12. Memories

In the days that followed the first occurrence of her memories of the night she was kidnapped returning, Addison found the dream only returned the night after she told her parents. Since then, she'd been able to enjoy peaceful sleep each night. Addison was relieved, but there were other things beside that on her mind to think about, so she didn't dwell on those thoughts much.

Wednesday night, as she slept, Addison felt herself slipping into another dream and she realized it rather than it being an actual dream, it was a memory from the night she was kidnapped.

It was so cold. Addison could feel she was no longer moving, and she wasn't sitting up in a car anymore. Was she somewhere with the air conditioning turned up high? She felt a shiver run through her whole body, and strained to open her eyes and figure out why she was so cold.

Opening her eyes, Addison wasn't able to see much. The room she was in was mostly dark. There was only a small light, and she still couldn't make things out very well. Addison tried to reach and find something warm to wrap herself in when she realized she could feel cold air on her whole body. She'd been wearing leggings and a Seabrook T-shirt while working on her homework. Now she was lying on something without any clothes on.

'Shit!' a part of Addison's mind yelled to her outside of the dream. She knew what was going on, where the dream was taking her and she fought to get out of it.

"No, no, no," Addison woke saying. She sat up in her bed and pulled her blankets closer around herself. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found she was still in her room and fully clothed, but she also realized what was going on. Her mind was slowly giving her pieces of the night back. "Keep it, please," she pleaded with her mind. She hated that she didn't know what happened and was unable to do anything about it right after it happened, but now, she didn't want to know.

Addison looked to her mind and saw it was only 3 in the morning. She needed to get back to sleep. She needed more sleep because she was still feeling fatigued during the day. What if she went back to sleep and her mind brought her back to that night? She didn't need to know. Didn't need to remember what those men did to her.

She felt tears in her eyes as she pulled her knees to her chest with her blankets as close around her as she could. Addison let the tears fall, and didn't realize when she began dozing off again.

Addison saw one of her kidnappers come into view. He was blurry, but she could see that it was her first attacker, the one from the front door. He was too broad to be the second one. She needed to get away from him. Off the bed like thing she realized she was laying on. However, when she tried to move her arms and legs, she found they were restrained.

"What's going on?" she managed to choke out and ask the kidnapper.

His laugh was vile as he looked down at her. The man still wore a mask, but his eyes seemed like dark sockets; although part of the problem may have been that Addison's vision still couldn't completely focus on anything. "You won't remember this anyway," he laughed, approaching her with something, that almost looked like a syringe, in his hands. "We're going to ruin your family's name," he laughed, continuing to talk closer to Addison.

"No," Addison woke saying, again stopping the memory dream from going any farther. It was now morning. Light was filtering through her windows. It was earlier than Addison would normally get up, but she didn't dare go back to sleep.

Since she refused to go back to sleep, Addison got out of bed and went to sit at her desk. She sat looking at Instagram for a little while until her alarm went off. Crossing her room, Addison turned her alarm off and began her normal routine to get ready for school.

While Addison considered telling her parents about the new parts of the night that were coming back in the form of dreams, there wasn't anything helpful to figure out who they were. The man she could see in the part of the night that came back to her was still wearing a mask. She couldn't even make out what color his eyes were.

She did hear more of the man's voice, but it wasn't like she could describe it and the police could go off that. They couldn't have every man in or near Seabrook speak so she could identify his voice. As she put her hair into a messy bun, not feeling like putting much effort in that morning, one thing she remembered him saying troubled her. She thought the man said something about ruining her family name. It didn't make sense. But, criminals usually didn't. Addison pushed the thought to the back of her mind. She'd worry about it later.

That morning, Addison ate breakfast in silence. Her parents hadn't heard her wake up early, so they didn't ask any questions. While she spent most of the day feeling tired and longing for peaceful sleep, Addison's day continued as normal.

When Addison got home, she set an alarm for thirty minutes to take a quick nap before starting her homework and before her parents got home.

After enjoying a peaceful nap, Addison began working on her homework for a little while until dinner. Laying down to go to sleep that night, she hoped for a peaceful night's sleep like her nap earlier in the day.

"We're going to ruin your family's name," the masked man with the syringe laughed, continuing to walk closer to Addison. "Your family took things that belonged to us and we're going to get back at your family for what they did," the man sneered, taking slow, threatening steps closer to Addison where she lay restrained.

"Wha––what?" Addison managed to ask. When had her family ever taken anything from anyone? When had she ever taken anything from someone else. "What's that thing?" Addison questioned, motioning towards the syringe, hoping to distract the man from the way his dark eyes seemed to look to her body as he approached her.

The masked man laughed. A deep villainous laugh that filled Addison's stomach with a pit more than what she could already feel forming. "This," he began. "Is something of my own invention," he continued, flicking at the liquid held in the syringe. "This should pretty much guarantee a pregnancy." As the man finished speaking and stood at the edge of the bed next to Addison, she could hear the evil smile in his voice. He flicked the top off the syringe to reveal the needle point. Leaning down, the man stuck Addison with it; she flinched and slipped out of consciousness.

Addison woke up crying as the nightmare ended. The pair of men kidnapped her with the intention of not only scaring her, but, at the very least, the broader of the two had always intended she end up pregnant. For revenge against her family? Her parents had always been rule followers. They didn't dare break any rules. She didn't break rules unless the rules were ones that needed to be broken. The first time she'd ever really broken any rule was when she went to Zombietown for her first zombie mash.

Maybe she was the wrong person? But how could the kidnappers have messed up so badly to take her instead of someone else? The second they saw her white hair they would have known who she was. Her mind raced with millions of thoughts as she tried to calm her breathing and stop her crying.

She was fully clothed and safe in her room, but she felt exposed. Addison pulled the comforter off her bed to wrap around herself as she made her way to the window. She checked to make sure it was locked and pulled the black out curtains closed as well. She then made her way to the door of her room to lock it as well. She hated not feeling safe in her own home. Not feeling safe in her own room.

It was still early. Technically the middle of the night. Addison needed to get back to sleep, but she was too worked up about the returning memories to fall asleep. She sat against the headboard with her blankets pulled close to her body and crying for a while longer until she ended up crying herself to sleep.

The rest of the night, Addison's sleep was fitful. Her mind continued to play out the pieces she already knew that were returning to her memory as she slept. Knowing what was going to happen, Addison wished she could fight harder against the restraints, focus her vision better, find something that would lead to the capture of the men, but her mind couldn't grasp at anything helpful in her memory of that night.

When she got ready for school that morning, Addison found herself wishing for the first time that she could have a large cup of coffee. She hadn't been able to get a good night's sleep the past two nights, and the regular pregnancy fatigue mixed in with her kidnapping coming back in her sleep didn't help matters.

X

At lunch Friday afternoon, Addison found herself unable to focus on the conversation her friends were having. Their words were in and out like her memory of the night she was kidnapped.

"Addy, are you okay?" Bree's voice and hand waving in front of her face brought Addison back to earth and forced her to focus on her friends who were all looking at her with concern.

"Fine. Tired, I guess."

"We all know you've been more tired than usual," Eliza began, keeping her voice low. "But this seems more than even that normal."

Wynter nodded. "You looked like you were almost falling asleep during Bio this morning," she spoke. "Is everything okay?"

"Addy?" Zed's voice was gentle as he spoke beside her.

"You'd tell us if something was wrong, right?" Wyatt asked.

"You can trust us all," Bonzo added.

"I know I can. It's just not something I can talk about right now," she said, looking towards the crowds of people that filled the cafeteria. "I could send it in a group text! We don't have one, but I could make one!" Addison suggested, but groaned. "Okay, I'm still going to make a group text between the eight of us, but what's going on is going to be too much to explain over text."

"We could finish lunch outside," Willa suggested. "It's a perfect day, so I don't understand why no one wants to eat where they can enjoy the sun."

"That would actually be great," Addison replied. The group had plenty of time left for lunch, and now that she'd been engaged in the conversation, Addison was feeling slightly less tired that she did before. The little bit she'd already been able to eat probably helped as well.

"Do you want to tell us what's on your mind?" Zed asked when the group sat at a table outside. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

Addison paused as she took a minute to eat a little more. "No, I need to get what's going on off my chest. I haven't slept well the past couple nights. A couple weekends ago I started having dreams that aren't actually dreams."

"How do you mean?" Eliza asked.

"I mean, it happens while I'm asleep, so it feels like a dream, but I'm pretty sure I'm remembering things from that night. The past two nights I've woken up from them," she explained, deciding there were some things about the dreams she didn't want everyone to know. "I'm remembering pieces from that night now that there's nothing I can do. I can hear the voice of the one kidnapper, but how can I help the police catch him off his voice? I can't describe it. And that's all I know," she said before falling silent.

As Addison finished speaking, everyone else remained silent as well. "Even if their voices are all you can remember right now," Willa began. "We will find them."

"What if we don't?" Addison questioned. "What if I have to relive that night over and over again in my sleep but never get any closure?" Seeing the pained expression on her face, Zed reached over to take Addison's hand in his and offer her a little comfort in the best way he could.

"What about something like DNA testing when the baby is born?" Eliza suggested. "If you can't figure out who the bastards are before the baby is born, a DNA test could determine who," she trailed off and moved her hand in front of her in place of words. "We can find them that way," she finished.

"True," Addison agreed, but then shook her head. "There actually was something else. The 'lead bastard', if you will, he said something about ruining my family's name because something was taken from them by my family. I don't understand what that could mean. My parents are literally the most by the book people I know. They'd never take anything from someone else."

"This isn't going to sound helpful," Wyatt began. "But they're probably sociopath bastards who have created some other reality in their minds where it makes sense that what they did to you was 'payback' for something else. Ugh, those words taste terrible in my mouth."

Addison nodded her understanding.

"Whatever it is you need from any of us," Zed spoke, drawing Addison's attention. "Don't be afraid to ask. We're all here for you. And Bucky too," he added.

"I know. I can't believe I have such amazing friends."

"Your pack might not be with all of the wolves," Wynter began. "But it's at least with all of us," she said, offering Addison a smile.

"Thanks," she spoke again as everyone turned to their lunches. Addison may not have shared all the details of her memory nightmares, but it felt good to tell her friends about them and get it off her chest.

As Addison headed towards her next class, her phone buzzed in her pocket. "What is it?" Zed asked as he walked beside her to her class.

"My parents have to go out of town for the night and suggested I have a friend over. Zed, I really don't want to be home alone. Could you spend the night?"

"What? I mean, I've been over when your parents weren't home before, but not overnight."

"Please?"

"Addy, I love you, but I don't know."

"Pretty please?" Addison attempted.

"Okay," Zed agreed, knowing he'd do anything to help Addison feel better. "But I'll need stuff from my place and my dad's probably going to want to know where I'll be."

"I'll drive you over there and talk with him, promise."

"All right," Zed agreed, placing a kiss on Addison's cheek as they were outside her class.

"Meet me by our lockers when I get done with practice," Addison said.

"Will do," Zed agreed before heading back down the hall for his own class.

A/N: This seems a little bit of a weird spot to end the chapter, but I think it'd get really long if I didn't end it here. We'll pick up in the next chapter around where this one leaves off.