Disclaimers: I own nothing or anyone associated or affiliated with TNA. I own only the original characters. This is just a fictional story that came from my imagination.
Chapter Content & Trigger Warnings: angst, graphic violence & blood
Chapter 6
Ella sat in silence in the backseat of the family's Hummer as her mother and father chatted about how the party had gone and how good it was to see Jeff and Nina and the others. She laid her head back against the seat's headrest and kept her eyes closed, hoping they would think she was asleep. She kept thinking back on Joe's kisses and the angry words they'd thrown at each other.
"Did you have fun sweetheart," Andrea asked her daughter, looking at her through her visor's mirror as she took some bobby pins out of her hair. "I saw you dancing with quite a few of the guys," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "How did they react to seeing you after the past three years?"
Ella's thoughts remained on Joe and their argument. "Yes, I had a good time," she answered unconvincingly. "And everyone basically just told me how grown up I looked." She managed to somewhat hedge around the question and hoped her mother would leave it at that so she could wallow in her grief during the ride to the hospital her father worked at.
"Did you get to talk to everyone," Andrea continued, putting the hairpins in her handbag.
Ella swallowed before answering, trying to stall for time to think her answer through. "Um...Pretty much. I didn't get to talk to everyone, but I got to see quite a few of them."
Andrea started to say something else, but Nathan's hand reached over and patted her hand. "Hon, Ella and Joe had a fight. I think she needs some quiet time."
"Oh," Andrea said softly. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart," she said, glancing back at Ella. "I didn't mean to upset you more."
"Oh, you didn't, Mom," Ella answered. "I'll be fine, really. I'm just not sure if Joe and I will-" Ella's reply halted abruptly when Nathan slammed on the breaks all of a sudden. Their vehicle fishtailed several times before coming to a screeching stop.
"Nathan, what on earth-" Andrea started. Such reckless driving was out of character for her husband.
She and Ella looked forward to see what had made Nathan stop so hastily on the dirt road. They were only about a mile away from the mansion, so it struck them as odd to stop before even reaching the highway. They squinted to see in the darkness and made out a large black SUV parked horizontally in the road, blocking their passage.
"What's going on," Ella asked, her voice trembling as she spoke. She watched as four men came climbing out of the vehicle, all dressed in black as well as wearing dark ski masks. They then pulled handguns from their coats, and proceeded to screw on silencers. "Oh, my God...Daddy! Go back," she screamed at the same moment in which Nathan slammed the car into reverse and punched the gas.
However, before he could go more than a few feet, the car lurched roughly forward after a loud crash from the back. Ella and Andrea both screamed, and looked behind them to see another black SUV blocking the path behind them. The impact had pitched Ella forward and between the two front seats. Nathan quickly shoved her back, hoping he could possibly keep his daughter concealed, and out of harm's way.
"Get down, and stay down, baby," he whispered urgently.
"They've already seen me, Daddy," she answered shakily, sitting back in her seat. "They already know I'm here."
"What do they want," Andrea cried in fear.
"Just stay calm," Nathan said. "Maybe all they want is money."
He knew that wasn't the case, however. The men's high-tech firearms and expensive vehicles indicated they were already wealthy.
The first group of men walked up to their car and was joined by four more men from the vehicle behind the small family. All of the men aimed their guns at the Roberts's vehicle, but only one spoke to them. "SHUT YOUR ENGINE AND LIGHTS OFF! NOW!"
Reluctantly, Nathan reached forward and turned the ignition off, and then hit the knob to shut off the car's lights. Immediately, darkness engulfed them, but only for a moment. The men all had small lights attached to their guns, which they promptly turned on. They did not give off as much light as the car did, but they were sufficient for the men to see where their guns were aimed.
At that point, another of the masked men pointed their gun in Andrea's direction. It happened so fast Ella did not comprehend what was happening.
There was a slight whoosh, and the sound of shattering glass. Andrea seemed to fall back in her seat for a second, and then slumped forward. In the same instant, Ella felt an intense, burning pain rip through her left shoulder, and it shot all the way down her arm. She cried out and looked down at herself; horrified to find a bullet wound and blood oozing from her shoulder.
Seeing his wife lifeless, Nathan didn't notice Ella's condition right away. "Andrea! Oh, God... Andrea!" He checked her pulse and then was reaching for the lever on the seat to lay it back so he could attempt CPR.
"Daddy..." Ella whimpered. "Mama..." Her shoulder burned like fire and she felt lightheaded after seeing so much of her blood flowing down her arm. She knew she should put pressure over the wound, but she could not bear touching it. Just the thought made her nauseated, but she was also afraid of the extra pain administering pressure would bring.
The man, who initially shouted for the car to be shut off, spoke again with a softer tone. "Now, Dr. Roberts...you see how serious we truly are. Step out of the car." The man's ice-blue eyes glinted in the darkness and shifted over to Ella then, "You too, Miss Roberts."
Ella looked to her father with fear in her eyes, "Mama..." she questioned. "Is—Is mom okay?"
Nathan shook his head as tears streamed down his face, "She's gone, baby." He turned to face her then, and his gaze trailed downward to her shoulder, "Oh, God—you're hit too." He sobbed in fear of losing the other most important person in his life. He started to shift in his seat to tend to her when the man whom appeared to be in charge of the attack, tapped on the driver's side window.
"Out of the car now, Dr. Roberts... Her wound is only in the shoulder. She'll not be hurt further. If you do as I say."
"Honey, I want you to run the first safe opportunity you get. Okay," Nathan said quietly. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine," he lied. He could see his daughter preparing to protest. "Promise me, you will run and try to get back to your Uncle's place."
"Daddy, I can't leave you."
"Do it! You have to promise me," he whispered urgently; desperation in his eyes. His eyebrows furrowed in his anxiety. "Do it for me, and for your mother."
Ella bit back a sob, and nodded. "I promise."
"Get into the woods and run back to Jeff's house. The trees will give you cover and you'll have more of a chance."
Again she nodded, but with severe reluctance.
"You have three seconds to get out of the car," the man said with finality in his voice.
Ella began taking down mental notes to give to the police. Though there wasn't much to go on, other than the fact that the man who was the leader, had ice-blue eyes. That's certainly not enough to catch someone with, she thought angrily.
She and her father opened their doors and shuddered as the icy air chilled them to the bone. They cautiously stepped out of the vehicle, sheer terror mirrored in their eyes. Several guns were instantly trained on Nathan, while one of the men grabbed Ella roughly by the hair and slammed her up against the car.
"Get your shoes off, now," came a growled order.
"Please, my feet will freeze," Ella cried.
"That's the point, princess. If you try to run, you won't get far."
"I wouldn't get far anyway," she tried to reason. "I've been shot."
The slap was lightning quick. Ella heard her father shout in anger at the moment she felt the pain. The force of the blow flung her against her family's car. She cried out as her cheek scorched from the slap. She reached up to hold her face and saw the leader point a gun at her attacker. Then he spoke in a low, but authoritative tone of voice.
"Hit her again, and you die." His ice-blue eyes shifted to Ella then. "Take your shoes off, Miss Roberts. Now."
Frightened beyond words, Ella reluctantly slipped her heels off and cringed as the soles of her feet made contact with the snowy, hard ground. Instantly shivering, she noticed with dread that her father was not made to remove his shoes.
They're going to kill him, she realized in horror, just like Mom. They're not worried about him escaping!
The man who hit her stepped forward and with a sudden motion, he grabbed her roughly. She screamed and struggled as she was yanked up against the man's muscled frame. But her efforts to get free faltered and then ceased all together when she felt a cold blade press against her throat. She panted from her exertion and watched in horror as the leader approached her father, and rammed his fist into Nathan's stomach. Her father groaned and slumped over, grabbing his belly.
"Daddy," Ella screamed. "Leave my daddy alone!" Her hair was yanked back further then, exposing her throat, and the knife pressed harder into the delicate skin of her neck. She felt the blade nick her, and she whimpered in fear, grasping at the arm that held the weapon.
"I told you, Nathan," the leader spoke vehemently to her father. "I warned you that I'd take back what you stole from me. Didn't I?"
Ella saw her father's eyes light up with recognition. Her confused gaze darted back and forth between the two men.
Nathan uttered a curse.
She gaped at her father, having never heard him talk in such a way before.
Nathan's words trailed off as the man grabbed him by the hair and forcibly tipped his head back. He placed the barrel of his gun under his chin.
"NO," Ella screamed, struggling frantically again. "Oh, God—Please, don't! PLEASE!"
For an instant, she felt the knife leave her neck and then she was shook so violently her teeth rattled. "Shut up, girl," came a hissed warning in her ear.
At that moment, her father's cell phone rang.
The leader sounded exasperated as he spoke. "Who's calling you?"
Nathan shakily took the phone from its holder on his belt and looked at it. "A family member—my brother-in-law."
Ella gasped, fearful that all of her family and friends could be endangered as well.
"Answer the phone," the leader said. "And give nothing away. Or you will be dead before you can even explain to your daughter why this is happening." The man's eyes turned to Ella's captor then. "Keep her quiet."
Explain what, Ella wondered. She saw her father's gears turning, and knew he was planning something. He made eye contact with her, and she could all but read his mind.
He was preparing an opportunity for her to run.
She shook her head slightly, begging him with her eyes. But he ignored her. With a deep breath he pushed a button on the phone and spoke as the man holding her shifted his free hand to clamp tightly over her mouth.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Nathan. It's Jeff...I have ya on speaker. If you can do the same, everyone wanted to say goodbye to Ella since yall had to leave so suddenly."
"I already have you on speaker," Nathan said, not even trying to sound cheerful. He hated to sound rude or uncaring, but he wanted to somehow let it be known that his daughter was in danger.
There was a pause, almost as if they all were wondering about Nathan's rudeness, but then everyone shouted: "Bye Ella! We love you!"
The leader hurried over to Ella and motioned for her captor to bring her over to the phone. He whispered in her ear, "Say goodbye to them. Nothing else. Or I may just have your throat slashed."
Ella shuddered as she was shoved toward the phone. She looked down at it, fighting the urge to scream for help. Instead, she spoke softly. "B-bye. I love you all, too. Very much." She was unable to keep her voice from trembling with her fear.
"Something's wrong."
Ella barely made out AJ's voice in the background, and could only hope the leader had not heard him as well.
As if testing out AJ's theory, Jeff spoke again, apprehension in his voice.
"Oh—Ella left her wrap here. Would you like me to bring it over the next time we visit? Or should I mail it?"
"Um...we'll come and get it. Tomorrow," Nathan said. He hoped Jeff would realize he would be at work the next day, and then further deduce that something truly was amiss.
"Tomorrow," Jeff asked, sounding suspicious. "Really? I thought you'd be back at work tomorrow."
Seeing his plan had halfway worked, Nathan decided to make it work completely. He spoke with resignation, spitting the words out in a second's notice, "Jeff, we're near the end of your road—Ella's being kidnapped—don't let him take my baby." He saw their guns rising in what seemed to be slow motion so he hurried to spit out the most vital info. "Jacques Fournier."
In the next instant, bullets whizzed through the air and mingled with the boss's angry curse at having his name given away. Ella watched in horror as her father's body jolted from the gunshots. Nathan fell to the ground right next to her, a bullet wound visible in his forehead. He had died instantly, with his deep blue eyes wide open, in an unseeing stare.
Ella threw her head back and screamed in a mixture of terror and anguish. She vaguely heard the man groan out in pain behind her, and felt him release his hold on her. The man's cry, and the throbbing pain at the back of her head confirmed she had inadvertently head-butted him, though his pain was no consolation. She wanted nothing more than to curl up on the ground and die.
But she had made her father a promise—a promise that she would run. She knew if she didn't, her parents' deaths would be in vain. The other men were busy inspecting the damage they had done to her father, and hadn't noticed she was free. Saying a quick prayer, she moved like lightning and snatched her father's cell phone off the ground. In the next instant, she was running for the shelter of the trees as fast as she could. The snow stung her feet and countless sticks and rocks dug into the tender flesh.
She heard the sound of her uncle's voice calling to her over the phone, mixed with more whooshes of gunfire following her into the woods as she ran.
She heard the leader shouting then. "Stop firing! I don't want her killed! I need her alive!"
"Ella! Ella, can you hear me, baby," her uncle's voice yelled frantically over the cell phone. She quickly punched a button to turn off the speakerphone and began trying to walk back toward Jeff's mansion as she held the phone up to her ear. The freezing ground however made this difficult, and she winced with every step she took.
"I'm—I'm here," she said weakly, biting her lip against the pain in her feet. "Uncle Jeff—I'm so scared," She could get nothing more to come out. Hysteria was about to take over.
"Where are you?"
"The woods."
She heard a lot of noise in the background. Familiar male voices were talking about guns and leaving the mansion to find her.
"Baby, we're coming to get you," Jeff said. "We're going to find you, I promise. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
"They h-have g-guns too," Ella sobbed in warning. "With s-silencers. They killed Mom and Daddy. Please, Uncle Jeff—all of you be careful. I can't lose anyone else."
"I'm so sorry, darlin'," Jeff said softly. "We're on our way. And I promise we'll be careful."
Ella stopped walking a moment to rest then, when her head began to swim. She tried her best to clear her blurring vision, and took some deep breaths. From a distance, she heard the sound of vehicles speeding down the road. Sure it was her uncle and friends approaching, she wanted badly to try and meet them on the road. However, she knew the killers could get to her more easily, if she did. She instead kept to the trees, heading in the direction of the mansion and hoped she would come across Jeff or some of her friends along the way.
Please, Lord—let me find them, she prayed. Please don't let me die out here like this. And please keep my loved ones safe.
Suddenly, there were gunshots not very far away, and she stopped dead in her tracks.
The men who killed my parents had silencers on their guns.
"HELP ME!"
She'd intended on the frantic shriek being loud, for her loved ones to hear. But it came out feeble and weak. Her blood loss and the freezing weather were taking their toll on her.
"Ella?"
She heard her uncle's voice addressing her but before she could answer, the phone was batted out of her hand. She screamed as a hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed her by the throat. She was slammed up against a tree trunk and pinned in place. The back of her head smacked into the tree hard and her vision went fuzzy for a moment.
"You're not going anywhere," one of the killers growled at her. He threw her roughly to the ground then. "You broke my nose. How about I pay you back with some broken ribs?"
Ella saw the man's foot coming down toward her midsection and tried to dodge the blow. She didn't move quickly enough however, and the killer's boot connected with her side. She heard a crunch, followed by a painful pop in her rib-cage.
Ella didn't make a sound as the pain exploded through her ribs and chest. She curled up on the ground, praying for unconsciousness and gasping for air that would not come. "P-please..." she finally managed to beg through her wheezing.
"'Please', what, princess," the man taunted, crouching down on his knees beside her. He pulled her into a sitting position by her hair. "I have to say that's a much better attitude for you to have. There ain't nothing like hearing a woman beg. Especially a spoiled, little rich one, like you."
Ella sobbed, realizing the killer squatting next to her was a complete psychopath. "Please, l-leave me—alone." She trembled as she felt cold air and snow blow over her body.
"Now that's not very nice, spoiled little princess," the man cooed sarcastically, taking hold of her wrists with his hand. She lost her balance and collapsed awkwardly onto her back. The jostling movement sent more pain shooting through her stomach and chest. The snow stung her wounds, sending a series of shudders through her small frame. "Besides, I can't do that," the killer continued. "I'm supposed to take you to Fournier." He knelt above her and began to wrap some rope around her wrists, and then secured the binding in a tight knot. Ella took a chance with a burst of strength. Doubling her fists, she struck out with them in an attempt to smash the man's face. Unfortunately, her coordination was off, and the man easily caught them in his large hand.
"You missed," he growled in her face. "Now, be still."
"Let g-go—of me," she cried, bucking against him, trying in vain to free herself.
Ignoring her struggles, he spoke quietly in her ear. "You're spirited. I like that." He brushed some hair away from her cheek and let his gloved hand trail downward to her neck. It would have been an almost tender gesture, but she knew better.
His fingers curled around her throat then and squeezed hard. Ella attempted to scream, but without an oxygen supply, the attempt was futile. She struggled to pull his hand away from her as he squeezed off her windpipe. And then he released her throat as quickly as he'd latched on to it, as if he was only showing her what he was capable of. She gasped in air as he continued taunting her. "But something tells me that you will be a meek little kitten once Fournier gets through with you." He laughed when Ella's eyes widened. "Yeah, little princess. I know exactly what he has in store for you." The man's mouth turned up in an evil grin through the hole in his mask, clearly enjoying the fear he was instilling.
Ella froze for an instant, panic immobilizing her, but then she came to her senses and began thrashing against him with everything she had left. "Let me go," she sobbed, her breath hitching in her now sore throat. She tugged at the ropes binding her wrists, and felt her skin tearing from her efforts. "LET ME GO," she screamed the protest then, kicking and grappling with everything she had. She finally managed to strike the man in the temple—the blow hardly phased him however, and he finally grew angry at her struggles. Drawing his fist back, he punched Ella square in the face. "Shut up!"
The girl tasted blood and felt the stinging split in her lip. Her head was fuzzy from all the blows she'd taken to her head. Fear engulfed her, and hopelessness was setting in. Her fate was bleak and frightening.
Sobbing in pain, her head grew even foggier and her thoughts shifted from the terror she was going through to her family and friends.
To Joe.
Joe, she thought.
Her heart broke all over again. He'd devastated her—broken her.
And still, I love him. She felt tears streaming down her cold cheeks again. He'll never know how much I loved him.
She slowly and groggily came back to herself when she felt the man attempting to bind her ankles next.
"Joe..." she cried softly. "I love you..."
She didn't realize she'd spoken the words, till her attacker chuckled.
"That big guy on the patio who was kissing you? Yeah, I doubt you'll be seeing him ever again." Laughing once more, he added, "In fact, I doubt you'll ever see the light of day again."
Horrified that her personal and private moments had been witnessed, Ella screamed, struggling against the man with one last burst of strength as he tied a painfully tight knot in the ropes holding her ankles together.
In the next instant, a blade was in her mouth, and her tied wrists were restrained above her head.
She froze, panting from her exertion.
"Have you ever heard of the Black Dahlia," her attacker asked, a sadistic tone to his voice.
She didn't bother answering. She knew the question was rhetorical, and didn't warrant a reply.
"If you don't stop that screaming and squirming, I'm going to make you look just like her."
To prove his point, he pressed on the blade and nicked the corner of her mouth a tiny bit-just enough to frighten her into submission.
But instead of subduing her, Ella screamed again then cried frantically, clenching her eyes shut in terror. Frightened as she was, she became aware of a roar that overpowered her loud screams. It became deafening all of a sudden, and in the next instant, the killer's weight left her...
