulder. “It’s not what we imagined at all, but in a lot of ways, it’s so much more. We have our girls, and they’re getting better. Day by day they’re getting healthier. And we have Marley; you have another grandbaby to love on.”
Reagan smiled instinctively at the mention of Marley, his thoughts moving to her baby brother or sister.
“Two grandbabies, soon.” Peter took the thought from his
head, voicing it. He grinned. “We wanted our girls back and we have them, Ray. They’re coming home with us so soon, you heard what Riley said. We get to take Indie and Grace, and Marley, home. Two weeks ago we didn’t know if we’d ever get to say that.”
Reagan dashed a rogue tear from his eye, coughing and facing Peter with a half-smile. “You’re right, Pete. We’re the lucky ones.”
Peter and Reagan grinned at each other, passers-by probably thinking they were crazy. They didn’t care. Because, after twelve long years, they got to take their girls home.
~ oOo ~
“She only did that ‘cause she knows Tony likes playing jumping jacks better with you, Gracie.”
“She’s so mean. And did you see her socks? She wore them on Friday, and they still had the paint on ‘em.”
Indie screwed up her face, adjusting the purple bag over her shoulder. “Ew! Doesn’t she know you’re s’posed to change them every day?”
Grace snickered. “Guess not.” Her face fell slightly. “D’you think Tony likes her?”
The two eight-year-olds considered each other thoughtfully as they strolled home from school arm-in-arm. Their dads had only just started letting them walk home on their own a few weeks ago. They decided that, because their primary school was only a few minutes from home and they’d be with friends, it would be okay. Usually, they walked with two boys from just down their street, but they had dentist appointments that day so their mum had picked them up right from school.
Chattering away about Tony, the boy Grace had crushed on forever, as they so often did, neither girl noticed the shiny red van crawling along the road behind them. The beady-eyed man at the wheel gestured for his passenger to get ready, scanning the road in his mirrors before pulling up and hopping from the van.
He and his companion, a tall man with lank black hair and a sinister grin, crept up behind the girls, shared a quick glance, then pounced.
Within seconds, Indie and Grace were caged in the arms of the men while being carried, squirming and emitting muffled screams into the hands clasped tightly over their mouths. In the struggle, Indie dropped her bag. The contents spilled out onto the pavement as she was shoved into the back of the vehicle with her friend.
The man who’d been driving slammed the doors, climbed into the cab and peeled away from the scene of the crime at break-neck speed, which made the unwilling passengers shriek, tumbling into each other against the mesh divider. In the darkness, Indie huddled Grace close, shaking with fear. Just as she sucked in a breath to scream, tears sprang to her eyes and their attacker slid towards her. His teeth glinted white in the limited light peeking through from the front.
“Don’t scream, or you’ll really regre—”
While speaking, he moved closer. He knelt so the chloroform soaked rags he held in each hand would be level with the girls’ mouths. However, his plan didn’t go exactly how he’d thought, because as he leaned in, a foot clad in a black heeled shoe shot out. A string of profanities flew from his mouth, the surprising strength behind the kick splitting the skin on the right side of his jaw. Blood sprayed in an arc over the girls, staining their white uniform blouses..
“Indie! Indie, it’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just me. It’s just me, Laker.”
Indie woke with a start from her nightmare, panting and shaking with a tear-stained face. Blurred blue-green eyes slowly focused on soft mint green.
Laker, she sighed internally, reaching for his hand.
He pulled her gently up to a sitting position, gazing at her with kind, narrowed eyes. “Nightmare?”
Indie managed a weary nod, glancing around the room. It was dark, so she’d obviously slept right through after falling asleep earlier in the afternoon. Everything had caught up with her and she’d been exhausted, drifting off to the sounds of Reagan and Peter teaching Marley how to play Go Fish.
Grace was fast asleep in her bed a few feet away, Reagan and Peter most likely down the hall in the waiting room where the nurses had set up a bedroom of sorts for the three men. Frowning, Indie realised she couldn’t see Marley.
“Where’s Marley?”
“She came to wake me when she realised you were dreaming,” Laker admitted with a grimace, knowing it would upset Indie to hear that Marley had realised what was happening.
He was right. Indie’s face crumbled, tears wetting her cheeks.
“It’s okay, Pie, she doesn’t know it was a nightmare. She woke up, and I guess she didn’t think you were comfy or something, so she came and got me.”
Indie sighed, leaning back and accepting the tissue Laker snagged from the rolling cabinet beside the bed. “Thanks.”
A few minutes passed, the pair sitting in silence lit only by the moonlight filtering through the slits in the blinds.
Then, a thought struck Indie.
“You’re the only one who calls me ‘Pie,’ did you know that? Everyone else calls me ‘Indie.’ Although…I guess Grace calls me ‘Indie Pie’ sometimes.”
Laker grinned sheepishly. “I always thought it suited you better, I don’t know why. Especially when you went through that phase where you were obsessed with banoffee pie.”
Indie’s cheeks flamed at the memory. She’d demanded banoffee pie every day for weeks.
“I can call you ‘Indie’ if you want me to, it’s just habit, I guess.”
It surprised Indie when she thought about it for a moment, realising she liked the distinction being called ‘Pie’ gave her. When she was Pie, she was just a normal girl talking to a friend. She wasn’t Indie, the girl who’d been kidnapped, beaten, and raped.
She was just Laker’s Pie.
“No, I like it,” she finally admitted.
Laker smiled, nodding. “Alrighty, then. Pie it is.”
As he made to stand, leaving her to rest now she was okay, Indie felt her heart speed up a notch. She didn’t want to be alone. Not yet.
“It was the van!” she blurted out, cringing as soon as the words fell into the space between them.
Turning, Laker cocked his head in confusion. “What was the van?”
Indie sighed. “My nightmare. I was dreaming about the van we…the van he…the day we were taken.” The words felt like lead on her tongue. They didn’t want to come out, and she didn’t want them to taint the ordinary conversation she’d been having with Laker just moments before. But there they were, out there. She couldn’t take them back.
“Thank you, for trusting me.” Laker perched back on the bed, gently pulling Indie into his arms. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No, I don’t think so. I just wanted you to know. I’m so sick of keeping it to myself.”
Laker nodded, even though he didn’t know. He had no idea what she was going through, but if it made her feel better he’d say ‘yes’ to anything; he’d do anything.
“Will you stay with me a little while? I don’t have nightmares when you’re around and I, well, I’m actually really damn tired.”
Pulling back to give her a soft smile, Laker brushed her hair away from her face and simply nodded, adjusting them so they were lying beside one another, Indie under the covers while he stayed above them—that was a boundary he wasn’t willing to cross. Their breathing evened out and synchronised until, as the first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon, the pair fell asleep curled around each other.
~ oOo ~
The twenty-fifth of May dawned bright and sunny with wispy clouds that floated like cotton candy across a clear blue sky. As the sun bounded over the horizon, the hospital room the girls had taken over turned into a hive of activity.
Today was the day.
Riley arrived in the night with the all-clear to get Reagan, Peter, Laker, and the girls on their first leg of their road to recovery. He also brought news that there had been a potential sighting of Garrett. His team was following up on it.
A month after the ranch house exploded, there had been as few conversations regarding him as possible, especially when the girls were a
round. Needless to say, there wasn’t a single person in the house who relished the thought of the girls’ statements, which would need to be given sooner rather than later. The ordeal hung over everyone like a dark cloud.
For Indie and Grace, the thought of leaving the hospital came with mixed emotions. They felt safe there, for the first time in years, and had no idea what to expect of the world they were about to be thrust back into. It had been twelve long years and lots of things had changed in that time. Technology was the first thing they’d noticed. Cars, too. They were totally different to the older models they recalled from their childhood.
“Baby girl, do you want something to eat before we…?”
Turning away from the window overlooking the hospital parking lot, Indie winced at her dad’s hopeful expression. He used his whole face to express his emotions, something he’d always done, and looking at him looking at her with such pleading written across his features, there was little that Indie wouldn’t at least try to do. That included forcing down one of the god-awful tasting packets of food. She’d skipped breakfast, her nervousness killing her appetite.
Indie’s hesitant nod put a big grin on Reagan’s face. She was immediately pleased with her decision not to fight him; it made it worth it.
“Here you go. You don’t have to finish it, just as much as you can manage as you didn’t have any breakfast. Thank you for humouring me.”
Unable to form words through the lump in her throat, Indie nodded and pulled a breath through her nose before breaking the seal on the packet he thrust into her weary hands. With her eyes squeezed shut and the expression on Reagan’s face locked into her minds-eye, Indie clamped her lips around the small straw and thought of her baby as she forced herself to eat.