Look After You (36 page)

“She’s fine, she’s safe.”

I close my eyes and exhale a sign of relief. “Thank God,” I say relieved, “I don’t have long, he thinks I’m showering but do you think you can track this phone? I managed to swipe it from him, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take him to realize it’s missing.”

“Yeah, baby, easy. Has he hurt you?” I clench my eyes shut as the visions of the used condom come to the forefront of my mind and the silence that follows, answers his question.
“Motherfucker,” he hisses, but the sound suddenly seems faint; I assume he’s already put me on loudspeaker and is tracking the phone as we speak. Thank the Lord for the marvel of technology.

“Baby, I’m coming for you, just sit tight, I’m not going to let anything else happen to you. I promise.”

“Okay,” I say with a trembling cry.

“I love you,” he exclaims fiercely, and my heart constricts inside my chest because I know he does.

“I love you too, and you, Caleb, I love you both. Please hurry,” I say through a sob, tears falling down my face, quickly disconnecting the call. I stand and with curious eyes I look for a hiding place for the phone, to help Ashton track my location easily through the GPS. My eyes land on the bathtub, and I notice it has a flimsy plastic panel against the tub. I gently push the panel inwards and with a small squeak the panel opens up, revealing a small gap. I quickly slide the phone through the gap and pull the panel back into place barely avoiding trapping my fingers.

Realizing I am quickly running out-of-time to get cleaned up, I strip out of my shredded clothes and jump into the shower. Once I have
scrubbed my entire body clean, thoroughly washed the vomit from my hair in two minutes flat with a grainy bar of soap, I forgo drying and re-dress immediately into my torn shirt that looks more like a crop top and my jeans that chafe against my crotch, a painful reminder of what that
bastard
did to me.

I brush my wet hair through my fingers, and I gasp when I see my reflection in the murky mirror. I barely recognize myself. My eyes look empty and puffy; both sides of my face are extremely inflamed and swollen. One side of my face is full of multicolored bruises that fade just below my eye, and the other side of my face has a large, fresh laceration gaping open against my cheekbone. Through the mirror, I wince when I notice purple bruised indents against my wrist, where the cuffs had cut into the skin. I go to touch the tender wounds when a fist bangs against the door causing me to jolt out of my skin. My heart thumps and crashes against my chest when my eyes fly to the door through the mirror in a panic.

“Ten minutes are up!” I close my eyes, take a deep inhale and after counting down to three, I unlock the door. Without a moments warning I am suddenly being pulled forward and knocked onto my ass.

“Where the fuck is my cell?”

I cower against the wall as he screams viciously in my face. I grasp the thin strands of carpet, trying to hold myself upright. “I d-d-don’t-know.” I groan out in pain when he grabs a clump of my hair into a tight fist and slams my head against the plasterboard wall.

“You’re fucking lying to me! Who did you call?” I shake my head, wincing in pain when he tightens his grip against my hair, my hair burning against my scalp.
“I d-d-don’t know what your t-talking–a-b-b-a-about! I haven’t seen it. I haven’t s-spoken t-to anybody. Ch-check if y-you d-don’t b-believe me!” I stutter as the tears stream down my face. Letting go, he all but launches my head into the wall at full impact, causing me to gasp in pain when a crack tears through my neck. He flies off in search of his phone around the motel room and bathroom. To my relief he comes up empty handed. He hadn’t looked under the bathtub.

“Shit! Where the fuck is it?” he shouts as he searches high and low.

“I don’t know,” I murmur a shaky reply. I sit up from my slouching position, and I massage my agonizing neck, but it only makes the pain even worse. I worry he may have fractured my neck. He turns to look at me, a look of concern flickers in his eyes. Jesus, he has the psychotic personality of Jekyll and Hyde.

“Are you hurt?” I grimace, but n
ot from the agony. He moves to me, and it takes everything within my power not to shudder at his close proximity. He crouches to my level, gently reaching out to stroke my bruised face with his fingertips.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, baby, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just… I thought you took my cell.” He leans into me and presses a kiss against my tender face. My entire insides rattle with panic at his affection and I don’t know how I manage to hold back the bile with the way his stubble irritates my skin.

“Hmm…” I feel my heart crash against my chest when I
hear him inhale. He pulls away, with a creepy smile. “You smell incredibly good,” he echoes the words Ashton had whispered to me before he left for work earlier, before my life took a turn for the worse…to this hell. Those words held perfect memories, but now Avery has ruined them for me.

“I’m going to make it all better…I promise, as soon as we are on a plane, out of this shit hole.” Every
muscle in my body constricts as I focus on his words.
“You’ll see,” he adds, with another stomach hurling kiss.

“W-what d-d you mean p-plane, where are w-we g-going?”

“Somewhere, where we can be together, just the two of us. It will be perfect.” Not only is he psychotic, he’s delusional. I wish Ashton would hurry up; I need to escape this hellhole, right fucking now. Gently he lifts me up and guides me back over to the bed. “I need to head out to make a phone call, I need to handcuff you back up.”

I shake my head hysterically. “N-no not back on the bed please, please?”

He gives me an exasperated glare, dragging me down on the bed with a little extra force.
 
“It won’t be for long, I promise.” Helplessly all I can do is sit back against the mattress, beside the residue of my own guts while he fastens my wrist securely to the metal frame, but this time he leaves my ankles free.

“Don’t miss me too much.” I can’t keep the scowl from my face when he walks away from me. The moment the front door is locked securely, the excruciating pain from my neck causes the tears to spill from my eyes and in a desperate fit of rage I hysterically pull against the cuffs, screaming, thrashing my entire body from side to side, angrily flailing my arms, pulling aggressively against the cuffs, trying my best to
get them off me, but all I manage to achieve is slashing the cuffs further into my wrists and wasting vital energy. When I come to the realization that I don’t have the muscle to break free from my cuffs, I give up and slump frustratedly, and then I break down.

Please hurry, Ashton…

Chapter 25

Ashton

The sound of a phone ringing breaks through the silence. Ava! All three of us instantaneously reach for our cell phones and my heart drops when I realize it isn’t my phone. I watch Caleb from the edge of my seat as he fumbles with his cell, frowning at the flashing screen. “Who is it?” I growl as my mind goes into overdrive.

He shrugs his shoulders and answers
without an ounce of hesitation. “Hello?” I am pressing daggers into Caleb, while I kneed my fists into my thighs, anger and anxiety surging its way through my tense body. Please let this be Ava, please let her be safe. “Ava! Fuck. Are you okay? Where are you?”

I am on my feet before my brain even registers the movement and I almost knock Caleb to the ground when I snatch the phone from him.
 My self-control has gone to shit, and it’s down to this one girl, my girl. “Baby, are you okay? Are you hurt, what’s that bastard done to you?” My heart shoots out from my chest when I hear her voice, but that’s not what has me nearly buckling to my knees; it’s the timid, fragile tone to her trembling whisper. Holy shit.

“Yes I’m okay, just glad to hear your voice.” It
’s obvious that she is anything but okay, and I can hear it through the sobbing she is so desperately trying to hide from me.

“Where are you?” I demand, somewhere between an angry growl and a desperate plea.

“I don’t know, Avery…he…he…brought me to some motel somewhere. Where’s Lily, is she safe?”

“She’s fine, she’s safe.”

I can hear the relief in her voice when she says, “Thank God,” and I can imagine all too well how frantic she must have been, knowing Lily had been left on her own for God knows how long. Jesus, I’m going to gun down that motherfucker when I see him. He’s gonna’ wish he never laid fucking eyes on me. “I don’t have long, he thinks I’m showering but do you think you can track this phone? I managed to swipe it from him, but I don’t know how long it’s going to take him to realize it’s missing.”

“Yeah, baby, easy. Has he hurt you?” I can see Darnell in the corner of my eye
mouthing, “Where the fuck is she?” so I put the phone on loudspeaker, but I don’t miss the silent reply from the other end. I’m going to kill him! A massacre of a kill, where not only will I chop his body limb from limb until the bastard is a mountain of bloody body parts, but I will grate his dick off with a cheese grater until it resembles a pussy more than a cock. “Motherfucker,” I furiously hiss as I search through Caleb’s phone for the tracker Darnell installed a couple of hours ago, for this very reason. Reeling in my anger, I keep my shit together for the sake of Ava. “Baby, I’m coming for you, just sit tight, I’m not going to let anything else happen to you. I promise,” I say this as I click the tracking app open and allow the phone to track my beautiful girl.

“Okay,” she says
 with a shuddering breath, and it kills me to hear her in such pain.

“I love you,” I growl as if it will be the last time I’ll get to say those words but it
’s not going to be the last. I am going to find her, and tell her that I love her, and then I am going to spend the rest of my life telling her I love her over and over again until she gets tired of hearing it and even then I won’t stop telling her that I love her.

I hold the phone out in Darnell’s direction, indicating my girl’s location with a point of my finger, and he is by my side in a less than a second, his radio at the ready.

“I love you too, and you too, Caleb, I love you both. Please hurry.” I grit my eyes closed as the phone call ends with the sound of Ava sobbing. Darnell claps me on the shoulder as he radios over to the authorities.

Then when you think shit can’t get any worse, as we head in the direction of the front door; we come to a standstill when Sebastian walks through it with a confused look on his face.

“Oh fuck,” Caleb mumbles from behind me, watching Sebastian place his duffle bag down beside the door and takes a step closer, his eyes tracing over both Darnell and I before coming to a stop on Caleb.

Darnell looks at me, raising his brows curiously. I briefly glance in his direction before returning my attention back to Sebastian. “Ava’s fianc
é,” I whisper.

I don’t miss the hearty chuckle from under his breath. “No, shit.”

“What’s going on, Caleb?” Caleb steps out in front of me as if shielding me, protecting me. Although Sebastian might have a couple of inches on me, I can certainly handle myself, military training or not.

“
We haven’t got time to explain but Ava’s been kidnapped.”

Sebastian looks ready to blow when Caleb makes a desperate move to slide past
him. He grabs hold of Caleb by the arm. “What do you mean Ava’s been kidnapped?” he roars, confused.

“
I mean she’s been kidnapped, and we’ve just found her location, which we need to get to right now.” Caleb tries to push past him, but Sebastian steps out and pushes him back aggressively.

“
Hold the fuck up, you can’t just tell me the moment I get home after four months on tour that my fiancé has been kidnapped and expect me to understand what you guys are talking about, or who the hell has taken her.” He looks between Darnell and me, almost sizing us up. “Who the fuck are these two chumps?” I can’t help but step forward, my fist clenched at my sides. Darnell forces his hand to my chest and pushes me backwards, glaring at me to chill the fuck out. He’s right. Fuck. I need to calm down. Sebastian doesn’t know shit and for all he knows he’s just wandered into a twilight fucking universe.

“
What the hell’s going on?”

I look at Caleb for guidance, but all he does is shrug his shoulders
. “You need to tell him,” Caleb says quietly, and this just riles Sebastian up even more.

“
Tell me what!” he screams.

“
Her brother has kidnapped her,” I snap.

His eyes darken with con
fusion, taken back by my words. “Avery? I don’t understand.”

I sigh, not really comfortable explaining this without divulging Ava
’s secret, a secret Sebastian knows jack about. I turn my attention to Caleb. “I don’t feel comfortable about this, this should come from Ava.”

“Well Ava isn’t here to tell me is she?” Sebastian roars and it takes all my power not to zero my fist into his face.
 “So you better get talking, now!”

With my anger levels rising, I turn into somebody I don
’t even recognize when I say, “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, man?”

A panicked Caleb gets in-between us when he sees Sebastian take an angry
 step forward. “This is no time to get into a pissing contest, Ashton. Just fucking tell him what he needs to know, so we can go and get Ava!” This snaps me back into focus, and I nod with understanding.

“Who is this guy, Caleb?”
Sebastian asks, and I feel like screaming, ‘the guy that’s been taking care of your girls,’ but I reel it in, it won’t help the situation.

“Look, Ava is in danger, we need to get to her before it’s too late.”

“I don’t understand, how is she in danger? She’s with her brother for Christ’s sake. He’s family.”

“That motherfucker raped her!”

He pales on the spot when I scream in his face, shoving him back with full force. “Is this some kind of sick joke?” Oh yeah, I just love making sick jokes about the woman I love, getting raped by her brother, it’s fucking hilarious.

“I wish! Do you want to know how old she was when she was raped for the first time? She was fifteen
-years-old. Fifteen!”

“No, no I don’t believe you, she would
have told me, I’m her fiancé.” Caleb gives him a sad look. “Is this true?” he asks Caleb.

He
answers Sebastian’s question with a sad grimace, “Yeah, it’s true.”

A wounded look crosses Sebastian’s features as the information sinks in or should I say, outright punches him in the face.

“I don’t understand why she never told me, and why this guy seems to know more shit than I do! What the fuck’s your deal?” he says getting in my face, breathing heavily, nostrils flaring, slamming his chest into mine. “Why are you in my house, telling me shit about my girl?” I make the mistake of raising my eyebrows up suggestively and he launches at me, swiping his fist against my jaw.

I stumble backwards a little disorientated from the heavy blow, but I don’t retaliate.
 “I will let you kick my ass later, but right now we need to get to Ava! So you can either stay and lick your wounds or come with us. It’s up to you, but I’m going. Come on, Darnell.” I don’t wait for a response, I charge out of the apartment with only two things on my mind. One, to save Ava, and two, kill the bastard.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ava

Time feels as if it has come to a standstill as I watch the red digits on the digital clock that sits beside me on a grungy bedside table.

11:45. 11:46. 11:47.

Every microsecond that ticks by feels like an eternity. Every second that passes by feels like the end of time. Every minute feels like a death sentence as I wait and wait and wait.

11:48. 11:49. 11:50.

Where are they? It has to be at least an hour ago since I called Caleb and spoke to Ashton. Where the hell are they? I have to close my eyes and exhale slowly to force my trembling tears at bay.

11:51. 11:52. 11:53.

My line of vision traces from the clock to the front door developing a continuous pattern back and forth wondering who may come through the front door first.

11:54. 11:55. 11:56.

As the minutes continue to tick by, the hope I have of Ashton coming to find me is diminishing, to the extent I have already convinced myself he isn’t coming. That feeling only increases the moment my body jumps at the sound of a key turning in the door only to reveal my brother. I have to hold back my trembling tears again when he sits beside me, trailing his finger across my face, his eyes piercing fiercely into mine.

“
Everything is sorted; we have a flight in a couple of hours. Then we can finally get out of here and be together without anybody interfering, just me and you, baby.”

No, no
, please no, I whimper internally to myself as I feel my tears break through. Ashton you need to hurry up, I need you....

He leaves me still chained to the bed to retrieve a bag from the other side of this tiny-boxed motel room and returns. I watch as he unzips the rucksack, and takes out a blond wig, the type that only a hooker would be seen dead in, along with some freshly cleaned hooker clothes and a passport. Shit.

“You’ve been missing for a while; I can imagine you have people looking for you, especially your boyfriend and that faggot friend of yours.” I feel my insides clench at the derogatory insult aimed at Caleb, and the vile hatred I already feel for my brother has just quadrupled. I hate homophobic people, especially those who insult one of the most important people in my life.

“
I can imagine the police are already out there looking for you, so we need a disguise and we need to get rid of everything that screams...
Ava.
” I shudder at the way his eyes travel down the curves of my body, and I have to stop the bile from rising when his fingertips trail down my breastbone. Ashton, please hurry, we’re running out of time.

“With a new disguise you need a new identity…” He pauses to take hold of the passport, opening it up to reveal an image that resembles me, if only I had blonde hair that is. Looking closer an inaudible gasp escapes me when I realize that the blonde
girl in the photograph is, in fact, me. Shit, how in the world is that possible?

Jessica Walz…

I violently shake when my eye line follows the name on the passport. This can’t be happening, please, no, no, NO! He leans over me, presses his lips delicately against mine. I slam my eyes shut with disgust as the tears stream down my face.

“Look at me.” My eyes flutter under his scrutiny, and the
 intense glare feels like a bullet to the chest as panic surges through me. “You’re all I have now, Ava, and I love you so damn much.”

When I was a small child, those words would have filled my heart with such happiness, hearing my brother say he loved me. Hearing those words today though, coming from a psychotic, warped, repulsive man with a sociopathic mind, leaves me wishing I had a sharp object so I could jam it directly into the artery I can see pumping in the side of h
is neck. With all the years’ of pent up anger, hatred and sleepless nights riddled with nightmares, I would twist and twist the blade and watch him bleed out until he became an unmoving corpse.

Through my disturbing thoughts,
I don’t even realize he’s removed the cuffs from my wrists until I am standing on my own two feet.

“Change,” he commands and under humiliating scrutinizing I have to undress and change in front of him. Once I have my panties and bra on, I
 move to put on the ridiculous leather pants when the sound of Macklemore’s Thrift Shop comes from the bathroom.