Page 10 of Lost and Found

“They are nice,” Missy whispered, but her hand was limp in Angela’s grip.

Angela put a hand on Missy’s shoulder, trying to soothe her. But Missy…she…Angela stared down at the woman-child.

There was a stillness to Missy’s features now. No more tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. Her mouth was open, her eyes bright closed as if she’d finally fallen into a deep sleep.

Angela grabbed at Missy’s wrist and felt for a pulse. It was there, but barely! “She needs a hospital!” Angela announced, looking around at the darkened interior as if an emergency room might magically appear.

“I’ll take her,” one of the men announced.

A dark haired man bent low, gently touching Angela’s shoulder. “I’ll get her to the hospital.”

Angela stared at the stranger, her mind telling her to reject his offer. But her heart…something in her heart told her that he was good. He wasn’t like the others. He would get Missy to a doctor, she was sure of it.

A moment later, Angela nodded and pulled back. The dark haired stranger easily lifted Missy into his arms, cradling her carefully. He gave Angela a nod, then walked out the door.

Laura and Danielle bent down, putting their arms around Angela as the three of them sobbed out their relief and grief and anger. They were safe, at least for the moment.

One of the men, Angela had no idea how old he was, handed her an oversized sweatshirt. Seconds later, Danielle and Laura were pulling similar sweatshirts over their nearly-naked bodies as well, still sobbing, but quieter now.

“Ma’am,” one of the men said, all of them standing far back now. “Your feet are bleeding. I have a small bucket of soapy water. Will you…” he started to offer, but then changed his mind. “I’m going to push this closer to you. But I think you need to clean your feet. They’ll get infected if you don’t.”

Angela stared down at her feet. Her captors had taken her shoes, thinking her being barefoot would be a deterrent to her trying to escape again.

Idiots!

They’d kidnapped the wrong girl if they thought something as simple as no shoes would stop her from getting away from them! She’d just passed her tenth birthday, but there was absolutely no way she was going to let those horrible men bring her low!

She looked down at her fingers. They were bleeding as well. Nothing hurt though. Shock, she thought.

Another man held out a towel to her. “Thank you,” she whispered. She slid the bucket closer. “Will you…” she stopped, choking on her words as the enormity of what they’d all just escaped from hit her.

“Obviously, you ladies have endured something…,” the man struggled for words, but said, “horrific. Do you want us to call the police?” one of the men asked, his voice deep, but somehow soothing.

“We’re not going to the police!” Laura announced, her tone furious as she hissed out the words.

The three remaining men nodded. “How about a hospital?”

“No!” all three of them almost yelled, then Laura and Danielle cowered, looking around as the sound reverberated throughout the concrete walls and floor of the building.

Angela lowered her voice as she explained, “If you force us to go to the hospital, the men who did this to us will find us. They did it before when Laura escaped.” Tears were streaming down Angela’s face now, but she sniffed them away, focusing on examining her feet and pulling the large piece of glass out of the bottom of her foot. She’d thought it had been only a rock, but apparently, she’d been wrong! Pulling that large piece of glass out of her food hurt, but she refused to show her pain to anyone. Sniffing again, she continued, “The last time she escaped, Laura headed right for the hospital and some man arrived, telling the nurses and doctors that he was her brother and would take her home to care for her.”

The men’s mouths compressed, but they nodded. “No hospital then,” the one on the left replied. “I’m Marco,” he said, then waved to the empty doorway. “The man who just left is Kasim.” He waved to the man on his right. “This is Dash and that,” he said, gesturing to the man at the end of the line, “is Callum.”

Angela nodded to each of them, but didn’t thank them. As far as she could figure, the four men were kind and gentle, but they still had an appendage between their legs and that meant she would tread carefully.

She shimmied around so that she could put her feet into the soapy water. The cuts almost immediately turned the water a reddish brown as the blood mixed with the dirt and filth. She didn’t care. Nor did she acknowledge the pain. Callum, the one who’d brought her the water, was right. She needed to clean the wounds. No way was she letting a cut food bring her down. This would not be the final chapter in her life!

“I’m going to get you some clean water, okay?” Callum offered, but he remained still, waiting for her agreement before he moved.

“Thank you,” she replied, her voice cracking at the kindness of these men. It wasn’t merely that they weren’t attacking her. It was that they were sensitive enough to understand that any sudden movements would scare them. They understood that Angela, Laura, and Danielle might be “free”, but they were still terrified and traumatized.

Callum stood up and moved towards some mysterious water source but the other two, Marco and…Dash?...remained nearby.

“I’m going to walk over to the window and keep a look out. Is that okay?”

Angela narrowed her eyes at him and he lifted his hands. “Not to keep you ladies in, but to make sure that no one comes here looking for you.”

Angela relaxed again and she nodded. “That would be…” she couldn’t say the last word. “Nice” was no longer a part of her vocabulary.

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