17. Chapter 17
Melanie woke up in a room with a lamp on beside her. The sheets felt scratchy against her skin, nothing like how her bed felt. Her head was pounding, and she squinted against the light. Rolling over to get away from it was worse because when her eyes finally focused, there were hundreds of pictures of herself all over the wall. Then it all came back to her, there was a noise in her apartment. She got up to see what had fallen, but then something hit her over the head. Now apparently, she was here.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She sat up on the bed and looked down. At least she still had on her pajamas. That was a relief. God, she had been a stubborn idiot. Look where it had gotten her. Last night she wanted to make Levi mad. To go against what everyone had been telling her because she was at her wit’s end. Being locked away in the headquarters building for over a week, not even getting to feel the sun on her skin except through a window, was driving her crazy.
She wanted Levi to come over and be pissed at her. She wanted to argue and yell and put her feelings out there. To get them to admit what the hell it was they were doing! It was frustrating because for the past week they hadn’t really talked. One day it was her avoiding. The next day it was him. The sex was great. It was really great actually. But they weren’t confronting the things they needed to. They weren’t communicating. Conversations about work, about food, about anything that didn’t mean actually talking about anything of substance. It was like they were stuck in a holding pattern and couldn’t move forward until all of this stalker stuff was over.
It looked like Kenneth had made his move. Now she was going to have to make it out of this fucking room alive if she wanted any chance of finding out if there was a life for them or even a future at all. Right now it didn’t feel like it. There were no windows. Getting up from the bed, her arm hurt and she looked at it to find an enormous bruise on it. Behind the only door in the room, was a bathroom. Better than having to use a bucket like she had seen on true crime TV shows.
There was a small window with bars over it above the shower. From what she could tell it was daylight outside. That was good. If it was night, that would make everything seem worse for some reason. Back in the bedroom, if thats what it really was, she looked around. There was just a full size bed with terrible scratchy pink sheets, a rickety-looking nightstand with an annoyingly bright lamp, and a chair. It was functional and not at all comfortable. There was also a camera up on the wall by the door that she was assuming was the exit. Feeling more than a little pissed off and annoyed with this whole situation, she flipped the camera off with both hands. If she made it out of this alive, she was probably going to need therapy just to have her picture made or to take a selfie.
“Ok,” she said to herself and sat down on the bed to face away from the camera. All the bullshit crime, detective, and horror novels and shows she’d read or watched over the years had to pay off now. One time, she imagined what she would do in this situation because half the time the women who were kidnapped or tortured acted like morons in all the stories. If this was how she was going to die, then it would not be as a scared little bitch that didn’t try to escape. From what she knew, Levi didn’t know where Ken had been trying to lie low. Therefore, the chances of a rescue were slim to none. It was going to be up to her to save herself.
Just for fun, she got up and turned the handle on the door since it didn’t look like there was a deadbolt or anything. To her surprise, it turned. Pulling the door open though she was met with bars like a prison cell that were padlocked shut. Beyond the bars was a warehouse. It looked empty except for a shipping container.
“Kenneth!” She yelled out just to see if he was around. There was only silence. As she shook the bars, her heart raced faster. If he was gone, this was her chance but there was no way out that she could see. “Fuck!”
Because the camera pissed her off, she ripped the lamp out of the outlet and used it to knock the stupid flashing light right off the wall and onto the floor. Then she picked it up and threw it against the wall next to the prison bars. It was hard enough to knock a hole in the plaster. The rest of the walls in the room were metal, but apparently this one wasn’t. That was her chance.
Grabbing the lamp off the floor, she started hitting the wall where she’d made a hole. By the time she could fit half her body through, she was sweating and so hopped up on adrenaline that nothing was going to stop her. Her hand was bleeding where the lamp had split and cut it. With a final push with her foot, she cleared enough room to slide through.
Running toward the only door she could see there was the sound of a door slamming somewhere. There was no time to look. She smashed right through and out onto the rough gravel. Barefoot and not feeling the sharp rocks under her, she raced toward the treeline. If she could get far enough away from the building, then she knew she had a chance. The sound of rocks flying behind her, made her turn her head just enough to catch a glance. Kenneth had been chasing her, but he stumbled and smashed into the rocks.
Melanie faced forward again and ran as fast as she could. Her muscles were straining. It felt like her lungs were going to explode, but there was no way for her to stop. She wanted to live. No one else was going to save her. It was up to her. No army was coming for her. There was no such thing as superheroes. All she had was herself.
Making it into the trees, there was no time to think. She zigged and zagged and hopped over a log. There was no sort of path to follow. Only her instinct, telling her where to go. Over the sound of her own breathing and her heart racing in her chest, she couldn’t tell if Ken was still following her. This was like a scary movie but real life. She knew not to stop. They always caught the victim when they stopped. If she had to, she was going to run until her fucking lungs exploded.
Levi was pacing up and down the lobby waiting for news, a phone call, someone to find a clue, or even lightning to strike him down. There was nothing he could do. Melanie had been missing for fourteen hours. If he stopped pacing, his mind was going to explode with all the terrible things that could happen to her. He only hoped that Kenneth ‘really loved her’ and wouldn’t want to harm her. If she was killed because he had been an idiot and left her alone because of his own fucked up mind, Levi would never forgive himself.
Between him and DeLaney, almost every inch of Berkland was under video surveillance. But that didn’t seem to matter. Every picture he had put into facial recognition had failed. There was absolutely no sign of Melanie or Kenneth anywhere in the city. Ken was smart. He hadn’t made any of this easy on them. There was no reason to think he would be dumb enough to take her into public. Plus, Melanie was a fighter. She was tough and opinionated. It would take time to make her compliant.
The bigger problem was that it had been fourteen hours. They could be anywhere by now. Nothing guaranteed them they would still be in Berkland. His only hope of finding her was that Andrea’s connections would pan out. No one had a farther reach. If even one junkie who knew somebody in one of the gangs had seen something, it would get back to her. She had put out the call. Now Levi was just praying that someone answered it. If they didn’t, he was going to go absolutely crazy.
It felt like hours had passed but she knew it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, maybe twenty if she was lucky. Her body ached against the strain of running. The only choice she had was to stop and see if she was still being chased. The pain in her feet told her they were going to be destroyed and when the adrenaline wore off they were going to hurt like all get out. Making it down one more steep section, she dove off behind the biggest tree she could see. Her breathing was out of control, but she listened the best she could.
When there were no branches snapping or rocks flying, she took the chance and peeked around from side to side. He was nowhere in sight. Resting her head against the tree, she focused on her breathing, closing her eyes when she caught sight of the blood on her legs and feet. Now was not the time to panic.
“Melanie!” Was yelled from somewhere in the distance. He was still further up the mountain. Maybe to her right, it was hard to tell.
Her bright blue pajama shirt probably wasn’t helping things. The shorts were black which was fine. She stripped off the top and rubbed it around on the ground until it was dirty and muddy. Her breathing was still way too fast, but she couldn’t stop now. This was her only chance. If he caught up, this was all for nothing. Slipping the disgusting shirt back over her head, she took as deep of a breath as she could and took off again.
If this was Crescent Peak, the mountain that Berkland sat at the base of, then the warehouse she had been in was the old snow plow storage building. That was the only option. Other than the Blue Wolf Lodge, there was nothing this high in the trees. If she was right, then there was a road that the plows used to get up to the summer storage area further west. The Lodge was that way too. If she was wrong and they were on a different mountain somewhere further in the range, then she was royally fucked. All she knew was Berkland. She was born and raised here. As a teenager, they used to come park up on the plow road and make out or drink beer. If she could find the road, then she could find a way home.
At hour sixteen, Andrea walked into the lobby of HQ. He stopped and stared at her. “Your phone is dead. I’ve been calling you.”
He looked at the phone in his hand. She was right. “What is it?”
“Come on.” She walked back outside and got in the car. He hopped in behind her. “Let’s go.”
“What did you find out?” When he looked over at her, he realized that there were two cars following them and there was another in front of them. He ripped the radio off his pants and noticed it was dead too. Whatever had happened he missed it.
“Luciano says one of his contacts who just happened to be in the area a few days ago,” she rolled her eyes as she spoke, “noticed a guy who looked like a weasel up at the salt mill.”
“Weasel? How do you even know that’s him?” He furrowed his brow. Ken was a dork, but he didn’t look like a weasel.
“Trust me, it’s him.”
He didn’t like the sound of that or the way she said it, but who was he to doubt her with something like this? As they turned up the old logging road, he could only pray that Melanie was still ok.