“Alina…” he started, his voice soft.
I stayed huddled underneath the covers, “He knows, doesn’t he?”
He pulled the covers back so he could see me, “What?”
Tears sprang from my eyes and I was shaking so hard my teeth started rattling, “He knows. H-he saw w-what h-happened between us.
He's going to h-hurt me, Joe!” I cried out.
Joe scooped me up and sat down on the bed, cradling me in his arms. It was unexpectedly tender, the way he rocked me slowly, smoothing my hair back from my face while I cried. I knew I should pull away, but if I was being honest with myself, it felt so good being held.
Not the way that Jason held onto me. He was too possessive. It was a power play with him. But it also wasn’t as nice as I felt being in Derrick’s arms. I felt complete when he held me. Joe’s embrace felt like protection. And I so desperately needed protection.
“Shh…please don’t cry,” he said softly.
“You don’t understand,” I choked on a sob, “It’s horrible. The things he does to me…”
“He doesn’t know, Alina. He won’t hurt you.”
Relief washed over me, but I was still shaking and soaking my cheeks with tears.
“What is he mad about? I could tell it’s something, by the look on your face.”
His eyes darted around. Blowing out a rush of air, his eyebrows drew together, “I lost something and it’s kind of important.”
My belly fluttered nervously, “What is it?”
He was quiet for a moment. I almost spoke again to let him know he didn’t have to tell me, but then, he sighed, “It’s a phone. Actually, it’s your phone. He’s been keeping it here and using it to communicate back and forth with me, but I lost it sometime in the last twenty four hours.”
I mirrored his expression, gulping down the lump of guilt that was forming in my throat, “What’s so important about my phone?”
“He said something about them tracking —- Fuck! You’re not supposed to know this Alina.” He stood up and set me back on the bed, then stepped away. His large frame starting to pace again. “Listen, I’m too comfortable with you and it’s going to get me killed.”
I scrubbed the tears off my cheeks, then raised my eyes to watch him pace back and forth, “You really think he’d do that?”
He stopped and turned to face me, an incredulous look on his face, “Yes Alina. He only wants you. Everything and everyone else is just extra. He doesn’t care.”
“Why me, Joe? What did I do?” I asked, half-pleading. I needed answers. I could never ask Jason why he’d taken me from my life, from my family, from everything I could have had.
Joe looked genuinely confused, “I have no idea.”
The idea from before moved to the forefront of my mind. I contemplated it again. It was crazy, but it was also necessary. I couldn’t escape on my own, but I could if Joe was there. He seemed to be genuinely afraid of Jason too, the more I saw their interactions.
Especially with Jason becoming more unhinged as the days went on.
Maybe I could convince him…
“Help me,” I whispered.
He exhaled, shaking his head, “No, Alina. I can’t.”
I rose up on my knees, clasping my hands together, “Please Joe. You know this isn’t right. You know I don’t deserve this. Help me please.”
He raised his hands and backed away, as if surrendering, “I can’t. I hate what he’s doing to you, but if you get away, he’ll know it’s because of me and he’ll kill me.”
“Not if you come with me,” I pleaded, desperation in my voice.
He gaped at me, “You can’t be serious.”
I sat back on my heels, “Listen, I have no clue where I am. You do. Which means you probably know the best way to get around and back home. You can also lead the police back here or wherever he goes and then we could be free.”
“How is this supposed to work? He’s always here.”
“Not now,” I argued back.
He turned away, pacing again. I chewed on my lip nervously, wanting him to at least consider it. If he saw it from my point of view, then he’d be more willing to help. I just knew it. After several agonizing minutes, he stopped and turned toward me. The cold, almost lifeless expression he had my first day here had returned. Dread filled my veins.
“I can’t help you Alina. It’s too risky and he’s too unpredictable.
I’m sorry. I will try to protect you from him, but that’s all I can do.”
And with that he walked out of the room, closing it shut behind him.
I dissolved into tears. Feeling more defeated than ever. Through the blur in my eyes, I stared at the door, praying that he would come back in and change his mind. But the longer I stared, the slower my tears fell, the shorter my sobs, and the realization that I was on my own became my reality.
A buzz underneath me prompted me to look up. Wiping my tear-stained cheeks, I glanced up at the door. I wondered how much time I had before Joe would come back. He didn’t lock the door when he left, so I wouldn’t have advance notice of him coming back in the room.
Chewing on my lip, I debated pulling the phone out.
I scrambled to the edge of the bed, lying flat and shoving my hand between the mattress and box spring to fish out the device. The buzzing sound was an alert notification signaling the battery was low.
My stomach dropped. Having the phone on was draining the battery and I didn’t have access to the charger.
The phone had proven to be pretty useless. After successfully hiding it from Joe and waiting until I had a free moment, where my chances of being interrupted by either of them was low, I opened it up only to find it had been wiped clean. The only contact listed was Jason’s cell number. I even attempted dialing 9-1-1, but the cell service was so non-existent the call couldn’t even be placed. But I still held onto it for some reason. Intuition told me to hold onto it, so I kept it stuffed under the mattress.
And now it was running out of battery life, rendering itself even more useless. I sighed, chewing on my lip again and pressing the power button. Swiping the arrow to the right when prompted, I powered the phone off and stowed it away. I had less than five percent battery life and I needed to stretch it as long as possible.
I laid down, the stress of everything weighing on me. I was tired of being strong. Tired of not knowing what was going to happen. Tired of feeling trapped. All hope of escaping on my own was long gone, especially since Joe knew it was on my mind. Watching him switch back to being Jason’s henchman made it clear that his loyalty was firm and intact.
My last remaining flicker of hope was reliant on Derrick.
I prayed he didn’t stop looking.
a
Hours later, there was nothing but darkness behind my eyes. I stopped dreaming after what Jason did to me. Sleeping now was more about repairing my mind rather than revisiting it. As my body slept, my mind remained blank.
Until the tightly bundled blankets were ripped away from me, startling me awake. I looked around, disoriented and blinded by the overhead light. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel him in the room.
The only time I was ever this cold was when he was near me.
“Get up!” he shouted, making me jump.
I scrambled, still unable to see what I was doing and crawled toward the edge of the bed. When I reached it, I drew my legs closer to my body and hid my head behind my knees.
“I said, get up!” he growled, yanking me by the hair.
I screamed in agony, sliding off the bed and onto the floor where he finally released me.
“On your knees.”
I swallowed thickly, rising off my butt and following his directions. My body, still struggling to adjust to being forcefully
awakened, began trembling. My teeth chattered loudly and I balled my fists up, holding them close to my body to try and keep him from noticing how much I was shaking.
My stomach dropped as my ears registered t
he sound of his zipper coming undone. I still couldn’t see properly. The light blinding my eyes and residual sleep making my vision hazy, but I didn’t have to see to know what he was demanding.
“Please don’t make me,” I whispered hoarsely.
“Shut up.”
I pulled my lips in, biting down on them from the inside and closed my eyes tightly. Hoping to God he would change his mind. It had been two days since the first time and I foolishly believed he would come back and be sweet again. Oh, how wrong I was. Right now I needed a miracle. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to be his method for release. It was one thing for Jason to take my body, but another thing to force me to do this. To do something so intimate to him, as if I was a willing participant.
“Open up,” he ordered.
I could feel the warmth of his penis just past my lips. Tears slipped past my tightly closed eyelids as I shook my head sobbing,
“Please Jason, don’t make me do this.”
A loud smack reverberated around the room as his hand collided with my face. I screamed again, the pain making me lightheaded and dizzy. He fisted my hair, yanking my head back painfully, “When are you going to stop fighting me, Alina? I already told you, you belong to me. The sooner you start acting like it, the sooner I can stop being so rough with you.” He released my hair, “Now, I’ve had a long day. Make me feel better.”
I sniffed back and swallowed the nauseated feeling that was coursing throughout my body. My cheek sizzled where he had slapped
me and my scalp was burning from all of the pulling. The flame of hope in my chest died down to barely an ember as I realized that it was foolish to think I’d ever be saved at all.
After hearing that Derrick was looking for me, I felt hope like I’d never experienced before. I imagined him bursting through the doors and carrying me out of the cabin. But the only thing coming toward me was another attack from this monster who claimed to love me. This monster who was adamant about owning every part of me.
It was useless to think anyone, even Derrick, could save me from this monster.
My tongue swiped across my lower lip and I closed my eyes, waiting for him to inch closer to me. He rubbed himself against my mouth. The warm flesh feeling soft against my dry lips.
A groan rumbled out of his chest and he stroked my stinging cheek softly, “Open up for me baby,” he whispered. His voice was softer and more intimate now.
I was about to oblige when the door swung open with a loud clang against the wall.
“Sir, we have a—- oh fuck! I’m sorry sir.”
My eyes popped open just in time to see Joe walk backwards out of the room, one hand shielding his eyes. My miracle.
“Fuck, Joe!” Jason screamed, pulling up his pants roughly and fastening his belt. He started to walk out of the room, but turned and looked at me, still down on my knees in front of the bed, “We will finish this later. I need that pretty mouth of yours on me, baby.”
I dissolved in to a puddle of tears as he walked out of the room, shutting it tightly behind him. I was grateful that Joe had interrupted us, but I knew that meant Jason’s wrath would be much greater the second time around. I may have been saved this time, but miracles didn’t happen twice.
I crawled back onto the bed, hugging my knees close to my body. I let myself cry for a moment. Another hot bath sounded nice, but it couldn’t wash away the shame that was taking up permanent residence within my soul. Nothing would ever take that away.
THIRTY TWO | Derrick
Some days were good. Some days were bad.
And some days were downright awful.
Today started off good, quickly turned bad, and was now spiraling off into awful. None of the leads we followed turned up anything. No one knew what to do next. We were literally at a dead end.
And Rod was still being secretive.
I started walking toward my computer when I made eye contact with Rod. He was back in his corner, sitting casually in the chair with his laptop resting open on his leg. Something about his face made me switch directions and head toward him. He watched me approach over the screen of his computer, his face impassive.
“What are you staring at?” I asked, still slightly annoyed that he’d been keeping information from me. Even though I trusted him, I didn’t like being in the dark. Especially when it came to Alina.
“Anyway,” he said, his tone dismissive.
“You ready to stop keeping secrets from me?”
He regarded me carefully. His eyes sweeping over my face. It was like he was contemplating something.
“Give me a few more minutes.”
I sighed loudly, “What the hell, man?”
“Wait,” he said sternly.
His eyes cut to look past me. I turned to see what he was looking at. Fucking Jason. He showed up again this morning, seemingly interested in what we had found and it was beginning to piss me off. He was glaring at me from across the room, while looking down at some information one of the guys had gathered. The sight irritated the fuck out of me, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I turned my back on him, focusing back on Rod. But even his attention was trained on to Jason.
“Ugh, I wish going to jail wouldn’t completely derail my life,” I grumbled, my fists curling closed at my sides.
“Hmm,” Rod laughed under his breath, breaking his eyes away from him and looking back down at the computer screen.
Rod, ever since I’d known him, was always a man of few words.
He didn’t speak often, but whenever he did it wasn’t to shoot the shit. I came to appreciate that about him, but right now the fury raging inside of me was making me see red even when it came to him.
“Are you done?” he asked finally.
“Done?”
“Stomping around, clenching your fists. Looking like you’re on Mortal Kombat or something.” He chuckled at his own joke.
I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest, “You have no idea how much I want to just beat the shit out of everyone. Including you for being so damn quiet.”
“Yeah yeah, well. Let’s go somewhere else and I’ll fill you in.” He closed his laptop, rising to his feet.
“Somewhere else?”
“Yeah, somewhere private.”
I thought of the only place no one else would go. A few minutes later, we were standing in Alina’s bedroom.
“Alright,” he exhaled, “I wanted to wait until I had all the information before I got your hopes up. Then there were some obvious roadblocks in my way in terms of telling you. But I had a strong hunch a few days ago and I ran with it.”
“And?” I asked, impatiently.
He cut me a look, effectively silencing me.
“The day you called everyone to meet, the only person who seemed nonchalant about this whole disappearance was that Jason guy. It wasn’t until you showed the video that he showed any emotion at all. But his emotion wasn’t right, given the situation. He was mad. And that’s not a typical emotion, no matter what your relationship is with the victim of a kidnapping.
“Everything about him rubbed me the wrong way so I did some digging. Turns out, there is no Jason Robert Brown. At least not prior to twenty years ago. I had some of my guys look into possible aliases and they found a Davin Roberts from Michigan with a long ass rap sheet that is eerily similar to what we have going on here.”
It was like a vacuum had sucked all of the air out of the room.
Everything he was saying made sense, but none of it made sense. I didn’t have a clue at how to begin to process this information.
He set his computer down on a cabinet in the corner of the room, opening up a few files.
“When Davin was in his early twenties, he met a girl named Faye Davis. Faye was beautiful, vibrant, and only sixteen. Apparently, the two of them had a whole Romeo and Juliet, forbidden love kind of situation.
When her parents found out that she was dating a much older man, they basically said the two of them couldn’t be toget
her. Obviously that didn’t sit well with the lovebirds, so they ran away.
“It didn’t take long for the family to figure out what had happened and when they found him, he was charged with kidnapping and sexual misconduct in the third degree. Immediately, he was hauled off to jail while the case was pending, but the parents eventually dropped the charges.”
“What the fuck for?” I asked, my voice coming out louder than I intended. The fury was building, and I was powerless to stop it.
Rod was patient with me, letting my outburst pass, “She killed herself.”
I recoiled as if his words had come to life and slapped me across the face.
Losing Her (Lost and Found Book 1) Page 31