After her morning ritual of a shower and a facial, she changed into a pair of white jeans and a powder blue sweatshirt. Ava placed her tan leather crossbody bag across her shoulder and retrieved her keys from the counter. She stepped out on the front porch and noticed the dark clouds in the sky. She then recalled the weatherman’s forecast of evening showers. Great! Nothing worse than a chilly rainy day! Ava grabbed her umbrella just in case the sky opened up before she returned home. When she reached her car, she typed in the nearest lingerie shop in her GPS. She had to plan the perfect night for Brandon.
Thirty minutes later, she arrived at a boutique nestled in a strip mall amongst a consignment shop, a shoe store, and a children’s clothing store. She walked across the parking lot and made a mental note to tell Tess about the consignment shop for her reselling business. Ava entered the boutique where a short, older female was eager to assist her.
“Lookin’ for something special, sweetie?” she asked, with a grin that made the wrinkles around her eyes more prominent.
“Yes,” she said timidly. It made her uncomfortable to browse through lingerie with someone the same age as her mother.
“Don’t be shy. Is it for your boyfriend?”
“Well, he’s an ex and we’re sort of reconciling.”
“Ah, I have just the item for you.” She searched through the carousel rack while Ava waited and glanced around the shop. She preferred to shop alone in silence but didn’t want to be rude. “Here ya go.” She held up a long white satin nightgown that appeared to stop at your ankles.
“It’s beautiful, but I was looking for something a little sexier. Like that one.” She pointed to a red lace bustier with garter hooks on a mannequin.
The woman winked her right eye and smiled. She led Ava to a rack on the opposite side of the store and held up two corsets one in white and the other wine-colored and black. The wine and black number immediately caught Ava’s eye. It had a soft bony frame, with black lace-up straps in the back, with an included black lace thong. “This one is perfect.” She grabbed the outfit from the woman’s hand. Ava selected a pair of black thigh-high stockings to complete the look.
By the time she finished shopping the rain began. She opened her umbrella and ran to her car. She then texted Brandon to verify the time he would be off duty. With five more hours to spare, she stopped at the grocery store and a home accessory store for scented candles.
When she reached Brandon’s house the light rain had turned into a downpour. Ava spent the rest of the day preparing for the night. The food simmered on the stove, soft music played in the background, and she had put on her special outfit. She took selfies of herself from two different angles and sent them to Brandon with a text that stated— Hurry home! He responded with a winking, tongue wagging emoji.
She sat on the sofa with a glass of wine, while the rain pattering against the window played like a symphony. Eager to get the night started she checked the time on her phone. 5:20 pm.
Bored. Ava reached for the television remote on the table. It fell from her hand and onto the floor when a loud boom from outside startled her. Within seconds the entire room fell into complete darkness. The lone source of light illuminated from the flickering flames of the gas stove. She remained calm. Her first thought was the breaker must’ve blown. Ava turned on the flashlight option on her cellphone and checked the breaker. Nothing tripped or seemed out of the norm. She wandered out of the garage and thought to herself what to do. She turned off the gas in the kitchen and her next thought led her to call the power company to check for an outage. A nice lady had informed her a tree had hit a transformer, and the power could be out for hours.
Ava fell onto a chair hoping her plans weren’t ruined. She sent Brandon another text to tell him about the power, he told her to sit tight until he got home. He was still hours away from getting off. By then the house would feel like an igloo from the lack of heat. Just then she recalled he kept firewood in the shed for the fireplace. At the very least, she could start a fire to warm the front of the house. To get the wood meant she had to drive down to the barn in the pitch black, navigate in complete darkness, and load the wood into her car. Or she could wait for Brandon. Without haste, she changed into a pair of jeans and a shirt, topped it with a raincoat, and made her way down the makeshift driveway made of gravel and dirt.
This is crazy! The windshield wipers moved at a rapid pace, while the pouring rain made it difficult to see. When she reached the barn doors, she left her car running and turned on the flashlight. Her heart raced a million miles as she ran inside. Get the wood and get the hell out! She swept the light from the flashlight around the space. The riding mower sat in the center. Several workbenches and toolboxes made up one wall. While the other wall had cardboard boxes stacked against it. She shone the light towards the back and expelled a sigh of relief when she saw the piles of chopped wood. Just a few steps forward. Ava made her way towards the back wall, still waving the light back and forth in case something jumped out of the darkness. That’s when she saw a closed door to the left. She stopped in her tracks and thought for a moment. She didn’t recall seeing a door the one other time she’d been in the barn. Curiosity got the best of her, and she moved towards it. She placed her hand on the steel doorknob and turned. It’s locked. She frowned and glanced over at the firewood. Ava bit down on her lower lip as she contemplated if she should continue her quest or get the wood and run. She didn’t come down here to play detective. She stepped away, but her intuition screamed at her to open the door. Her eyes shifted to a row of cabinets and drawers. Beginning with the top, she searched for keys or anything to pop open the lock. Maybe she watched too much television, but they always made picking a lock look easy. After rummaging through the first cabinet, she found a lantern more powerful than the flashlight on her phone. She slipped her phone into her rain jacket and turned on the lantern’s high beam. Ava used the light to search the bottom drawers. Bingo! She found a keyring with a set of five keys. One appeared to be for the lawn mower’s ignition, the next three she had no clue, but the fifth one was made for a door.
The key slid into the lock with ease. Ava turned the knob and crept open the door. It revealed a narrow stairway. One by one she descended into darkness. Each wooden stair creaked beneath her every step. Another door met her at the bottom stair. It had a sliding lock on the top corner. Her hand trembled as she slid the lock to the left. She swallowed hard before placing her hand on the doorknob. The door opened to an eerie quietness. She descended the five additional stairs into the room. Once inside, the lantern swayed in her hand as she moved it from side to side. That’s when she saw movement in the room’s corner beside a cot. She kept the light fixated on what she saw. Not sure if her eyes had deceived her again. Ava inched closer, her breath quickened, and heart slammed against her chest. She closed her eyes to clear the false image they revealed. She reopened them, but it was still there. A man crouched on the floor with his head held down. Before she could get any closer, the lights flickered on which caused the man to move his head upward. She froze, and the lantern crashed to the floor. “Justin?”
Chapter Twenty-eight
The man before her wore dirty plaid pajama bottoms, and a torn t-shirt that was no longer white. Overgrown dark-brown hair fell over his eye, an unkempt beard outlined his jaw, and bruises and a black-eye covered his face. Without taking her eyes off the man, Ava inched closer. He stood and eyed her with a weak smile. With less than a foot between them, the muscles in her face trembled and gave way to a floodgate of tears. The man reached forward and with a familiar touch he cupped her left cheek.
“Hi, beautiful,” he said, barely above a whisper. She closed her eyes as he caressed her face, wondering if this was all a dream. When she reopened them, he was still there smiling down on her.
“Please tell me this is real. Is it really you?” she asked.
“It’s me,” he said.
“Oh God, Justin!” She wrapped her arms around him. “What are
you doing here?”
He grimaced. “Where do I begin?”
She backed out of his arms. “How did you get here?”
Instead of answering her, he retreated to the cot with his eyes fixated on the concrete floor.
With his every movement, the sound of metal scrapping the floor filled the quietness. Her eyes followed the thick chain from the leg of the cot to Justin’s ankle. “Who chained your leg?”
“Brandon.”
She wiped her wet cheeks. “Brandon? What are you talking about?”
Justin told a tale of how Brandon came to his house in the middle of the night. It was the last night she and Justin had spent together. Brandon had told Justin he wanted to clear the air between them and convinced him to step outside to speak in private. Once outside, Brandon punched him in the gut, moved behind him, and forced him onto the ground. He then handcuffed him, placed him in the back of his car, and has kept him in his underground bunker ever since.
Ava shook her head in disbelief. It sounded too insane to be true. She didn’t know if this was another one of Justin’s lies to place blame on Brandon, or another layer of his deceptive plot with his stepfather.
“None of what you’re saying makes sense. You expect me to believe Brandon kidnapped you and imprisoned you for two months. Why would he do this?”
Justin looked up at her. “Why do you think? What is the one thing he wants more than anything?”
“You’re wrong,” she scoffed. “He wouldn’t do something like this!”
He rose and reached for her arm. “I realize how it sounds, but you need to ask yourself why would I be here. Why would I keep myself chained in a hellhole?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you’re fugitive and needed somewhere to hide.”
He eyed her intently. “Fugitive? What are you talking about?”
“Everyone knows what you’ve done, Justin. You killed your stepfather, Phillip Ramsey.”
Justin fell back onto the cot with his hands pressed against his ribs. A pained expression filled his face.
“Are you okay?” Ava rushed to his side.
“Just a little achy.”
“Let me see.” She lifted his shirt and viewed in horror at the blue and black marks covering his pale skin. “Who did this to you?”
“I know you don’t want to believe it, but Brandon is responsible for all of this. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“The problem is you already have.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not important right now. I need to get you out of here and have your injuries checked out.”
“The hospital?”
“No, there’s a warrant out for your arrest. I know someone who can help us. Can you walk?”
“Some. There isn’t anything in here to bust this chain. I filled my days searching for a way out of here.”
Ava lifted his pant leg and her hurt sunk. The leg iron was like the typical shackles used on prisoners, except these had about five feet of chain links between the two cuffs. One was attached to his ankle and the other to the leg of the cot. She reached for the keyring praying one of the keys would unlock the shackles. With three unknown keys available, one by one she tried each key getting lucky on the third try. Justin stood with his arm rested on Ava’s shoulder.
“My car is right outside. We have two flights of stairs to climb first.” With the weight of his body against hers, Ava helped him stand and as they turned around, that’s when she noticed something she hadn’t before. A group of individual monitors placed along the wall. She moved closer to the multiple screens. There was a view of every room in Brandon’s house except for the bedrooms and bathrooms.
“He wanted me to watch the two of you. He’d said he wanted me to witness the moment you were no longer mine.”
Ava remained silent as she helped Justin out of the underground bunker. She fumed inside. Both men in her life had lied and completely betrayed her. The problem is she didn’t know where one lie ended and the other began. Regardless of how she felt at the moment, she had to help Justin.
They drove in silence to the one person Ava could count on for help. Justin tried to make conversation by pleading his case, but she told him she wasn’t interested in hearing his side. She only wanted to deal with what’s important, and at the moment, that was his injuries.
“Wait here,” she said, parked in the driveway.
“Where are we?”
“A friend’s house. Don’t get out until I return.” Ava exited the car and ran to the front door with the rain tumbling upon her. She rang the doorbell twice before Meghan answered.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were stopping by.” She wore a plush pink robe with matching slippers.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure, what’s going on?”
“I’m about to ask for a huge favor, one that requires complete discretion.”
“Okay, you have my attention. What do you need?”
Ava took a deep breath. Once she asked for her help, Meghan will become complicit in hiding a fugitive. “Justin is outside in the car, and he needs help.”
Meghan didn’t respond, she instead peered out the window. “Where has he been?”
“It’s a long story, but he needs help. Will you help us?”
“Of course, go get him.”
Ava patted her shoulder with a thin smile. “Thanks.” She ran outside and made sure no one was out who could identify Justin. Once she verified the street was clear, she helped him inside and onto a chair in Meghan’s living room.
“My God, what happened to you?” she asked.
“Justin, you remember my good friend, Meghan, right?”
“Hi, we’ve run into each other a few times at your office.”
“We can trust her.” She turned to Meghan. “He’s hurt with bruises on his body. I need you to look at his injuries and bandage him up.”
She eyed Ava with confusion. “He needs a doctor, something I’m not.”
“I can’t take him to the hospital, they’ll arrest him. That’s why I brought him here.”
“But, I’m not a doctor, Ava.”
“I realize that, Meghan!” Both she and Justin stared at her. She stood with her fist balled and her jaw clenched. The anger inside her had boiled over and she could no longer contain it. She stepped away and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I appreciate whatever you can do.”
Meghan shrugged. “There isn’t anything I can do about his injuries.”
“Didn’t you once say you had enrolled in a nursing assistant program?”
“That was a long time ago, and I only lasted a year.”
“Meghan, please,” she begged, only seconds away from dropping to her knees. “You’re my only option. Between what you learned in school and the internet, I’m sure we can help him.”
“I’ll be right back.” She exited the room and proceeded down the hall.
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” whispered Justin.
“Don’t worry, she’ll help us.” Ava glanced at her vibrating phone. Brandon sent her a text stating he was on his way home. “I have to leave soon. Brandon is on his way home.”
“You’re not going back there!” Justin attempted to rise from the chair, but she placed her hand on his shoulder to keep him calm.
“I have to.”
“After what he’s done!”
“Right now, I don’t know who to believe.”
“How can you say that?”
“Justin! I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, guys. I’ll do my best,” said Meghan, who held a first aid kit in her hand. She also changed out of her robe and replaced her attire with a pair of shorts and a Van Halen shirt. She applied alcohol to Justin’s face with a cotton swab, followed by an ointment and a bandage.
“His ribs are also bruised.”
Meghan lifted his shirt and gently pressed against his ribcage causing him to flinch. “From what I can tell they don’t appear broke
n. It’s just bruised. I can wrap it and give him pain relievers. However, I am not a doctor. He can be dehydrated or have internal injuries.”
“Whatever you can do until I see a doctor is fine,” said Justin.
“Wait, a minute.” Ava reached into the pocket of her raincoat to retrieve her phone. “We need to document his injuries before you bandage him.”
“Good idea.”
Ava snapped photos of his black eye and the injuries to his torso. “I’ll place these in a password-protected folder.” She placed her phone into her purse. “I’m sorry guys, but I have to get going.”
“You’re leaving?” asked Meghan.
“Brandon is on his way home.” Ava noticed the frown on her face. “I’ll come by first thing in the morning. I’ll stop somewhere and buy you a change of clothes and whatever else you may need,” she said to Justin.
“Do you mind if I speak with her in private?” Justin asked Meghan.
“No, I’ll get medication for your pain.”
Once she was out of earshot, Justin turned to Ava who stood over him. “Don’t go back to him. You’ve seen what he’s capable of. If you leave, I can’t protect you.”
“I don’t need protection from Brandon, he’ll never hurt me.”
“He already has by what he’s done to us.”
Ava gripped her keys tighter in her hands. “Tell Meghan I’ll see her in the morning. Get some rest.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Betrayed by You Page 17