Could This Be Love

by Vanessa Miller

  Liza laughed bitterly at that. “You, and these tramps,” she pointed towards the other cages, “think you can flaunt your babies in front of me and I’m just supposed to sit there and take it like I’m some joke. Well, the joke is on you… on all of you.”

  “What are you talking about Liza? I don’t understand. Just let us go. I need to get Joe to the hospital.”

  “He’s as good as dead. And none of you are going anywhere until you deliver those unwanted babies.”

  Raven knew that she was pregnant and Rita was, but was Liza saying that Britney was also pregnant? Raven glanced in Britney’s direction and the confirmation was all over her face.

  Smiling, Britney said, “It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I even decided to get clean. And then this psycho took me out of rehab with her lies.”

  “I’d rather be a liar than a slutty home wrecker,” Liza shot back. She then turned back to Raven with her hand extended. “Give me your cell phone and car keys.”

  “What?” Raven shook her head, she needed that cell phone. And she would need her keys the moment she found a way out of this cage.

  Liza pointed the gun at her belly. “Give them to me or I’ll put a bullet right through your baby’s heart.”

  All the fight went out of Raven. She handed over her keys and the cell phone.

  When Raven gave up her cell phone, Rita became panic stricken. Her hands gripped the bars of her cage as she shook it. “I’m so sorry that I slept with your husband. If I could take it all back I would in a heartbeat. But please, Liza, please don’t harm my baby because of what I did.”

  Liza stormed over to Rita’s cage with fire in her eyes. “Don’t you talk to me about doing no harm. When I called and begged you not to do that interview about your torrid affair with my husband, what did you do? You laughed in my face and told me that you didn’t care what happened to me or the senator. Well, now I’m returning the favor, because I don’t care what happens to you or that unwanted baby.”

  From dealing with Liza on different occasions, Raven knew that the senator’s career and legacy were all that mattered to her. So, she played on that now, hoping that the woman would come to her senses and release them from their cages. “What you’re doing isn’t right, Liza. The senator’s career will never recover from this. You need to let all of us go now and then issue a public apology.”

  “I don’t need you to fix any situation for me, Raven.” Liza then pointed at Joe and said, “Just shut up and play with your little pet.”

  ***

  RaShawn hated getting his parents involved, because he really didn’t want to worry them. But his spirit man was tugging on him, telling him that Raven had gotten involved in some serious spiritual warfare and if he was going to get her out of it, he needed everybody praying.

  When his dad answered the phone, RaShawn hurriedly asked, “What are you all doing?”

  “Oh, just sitting around the table with Carmella, Ronny and Nia working on the final plans for this upcoming wedding.”

  “I’m glad that Ronny is there with you all because I need to tell you something.”

  “What’s up, son? How was your flight? Is everything okay?”

  “No Dad, it’s not. Raven is missing. I’m on my way to where I think she might be, but the Lord has revealed to me that she is involved in something that man can’t get her out of… not in our own strength, anyway. So, I need you all to stop what you’re doing and go to war through prayer and praise until I call you back.”

  Ramsey’s voice was shaky as he said, “You got it, son. Just go get Raven and bring her out of whatever this is safely.”

  They hung up the phone without saying another word. RaShawn wished he could tell his father that everything was going to be all right, but in truth, he just didn’t know. “Open Raven’s eyes, Lord, help her to see what she is up against and then lead her and guide her in the way to get out.”

  Chapter 13

  “Oh God, oh God, please don’t let him die.” Raven was bent down on the ground next to Joe, pressing the wound trying to stop the blood from continuing to flow out of him. “You are such a good man, Joe. Don’t give up. Don’t let her win.”

  As far as Raven was concerned Liza was crazy. The woman had left reality and was living in some weird world where she thought she could… what? Stop babies from being delivered? It was all too crazy and bizarre for Raven to figure out. She’d thought that Rita had been killed by the senator in order to shut her up. In her wildest imagination, she never would have imagined that anyone would hold human beings hostage for months.

  But hadn’t that sick man in Cleveland, OH held those three women and a baby for ten years before his secret was discovered? And what about that Jaycee Lee Dugard case? The woman had been held for eighteen years and even had a couple of kids while in captivity. Thinking of those cases brought tears to her eyes. She didn’t want Joe to die on the floor and she didn’t want to spend years in this basement. She had a life, a family and a husband and she desperately wanted to see them all again.

  As her tears were dripping all over Joe, Raven realized that she wasn’t helping him much by just crying. So, she closed her eyes and started praying. As she was pouring out her heart to God she finally remembered the scriptures that RaShawn had asked her to read before coming into this house of horrors. Elisha had prayed and God had fought his battle. Through her sobs, Raven prayed, “Lord, I don’t know what’s going on here. But You know, and I’m asking that You take care of this for me. I need You and as many angels as You can spare to fight this battle for me.”

  After that prayer, it felt to Raven as if her eyelids were suddenly pulled open and the room was filled with smoke. Coughing, she yelled out, “Where’d all of this smoke come from? Is she trying to set us on fire?”

  “I don’t see any smoke,” Britney said. “The wicked witch went upstairs, but I didn’t see her light anything before she went.”

  Still coughing, Raven kept one hand on Joe’s stomach and tried to fan the thick clouds of smoke in front of her with the other. “Lord, help us; get this smoke out of here.”

  As the smoke began to clear, Raven wanted to pray it back. Anything would have been better than what she was now witnessing. Monster-like creatures were standing guard in front of their cages. One of them glared into her cage with nostrils flaring. His big paw-like hands rattled the cage as he screamed, “Stop praying!”

  “Never!” Raven screamed back and started calling down angels to help her. Thank God RaShawn asked her to read that scripture concerning Elisha, when the enemies of the Lord came against him. But Elisha didn’t waiver because he knew that those that were with him were more than those that were with his enemy. “You can’t win this fight. God is greater and He’ll never let you win.”

  The creature didn’t look as hateful as he stood there and laughed at her. Then his eyes turned cold as they bore into her. “We’ve already won. You Bible thumpers are just too stupid to know when you’ve been beaten.”

  “We’re not stupid. We see that you’ve infiltrated the world and filled it with sin. But my Bible tells me that where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. So, you keep pulling people into sin, and I and people like my brother and my husband will pull them right back out. God will win this battle.”

  “Who is she talking to?” Britney asked Rita.

  “I don’t know, but she’s hasn’t been in that cage a full hour yet, so there’s no way she could have lost her mind that quick.”

  “I haven’t lost my mind,” Raven told them. “But if you two want to get out of here alive I suggest you get on your knees and start praying. Ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins and pray that He would unlock the chains that bind us.” Raven was doing the same; the only difference was that her eyes were open to the demonic forces around them. She could see clearly that those demons were not going to let them just pray their way out of this. They were gearing up for a fight. Raven only prayed that God’s avenging angels would g
et there in time enough to give them the last fight of their ungodly lives.

  ***

  “There it is,” Marcus said after his GPS told him that he had arrived at his destination. He pointed to the house in front of them.

  Senator Allen turned to his son with disbelief in his eyes. “This is the house Raven thought I was holding Britney in?”

  “Yeah, do you recognize it?”

  “Liz’s mom lived here before we put her in the nursing home. I told Liz to sell the home, but she had some sort of sentimental attachment to it.”

  Looking around, Marcus said, “I don’t see Raven’s car.”

  “Maybe she’s not here.”

  Something in Marcus’ gut told him that wasn’t the case. His wife was in that house and he had to get her out of there. “Dad, I promise you, if Liz has harmed my wife in any way, I will make her pay.”

  “Calm down, son. I’m sure Raven was just overreacting… pregnancy hormones kicking in or something.”

  “You better hope so.” Marcus was scared out of his wits. His heart was beating so fast he thought it would come out of his chest. His wife and baby were in danger, and although they had only been married a short time and had only gotten married because of the pregnancy, Marcus knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to either of them.

  The front door was locked, but Senator Allen had a key. He fumbled around, trying to remember which key unlocked the door to the small house. He got it on his third try. Opening the door, the senator yelled, “Liza, are you in here?”

  ***

  Liza had driven Raven’s car two blocks away from the house and left it parked in a shopping center. She then got out of the car and made the trek back to her mother’s old house. The place had always felt like a dungeon to Liza, especially as she grew up, trapped there with her hateful mother. Liza had never been able to please that woman; no matter what she did, her mother always had a ready complaint.

  At the age of seven her mother purchased a cage, put it in the basement and told Liza that bad girls had to sleep in the cage. She had been bad a lot, but by the time she was fifteen she’d learned how to accommodate her mother and she never had to sleep in the cage again. But her mother had kept that cage all those years just to remind Liza of what bad girls had to endure.

  Liza fixed her. Just as soon as she could, she had that crazy old lady placed in the worst nursing home she could find. Now she was seeing what mean old ladies had to endure.

  Her husband had asked her to put the house up for sale, but for some reason, Liza hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. She knew that she would never live there ever again life, but something inside kept telling her that she would soon have a purpose for that house. And then Rita decided that having an affair with her husband wasn’t good enough. She had to get pregnant and then tell the world about it. Reminding the world the Liza Allen had never been able to conceive any children of her own and that’s when Liza knew what she would do with that house.

  The cage was still in the basement. She met Rita for drinks, slipped her a mickey and then put her in the car and drove her to her final destination. After that, finding out about Britney and Raven, Liza purchased two more cages. She hadn’t planned to put Raven in a cage at first, but the night she prayed for Marcus and took his headache away sealed her fate.

  As she stepped onto her porch and noticed that the front door was ajar, Liz pulled the gun out of her purse and quietly pushed opened the front door.

  ***

  “I hear voices below us, Dad. Does this house have a crawl space or a basement?”

  “I believe it has a basement, but I’ve never been in it,” the senator answered.

  “There, did you hear that?” Marcus thought he heard faint sounds of crying and praying at the same time. He pointed downward. “There must be a basement.”

  They went into the kitchen, located the basement door, found a lock on it. But Marcus kept hearing those voices so he wasn’t about to let a little thing like a lock stop him from getting in that basement, not when his wife was most likely down there. He stepped back and kicked the door with everything he had. As his foot touched down on the ground his knee buckled, but the basement door swung open.

  Looking back at his father, he asked, “Coming?” But Marcus didn’t wait for an answer. His knee was aching but he didn’t care, he barreled down those stairs like a linebacker, calling out, “Raven! Raven, are you down here?”

  ***

  They had been praying for a little under an hour when Carmella popped up and said, “This isn’t getting it.” She went to her stereo system, turned it on and let Hezekiah Walker’s Every Praise drown out any and all doubt that the victory was theirs in this situation. God was their savior, He was a healer and He was a deliverer, too. Just as He had delivered all of her children out of dangerous situations, He would also deliver Raven.

  “All right, let’s get back to it. We are going to pray and praise God until we get the word that Raven is safe. And then we are going to go get that child and drag her back home, her husband, too, if it has to go down like that.”

  They all knew that Carmella was serious so no one bothered to remind her that Marcus was busy running the Common Wealth of Virginia. They just all bowed their heads again and continued praying to the only One they knew to turn to in times like these.

  ***

  “Did you hear that?” Rita asked. “I think someone just kicked the door in. Raven, you’re a genius, this prayer stuff really works.”

  Although Rita was excited, Raven wasn’t jumping for joy just yet, because she could see the demonic forces that were guarding their cages. If it wasn’t Jesus Himself who just kicked down that door, then they were still in trouble.

  Then she heard her name and knew that her husband had come to rescue her. Immediately, she felt fear for him as two burly demons left her cage and went in search of Marcus. “Leave him alone.”

  “Shut up,” one of the demons hissed back.

  “Jesus,” Raven yelled out. “I need You to send help now. Please don’t let those monsters destroy my husband.”

  As she called out to God, the smoky clouds in the basement began lifting as light began shining through. The next thing she saw brought both shock and awe. Angelic beings descended, with swords drawn. They took on those menacing demons that had been guarding their cages and began dispatching them one by one back to the devil they came from.

  “Thank you, Jesus, they are here!” Raven exclaimed. She lifted her hand off of Joe as she noticed an angel bend down next to her and put his hand over Joe’s stomach. “Oh, thank God.”

  “I’m here, honey. Don’t worry, I’m going to get you out of this cage.”

  Raven got off the floor and rushed to the front of the cage. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me here. I knew you’d get my message.”

  “I almost didn’t come. Dad was in my office when I received your text and I thought you were just falsely accusing him again.” Marcus closed his eyes as a pain shot through his heart. “I could have lost you. I will never doubt you ever again.” They clung to each other through the opening in the cage.

  “But I was wrong about your dad. It’s Liza. She’s crazy, Marcus. She’s been holding Rita and Britney.”

  “I can’t believe this.” Marcus’ eyes widened as he turned to see who was in the other two cages. Then he said, “Let me find something to get you out of here.”

  “Step away from that cage, Marcus. Don’t make me hurt you,” Liza said as she entered the basement, gun drawn on Marcus.

  Senator Allen was standing in the middle of the basement, looking as if he’d been hit with a stun gun. He had no words for what he was witnessing, but as his wife came down the stairs, pointing a gun at his son, he turned to her. “Liza, what are you doing?”

  “Don’t you question me,” she screamed at him. “If you had been able to keep your pants up I wouldn’t have to clean up your messes. But I’m the dutiful wife, so I
always clean up your messes.”

  “I never asked you to do this. We could have weathered this storm. I only asked you to stick by my side.”

  She was shaking with rage now. “Oh yeah, you wanted me to endure more press conferences where I stood there holding your hand, smiling up at you like you were the great love of my life, when I knew that you had never forgiven me for not being Shavona. Well, guess what, Michael,” she pointed at the cages. “These tramps aren’t Shavona either. No one will ever be as self-righteous as she was, ever again. I made sure of that.”

  Stuttering now, the senator asked, “D-did you have something to do with Shavona’s illness?”

  Smirking at him, she said, “Did you think I was going to let you sleep with me without ever making a commitment. And you couldn’t commit yourself to me as long as Shavona was still living and pressuring you to live some Godly life.”

  “How dare you. I could kill you,” the senator growled as he lunged toward her.

  Liza pulled the trigger and Senator Allen clutched his chest and then fell at her feet.

  Chapter 14

  RaShawn had done nothing but pray after reaching out to Marcus and his dad. But as the taxi was nearing his destination, he realized that he should have done one more thing. He lifted his cell phone to call the police and saw that he had no battery life left. He then asked the cab driver if he could borrow his cell for a moment.

  The cab driver looked at him skeptically but he relented.

  RaShawn quickly dialed 911, gave them the address that Raven had given him and reported a disturbance in the house.

  “What kind of disturbance?” the operator asked, in a calm, reassuring kind of voice.

  “Someone is being held there against their will.”

  “And who would that be?”

  RaShawn knew that the operator was just doing her job, but all these questions were annoying. The taxi pulled up to the house and he had no more time for twenty questions. “Just send someone in a hurry, please.” He hung up and handed the phone back to the cabbie.