Hey. I know, millions of other stories, blah blah blah, but I don't like abandoning stories! So I figure, maybe I can still update this one every now and then. I don't know. I'll see what you guys think of it. Enjoy!
"What the hell kind of organization are you running over there? My little girl has been taken by that- that psycopath and you haven't even started a search?" Jack Merridew, world renown doctor and extremely pissed off father, yelled into the phone. "No! I will not calm down! That lunatic has my daughter and I won't calm down until you dipshits get off your lazy asses and start looking for her!" The poor secretary on the phone with him spoke quickly and frantically. "Don't you dare hang up on-" The phone went dead and he slammed the phone back into the wall, then turned to his wife. "Fuck! She just hung up on me! I'm calling back, I'm calling back and man oh man, is she gonna get an earful!" He reached for the phone and began jabbing the buttons furiously. Leah snatched it out of his hands.
"Sweetie, you need to calm down." She said soothingly. "You're not seventeen anymore. You're a grown man, and grown men don't scream at poor, innocent secretaries over the phone." He groaned.
"But they haven't even started looking for her yet." Leah wrapped her arms around him in an attempt to calm him down.
"I know honey, but they're doing the best that they can. They can't just go on a rampage, people might get hurt if they did. They need to be careful about this. Roger is a dangerous man, and they don't want to do anything that upsets him and puts Amber at greater risk." She reasoned.
"How can you be so calm?" He yelled, suddenly taking his anger out on his wife. "This is your daughter! Don't you remember what he did to you Leah? Do you want that to happen to her too?" Leah did remember. She remembered all of it. The stinging of the long, rough vine whipping against her back. His long, grody fingernails digging into her open wounds. She remembered how the hunters hit her, scratched her, tore open her skin even more.
She remembered what he did to Sam.
The thought of her adopted brother's twin's horrible fate brought tears to her eyes. She'd been with him when he died. She remembered how he'd asked her to look after Eric for him, the brother he'd done everything to save. It was because of her and Eric he'd been beaten so badly. He'd set her free, the only leverage Roger had against Jack. He'd tried to fight Roger to save his brother, despite being smaller, weaker, and almost three years younger. She remembered better than anyone what Roger could do. What all of them could do. Jack saw how the memories hurt her.
"God, Leah, I didn't mean-" She cut him off.
"It's fine Jack, I know you didn't mean it." She ran a hand through his disheveled red hair affectionately. "And trust me, I'm as worried about her as you. But I trust that whatever happens, it'll be for the best. And Ralph got some of his military buddies, they're out looking right now." Jack scowled at the sound of his former enemies name. Leah slapped him on the arm. "Oh would you get over it Jack! You're twenty-nine years old, it was twelve years ago, it's time to bury the hatchet. Besides, Ralph's my best friend. I'd like for you to at least try to hide your hatred for him." Jack sighed.
"Well I'm sorry I'm not too fond of a guy who was putting the moves on my wife." She gave him a look.
"We were sixteen! And besides, you and I weren't even dating yet." Jack mumbled something that sounded a lot like "still, he did it."
"And I feel the need to remind you, he has a girlfriend." She replied. Then she turned to the window. "Who he better be popping the question to soon!" She yelled at her neighbor's house. Ralph lived next door. He couldn't be out on the search right now, his 'legs' had been giving him issues. It was about time he got a new pair from the doctor, but Dr. Merridew just loved to watch him struggle. The jerk.
"When I'm ready!" He yelled back. Leah laughed.
"Now you need to calm down," she said to her husband. "Like I said everything will work out for the best." He pulled her into a hug and sighed into her hair.
"I know. I just want my baby back." She hugged him tightly and kissed him on the cheek.
"I know sweetie. But everything will be okay."
Only, it wasn't.
"Daddy! Would you hurry up!" Sixteen year old Amber McAllistor screamed at her adoptive father. "I'm supposed to be meeting Ally at Forever 21 right now!" Her dad gave her a resentful look. Honestly, he was sometimes more like a brother than a dad.
"This wouldn't be a problem if you'd just passed your driver's test." He reminded her.
"It was those goddamn pedestrians! They're everywhere!'' She cried.
"No, I think the instructor was more concerned by the fact that you were yelling at the stop lights." Mr. McAllistor replied. "I have no idea where you get it from." Actually he did. He remembered Leah, very well in fact. He'd been so disgusted by her very existence, right from the start. He'd been practically giddy when he discovered her youngest daughter was so like her. It would be the sweetest form of revenge, killing her, yet letting her live with it. But when he had the girl, something in him wouldn't let him hurt her. He just couldn't do it. So instead, he'd raised her as his own daughter. Maybe one day the two of them would work together to kill her real parents. He sighed. It was a little too much to hope for. On this thought, Roger grabbed the keys, hopped in the car, and drove her to the nearest mall to meet her friend.
As he drove away, he had a fleeting fear. What if she was ever found? He knew for a fact that even after the Merridew family crumbled to pieces, and Leah took her oldest children and left Jack, his former island rival never gave up looking for his daughter. He'd become desperate. Ralph and Leah looked too, but they were never on close terms with Jack. Maybe, as long as things stayed the way they were, they'd just give up. Roger saw a flash of gold out of the corner of his eye and his car screeched to a stop. He'd thought for a second...no. Ralph didn't look like that anymore. He was forty two, not sixteen. He had prosthetic legs from the spinal chord injury he'd ordered Robert to give him. Still, he'd looked so much like him. He drove again and his fears vanished. He didn't need to worry about Amber. She knew how to look after herself. And he was right. She'd always been independent, yet she never questioned the lies he told her to cover up her mysterious past. Not one question.
But then she met the blonde boy.
Not bad huh? Part of the reason I didn't update was because I didn't know if I wanted it to be about Leah and Jack or Amber and her mystery blonde boy. I decided on the latter. Hope you liked. Please review if you don't want me to abandon ship!