Hey guys! Sorry for the wait, this chapter's a little longer than usual to make up for it. Thanks to TheShulesLovinPsycho for the reviews!
TheShulesLovinPsycho: Personally, I pronounce Aria as AH-ree-ah, but whatever pronunciation feels best to you! I'm a big believer in letting readers take stories they love and making them their own :)
Enjoy!
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Hypothetically Speaking
Shawn looked at the phone, shaking his head. "Okay, so good news, Juliet and Lassie are catching the soonest available flight. I think. She was either saying 'we're on our way' or 'I'm bringing fish fillet,' and then the connection died."
"Shawn, there are police...here."
"Yes."
"Here, as in, in New York."
"Really? I had no idea."
Gus stared at him. "So? Did you call them?"
Shawn shrugged. "Well, I'm sure they aren't anywhere near as effective as the good ol' SPPD."
"Shawn!"
When seeking out a psychopath in a large, dark, echo-y warehouse, there are certain things one should not do.
One of these things is talking very loudly. Also on the list are bumping into walls, dropping your phone, tripping over you phone in an attempt to find it, and using the nearest standing human to help yourself back up. Because the human in question, who you think is your partner-in-crime, may actually turn out to be the psychopath. And he might have a Taser. And you might wake up in a room with your (now unconscious) partner, no light source, and no discernible way out of this mess.
Also, when your partner wakes up, he will most likely be tired, cranky, and annoyed (not necessarily in that order) at you for calling your hometown police force instead of the one already in the same state.
(Hypothetically speaking, of course.)
When you're a fifteen-year-old maybe-orphan who has just escaped from your kidnapper/stalker of many months, and have just overheard said kidnapper attack your rescuers/kind-of legal guardians and drag them off to some back room in an abandoned warehouse, there are certain things that you do. For example, you might tiptoe out from your hiding spot and run for the door. If the door's locked, you keep wandering - quietly, of course. Hopefully, you will manage to track down the room where your would-be rescuers are now being held captive.
Hopefully, you will not be caught by your kidnapper yet again, and dragged off to another back room. He uses some kind of tranquilizer - you have no idea how long it's been when you finally open your eyes.
He'll yell at you, for a while, before telling you to sleep. You spend the night - one whole night, maybe longer - fighting sleep, ears peeled for the sound of the door. You'd scramble to find where the door is, but it's pitch black, and chances are where the door is, he is, too. And he can hear your every move.
It'll feel like an eternity.
Finally, after several hours of hell, he'll leave, and you know he's probably going off to kill your rescuers, and you can't let that happen. So you'll scramble to find the (also locked) door. If you're a real delinquent, you might get lucky and find something with which to pick the lock, and, quite by chance, stumble across your stalker's jacket on the ground a few feet outside. And there might be a phone in the pocket. A phone opens up all kinds of possibilities. You could, of course, call the police. That would be the smart thing to do. If you are a legal maybe-orphan, you probably will call the police. But if not...
Well, you might have to be a bit more...creative.
Neither Shawn nor Gus knew how or when they fell asleep, but they were jolted awake by the heavy click of the lock, and scuttled back into the corners of the room opposite the door.
He brought light with him.
"You're awake, then?" He smirked. "Good. This won't be anywhere near as fun if you're asleep." Both captives gulped - partially from his tone of voice, partially from the shadows cast by the flashlight, the thin beam conjuring ghosts in every corner. "First," he began, pacing, "how did you know to come here?"
At first, Shawn didn't reply - he was too distracted by the pocket knife Frederick had just produced from his pocket. When he came to his senses, he began to delay, the best way he knew how. "Uh, uh, how about you answer our questions?"
Frederick raised an eyebrow, amused. "Depends on what you're asking."
"You told us you met Aria's mom when they were living in the city, but that's not true, is it? You knew her. Before. In high school."
He paused. "And so what if I did?"
Shawn closed his eyes against the harsh light before continuing. "Here's what I think happened:
"Calliope Greyson, early nineties. Pretty, popular, daughter of the senator, funny, charming - what was there not to fall for, right? You were obsessed from the start. There's just one problem: she doesn't love you back. It must have driven you crazy, huh? What did she do? Ignore you? Call you names? Set her boyfriend on you? But that didn't stop you, did it? Because you got lucky: Callie ran away. And guess who happened to bump into her, fourteen years later?"
"Me?"
"Ooh, you're good at this game. Anyway, it's the chance you've been waiting for! Your big moment. You get to make her pay for everything she did to you. And then you find out she has a daughter, a daughter with no record of ever having existed. Once you got rid of Callie, Aria was easy prey."
Frederick smiled pleasantly down at Shawn. "Callie didn't recognize me, of course - I don't think I ever told her, either. Can't have any loose ends, after all. The same, of course, holds true for you two."
Shawn grin faded. "Sorry?"
"You're not expecting me to let you live, are you?" Gus nodded hopefully. "No, Mr. Guster. Loose ends, remember?"
"But - " Gus was cut off by a loud ringing. He and Shawn looked at each other with wide eyes. "I thought you said the connection was dead," he hissed.
"It was!"
"Shawn - "
"Enough!" Frederick glared at Shawn's glowing pocket, motioning with his knife hand. "Go on. Put it on speaker."
"Spencer! It's about time you answered your damn phone."
"Uh, Lassie, now's not really the best ti - "
"We've got her." All three men stared at the phone with a hungry intensity. "We traced your phone. We're back by the car in front of the warehouse. Can you meet us there?" Frederick's eyes flashed, before he grabbed the phone, and, after hanging up on what sounded like a very confused Lassiter, took off, slamming the door shut behind him.
A few moments later, the doorknob jiggled. It clicked as it moved, as though someone were fumbling in their rush to use the key, and the two men scrambled to hide behind the door, weaponless as they were. The door swung open.
"Shawn?"
It was a broken whisper, the voice low and jagged.
No. It's not possible.
He blinked in disbelief as the door creaked further open, a face peeking around to where the two men hid.
"Hey."
She smiled even as the tears ran down her face, trembling in shock and hunger and fear and relief and a thousand other emotions. He didn't have to think twice before pulling her into a tight embrace as Gus watched on, holding her so close as to never let her go again.
