Chapter 69 – Charlie
CHARLIE
“I can’t watch this.” I shake my head, racing up the stairs listening to the cries and screams that fill the basement until the door shuts behind me.
Leaning over the kitchen sink, I close my eyes and breathe through my nose as saliva pools in the back of my mouth.
When I’m sure I’m not about to puke my guts up, I take a shaky breath and straighten before I make my way back into the loungeroom.
The twins are nowhere to be seen, leaving Dad hunched over his tablet on the couch while Brayden’s mother rocks Sammy whose now asleep in her lap. Brayden look sup, nodding his head and I return the gesture, walking over to Dad.
My entire body deflates as I sit down beside him. This is all starting to feel so hopeless. How is it fair that we just got her back, and now I’ve lost both of them?
Looking over at the reuniting family, Brayden still clings to his mother, talking quietly so as to not wake his brother and I swallow down the bitter taste of envy.
Today feels like nothing more than a complete waste to me, but to them?
Today means everything. They got their reunion and I’m happy for them.
I am. I just…Is it too much to ask that that be us too?
“Brayden told me why you’re here,” the woman whispers, keeping her voice low. “I’m sorry they’re not here.”
“You know him better than we do. Do you have any idea where, or even why, he took them?”
Slowly, almost carefully, she shakes her head. “No…but he’s always been obsessed with her. He used to talk about her all the time, boasting how he was the hero that got to patch her up. How Michael was an idiot who never thought to watch him when he was with her.”
Dad’s fingers stop moving across the screen, the only sign he’s listening, but he doesn’t comment or interrupt and as hard as it is, neither do I. “He’d go on and on about how when she was finally his, he’d keep her better.
“He was so mad when he found out Michael got her pregnant. He was planning on killing him after she gave birth, especially when he almost killed her. Said she wasn’t his to kill. Said he was going to make it look like an accident. Called it poetic justice.” She scoffs, shaking her head.
“Why didn’t you tell someone? Report him?” I ask gently, needing to know.
“You think I didn’t try? That I didn’t go to the police for raping me when I found out I was pregnant? They didn’t believe me. No one did. There was no proof, no record of the surgery or that I was even his patient. They called me unstable, and John threatened to use that to take Brayden from me.
“I had no proof, he made sure of that. It was safer for me, for my family, to just keep my mouth shut. As horrible as it is, it worked. For the most part, he left us alone, I just had to accept his…visits.” She shrugs, and the resigned note in her voice makes me feel like a dick for asking.
In a perfect world, going to the police would work. The horrible people in this world would be behind bars, and everyone would be safe.
But it’s not a perfect world. Mitchell can attest to that. He, more than any of us, has seen how often good people suffer because they don’t have proof of the crimes committed against them.
“Each visit after Michael went silent got worse and worse. A month went by, then two. Two turned into five. When the news broke of her escape, he snapped…I almost lost Sammy that night.” Her hand brushes her stomach, and she looks down at Sammy, brushing the hair from his forehead.
“Then four years ago during one of his visits, he got a call. When he hung up he was so happy, said they found her, and they were willing to give her to him so long as she was never seen again.”
Dad and I share a look, I’m horrified by her story but hope filters through. “Do you know who called him?” Please say yes. Please have a name. Something, anything that we can use to find them.
“He never said who it was,” she answers slowly, like she’s fearing our reactions. “He just left…but it wasn’t her. I don’t know who it was, or what happened, but he came back in the middle of the night, completely unhinged.
“He dragged me out of the house and threw me in the boot of his car. I’m pretty sure he drugged me because the next thing I knew I was waking up upstairs. He told me that if I stepped a toe out of line, then there’s always someone who would appreciate buying a new pet to break in and play with.”
Brayden covers his mouth with his hand, looking as horrified as I feel. What kind of monster threatens to sell his own children?
“I did what I had to, to protect my children.” She shrugs. “I haven’t seen the outside of my room, or John’s, since that night. The only exceptions were when I’d wake up in the basement.”
When her eyes meet mine again, there’s tears and regret in them and I hate that I made her relive all of this. “I don’t know where he is. All I know is two weeks ago he got another call. This time they had proof it was her.
“He’s been paranoid ever since, the smallest things setting him off. He was adamant that nothing would stop him this time. That she would finally be back where she belongs, and this time she’d never leave him.”
“She’s finally where she belongs.”
My eyes widen and I snatch the tablet out of Dad’s hand without explanation, ignoring his complaint.
Pinching the screen, I zoom the map out.
Then out again. My hands shake as I type the address I memorised years ago into the search bar and adrenaline pumps through my system as the little rendering wheel spins.
The second it loads, I’m on my feet, running to the basement and swinging the door open. By the time the door bangs against the wall, I’m already halfway down the stairs, almost tripping over my own feet.
Panting at the bottom, I intentionally avoid looking at the bloodied mess of a man dangling from the ceiling.
“I know where they are,” I announce, turning the tablet around so Mitchell can see the screen. His eyes don’t leave mine as he peels his bloodied gloves and sleeve protectors off, then takes the tablet, finally looking down.
“Where she belongs,” he whispers under his breath, huffing a little as he shakes his head, handing the tablet back before pulling out his phone. He types something into it and shoves it back in his pocket, heading to toward the stairs. “Coming?”
“What about him?” I ask, nodding my head in the direction of the driver I’m still avoiding looking at.
Mitchell shrugs, not bothering to look back at the guy. “He’ll bleed out long before the cleaners get here. Fuck him, let’s go get our family back.”