CHAPTER 79

"So what do you want to do today?" Miguel asked her. Emily shrugged.

"I don't know." Emily murmured. Miguel winced. Normally, Emily was the one suggesting what they should do with their day. Not that she was bossy by any decision of the word. It was just Miguel normally sat back and just went along with whatever she wanted to do. And she always came up with amazingly fun days for them. Clearly whatever self-confidence she used to have in herself was shattered now.

"Okay… why don't we go down to the canyon? Pack some food. Have a picnic. Just like old times." Miguel suggested. Emily shook her head.

"Don't really feel like going out. I'm kind of tired." Emily replied. While she was exhausted due to her lack of sleep, that wasn't why she didn't want to go out. Truth be told, she was terrified about venturing outside the gates of her house as she was scared she would be kidnapped again. An irrational fear, but an understandable one.

Miguel nodded.

"That's fine. Why don't we go down to the den, watch a movie?" He asked. Emily nodded, and slowly, the two headed out of Emily's room. As they were walking out of the room, Emily realised something… Miguel had completely distracted her from the fact that she was leaving her room for the first time in the month since she'd been home. A small smile spread across Miguel's lips as that fact hadn't evaded him. Because of this, Emily was slightly uneasy as they walked down the stairs, down past the first floor, and over to the familiar basement den.

However, as soon as they got down there and shut the door behind them, Emily's heart began to pound. She was back in the basement, no way out. Emily felt like a caged animal, and she began to panic. Her legs went dumb and she completely fell, hitting the ground, and from there stumbling around, trying to get to back to her feet but failing. She began to thrash around violently on the ground, unable to stand as if her legs had been tied up.

"No, no, no, no, no! Help! Help!" Emily cried, tears beginning to fill her eyes. Miguel's eyes widened in alarm as he leant down beside her.

"Em, you okay?" Miguel asked, extremely concerned.

"Get me out of here! Please get me out of here!" Emily pleaded. Miguel had no clue what was going on, but he didn't need to for him to snap into action. He helped Emily to her feet and completely supported her weight as they hurried back upstairs. Miguel had to practically carry her into the living room and onto the living room couch as Emily was an absolute wreck. Once again, Emily was beside herself in emotion and it took nearly half an hour of Miguel's calm, soothing words and embrace to calm her down. Miguel was reminded yet again of how fragile a state Emily was in. He couldn't believe how traumatised she was, and it absolutely killed him to see her in this state. The most independent, spirited person he knew was clinging to him like a vice for support.

"Hey, you're okay. You're okay." Miguel whispered into her ear as they sat on the living room sofa, Miguel's arms around Emily and softly stroking her back. They stayed like this for a while, before Emily finally calmed down enough for them to talk.

"Hey, Emily?" Miguel asked quietly. Curiosity had finally taken over and he asked the question that had been burning on his mind from when he first saw Emily after she was rescued.

"Yeah?" Emily mumbled.

"What did they do to you?" Miguel asked. Emily's head shot up to look at him, a wary expression on her face.

"Miguel…" She murmured warningly. Miguel sighed.

"Come on, Emily. You clearly have some stuff to work through. Maybe if you let me in on what happened, I can help you. The first night you were taken… what did they do?" Miguel said. Emily shook her head.

"No. No. I can't…" Emily stammered.

"Emily, please." Miguel begged.

"I can't." Emily repeated.

"Why not?"

"Because…" Emily replied vaguely.

"Because what?!" Miguel exclaimed. "Have we not been through enough together, Emily? Do you not trust me?"

Emily shook her head.

"No, that's not it." She murmured.

"Then what is it?! What?!" Miguel asked again, desperately trying to find answers.

"Because I know that if I do, you'll realise I'm beyond help and you'll leave again!" Emily exploded, admitting the truth. Miguel's jaw dropped in surprise and Emily's face flushed in embarrassment. Their circumstance at the moment had forced them to be more open and honest with each other than they had ever before, so ugly things like this would inevitably be dug up.

"Em…" He whispered. "Like I told you, I'm not leaving. Ever. Because I still love you, Emily. And not in a 'I'm trying to get back together right now' kind of way. Not even in a 'I want anything romantic whatsoever right now' kind of way. Just in a 'I love you' kind of way. Because I do, and that's never going to change. So I'm not going anywhere."

Emily beamed a faint watery smile at him and squeezed his hand tighter. As she looked at him, she realised that he was indeed telling the truth. No matter what, he was always going to be beside her, always trying to help her. And for him to be able to do that, she knew she needed to tell him about what had happened. But that didn't change the fact that it was extraordinarily difficult to gather the courage to do that. Because she knew, as soon as she told him, his view on it, his view on her, would change. She would become, in his eyes, the broken victim that everyone else was treating her like. Miguel was the only person she tolerated being around right now because despite showing her a lot of support, he didn't treat her like she was shattered glass. How was she supposed to heal if everyone thought she was fully broken to begin with?

"Okay…" Emily murmured. "I'll tell you about it."

Miguel sat up straighter on the sofa, surprised. He wasn't expecting to actually get anything out of her. At least not yet anyway.

"That first night… was the worst." She began. "I woke up in our car, the fire all around us, and I nearly had a heart attack. You were completely unconscious, and I tried waking you up several times but it didn't work. Then suddenly, just as I think we're both about to die, the car door is flung open and a man pulls me out the car. They took me from the car and dragged me away. I didn't know what was happening at the beginning. I thought it was some fireman, or paramedic or some brave passer-byer. So I let them carry me out the car and pull me away from the wreck. Then I thought they were going to get you. But instead they dragged me further away and over to a car. At this point, I realised that something was seriously wrong. So I begin to scream and shout but they cover my mouth so no one hears me. Then they threw me in the trunk of their car and locked it and drove away."

Emily's voice trailed off, a few tears splashing onto her lap. Miguel looked down.

"Look, Em, you don't have to…" Miguel started, but Emily shook her head.

"No, I… I want to tell you. I need to tell somebody at some point and I'd rather be telling you all this than anyone else." She said, before taking a deep breath and continuing. "So they drove away with me in the trunk. They drove for what seemed like ages before arriving at a house in the middle of nowhere. As soon as they pulled me out the car, I tried to fight them but I couldn't. Not only was I weak from the car crash, but I also couldn't get you out of my head. I didn't know if you were alive or not, you could've been left in the burning car for too long and died for all I knew, so I was too weak and distracted to fight them off. They took advantage of that and easily managed to carry me into a basement and locked me up."

At this point, Emily's voice surprisingly wasn't cracking or near tears. She was instead numb, completely void of emotion as she told her story.

" From there, the torture began…" She said. "They had me in a basement probably not bigger than 5m by 5m. Barely any light so it was pitch black. Nothing at all in the room. No mattress to sleep on or anything. Just 4 walls and a jinky little lightbulb. And from the very beginning, the men would punch me, kick me, throw me around. They would come into my room at all hours so I wouldn't be able to sleep and beat the hell out of me. They would… they would rape me too. Would shove me over, pin me to the ground, tear off my clothes and go until I had practically passed out in pain. And these men… they were smart too. As much physical torture they gave me, there was also mental torture. They tried to destroy my mind. Constantly telling me the fact that you were dead from the car wreck. Taunting me that no one was going to come and save me. It honestly hurt just as much as the physical assault. Because each day I sat there, I realised that I was slowly dying. No one was looking for me so I was just going to be left to die in that basement. I thought I was going to die."

Emily's voice trailed off once again as the tears returned, however this time it was Miguel who was the source. He couldn't believe what he was hearing from Emily, and it filled him with a combination of fury and despair. For a moment, he felt the same pain Emily was feeling.

The two talked for a short while longer, before Emily went quiet. Glancing beside him, Miguel realised that she had fallen asleep. Being careful not to wake her, Miguel slowly brought over a blanket and draped it over her.

Mr. Cahill arrived home from work shortly after too, so that's when Miguel left the house, still enraged by the horror stories Emily had told him. He couldn't believe a human being was allowed to suffer like that. He couldn't believe such an amazing, innocent person could be subjected to such horrors. It was wrong. Just plain wrong. Somebody needed to pay. But that was just it… who? There was no one who Miguel could channel his anger towards obliterating. All it did was fester up inside him by the time he got back to his RV.

Miguel walked into the RV and tried to turn on the lights, but for some reason, they wouldn't turn on. Miguel groaned. He had run out of electricity in the RV, and he didn't have the money yet to replenish it. He had tried to find freelance work wherever he could, trying to optimise his money, but the money was still few and far between. He swore to himself in annoyance as he was forced to wander blindly around the RV, looking for wherever his phone was buried to utilise that flashlight. Before he found it though, he ended up tripping over an empty bottle that he had left on the ground one night, and landed on the ground in a sprawling heap.

"FUCK!" He shouted, not at anyone, but just at life in general. "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"

Miguel finally blew up, grabbing all of the empty bottles of alcohol that were lying around and throwing them at the wall as hard as he could. They all shattered with deafening crashes and were causing extreme damage to the RV but Miguel didn't care. He needed to vent all of his anger. Soon, he had depleted pretty much all of the empty bottles in the RV, but as he picked up the last one, he realised something… this one wasn't empty. There was still a third of a bottle of liquor in it. Miguel slowly raised it, smelling the liquid and groaning. 1 week he had gone without alcohol and to say he wasn't craving it was a lie. His whole body was aching for it with a passion and his defenses briefly crumbled. He raised the bottle to his lips and was inches from pouring the golden liquid down his throat when finally, his resistance managed to put up enough of a fight. Not enough for him to put the bottle down, mind you. Merely enough for his wrist to go slack and the bottle slip out of his hands, smashing against the ground alongside the rest, the fluid leaking around his wreck of a trailer.

Almost as soon as he did this, he suddenly heard a knock at the door. Miguel sighed and walked over to the door, opening it to reveal a lady dressed in a formal pantsuit.

"Hi. Miguel Diaz?" The lady said. Miguel nodded.

"Yeah, can I help you?" He asked her. The lady smiled at him and held out a hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Miguel. My name is Caroline Walker. I work for Child Services. We need to talk…"