by Jayton Young
The next little while was spent with all of them trying to get any info or evidence as to where she’d been taken. Zander had called a deputy to book Bill in and get him situated, and then tapes were pulled from anywhere they could think of. City cameras, gas stations, and ATMs.
Though they had already known who she was probably taken by, but traffic cameras confirmed that it was Pastor Daniel, and that Leigh was unconscious in the passenger seat. They traced what route he took driving toward the north-western edge of town before losing the car completely.
There was a moment when Russ felt lost, hopeless, and even worse than that…useless. How much would Leigh have to endure in this life? He’d promised himself, after finding out the truth of what had happened, that from that point on, that he would shield her from as much suffering as he could, but he hadn’t been successful at all.
She had surgery on her brain, for heaven’s sake, he couldn’t shield her from that. She’d been shunned because of him, and he was relieved that people listened to him when he addressed them all. She lost her mother. He’d been blessed enough not to have lost anyone close to him, so he couldn’t even sympathize, but he tried to be there in any capacity Leigh needed him to be. And now…Russ was at a loss as to what to do.
“We’re going to get her back.” He looked over his shoulder at Mark, who seemed to have answered his thoughts. “Beyond that, we will do whatever we have to do to help her.”
That statement let Russ know that they were on the same wavelength; wondering what that man was doing to her. Praying that their imagination was worse than her reality.
And then the sun broke through the clouds with one yelled statement.
“We have a location!”
*****
Leigh was trying to keep her head in a place where she didn’t have to face the pain of reality at that moment. She had been so stupid. Even though she and Russ knew that Pastor Daniel had played them against each other back then, she never imagined the evil that had taken him over, so when he’d pulled up beside her and asked to have a talk with her, she never thought he’d attack her with a hypodermic needle full of something that knocked her out.
When she woke, she was in immense pain from where Daniel had used a knife to cut into her abdomen. Her mind had blocked any thought of why he’d do that. It wouldn’t allow her to consider the loss. She was naked and tied to the rungs of the headboard.
Currently Daniel was practicing his rights as her ‘husband’. Not being able to deal with it, her mind roamed to happy places and times that she’d experienced in her life. Prom night with Russell. The night he proposed. Their first time together. Randy’s birth…
The remembered scenes went on and on, the only thing making it difficult was the migraine that was steadily getting worse and worse. Soon, the headache was all she could concentrate on. She didn’t even notice when Daniel finished and rolled off of her to her right side.
H must have said something to her which she didn’t hear, because all of a sudden, pain exploded a hundred fold on the left side of her head when he slapped her from his position of sitting up beside her.
“Answer me when I speak to you!” he yelled.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her vision was blurred and speech slurred. “My head hurts. I didn’t hear you.”
“I said that I’m so happy that we can finally be together. You’ve belonged to me since you were thirteen. I just had to be patient, but you didn’t save yourself for me did you?”
“I didn’t know.”
She realized that it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left her mouth. Daniel climbed over her, straddling her legs and just kept hitting her; yelling about how her father had given her to him and arranged it all. Before long, Leigh welcomed sweet oblivion of darkness as she passed out.
She dreamed of the time that it had come out that her father was grooming her to be a reverend’s wife. The scene played out just as it always had, just as she remembered it, but this time the scene skipped forward to that night and a whispered conversation between her parents when they thought she’d already went to sleep.
“Whatever made you do something like that?” her mom asked.
“I had been expressing my fears for Leigh’s future, and that I wasn’t raising her right. Don’t ask me why, but Pastor Rick said that there were many couples who would raise their children in a way that would prepare them for the church wife life. He said that Daniel was going to be taking over as soon as he got his degree and finished the extra study. Daniel is a single man, and if I were to teach Leigh the ways of the church, that by the time she was old enough, that Daniel would be established. He said it would be a perfect match.”
“We don’t have the right to make that decision for her; we talked about this. I know that your family followed the traditions, but you used to tell me that was why you were happy to have met me first and that your parents accepted me. We swore that we wouldn’t do that to our child.”
Leigh opened her eyes again when she heard pots and pans clanging around in the kitchen. Her first thought was of the baby that would now never be born. Pastor Daniel had said that it was an abomination that should have never been conceived. She let a few tears of mourning leak out before she controlled the impulse to cry. If Daniel saw her crying, he would see it as a weakness and teach her a lesson that would strengthen her faith that everything happened for a reason.
It was funny in that ‘its not funny’ way. He used that reasoning to explain away the murder of an innocent life, when using that reasoning should be saying that the baby was conceived for a reason.
Leigh prayed. She prayed for the strength to make it through another rape; at least she was still alive. And she prayed for the mental strength to be able to handle life afterward. Finally she prayed for help to arrive and get her away from a man who’d twisted his faith to make it fit his messed up thinking.
Leigh was in and out of consciousness for a while. It was well after dark, but that was all she knew because of the window in the room. Daniel had never brought her any food or water. She wasn’t really hungry anyway, but her mouth was so dry it was what some people call cotton mouth.
Daniel came into the room with a smile and went straight to kiss her. When she didn’t kiss him back, or allow his tongue entry into her mouth, he took hold of her sore, bruised chin, squeezing the sides so hard she had to open her mouth or risk a broken jaw.
“You will learn,” he said as he stood back up. “Your training can be easy or hard; that’s going to be up to you, but either way, you will submit to my will in the end.”
He leered at her body in a way that made her feel dirty and then started running his hands all over. “Such a shame,” he said almost to himself when he reached her one breast. “I’ll get that fixed for you after I can trust you more.” His hand headed back down until it rubbed over top of the bandaging he put over the cut he’d made. Just to be cruel, he mashed down, pressing harder and harder until she let out an involuntary scream, then he just smiled and reached into the bedside table drawer, coming out with the needle again. After injecting her with whatever was in it, he started undressing again. By the time he was naked and climbing into the bed, the drug had kicked in leaving her feeling high and out of it enough not to comprehend what he was doing to her. It was like she was watching a movie of someone else’s life.
With the last bit of coherency, she prayed again for someone to come soon and save her.
As the last bit of light faded from her vision, and Daniel climbed on top of her, there was a crash and a bunch of yelling.
*****
Russ, along with Zander, Mark, and William were flying in a helicopter, that belonged to the county Sheriff’s office adjacent to Pine Grove, on their way to Asheville. Zander had gotten a warrant pushed through, along with extradition papers, for Daniel Peters. The judge, who’d already known about most of what had happened to Leigh in the past, didn’t hesitate to sign off on them as soon as they presented him
with the pictures they’d gathered showing Leigh in the car with him. The judge even called ahead and let the proper people in Asheville know, and to get them to head on over to Daniel’s house there and arrest him.
“Mr. Peters is in custody, sir,” the pilot informed Zander. “They have Ms. Hampton and are transporting her to Mission Hospital.”
“Can you request a drop off on their heli-pad?”
“Already done, sir.”
“Did they tell you if she was alright? She’s okay, right?” Russ pleaded.
“I’m sorry, sir. They just said she was injured; not how or how critical she was.”
The rest of the flight seemed to take forever. Russ was so anxious that he felt like he could run and get there faster. Mark put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed reminding him that he wasn’t alone. Finally reaching the hospital, he was the first one to jump out and he took off running; Mark right on his heels.
“Leigh Hampton?” he huffed when he reached the front desk of the ER. “She was brought in by ambulance and escorted by the police.”
The receptionist called back to the nurse’s desk and asked. “She’s in surgery at the moment, sir. If you’ll have a seat, the doctor will come out to speak with as soon as he can. There’s a TV monitor on the wall that will let you know where she is at any given time.”
After pacing, then sitting, then looking out the window, Russ sat down and decided to call and check on Randy, and then let his parents know the little bit of information that he knew.
It was about forty minutes later that the doctor finally came out and asked for the Hampton family.
“I’m Dr. Bridges. I’m the one who has been treating Miss Hampton. She came in with multiple contusions covering her body. She been cut in her abdomen, someone trying to surgically abort the fetus. I operated on it to determine the extent of the damage. I’m sorry to inform you that she did lose the baby. I had to stitch her uterus and remove the left ovary. The uterus should heal with no problem, and her still having one ovary, there shouldn’t be any problems with her trying for another baby.”
“Her nose was broken, and there was a crack in the mandible or jaw bone. She does have a concussion, so between all of those, I’d like to keep her for a few days.”
“When can we go see her?”
“Right now she is in recovery. Once she wakes, she’ll be moved to a room, and you can see her then.”
Mark and Russ both stayed by her side. Every time she woke up, she would grieve for her baby. After telling them everything that happened, Russ wanted to go break Daniel out of jail so he could kill him, but of course that didn’t happen. His parents visited, Randy with them. Everyone had to keep assuring him that she would be okay, and that the bad man who did it was in jail and wouldn’t be able to hurt her, or anyone else, anymore.
A lot had happened, and Leigh seemed to be struggling with it, but as a family, if they stood together, they would be able to deal with anything, and help Leigh get over the nightmares she’d survived.
Epilogue
It had been an eventful year for Leigh, since she’d been rescued from the pastor. Though she knew that you’re supposed to pray for your enemies as well as your friends, Leigh couldn’t help being happily relieved when she’d been informed that Daniel Peters had been shot and killed in a failed escape attempt during transport to the courthouse for his trial.
Bill had been sentenced to ten years without parole for aggravated sexual assault, but he’d been extradited to South Dakota for the murder charges, which had him serving life without the possibility of parole; which trumped his rape charge, but as long as he was behind bars, that was what mattered.
She and Russell had both mourned their lost child, but since she was no longer pregnant, she’d been able to do her radiation and chemo. Now she was in remission, and they were all praying she stayed there.
She’d been told that she’d be able to try and have more children, but it felt wrong to her. It felt like she would be trying to replace one child with another, so they weren’t thinking about it anymore. Maybe it would change the longer she had to grieve, but she felt like Randy was blessing enough.
Feeling like she wanted to make life as easy for herself as possible, Leigh sold her family’s grocery store to her old friend, Lacey Peters (she was Pastor Daniel’s second cousin and had tried real hard to make things up to Leigh, though Leigh didn’t blame her for what had been done). Her husband had been out of work for a while, because there were no local jobs to be had, but they didn’t want to move because Lacey loved her job at the school. He was a smart, likable, well respected man, and Leigh knew that he’d be successful and not sell off to a chain store.
She’d gifted Mark their little web design company, Simple Designs, and also had deeded her mother’s house to him since she and Randy had moved in with Russell. Mark tried his best to pay her, but she refused it telling him to give it to charity if he just had to give money away, so he did. He donated to St. Jude’s Children’s hospital, which they all felt was more than a worthy cause.
About eight months after everything happened, Russell took Leigh to the pond behind her mother’s house for a quiet dinner and night-time swim. It was the first time she had been swimming since she lost her breast, and Russell had made it so magical that she forgot it all. He truly loved her just as she was.
After they had swam for a while, and they were lying on the dock, Russell all of a sudden jumped up and went to his pile of clothes, pulling something out of his pocket, but she couldn’t see what it was. He came back to her and helped her sit up to where they were facing each other.
It took him a few moments to speak, and when he did, it was only after he cleared his throat as if he were getting choked up.
“In no way will I ever think that I deserve you. I betrayed you, and our love, six years ago when I did what I did, and didn’t believe in you.” He took both of her hands into one of his, never taking his eyes off of her face. “But for some reason, amazingly, you were able to forgive me. Even after blaming you for me not knowing about Randy, which was due to my own stupidity. I lost myself when I threw you away. I became bitter and wasn’t a very nice person when I didn’t have you in my life to light my way. I thank God for answering my prayer for a second chance.” He finally brought the small velvet box out so she could see it, though her vision was already blurred from the tears she couldn’t stop. “I want to ask you – to beg if need be – to please become my wife, my best friend, my life partner, and my angel for the rest of our days. Leigh,” Russ opened the box and took out the two karat princess cut yellow diamond ring out and placed it on her left ring finger. “Will you marry me and be mine?”
Having trouble speaking due to crying over his heartfelt proposal, finally she answered.
“I’ve always been yours, my Russell Sprout. Yes! I will marry you.”
*****
Mark and Maggie walked down the hallway of the church leading to the small dressing room Leigh was in. They had just dropped Randy with Russ after making sure he had everything he needed, had memorized his part, and was calm enough not to mess up his mini-tux. Mark reached out and opened the door for Maggie to enter first and heard her gasp.
Everyone always tells the bride that they are the most beautiful bride ever, but in this instance, Mark sincerely thought that it was the truth. Leigh’s dress was a satin base with about ten layers of a light gauzy material layered over it, all cut into a sleeveless princess design and pearls embedded all over the bodice. She had opted for no veil, wanting the focus to be on the dress alone. She had only the bare minimum as far as make-up, though it would have to be redone, and her hair was left loose in waves down over her shoulders; which was the way Russ liked it best.
“I can feel her right here with me.”
Leigh was standing in front of a full length mirror, tears streaming down her face as she studied the dress that she never knew that her mother had made for her. After telling Leigh that she didn’t have to worr
y about shopping for a dress, Maggie had shown up at their door that morning and pulled Leigh over to the main house to start the preparations. Maggie said that her mother had started working on it as soon as Leigh decided to move back to Pine Grove in hopes that everything would work out as it was supposed to have years before.
“She is,” Maggie said as she went over to Leigh and started smoothing out the bell of the dress. “And so is your daddy. They are watching you right now, and I know how proud they must be.”
“You and James have always been like a second set of parents to me, and I love you both so much.”
“Now you’re going to make an old man cry.” They all turned to see James at the door, looking very dashing and debonair in his navy blue suit. “That’s not allowed.”
He walked over, putting his hands on her shoulders. “You are so beautiful, honey. I think Russ will forget how to breathe when he catches sight of you.”
“Now…It’s about that time. Russ and Randy are waiting up front with Pastor Andrew, so we need to get ready for the march.”
Russell had only wanted Randy beside him since his dad, along with his mom, would be walking her down the aisle to give her to their son, so Randy was both the ring bearer and best man. He’d been so happy and excited when Russell asked him.
Leigh had asked Mark to be her ‘Bachelor of Honor’. He’d laughed, thinking she was joking, since he’d never heard of that title before, but she told him that he was her brother and best friend. She didn’t want anyone else there with her. He’d actually cried knowing that she was serious and asking from her heart, so he was dressed in a white tux with a navy blue tie, and he was going to march down the aisle before her and lead the way.
After Mark reached his place, and the wedding march started, Leigh kept her eyes on Russell. They had been through so much, but as the saying goes, love will shine through and save the day. For Leigh, love had broken her, healed her, saved her, and now was staying with her for the rest of her life.