Chapter 10:
"Come on." He says leading me out of the room quickly. He takes me through a long corridor, and we stop at an elevator. He grips onto my arm tightly, and viciously punches in the code for the elevator. He leads me inside and the door slams shut. He spins around the elevator car, like he is deep in thought with something.
The door dings and he quickly walks off. I follow him almost having to run to match his place.
"Joseph?" I hear Agent Lynn says as we come around the corner. She's changed into jeans and a black tank top. This must be where the teachers live.
"Rebecca, I would greatly appreciate it if you went and got Rachel now." He says not stopping to talk to her. She glances over at me, and shots him a concerned look.
"What do I tell her? Joseph?" He doesn't reply and he pulls me into another room.
"Sit down." He orders me, and I do. "Pick him out from this photo."
He hands me a photo, with about 150 young men. I spot him right away.
"Him." I say again and Joe sighs deeply.
"Did I do something?" I say scared. I didn't expect him to react like this.
"That man is dead." He says softly. "He died right after you were kidnapped."
"What happened to him?"
"Joseph?" I hear Rachel says as she knocks on the door.
"It's open."
Rachel pushes the door open revealing her, my mom, and Agent Lynn. My mom looks at me concerned before she moves to stand between me and Joe.
"Are you ok?" Agent Lynn asks me and I nod.
"Matt is alive." He says quietly to Rachel.
"What?" She says and then she puts it together.
"You saw him?" My mom asks me. "Is he in there with her?"
"I…"
"She picked him out of a photo I had on my desk. She just picked him out again from our class picture." He says as he puts his head in his hands.
"Show me." Agent Lynn says, and I point to the man again. Rachel nods and then looks down at the floor.
"Who is he? I don't understand."
"He is…was my husband. He was taken by the circle about three months after you were. I figured that he had gone out to look for you some more, but when he didn't return we got scared. He missed several checks ins in a row, and the agency sent people out to look for him. Unfortunately, we were too late. We presumed that Catherine had captured him." Rachel tells me softly.
"How do you know him?" Agent Lynn says softly. My mom scoots closer to me, and puts her hand on my shoulder.
"He tried to help me. I….Catherine liked to play games with me. She wouldn't give me food or water for a long time, and the she would ask me if I wanted…needed… to talk. She would dangle the water bottle right in front of my face, and promise me that if I said anything I could have it all. I didn't know anything, and I was so thirsty that I started to make up stories to get the water. One day she caught on to what I was doing, and decided that I needed to be punished. She threw me in a cell next to him."
"What happened after?" Rachel asks me.
"He told me a bunch of stories that I could tell her. They came and took him away and I must have passed out soon after, because when I woke up I was in a different room, and he was gone. I asked her about him, and she said that she didn't know who I was talking about, but she was glad that I had finally come to my senses."
"Did you see him again?" Rachel asks me.
"No. I don't think I did. I don't remember everything that happened before or after though."
"That's ok, Morgan." Agent Lynn says softly. "What brought about that memory? What were you doing when you remembered it?"
"I was looking at the picture."
"This picture." He says handing it to Rachel. She runs her figure over the frame, and stares at it for a long time.
"Morgan, are you sure?"
"I….I don't know. She showed me his picture thousands of times."
"What would she asks you?" Agent Lynn asks me.
"She wanted me to remember him, but I just couldn't."
"Are memories coming back to you?" My mom asks me. I nod my head slowly.
"What do you remember?" Joe asks me.
"It's not really whole memory its….like..pieces..and they don't go together."
"That's normal." Rachel says, and I can't help but get the feeling that I am letting them down.
"I can try to remember." I say looking up at them.
"No, Morgan." Mr. Solomon says. "Don't force it to happen. It will come back over time."
"I want to help."
"You are helping." My mom says softly.
"But I could help more if I remember what happened."
"Morgan, we know you want to help us, but it's not beneficial for you to try and remember what has happened to you. Those memories may be hidden for a reason. Do you understand?" Rachel tells me, and I slowly nod my head.
"Why don't you go upstairs and get settled in with Cammie, and her friends? We can talk later after dinner."
I notice that Agent Lynn has constantly been checking her watch the whole time I was talking.
"Does Macey come tonight?" I ask them.
"Yes, she does. She should arrive in about thirty minutes." That's odd. I though Cammie and Bex were already giving her a tour. Who did they show around?
"Ok." I say as I get up to leave. I close the door softly and quickly run up the stairs to meet up with Cammie. I spot her and Tina huddled around a window, and I quickly run up to her.
"I need to talk to you." I say as I grab onto her arm and pull her away from the group.
"What's wrong?" She asks me concerned. I lead her over to a secluded part of the corridor and look around to make sure no one is close to us.
"Remember that ring you saw one of the circle people wearing? I've seen it too, just not by Catherine. My dad wore it on his finger and I would wear it on a necklace. It was an old family heirloom. I didn't think anything of it until I read your report."
"You're starting to remember." She says and I nod.
"Remember when I zoned out in Mr. Solomon's class about fear? I was having a flashback of her. I've been getting more and more the longer I stay here."
"Did you tell my Mom?" She asks me.
"Yeah, but I couldn't tell her all of it in front of Lynn." I say and Cammie's face changes.
"Why? Lynn is a government agent. She's one of the good people."
"She makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up for some reason. I can't shake the feeling that she's hiding something. Rachel and my Mom always seem to be having private meetings with her. I just think that something is wrong."
"What do you remember?" She asks me as a loud group of girls rush past us.
"I was tied down to a chair and Catherine was taunting me about knowing you and Matthew."
"Matthew, as in my Father?"
"Yeah, she kept asking me over and over if I knew half of a story that she needed. It was something about us going to the circus together, but I don't have any memories of that or of you besides this week."
"Morgan, we did go to the circus together, about a month before you went missing." Cammie says as her face turns white.
"We did?"
"Yeah, but I don't remember anything happening that was odd. No one was following us or anything. I just remember having a good time." Cammie says shocked.
"I don't think we should talk about this here." I say softly as I see Rachel and Lynn come around the corner.
"Cammie, baby, are you ready?" Rachel asks her smiling.
"Yeah!" She says turning around to face them. They continue to walk away and Cammie quickly turns around and faces me.
"I'll meet you in our dorm room before dinner. We can talk then." I quickly nod and she runs off to rejoin her mom. I pass the window that all the girls were looking out of, and see a skinny girl with long black hair emerge from the heavily armored vehicle. She is flanked by many members of security, and a tall looking man who must be her father.
I slowly make my way back up to the door and decide that I might need a nap to take my mind off of everything that has happened. I find the room, and slowly open the door.
"Hello? Liz? Bex?" I ask as I enter the room. Hearing no response, I think that the coast is clear and I am here alone.
I push open the door to the left and find a small room with a twin sixed bed and a large desk that takes up more room than the bed does. There are countless piles of books that encompass the desk almost to the point of suffocating it.
"Liz?" I ask again before I enter the room. "Liz, I need to borrow some school paper."
I wait for a long time, and I don't hear an answer so I carefully enter the room. I open the first desk drawer and pull out a pen and a pencil.
"Beep, beep." I hear a computer chime.
"Liz?" I call out one more time just to be sure she's gone. I slowly start to look around the room for where the noise came from. When I flip open the blanket on her bed, I find a mac book tucked underneath her pillows.
I open the screen and see that it is already unlocked.
"I thought they weren't allowed to have personal technology." Almost nobody had a cell phone on them, which is so unusual for teenage girls.
I open up Safair, and quickly log back into my Instagram account. I pull up DMs and skip down to Charlotte's icon.
"Char, its me."
Abigail? She responds almost instantly.
Yeah, I missed you.
What happened to you?
I am at boarding school.
What? How do I know it's even you? I could be talking to your kidnapper.
Char, its me. Your middle name is Helena after your great grandmother, and you are deathly allergic to Mr. S because he constantly picks on you.
Abigail, I have missed you sooo much! You have no idea! What happened to you? Where even are you?
I am at boarding school, but I am ok. I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you sooner, but they have crazy strict technology rules here.
I tried to call you, but your phone had been shut off. It kept giving me and error message, and when someone answered it, she sounded older than you.
Do you know what her name was?
Rachel something. She kept asking me if I knew where you were, but she just kept calling you Morgan.
Omg, Rachel talked to Char and didn't tell me. Why wouldn't she?
Abigail, she met in person with my parents. She said she was with the FBI and that you had probably been kidnapped and sold. I was so scared. Your parents and brother have disappeared. No one can reach them. Have you talked to them?
No, I didn't talk to them after I left at all. What do you mean they disappeared?"
I went by your house and everything was trashed, worse than the fourth of July party. Abigail, there was blood at the house. It was all over the wall and the floor. When I asked Rachel about it she told me not to worry about it, but after I heard her talking on her cellphone that the job at your house was done by someone named Lynn. Abigail, please be careful. I want to see you. Where can we meet? I'm scared.
I look at the computer screen for minutes. Blood? The job was done? What does that mean? Did Agent Lynn kill my parents and older brother? Omg they asked me about them the first night. I told them where they were. I lead them to my house.
Is Sean still in College?
I don't know.
Can you check and message me back? I don't know when I can get back to you, but I promise I will.
Yeah. I see flash across the screen and I quickly clear the browsing history and sign off of my account. I make sure everything is in the same order I found it in before I head back downstairs to meet with Cammie.
I walk pass the headmistress's office, and I hear yelling and screaming inside. Apparently Macey is not too keen on the idea of living here, and I can't say I am either.