by Sara Schoen
"The police won't find us," she stated, slowly lifting her head to look me in the eye. "They won't ever find you either. Alec will run, and none of us will make it!"
"That's not true, Callum will find us!"
"Who's Callum?" A girl asked, breaking through her bemused state.
"It doesn't matter," Tegan interrupted. "If he's so great, then why isn't he here now? We've been waiting. We've been through so much already. What more do we have to give for him to come here?"
"Time," I pushed. "He just needs time to figure out that he's on the wrong trail! He's smart, he will figure it out and he can save us all."
"We have no more time, and you know it," Tegan spat. "We are all as good as dead. Callum won't come. He will never find you. It doesn't matter how hard he tries, or whatever sources he finds. You are trapped, and we will all die unless we make an escape."
"We can't all escape Tegan, don't you see that?" I pleaded with her. "Otherwise Alec will find out, and hunt us down like he did with Casey!"
The girls gasped as soon as the words left my mouth, and cried out at the news. There were wails of pain, and sorrow, but all Tegan did was scream at me.
"I knew she was dead! You left us here to die!"
"You'd die if you went out there!" I cried. "Callum is the only way we are making it out of here! I can't take you out, or I would! I can't get all of you out! How can I make the choice of who to save and who to leave Tegan?"
"Let us go. We can make the choice, and I will show you that we can make it out! I don't need to wait for someone to come save me. I can do it myself despite Alec's threats."
"If you leave, then he finds out that I kept you alive, and he goes crazy," I screamed back. "He kills whoever is left in this house, then he goes to find you. No matter where you go, how far you get or who you tell, he will find you, and then you will wish you were dead!"
"I already do," Tegan replied so harshly that I was at a loss for words. "You think that there's anything that I have to live for here? You don't know what it's been like here. You've been too busy worrying about Callum," Tegan retorted, shoving the questions that the reporter had asked Callum back at me. "Well, here's a news flash for you! Since you've been here it's been easy, but you don't know the torture, the pain, and the suffering. I've seen girls murdered right in front of me. Yet you think that there's a reason I wouldn't risk my life to get out? I'm dead either way, might as well make a break for it."
"I'm not letting you out," I stated forcefully. "I'm not risking it. We can wait it out! They will come and we will all be safe!"
"Why keep us down here? He doesn't come down to see us, so what does keeping us down here do for you? So you can continue to live your easy life up there? So that you can just keep us trapped like—”
"It's not easy up there!" I cried. "It's nowhere near easy."
"You don't know what it was like before you got here. You have it easy. When we didn't meet his demands, we were punished. We are all down here because we tried and failed to be you! We failed!" she screamed loudly, letting her voice reverberate off the walls. "We weren't you, and we were punished for it, you have it easy, but now, oh now you're in for it. He won't wait much longer and with all the pressure, you'll see what I mean and even you will want to leave. The only problem is, you won't be able to get out like we can. You'll be stuck here, with no one to help you."
Chapter 21
The conversation I had with Tegan and the other girls played over and over again in my mind for the next few days. I couldn't stop thinking about all the things those girls had told me; from the horrific to the squeamish events they endured. They went through so much, and they were only here for a few months at a time, but I didn't think they had told me everything. They have had to watch their friends be murdered, to see new girls come and go, and to live through trying to meet his fantasy. It was impossible for them to meet his demands, and they suffered the consequences for it. I wouldn't be surprise if they didn't trust me enough to tell me everything, but they had said enough.
"You have to keep playing along, Jessi," Tegan growled as she stared me down. She refused to let our eye contact drop. She was making sure that I knew just how serious her words were. This was life or death for us all now, and if I wasn't careful, we would all die. "If he senses something is wrong, then it's over for us, and I mean all of us. He will move, and he may decide that it's too risky to take you. He can always start over, but we can't. Before you tell me that someone is coming, it doesn't matter if you really think Callum will come or not. You have to do whatever he says, no matter what it is."
I knew that if I wanted to survive then I would have to play along as I had been doing, but Tegan was right. With Alec on edge, and nervous about the growing interest in the case, things were going to get a lot harder. He was going to become angry with me, and he would become more forceful with demands, maybe even make a few that he hadn't given me before. I shuddered at the thought, but I knew that no matter what it was, I had to do it, because if I didn't then the consequences would be worse. I would join the girls down stairs in the basement, but not after him following through on what he did to the other girls.
The beatings, painful projectiles aimed at my head, screaming and yelling, the chase while they tried to escape, and the non-consensual advances in a last ditch effort to keep the fantasy alive. It was all to try and make him happy, because they knew that it was the only way to stay alive. Desperate people will do desperate things. It was scary to think about, because you never knew what would happen exactly, but it would be worse to experience it.
"What's he going to do to me?" I asked cautiously. "How bad is it going to get?"
"It's not going to be pretty," Tegan started, glancing at the other girls around her. "But you're strong, and you can make it. You just have to bide your time, and be patient like you've been telling us. It will stop eventually, and he will then try to keep the fantasy alive. You just have to pass for being okay, and make sure he doesn't suspect a thing."
"What do you mean?"
"He's going to do awful things to you Jessi, and I can only tell you a few," she stated before listing off what she and previous girls had gone through.
When Tegan mentioned the things Alec would do to me if I failed in his eyes to be what he wanted, all I could think about was Steve Bennett. A shiver raced up my spine, Steve Bennett was a nightmare that haunted me for years. I couldn't forget my mother giving me up to protect herself, while Anna then spent her time protecting me in that dreaded house. She had been my mother during that time, and remained as such to this day, but that also meant that when Steve abused her, it hurt me as well.
I had heard Anna screaming, seen her tears and the blood, and I had seen what those experiences could do to people. It was heartbreaking, and terrifying to believe that someone was capable of doing that. Anna was lucky; she had made it out, saved me, and found her family again. Most importantly, she had also found Garrett. She didn't need him per say, she was strong and wouldn't have needed Garrett after escaping, but no one else would have been able to be around her if he hadn't been there for her. She was never seen as a normal person again, and if she hadn't had Garrett, I was afraid to think about where her life could have gone. I had seen cases where the girl took her own life, because she was unable to tolerate the life she had been thrown back into.
The people that are taken have a hard time transitioning back into their old life. They find it hard to trust people, they flinch away from touch, are overly cautious, mostly caused by their entrapment, and they don't have anyone that understands what they went through. I've heard some survivors complain that their friends and family will talk to them as if they are fragile and will fall apart at any moment. No one wanted to keep everything bottled up, but most didn't want to tell their families about what they had been through.
For some it's just too much, and it's a tragedy for everyone.
Audrey was tormented with the ideas during her stint with Steve. He wou
ld remind her what he was capable of, and while she wasn't the one he truly wanted, he was okay with keeping her when she bravely hid her mother so that Anna wouldn't have to live through the horror again. She sacrificed herself, drastically changing from her defiant, and selfish acts prior to her being taken. It was a change for the better, and once Steve was dead everyone got what they wanted.
He was dead, everyone could move on, and everything seemed to fall into place.
Damien, Steve's decoy and pawn to escape, was able to find his sister's remains after years of searching for them alone. His sister had been one of the girls that Steve had taken, but her body hadn't been found when Anna told police where to find the bodies of the other girls. Only her arm had been found, and Damien had become so desperate after his parents died that he sided with Steve just to find the location of his sister's body.
What he didn't expect was falling for Audrey.
He was supposed to keep her hidden, so that the police would be forced to call on Steve to help find Audrey, but he didn't. He had attempted to save her, to get her back home without him being caught, but Steve was already out. Steve quickly removed Damien from the picture, and reunited Audrey and her mother, but in the end, Anna was finally finished with Steve—he couldn't come back from the dead. Audrey embraced her family and took on the laws that failed to protect the kids and teens in the area, and won.
They were some of the lucky ones. They managed to find peace, and to somehow move past it. Most weren't able to have closure. Their kidnapper would be put in jail, perhaps to be paroled a few years later, but they would still be alive. They would have to risk the person that took them possibly coming back, to search for them, and take them again. Anna and Audrey no longer had to worry about Steve, just men that focused on his story. Other than that, they never had to worry about their experience again. I could only hope that this would have a happy ending as well, but the longer I was here, the more I felt that it wouldn't end peacefully.
There was something about Alec that had me worried. There was something about him that just wasn't adding up, and that scared me. He hadn't reacted how I had predicted when the news report first came on. I thought that he would become angry, but that had come after the pressure of the police presence had gotten to him. He had laughed, he knew that he wasn't going to be taken in for questioning, at least not immediately. He had a game plan, and he knew what was going to happen, but I didn't. If I didn't know the man that I was being forced to live with, then it could spell disaster in the end.
I could predict him to react one way, but he goes the totally opposite side of the spectrum. That would be dangerous, because I had to play into his desires, and to do that I had to know what he was thinking. His behavior would only give me so much. It was the window to who Alec was, but his actions spoke deeper levels of his mind. Since I didn't understand that, I couldn't see what his overall goal is. Steve's was the perfect family, but Alec had skipped over that step by taking someone he thought was trained to be the perfect wife. He had skipped processes that Steve had coveted and spent years refining. Was there more to Steve, and he could just never find the perfect family to move forward with or was this all Alec?
He went after the girls, but hasn’t made a move toward me. That could change, but I didn't understand what made him refrain from touching me, or what made him so patient. I was behaved, as I had learned to do from living with Steve, but I was far from perfect. He was after something else. He wanted something more than the perfect family. There had been another step to Steve's plan, but he hadn't made it far enough to move onto the next step.
There’s something that is missing from the profile, because up to this point, no one had considered that there was more to the fantasy. Both Alec and Steve wanted the same thing. Alec didn't waste his time with searching for the perfect family, because he went after me since I was taken by Steve. Now he was moving onto the next stage, I just don't know what it was going to be and that scared me.
"Just remember, Jessi, this is life and death. You've chosen not to leave, and now you'll be up there alone with him," Tegan's voice reminded me as I looked out the window for Alec to come home. "You'll be alone, no one will be here for you, and if Callum isn't here soon you can say goodbye to your freedom, and maybe even your life."
There was an emphasis whenever she said the word alone. I should have taken it as a hint, but I thought that she was just trying to tell me not to hold out for Callum. I never thought that I would truly be alone, with no one else to help me. I never thought they would leave me.
Chapter 22
There was a sudden pounding on the door to my room. I sat up in fear, my breathing fast and terrified from the sudden wake up and knowing that Alec was livid, and he was going to take it out on me. Normally, Alec left me alone to sleep, even if I had slept in by accident. He very rarely bothered me. I still had my own room in the house, so that I could be away from Alec if I needed to be, but also as a sign of mutual respect as Alec called it. If I listened and did what he asked, then he would do the same for me in return. But today, he clearly wasn't in the mood for such pleasantries.
"Jessi!" Alec cried as pounded on the door. "Open the door right now!"
I froze momentarily at the furious nature of his voice. I shook myself mentally before speaking, "I'm coming!"
I quickly got out of bed and rushed to the door, fearing to make him angrier. I hadn't dealt with Alec while he was blinded by anger, and I didn't want to. It held too many unknown possibilities for me.
There was a fear coursing through my veins as I remembered all the awful things Tegan and the others had said about him, about the things he could do.
It just meant I had to be on his good side for as long as I could, or I'd suffer his wrath and his punishments.
I unlocked the door, but before I could open it, he shoved the door open, breaking part of the door when he kicked it in. I moved back in shock. He was tense, rigid, and growling as he stomped toward me. His eyes were glaring deep into mine with such anger that it was as if I had betrayed him.
I held my hands to my chest to calm my speeding heart as I tried to move further away, but his hand latched onto my forearm before I could get out of arms reach. He yanked me toward him, and I let out a yelp of surprise as his hand grabbed onto my chin and forced me to look at him. The anger that was etched onto his face sent fear through my veins, I instinctively tried to move away, but he kept a firm hold on me.
His face was tinted red, his eyes were dark and furious, and there was a single vein in his forehead that I could see pulsing. "What do you have to say for yourself, Jessi?" he questioned, letting the anger of his words slip through his teeth.
I shook my head wildly, unable to answer him or ask what he was talking about. I tried to rack my mind for what could possibly have made him so angry, but I hadn't done anything wrong the last few days to deserve this. I had behaved as I was told to for Steve and Alec's standards, and even managed to buy a few days before Alec planned to move us. I claimed that I wanted to pack some of the things to take with us, and telling him what we needed from the store for supplies.
He was supposed to be going to the store today to pick up the list of supplies that I had written down for him. It was various foods and items that I had come up with to waste time. It would take him a while to find most of the items on that list since they were spread out in various stores. I had hoped that by having him buying a lot of supplies, and most for a long-term trip, that it would attract attention and someone would tell the police about their suspicions. Looks like I wasn't going to get that shot after all, because he didn't seem like he would leaving me alone anytime soon.
"You have nothing to say for the girls that are missing from the basement?" he asked, casting a look of pure disbelief in my direction. "You didn't know that they were gone? That they had somehow managed to escape?"
"Missing?" I managed to choke out. "What do you mean missing?" My eyes must have shown my confusion, because for
a few moments I noticed that Alec had eased slightly. He seemed to relax knowing that I didn't know that the girls had been missing, but then his anger took over again.
"You can't lie to me, Jessi," he growled. "You knew they were going to escape! You helped them didn't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Alec!" I cried, but I should have kept my mouth shut. The second I spoke, Alec became furious with me. He tightened his grip on me, it was so tight that I could feel the bruise forming, as he yanked me roughly from the room. He pulled me through the second floor of the house, down the stairs, and toward the basement.
"Alec, where are we going?" My voice shook with fear as I tripped over my own feet and almost crashed to the ground. Alec managed to keep me up, and held me so that I wouldn't fall, until I regained my footing. For a moment I was thankful, at least I hadn't fallen to the ground and instigated him to throw a few punches, but then Alec answered me.
"To see your friends," he growled as he forced me toward the basement door. I stumbled a few more times before he opened the door to the basement, and shoved me inside. I fell down the stairs, managing to find my footing on a few steps, but I lost my balance quickly. I rolled down the remaining steps, hitting each as I tumbled quickly to the floor. I landed hard on my chest, hitting the ground in a sudden and violent stop.
I groaned loudly as I tried to force myself off of the ground, but the pain was sharp and penetrated deeper each time I moved. When I managed to get into a kneeling position, I heard Alec start making his way down the stairs. His footfalls were heavy and terrifying as he came at an agonizingly slow pace. It was like a new form of torture to hear him coming toward me, and knowing what was going to come.