Hey everybody!

Thanks a million for your awesome reviews!

Please don't stop reviewing, especially not now that we're nearing the climax of the story. I'm afraid I have to leave you with a major cliffhanger today, but I guess that just makes the story more suspenseful.

So I hope you like the new chapter, and I can't say it often enough, please review, it encourages me to write more :)

Steffi

The Beginning Of The End

Summer didn't know how she had made it through the night, with the constant fear of Eric sleeping next to her.
Her eyes were already extremely puffy and swollen, not only from crying almost all night, but also from the beatings she had suffered the day before.

It all seemed like a bad dream as Summer reflected about all the events that had brought her into this terrible situation. She had a baby she didn't know how it looked, and she had a husband who was probably freaking out completely right now because he couldn't find her.

Summer's mind had been rambling all night about how she could get herself out of this nightmare. Again. What did fate have against her that it always drove her in the arms of that violent man?

As the sun came up, Summer got up and tiptoed into the kitchen to pour Eric some coffee. She knew that Eric wanted his coffee when he got up. She had been living with him long enough.

Just a few seconds after Summer had gone into the kitchen, Eric came in, his look seeming only angrier than the evening before.
"What'ya doin'?" he asked and scratched his stomach as he sat down at the kitchen table.
Just like so many times before, Summer lowered her head as she replied. "I'm pouring you coffee."

Eric yawned.
"No need to." He said and got up again.
Summer frowned. "No?"
"Need to go out. Do some business." Eric answered and went into the sleeping room.

Summer folded her arms in front of herself for some protection.
With shaky hands, she poured herself some coffee. When Eric was going out, it was her time to get out of this hell. But she didn't have any idea how to do it.

Only a few seconds later, Eric came out of the sleeping room, this time dressed, and gave her a fat and smacking kiss on the lips, stroking her head as he kissed her.
Summer swallowed and needed to gather herself so that she didn't have to throw up right into Eric's face.

"I'll be back soon." Eric said and headed over to the door. "Clean up, and prepare me a meal. One that tastes better than the one yesterday."
Summer just nodded insecurily. She tried to be calm on the outside, but on the inside, she was a wreck. "Okay." She whispered.

Eric swung his coat around his shoulders and slammed the door shut behind him. What Eric didn't notice was that his cell phone had fallen out of his coat pocket as he had swung it around his shoulders.

Summer's eyes widened as she saw the key to her escape lying right in front of her eyes.
She ran over to the cell phone and flipped it open, her gaze always wandering to the door to make sure that Eric wasn't coming back to get it.

With trembling fingers, Summer dialed the number of Seth's cell phone. She had memorized it years ago and now that she had all of her memory back again, it was no problem for her to dial it - never before remembering had felt more better.

With every second that passed, Summer's nerves weakened more and more. After three ringings that seemed to have taken an eternity, the voice she longed to be with right now so bad identified itself on the other end.

"Seth Cohen?"
Summer's breathing was so heavy she almost couldn't speak.
"Seth, it's me!" she cried, letting all of her desperation come out.
"Summer?" Seth's voice sounded like a mixture of desperation, fear and happiness. Only from the sound of her name Summer could hear how much Seth must have missed her.

She also knew that she didn't have much time and decided to get straight to the point.
"Eric has me." She whispered with fear in her voice.
"Where are you?" Seth urged. His voice was full of panic at that moment, when he realized that his worst fears had come true.

Summer suppressed some sobs and ran over to the window, letting the door out of her sight. She peeked out of the window and saw the pier on the horizon.
"I'm in a run down house at the beach, near the pier." She cried, hot tears streaming down her cheeks. "Please, come and get me, I-"

The receiver fell out of Summer's hand as a firm hand gripped her arm and spun her around.
Summer's breathing quickened as she saw an infuriated Eric standing in front of her, giving her a look that showed that he was ready to kill.
With his free hand, Eric took up the receiver and laughed into it.
"Say goodbye to your Summer, Cohen." He said, a dirty grin on his face. "You're never gonna see her again."

And with that, Eric flipped the cell phone shut.

Seth was on the verge of freaking out right now. Why in all world did a terrible thing like this happen?
He had just come home from an exhausting all night search for Summer as she gave him that fateful call.

Within minutes, Officer Flannery and his colleagues had been coming over, Ryan and Marissa in tow.
The group raced down to the pier, to search for the house Summer described.

Seth couldn't concentrate on anything else than wanting to kill Eric with his own hands, to make sure he would never harm a person again - especially not Summer.

It didn't take the group long to find the run down house at the beach. After all, they were still in Newport Beach, and every house that seemed to be a little run down caught someone's eye within seconds.

A few seconds after they had found the house, police cars surrounded it, Flannery talking to Eric through a speaker, trying to convince him to let Summer go.

Inside the house, Summer stood with her back pressed on the wall, her heart beating faster than it had ever beaten before. She could hear the police shouting orders at Eric who stood behind the window and looked down on them, an insane grin on his face.

Summer's breathing became faster as Eric turned towards her, pointing a gun directly to her chest.
"You say a thing, and this little thing's gonna tear apart every bone in your body." Eric barked and spun around as Flannery started to talk through the megaphone.

Summer felt herself panicking, the adrenaline pouring through her veins. How could she get out of this nightmare? Eric had tied her to the shelf against the wall, and she wasn't able to move. She was definitely trapped now.

Tears of desperation crept up inside of her, but she tried to suppress them best as she could. She was afraid that her tears might show Eric how much power he still had over her.

"Mr Foster, please come out and talk to us. We can fix this." The officer's voice said in a calm tone.
Eric let out a nervous laugh. "I have everything I want in here. And I'm sure she's everything you want."
"Foster, let her go! I promise I'll come in and break every bone that's in your bloody body if you do anything to her!" Summer jumped as she heard this very familiar voice. It was Seth. She started to shake, her whole body aching to get out of this nightmare and run straight into Seth's arms.

Suddenly, one of the sobs she had tried to suppress escaped, drawing Eric's attention to her. He turned around and grinned at her, confident of his victory. He traced her cheek with one of his skinny hands, wiping away her tears. The mere touch of Eric's hand sent shivers up and down Summer's spine. Her whole body started to shake uncontrollably now, the fear of death crawling into every cell of it.

Eric kissed her on the lips and Summer felt like throwing up. She stared at Eric with her wide opened eyes, scared to an amount she had never been before.

"Mr Foster, this is your last chance! Let Summer go or we're forced to come in!" The police officer's voice ended the disgusting kiss abruptly.
Eric gave Summer one more of his insane grins. "If I can't have you, nobody ever will." He said and stared at her intensively.
Summer's breathing became heavier every minute, her fear not allowing her to react. She was frozen.

When Summer didn't react, Eric went over to the window and laughed out loud.
"Try and get me…" he said in a low voice.
Summer watched in horror how Eric pulled a lighter out of his pocket, holding the tiny flame up in the air. He gave her a grin, showing his yellowed teeth.

"You know how this ends." He said and knelt down, moving the flame of the lighter closer to the floor. "You've seen me spreading gas all over the whole house, haven't you? I just need to touch the ground and everything here will burst into flames, taking you and me with it."

Summer's tears were flooding like a river. She knew it was over. The minute Eric would touch the ground, the fire would spread immediately. She was going to die next to the man she hated the most.

Eric stared at her and smiled broadly. He stood up and walked towards her again. "Scared, huh?" he asked, again tracing her face with his forefinger. Summer shifted from left to right, trying to somehow escape this situation.
Eric laughed again. "You don't need to be." He softly stroked the bruise he had given her the day before on her left cheek. "I know I made mistakes… but I'm just a man."

Summer continued to cry, images of her life flashing through her head. Most of the time she saw Seth's face, the face she loved so much. She saw the tiny hands of her sweet little baby, the baby she still didn't know how it looked, her apartment, her father, her parents-in-law, her friends. And the last face she would see in her life would be the face of the man she hated more than anything.

Suddenly, it just slipped out of her. "Eric, please, don't-"
Eric raised his eyebrows. "You've found your speech again? So cute…" he kissed her again, Summer pressing her lips together as tight as she could, trying to refuse to the kiss.

Eric slowly pulled away and walked to the window.
He stared down at the street where the cops were still standing, their guns pointed to the window he was standing in.

Eric let out a huge laugh again. "You're not going to get her!" he shouted. "No one ever will." He held up the flame of the lighter and moved it down towards the floor again.

Summer knew she had to react now. It was her last chance.
"Seth, he's gonna burn the house! There's gas all over the place!" she screamed with all of her strength.

Eric spun around quickly. As he did, he dropped the lighter, the floor around him bursting into flames almost immediately.

Summer cried out for help, totally terrified of death now.
"HELP! HELP ME!"
A hand went over her mouth, stopping her SOS. The smoke in the room became thicker every second, and Eric, who now stood closer to her than ever before, stared at her intensively. "I told you, if I can't have you, no one ever will."

Summer tried to cough. The smoke took up almost all of the oxygen, and the hand over her mouth made it even harder to breathe.

Eric almost seemed to enjoy the terror in Summer's eyes when he saw how she fought to get some air. He laughed at her and coughed as well.

Summer couldn't breath anymore. The smoke was too thick, and Eric's hand tightened only more as it covered her mouth.
"Say goodbye to the world, sweet Summer…" he mumbled, enjoying his victory.

They were the last words Summer heard.

And everything went black.

Next chapter: Forever Gone