Page 14 of Release Me Not

“Help me!” I scream, stopping at a small window where a woman sits, her eyes focused on a computer in front of her. She doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by me running in here, yelling and pounding on the glass that separates us.

My hand flies up, banging on the glass, my voice loud in the quiet stillness of the small entryway. She looks up, her eyes going wide when she finally takes me in.

I have no idea what I look like, but I know there is dried blood somewhere on me and there’s no way I look like I did when I left for Ethan’s house.

“You have to call the police!” I scream, my voice a strangled plea for help. “Tell them to go to the Redwood Motel. He might still be there!”

“Calm down,” the woman says, tossing a hand up like she’s signaling for someone behind her. “The Redwood Motel has been abandoned for years.”

“I know that!” I shout, my hands holding onto the small counter in front of me, steadying myself. “He took me there. He held me hostage there. He might still be there. Go!”

“Who is he?” she asks, and she’s asking too many questions. She can see something is wrong, but she isn’t helping.

“I don’t know! The man who kidnapped me!” Just as the words leave my mouth, my knees begin to shake, the room takes on this eerie haze of darkness creeping in and I blink, trying to clear it.

“What’s your name?” the woman asks, but her words sound distant and garbled. I open my mouth to answer, letting out only the first letter before I feel my body give out, collapsing on the floor.

I wake up in the dark, the scream leaving my mouth before I even realize it. It was all a dream, I didn’t escape like I thought I did, and when I yank my hand, I realize the handcuff is still attached to something. I scream again, this time louder, the tears spilling from my eyes, and it takes me a second to realize I’m in a bed. But it’s not my bed, it’s a hospital bed.

The sound of beeping fills the room, getting louder and then the room is suddenly filled with a blinding white light as a woman rushes in.

“She’s awake!” she calls out, coming to my bedside. She’s dressed in pale blue scrubs and her blonde hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail.

“Take this off!” I wail, yanking my hand that is cuffed to the bedrail. “Where am I? Where’s my family?”

“I can’t take that off, dear,” she says sweetly as she begins looking at the monitors I’m hooked up to. “Only the police can,” she adds, and I have no idea why she’s being so casual about everything.

A few seconds later a uniformed officer enters the room, stopping in the doorway to listen to something that comes through on his radio.

“Help me!” I call to him. “Take this off. Why…” I trail off, watching his face, stoic and unreadable as he walks over to me.

“You showed up at the Redwood fire station in a stolen vehicle,” he replies, his words almost spit out with hatred like I’m a fucking criminal.

“You’ve got it all wrong!” I wail, desperate to explain things, and I shift to sit up, a pain radiating through my head, sending me back down onto the pillow. I close my eyes, willing this nightmare to go away.

“The car you were driving was reported stolen from the parking garage at the Peak Valley Resort,” he replies, pulling out a small pad of paper and a pen.

I don’t want to use this, but it feels like I have no choice. No one here seems to care that I was the victim in this situation. They’re asking all the wrong questions, not caring in the least that I have injuries and am obviously a mess.

“It wasn’t my car,” I say, my words a desperate plea to explain myself. “I took the car from the guy who kidnapped me. He was holding me hostage at the Redwood Motel. You can go there and look.”

It feels like I’m stuck in some nightmare of a small town where everyone is trying to cover something up. I still don’t know where I am and how I even got here. The last thing I remember is arriving at the fire station and having a similar conversation. My head is foggy, feeling like I could sleep for a good twelve hours, making it difficult to tell them what has happened.

“The Redwood Motel was abandoned years ago,” he answers back, and I swear these people are a fucked up mess.

“I know that! Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who my family is?” I scream, hating that I’ve resorted to this. “I’m certain they’ve reported me missing. You’ve got this all wrong.” The tears are pouring from my eyes, thinking that once I got away, I would be safe, but that isn’t happening.

“You had no identification on you when we took you in,” the police officer says. “Care to fill us in?” Again, his words are harsh and accusing, like I’ve done something wrong. “And you were driving a stolen car.”

Rage fills my body, hot and boiling, wanting to jump up from this bed and scream in this guy’s face. He isn’t hearing me; he isn’t listening to what I’ve told him. Why the hell would I steal a car and then drive to a fire station and turn myself in? I clench my teeth, my head begins to throb, and I fight back the tears of anger that fill my eyes.

Oh my fucking god, this guy needs to get over this stolen car shit. When this is all sorted out, he’s going to regret treating me like I’m a fucking criminal, especially since my captor is still out there, possibly finding someone else to torment. What if this guy is still at the motel? What if all of this is letting him get away?

“My name is Zoey Holden, and I didn’t steal that fucking car!” I scream. “You need to call my parents and my boyfriend Ethan Morrison. If these names mean nothing to you, then I suggest you get on the phone.”

The officer’s hand moves to the radio on his shoulder, and I listen as he calls out my name, asking for a check of some kind.

The nurse moves so she’s standing beside me, a kind smile on her face as she asks me if I would like something to eat. She tells me I came in dehydrated, and I had lost some blood from my head injury, but otherwise I will be just fine.

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