FIFTEEN
Sam woke up to a beautiful dream. She and Martin were making love in the most passionate way, Martin knowing exactly where and how to comfort her. She smiled, groaning as her eyes begin to flutter open and take in her surroundings, hoping to see the brilliant eyes of her lover staring back at her.
The room was pitch black. She realized that she wasn't lying on a bed, but was lying on a cold floor, both her arms tied up behind her back. She could feel cold air swirling around her and realized that she was naked. She shivered feeling the cold.
"Good morning Sammy," a voice hissed from the darkness somewhere. Sam flung her head around to try and see the man who spoke to her. "Don't be scarred, your friend isn't, and those nice people weren't." He hissed again, she could hear him stepping closer to her.
"Who are you? Where am I?" Sam asked, listening for the sound of footsteps.
"Neither are of your concern." The man sighed.
A small light above her was turned on, allowing her to just see the room she was in. There was another man sitting opposite her, but she couldn't tell who he was. The man who spoke was standing over her, she couldn't see his face, it was hidden in shadow.
She felt exposed in the light. She tried to move her legs to cover herself, to the men's amusement.
"Where's Martin?" She asked realizing he wasn't in the same room.
"He's safe, for now." Sam could see the definite signs of the man breaking into a smile, but knew that it was an evil smile, and all she could feel was fear.
"What do you want from me?" Martin croaked as another wave of beatings finished.
He had woken up in a dimly lit room, naked and tied up to a water pipe along the wall. He hoped that Sam and the Toland's were okay, but he knew that Sam probably wasn't.
"I don't want anything from you." The man who had just spent 10 minutes using Martin as a punching bag removed the bandage from his knuckles not looking at him. "I'm just giving you a warning."
"How can I be warned when I don't know who you are or what I've done to affect you?" Martin attempted to reason with the man.
"I'll tell you who I am. My name is John Michael Malone, and you have spent too much time with my wife recently." The man still didn't look at him.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Martin tried to hide the fear in his voice, realizing who he was up against.
Jack stepped up to him and smacked him hard across the face. "Don't you dare try and lie to me. I watched you, last night with her, she's fun isn't she." He whispered in a hoarse and evil tone, Martin looking at the ground still wincing in pain. Martin felt sick hearing Jack describe his wife. "She looks good too. How many times did you call her beautiful? Problem is, you just made the worst mistake of your life because you have no idea who you're dealing with right now." He straightened himself and left the room, turning off the light as he left.
Martin continued to wince in pain. He hoped Sam wasn't receiving the same treatment, but a part of him knew that was only wishful thinking.
In the darkness that surrounded him, he tried to pull himself free of the rope that connected him to the water main. He collapsed against the floor, unsuccessful in his escape attempts.
Sam continued to scream, even as the man left her. She now had bruises scattered over her body, from her abdomen to her groin and over her face.
"Stop whining." The other man spat as he opened the door for the two men to leave.
Sam had always known rape to be a painful experience, but hadn't realized just how much. She vowed that if she survived, she would make it her mission to protect women from this kind of pain.
She lay against the wall, her screams subsiding into tears, not noticing her husband enter the room. At the sound of his voice she looked up. She might have been scared before but now she was absolutely petrified, especially from the bruises on his hands, the gleam in his eye, and the sneer in his smile.
The Missing Person's team raced around the Toland's house, shouting names. After getting a call from a neighbor around 1.30, they had immediately been on it, rushing to the house to see who was left.
Danny kicked the front door down, to find the house looking completely normal. "Check the bedrooms." He ordered the other agents who followed in behind him.
He rushed up the stairs, opening every door he passed. When he opened the closet door, seeing a girl in her late teens, duct-tape binding her wrists and ankles and over her mouth, he knew she was left for a reason.
She looked up at him petrified as he leant down and removed the tape from her mouth.
"It's okay, you're alright. My name's Danny Taylor I'm with the FBI. What's your name? " He asked her calmly before calling for a medic.
"Allison." She mumbled weakly as he pulled out his pocked knife and cut the tape around her wrists and feet.
"Allison, right, can you tell me what happened?" He asked her, relieved that someone was alright.
"I don't know, I was asleep." She whispered.
"Anything, what happened to your family, Martin, Sam, anything you can remember." Danny pried as a medic rushed up to him.
"He, said, that I was to tell whoever found me, thanks for the help in finding them, and this isn't about money, it's about property." She whispered trembling as she spoke.
"Its okay, its okay we'll find them." Danny attempted to soothe the young girl as the medic checked her over and Kelly and Michael called him away.
"All the bedrooms are a mess, and the clothes Martin and Samantha were wearing in the office today are scattered all over the floor." Kelly whispered into Danny's ear as Vivian joined the trio.
"You guys need to come and hear this." She indicated the group to follow her, leading them back to the entrance hall and to the answering machine. She pressed the button to hear the message.
i Hello, is this the New York FBI Missing Person's team. Good I thought it was. Just calling to let you know that everything is under control, and my team is doing everything we can to protect the welfare and wellbeing of our victims. /i
"Son of a bitch." Michael murmured.
"That was."
"Jack Malone yes." Vivian sighed, pressing the button on the answering machine. "I'll have tech look over it, see if they can find anything." She sighed opening up her phone.
Danny watched as the medic helped Allison down the stairs. She was still trembling and found it hard to walk. As they reached the bottom of the stairs he helped her onto a gurney and rolled her out. He smiled and waved at her briefly, knowing that Martin and Sam coming here had been a risk from the word go.
But he couldn't blame them for wanting to feel safe, especially when their own home was being watched.
"Agent Taylor, you need to see this." An agent from the top of the stairs called down. The team headed up quickly, Danny leaving them in his wake. Martin was one of his best friends. He'd come into the team two years ago and immediately they had clicked, probably because they were similar age, didn't have young families and were both single.
He knew how hard friends like Martin were to make and hold, and he didn't want to loose that now, and he wasn't prepared to loose that.