Chapter 25
Declan:
Water swooshes down my throat in icy cold gulps as I slam the perspiration covered glass down on my kitchen counter, the noise reverberating the room, a pale comparison to my mother's endless pounding on my
Chapter 26Ella:A boundless bottomless ache sits somberly in my chest as I lay in my mom's bed. Silently my tear ducts leak and soak her pillow all the while watching&
Chapter 27Wes:It only took Thomas a few minutes to pick the lock of the door, as he talked lightly about the times they used to play in the sandbox building homes for
Chapter 28Declan:Slamming my apartment door shut, I chuck my keys on the table itching to break something, anything at this point.
Chapter 29Ella:One week later.I'm a hole, a pit, a depthless cavity. A spiral of dark twisting deep inside of me. Hours feel like days. Days feel like weeks, and weeks feel like months. My mother is gone, Declan is gone, and pieces of me are gone. Stolen, taken, kidnapped. The same three words said multiple times a day, multiple times an hour. Shredding my ears and my heart and my mind into something dark, something critical, something desperate. And I don't think I've ever been so pathetically desperate in my life.Day by day, Declan's heartbreaking face lights up the tv screen on channel ten news right beside my mothers. His eyes of green forests and vast beautiful grasslands are not the
**Trigger Warning** (abuse) If that makes you uncomfortable please skip this chapter.Chapter 30Declan:My eyes shoot open as my body becomes fucking frigid. Extremely gelid water being thrown onto my bare skin feeling like shards of ice piercing into my flesh. Like millions of needles poking and poking and poking. A choked gasp falls right past my lips as my body immediately begins to convulse in uncontrollable shivers causing my teeth to chatter. The water is so extremely cold it burns as if blue blazing fire is covering me from head to toe. Between gasped breaths, I recognize the two men showering me in Arctic water, my cousin Matthew and Julian's right-hand man Jason.Directly in
Chapter 31Ella:Picking myself up off the floor, scrubbing away my tears, I gaze blankly at Olivia with only one thing on my mind. "I'm going to Declan's apartment," I state, my voice hollowed out. Every single emotion weaving around my brain is pushed back the moment I'm standing. Crying isn't going to help Declan or my mother. Self-loathing isn't going to get me any closer to finding them. They need me, not the weak pity party me, they need the put-together me. I'm done crying. I will not cry again, not until they're found. I vow it to myself and them.I'm done waiting, I'm done being helpless. Every second that passes could be another second of them being harmed. I will not waste any more time, too much time has passed already. Who knows what condition they're in? I'm g
Chapter 32 Ella: The front desk is nearly as tall as my chest, made only so the person behind the clear glass attached to the wooden wall dividing us can only see my face with the exception of a small square opening so they can hear people talk. It's more of an office with desks littered with papers and stacked filing cabinets behind it. The secretary on the other side of the glass is typing on the computer as I halt my steps, while another woman sits near the back wall behind her and licks the top of an envelope then presses down on the white paper to seal it. For some reason the envelope catches my eye giving me a sense of déjà vu. It makes me think back to when I came home one night after soccer practice and my mom was drinking. She had a torn op
Ella: Two hours later I'm in the back seat of an undercover police car with Olivia and Declan's mom driving to an ordinary neighborhood just fifteen minutes away with strict directions to not leave the car. Declan's location has been confirmed by the spies sent out an hour earlier to watch the house that was a suspected location. They've taken pictures, showing four people who stand on watch outside the house, two in front and two in back. Which is enough evidence to know the house isn't an ordinary house. Normal people don't have bodyguards outside their doors. And normal people don't talk about who they are torturing in their basement. Torture.Declan was being tortured,hasbeen being tortured for just over a week. Hearing it crushed me, it nearly had me on the edge of a meltdown bu