Chapter 16
Ryan
The miles passed, but the scenery was blurry, because I was tearing up and sniffling now. The first time I sniffled, my dad had yelled at me. "Stop your sniffling, boy. This is all your fault. You brought this on yourself. If you had only behaved like a respectable young man, this wouldn't be happening."
I was really scared of what would happen when we got back home. The last time they took me home from college about that alpha I had been dating, they had locked me in the basement. What were they going to do to me now? If they were embarrassed about me being pregnant and unmarried, why were they taking me back home where everybody could see me? I felt so sick to my stomach. I had to swallow back the saliva pooling in my mouth. I was going to puke.
I wiped my face with my hands, trying to keep up hope that someone would do something to save me from them. Lance would know something was wrong when I didn't come home after work. Whenever I go to Marcus's place, I let Lance know. When I don't show up at home, Lance will call or text. Hopefully, I'd still have my phone when he does that. I couldn't believe that I had to actually plan to get away from my parents. After the last time they did this, I never thought they'd do it again.
Time passed and we started to slow down. I looked up and saw the sign pointing to the exit for the town I had grown up in. I leaned my head back against the window. I wondered if I could pound the window and yell for help. It probably wouldn't do any good. No one would believe that my parents had kidnapped me. Hell, I didn't even believe it.
I hoped Lance would tell Marcus as soon as possible when I didn't come home tonight. Marcus had the money and the resources to hopefully figure out where I was. I hoped he did it quickly because my parents were really scaring me. As we got closer to home, I felt sicker and sicker.
We pulled into the driveway. Uncle Joe got out, opened my door, and roughly pulled me out of the car. Uncle Joe was a firm believer in obeying the church to the letter of the law. He wasn't one of those merciful types.
"I'll take him down to the basement."
Well, looked like I was right about the basement. I pulled back against his arm, pushing my feet against the driveway, but my shoes were slick on the bottom and sliding against the concrete. "Help! Help! I-"
Uncle Joe spun me towards him and hit me across the face. He hit me so hard that I would've fallen to the driveway if he wasn't holding my arm. I screamed. My shoulder hurt. The side of my face was so painful I couldn't even move my jaw.
Uncle Joe pulled me back up by my arm and continued to march me to the house. I didn't offer any resistance. I was in shock. My uncle had actually hit me, and I think he dislocated my shoulder. If they weren't afraid to do this out on the driveway, what the hell were they going to do when I got in the basement?Uncle Joe pushed me in front of him, and toward the basement steps. He probably thought that I would walk down the steps in front of him or he didn't know his own strength, because I fell all the way down the stairs from the force. I laid at the bottom, terrified and shaking.
My first concern was for my baby. Had they just caused a miscarriage? Had Uncle Joe just killed my baby? Was that their plan all along? I was too scared to look. I was too scared to move. The door at the top of the stairs slammed and I heard something getting shoved in front of the door. I could barely push myself up. I was shaking so bad.I looked down at myself, but I didn't see any blood. That made me feel a little better. I didn't know how miscarriages happened or if I'd even be able to tell if the fall down the stairs had hurt the baby. I wasn't too far along in my pregnancy, so the baby would probably be ok- at least that's what I was going to tell myself.
I scooted over to the wall and pushed myself up until I was standing. I felt horrible. I hurt so badly in so many places. My face was throbbing where my Uncle had hit me. My back, head, legs, and hipsall hurt. My shoulder was the worst. I couldn't remember the entire fall down the stairs. Maybe I had blacked out from the pain. I had no idea, but I wasn't going to stand here and wait for whatever they were going to do next. I had no idea my parents and Uncle Joe could be this crazy, especially to their own child. I needed to get the hell away from here.
I shuffled into the main basement area and looked up at the window. It looked like there was a wooden board covering it from the outside. Dammit, this is exactly what they did to me the last time. They had nailed boards over all the windows so I couldn't get out. Fuck. It wasn't just me that I was worried for this time, though. I shivered and realized I was freezing. I was shivering so much I couldn't seem to stop. I went into the downstairs bedroom, which used to be my bedroom, and closed the door. I laid down on the bed and rolled up in the covers. I was still shivering. I just stared at the ceiling, unable to fathom what had just happened to me today. What the hell was I going to do? Was I going to be able to survive until Lance realized something was wrong? Would Lance even be able to contact Marcus? I tried to sit up, but I hurt so bad that I fell back down. Moving quickly when you're in pain is a pretty bad idea. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, remembering it was there. I had never been so happy in my life to see my phone. I opened the contacts and pushed Marcus's name. I put the phone up to my ear, waiting to hear that wonderfully sulky smooth voice, the voice of the man who really did care for me. I had no doubt in my mind that he would do whatever he could to rescue me as soon as possible. I couldn't believe I had ever doubted him before.I realized that I hadn't heard any dialing. I pulled the phone away, looking at the screen. No signal. I pushed the button to go back to the home screen and looked for the bars. There were no bars. That's right, the basement was concrete.
I laid my head back down on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling again. I started shaking again. I just let the tears run. I had no idea if anyone would figure out where I was anytime soon.
* * *
Marcus
The P.I. called with Ryan's parent's address as we were on our way to the airport. I was going to have to give him a large bonus after this was over. I just hoped like hell Ryan forgave me.
We had made the flight to Ryan's hometown amazingly fast. It was honestly less a flight than a hop. The car was waiting for us at the other end of the runway. I didn't know what magic Eric had pulled, but he told me he'd take care of the car. Bill jumped in the driver's seat before I could.
"You're no good like this. Plus, I'm used to driving. You just get ready to hop out the second we get there, okay?"
I climbed into the back and Eric took the passenger seat. We had put the address into our phones the second I found out where Ryan's parents lived. All that Bill had to do was start the car and take off. This town was small enough that it wouldn't take very long at all, probably just minutes and we would be there.
"I'm gonna go around to the street behind the house and park. We'll cut through some yards to get to the house. I don't want them to see a strange car pull up outside. Plus, this will give us a chance to look at the back and the sides of the house as we approach. He could be in a shed or inside the house and maybe we'll hear him."
My ice cold reputation was shot to hell by this day. I was hanging on to the door handle for dear life, terrified for Ryan and our baby. I hoped I was making this all up and that my fears weren't real. I didn't want Ryan to be suffering, but I knew that probably wasn't the case.
Lance had also left a voicemail while we were in the air. He went home to find that nothing had been changed. There were no extra glasses in the sink, no clothes strewn about , no suitcases missing. They hadn't stopped at Ryan's apartment before they left. They must have left because Meredith had also left a message that Ryan had not come back to work yet. I didn't know what kind of crazy fucking parents they were to kidnap their own adult child, but in my mind they were the poster children for nutjobs.
Bill slowed the car and parked it on the side of a residential street. "Okay guys, this is how I think we should do this. Eric, you go to the front and baffle them with bullshit."
I smirked because that was Eric's specialty. I was glad Bill used to be in the Navy and could think under stress because my head couldn't focus on anything other than what Ryan was going through right now and how much I wanted to get my hands on his parents.
"Marcus and I will scout around and see if we can figure out where Ryan is being held. If that doesn't work, we'll come to the front and bum rush our way in. Sound good?"
"Do you think we should call the police and let them know what's going on? It wouldn't be good for Ryan for us to get arrested."
Eric had a very good point. If they called the police, we could kiss our rescue of Ryan goodbye.