PART TWO
Chapter Ten
Noah stared out of his bedroom window, and it overlooked the town where he grew up. Six weeks, three days, and ten hours they’d been gone. He and Skye, locked together in a cell, tortured, beaten, raped.
It had been two weeks since they’d been home.
In the house they had found, the old man had been appalled, calling the police and then their parents. Within a matter of hours, their parents were at the farmhouse and they were being taken back home.
First, to the hospital, where they were questioned about everything.
He’d expected to get arrested, especially when they told him they had questioned Skye about what happened. She’d given her statement, leaving out everything that he’d done and been forced to do to her.
He admitted to the murder of the men in their cell, and also the men who had been in the arena.
The cops had seen it as self-defense. He’d never forget what he’d done though.
There were nights he’d lie awake, staring at the empty spot on his bed, thinking about Skye.
They hadn’t seen each other since getting out.
Skye had to go to the hospital as some of her cuts had been infected. He wanted to see her, but her parents had stopped him from even going to the hospital. They wanted her to have time to heal without him.
Their ordeal meant nothing to them. No one understood what had been going on in their lives.
His brother and sister had showed him everything on the internet that had happened. The social media page set up for both of them, begging for anyone who saw them to get in touch.
The cops had wanted to call them teen runaways. They didn’t want to acknowledge they’d been kidnapped.
No one had even thought of that. They had both just disappeared without a trace.
He’d stared at Skye’s smiling face on the pages that were set up. There were barely any pictures of her and certainly none together. Not even now, even though the press had been involved.
The place they’d been held was a private mansion that had recently been renovated. After they escaped, the other victims had been killed. The cops had found some of their captors still intent on escaping, and it wasn’t lost on Noah that Mitch hadn’t been one of the people arrested.
The footage was still there though.
The cops got enough evidence, and Noah expected the tape of him and Skye to come out, or at least for him to be questioned over. So far, no trace of it, not that he’d asked for more details than necessary.
The cop that had come to talk to him clearly didn’t like him, which he didn’t understand. He’d escaped. They now knew there was some kind of sexual criminal ring going on right under their noses, and he’d helped to expose that. Noah kept expecting him to arrest him.
“What are you doing here all on your own again?” Kasey, his younger sister, asked.
“Sorry, I was just thinking.” He turned from the window, moving to his bed. He sat down.
Even though he could walk and do whatever he wanted, freedom was his, he still remained in his room. Hours at a time, he lay in bed, looking at the empty space, missing a part of Skye. He couldn’t sleep, not well. He missed her.
When they first got to the hospital, he’d tried to visit her, but her parents kept him at bay. Since then, his own parents had stopped him from doing anything. They were always asking questions, always wanting to know what he was thinking, feeling, doing. If he had nightmares.
“You think a lot nowadays. I remember when you just liked to play ball, hang out with your friends, and do nothing but talk about girls.”
“Did you stand at my door all the time, listening to what I was doing?”
“Nope, but it’s not hard when you were never quiet. Do you miss her?”
“Who?”
“Skye. Mom and Dad talk about her a lot.”