AN: Thank you for all the positive reviews! I've got a good idea of where I want to take this story now too. School has been keeping me busy, but I'm going to try and keep the updates frequent. Again, constructive criticism is my best friend, don't hesitate to drop some suggestions or berate me for my horrid grammar, I won't mind. I'm still trying to get a hang of writing House, it's so damn hard! Anybody got any pointers?

The Road Home: Mommie and Daddy Dearest

I guess I should consider myself one of the lucky ones. Statistics say that there are very few abducted children that make it home alive. I'm alive all right, but I'm not home - where does that leave me?

I don't really know what I expected the day I was abducted, but I certainly didn't expect to live past the night. I'd seen the news, I knew what death was (you learn that lesson early when both your parents are doctors). David, the man I'm suppose to call "Dad" now, tied me up and locked me in the trunk of his car. I knew I was in for it. The most shocking event of all though, was when the trunk opened after a short fifteen minutes.

He didn't kill me.

Instead, I was lead into a beautiful home, in what seemed to be the middle of the woods. I recognized it immediately as the large wooded park-neighborhood that had been the site of a get together my Aunt Lisa held just last weekend. It had been a fun Saturday, everyone showed up and applauded when it ended with my dad being pushed into the duck pond by my Uncle Jimmy. Little did I know the same area would begin what would be my own eight years of personal hell.

Inside the house, I met a lady called "Marie". I was suppose to call her "Mom". I wondered immediately why anybody in their right mind wouldn't question a strange child being brought into their home? Marie led through the large house, and up a set of stairs. She opened the door to an extremely large room, filled to the brim with everything someone my age could have ever wanted. In my short six years, I have never seen so many toys and stuffed animals before. What kind of mentally ill people abduct a child and treat them like THIS? I was soon to find out.

David stormed into the room, pulled me by the arm and sat me down, hard, on the bed. I was to be their new daughter, he said. Marie nodded at me and left the room. David explained that Marie had lost her baby a month prior, and I was to take the place of the child they'd never have. He said they would give me anything I wanted, but to know I would never be allowed outside this house, under any circumstance. I was to be home schooled, and kept away from the outside world. He promised that they would treat me as if I was their own.

It was when I told him that they would never be my parents, EVER, that it started. To this day I remember how much it hurt, when he grabbed me by the hair, slapped my face and threw me up against the wall. I was six years old, he said...HE was the boss. He said I'd learn to mind him, or pay the price - If I had any sense in my head, I'd learn quickly that in his house, things go HIS way. Another slap to the face and he left the room. I immediately ran to open the door, but for my efforts, only received the sound of a door locking.

I clutched my right forearm, where a bruise steadily began to form. Taking a few steps backwards from the door, I remember taking a few unsure glances around what was to become my new 'home'. Bookshelves lined the walls, crammed to capacity with toys and books. Another wall held a large television set, and what seemed to be the largest collection of dvds ever. I spied a large bed off to one corner and walked towards it. Lying atop the bed was a small teddy bear, dressed in a doctor's lab coat and scrubs.

I had grabbed that teddy bear, clung on for dear life and curled myself up onto a corner of the bed. I cried myself to sleep that night, for the first time. The first time yes, but it definitely wouldn't be the last.