CHAPTER 71
Miguel, Johnny, Mary and George raced over to Tory's house as fast as they could, their hearts in their mouths. Tory hadn't mentioned much on the phone, so her message could mean literally anything. They made it to Tory's house mere moments later as they sped at nearly double the speed limit, and they rushed into the house to meet Tory.
As they got inside, they saw Tory, who looked severely shaken up.
"Hey, Tory, what's going on?" Miguel asked anxiously.
"I think… I think I might have found Emily. Or at least we're really close." Tory said.
"Well… what did you find?" Johnny asked. Tory took out her phone.
"I heard Silver talking to someone this morning outside the dojo as I was walking in. They saw me almost immediately and then started speaking in Spanish, but I caught the first part in English and know they were talking about Emily. Here, I recorded it."
She played the recording and immediately Miguel recognised the low drawl of Silver, as well as a gruff, latin accent that sounded weirdly like his.
"I saw her. The girl." Silver said to the man. "I've got to say, my friend, you haven't been keeping her in great condition. She looks like hell."
"Yeah, well what did you expect? When you asked me to take her, the plan wasn't to babysit her in a 5 star hotel, was it?" The man replied.
At that moment, the two men had presumably seen Tory so they started switching to speaking Spanish. Miguel, the only Spanish speaker in the group, tuned in intently as the others looked at him, apprehensive.
"Todavía. Podrías hacerlo mejor." Silver said. The man tutted.
"Recuerda, no soy tu sirviente. Me diste un trabajo, yo hice ese trabajo. Cualquier cosa más es una ventaja. Y si tienes un problema con eso, tal vez tú y yo tengamos un problema."
As soon as the man said this, Silver's tone instantly changed. He sounded almost… scared of this mysterious other man.
"Está bien, tienes razón. Lo siento."
"Deberías estar arrepentido. Porque si te quejas de mis métodos y de mi gente de nuevo, podría haber un "accidente" que le suceda a tu chica."
Miguel's face paled at this clear, uncamouflaged threat on Emily's life the mysterious man had just laid on Silver. Miguel had no clue who this man was, but whoever he was, he was someone that even Silver, the psychopath, feared.
"Acabo de verla ayer y no se veía muy bien. Entré en pánico. Lo siento. Lo siento."
They spoke for a few more moments in Spanish, but Miguel wasn't listening. He was stuck on the last sentence Silver had mentioned. His eyes widened in alarm.
"What is it? What did they say?" The others asked anxiously. Miguel was speechless for a few moments in shock, but eventually got over it.
"Silver saw Emily yesterday." Miguel eventually managed to get out.
"W-what?" Mary stammered. Miguel stood up, over his shock and more urgent now, especially given the threats that had been made to Emily's life.
"Silver saw Emily yesterday." Miguel repeated. "Track EVERYWHERE Silver's car went in the past 48 hours. Emily's in one of them."
The group immediately got to work, working in a clockwise fluid formation. Miguel pulled the locations from the tracker. Tory pinned them to the massive map of L.A. Mary searched the immediate surroundings of the locations to see how plausible they were to hold Emily. And George and Johnny… well, they didn't do much to be honest. They only just found out about the operation so they didn't have much of a role. They were instead… moral support so to speak. They worked fast, but Miguel didn't want to alarm them by telling them about all of the threats the man had made to Emily's life. He knew it would only panic them, and wouldn't speed up their progress.
Soon, about 30 minutes later, they found it…
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"Hey, hey, guys. I think I got something." Mary said from her computer.
"What do you have?" Miguel asked as all of them crowded around Mary's small laptop.
"Okay, guys. All of you, three steps back." Mary demanded as she felt their heads practically colliding in their haste to look at Mary's computer. The group reluctantly shuffled backwards and when they did, Mary then turned her laptop to face all of them. They were all greeted by a Google Map of L.A, with a red pin and yellow pin on it, both of them a few miles aparts. The pins were on the outskirts of the downtown city, and although Miguel knew exactly what the red pin was, Johnny didn't.
"I don't get it. What am I looking at here?" Johnny asked.
"The red pin is the exact spot where Emily and Miguel had their car accident." Mary explained. "And the yellow pin… well, I think the yellow pin is where Emily is."
"Why do you say that?" George asked. Mary shrugged.
"Well, look at it. The yellow pin is deeper into the woods than the red. Of course wherever Emily is, it's going to be somewhat remote. I mean Silver isn't about to take her to downtown L.A. They could easily be seen if they were."
"Right, and look what time Silver visited it." Miguel pointed at his own laptop with the live feed of the tracker. "11:30 - 11:37 at night. Came in the middle of the night and only stayed for 7 minutes. This has got to be it." Miguel stated. Mary nodded.
"Oh my God… so… so we found her…" George stammered. "What now?"
"What now? We go down there and kick their asses!" Johnny exclaimed, shooting to his feet. Miguel, however, quickly dragged him down, knowing full well that them storming in would be an awful idea. Because according to Silver and the mystery man's conversation, there were several people in the house with Emily. And whoever they were, they were people that even Silver feared so chances were they were a hell of a lot more powerful than them.
"Slow down, Sensei. We can't do that." Miguel said.
"What, why not?" Johnny asked. Miguel took out his phone.
"Because now things are officially out of control. If we want to get Emily back, we have one shot to do so. We fuck this up, we're all dead, including her. So I think… I think we need to call the cops now."
Tory's eyes widened.
"Hey, woah, woah, woah, the cops? If Silver finds out I was looking for him, my family are going to be his next targets!" Tory exclaimed worriedly. Miguel shrugged.
"That's why we don't tell them who's calling. We make it anonymous" He stated, before taking out his phone and dialling 9 1 1…
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Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Tick Tock.
After making the anonymous tip to the cops, time seemed to slow to a halt. Every second felt agonisingly long as they waited. Waited for the news. Waited to hear whether the police had successfully recovered Emily, or she wasn't there, or worse yet, she was there but she was found dead. Miguel, George and Mary had left Tory's house, and were instead at George's, pacing around the living room, none of them saying a word. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, as they were about to explode in their own skins in anxiety, they got the call…
Emily was safe! Cops had come in, arrested the one guard who was there (not the leader, but the gigantic beast of a guard instead), and had rescued Emily, rushing her to the nearest hospital. She was in extremely bad shape, but she was alive, and that was something. As soon as Miguel, George and Mary had gotten the name of the hospital Emily was at, they had shot out of the house and towards it at a supersonic speed. Everything went in a blur as they sprinted into the hospital building and over to the surgery waiting room. Then, that's when time grinded back down to a halt…
The waiting room was completely empty, as presumably Emily's mom and dad hadn't made it to the hospital yet, so as the nurse walked out into the waiting room shortly after, it was just Miguel, George and Mary who stood up anxiously.
"Well… good news, your friend's going to be okay." The nurse began. The trio let out massive sighs of relief. Emily wasn't going to die! They hadn't been too late! However, their triumph was short-lived as Miguel noticed that although she was stating good news, the nurse's facial expression was grave.
"But…" Miguel murmured, reading her expression. She sighed.
"But… she wasn't in great condition when the police found her." The nurse admitted. "She was malnourished to an extremely fatal degree, she broke three ribs, she's covered in bruises so was clearly beaten a lot at various points over the past month. And…"
The nurse's voice trailed off before saying what seemed from her expression the worst part.
"What? What is it?" Mary asked worriedly. The nurse took a deep breath.
"She was… she was sexually assaulted multiple times during her time captive."
Miguel's mind went numb. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. He didn't catch the rest of the nurse's sentence, as his feet slowly drifted on their own towards the room Emily was in. He wasn't allowed in by the hospital staff obviously, but he was able to peer in through the small rectangular window in the doorway. Emily was lying there, in the flesh, and she looked so… peaceful. Her chest slowly rose and fell in her unconsciousness. As he saw her, his heart wrenched in pain. He knew that beneath her peaceful exterior, there was bound to be a trauma within her caused by the most vile people in the world. They had preyed on the kindest, most caring person in the world for a reason she wasn't even involved in. It sent agony and fury to his very cure as he tried to imagine the hell that Silver and whoever else was involved in capturing Emily had put her through.
However, his thoughts were cut short as a racket suddenly emerged from just outside the waiting room. Miguel looked up and turned around, only to see Emily's mom and dad walking swiftly into the room, closely followed by a policeman, who had presumably just told them about everything that had happened to Emily, and why it happened. Sure enough, Emily's dad's face was blazing with anger. He stomped over to Miguel and before he could react, Emily's dad curled his fist back and punched him in the face as hard as he could. He was a big man, so Miguel staggered back, clutching his jaw.
"How dare you come here?!" Emily's dad growled. He had just been briefed by the policeman about who had kidnapped Emily and why, so his fury towards Miguel was unbridled. "This is all your fault." He snarled, letting go another vicious hook that collided with the side of Miguel's head. Though Miguel was ready to block it, he didn't. He deserved it, and so much more. Because Emily's dad was absolutely right. This was all his fault.
The whole hospital waiting room was immobile in shock, with the policeman the only person snapping into action and standing between Miguel and Emily's father. But Emily's dad wasn't done yet. He struggled in the cop's grip as he yelled vehemently at Miguel.
"This is all your fault!" He bellowed.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Cahill. I'm so sorry." Miguel whispered, staring down at the ground and refusing to look at Emily's dad in his shame.
"Get out of here. NOW! And never go near my daughter again!"