Thanks everyone very much for the reviews!

Longing to Break Free

Chapter 3

He was not here. Gabriella wanted to cry as realization struck her a few minutes after she, Chad, and Jason had arrived at her house. They had looked around all over the house but it was obvious that Troy wasn't there at all.

Gabriella walked away from her house feeling rather depressed. Chad had suggested they go over to Troy's house and see if he had been there. Gabriella nodded in agreement, though she couldn't help but feel afraid that that still wouldn't help them find Troy. She just had such a bad feeling running through her for what felt like hours now. It was killing her not knowing where exactly he was.

They walked for awhile in silence. However Jason suddenly asked, "Hey, what's that?" he pointed to the ground ahead of them.

Gabriella followed his gaze, she wasn't exactly sure what he was trying to tell them, "What are we looking at Jas-" she stopped in mid sentence, she froze as she noticed something shiny laying on the ground. She raced over to pick it up. She let out a startled cry as she realized what it was.

It was the silver chain necklace she had given Troy earlier this year. She nearly stopped breathing when she realized it.

"Wait a minute, that's not what I think it is," Chad whispered, as he tried to look at it better.

Gabriella shakily held the necklace and suddenly the tears began to fall again, "His necklace that I gave him," She let out a cry, "He barely ever takes this off! Hardly ever!"

Jason looked away knowing that Gabriella was right. It felt like Troy always had that on these days. He nervously ran a hand through his hair. Something about this definitely didn't feel right to him. He couldn't help but feel worried about Troy.

"Gabriella, perhaps it just fell off..." Chad tried to say, though he didn't necessarily believe it himself. He felt himself secretly panicking inside. He knew Troy always had that necklace on lately and wouldn't just let it lay like that on the street. He swallowed nervously. This really gave him a bad feeling about this entire situation. And it killed him thinking something really could have happened to his friend.

"No!" Gabriella cried, fear in her voice, "Something happened. This is proof. He wouldn't just leave this here. He has obviously been here. Where is he at! Where is he?!" She was crying a river now, tears just flowing down her face uncontrollably. She just hated this. Not knowing where he was. And she couldn't stand seeing his necklace on the ground and not with him, wherever he was.

"Gabriella," Chad softly went, trying to remain calm, "Let's keep looking. Come on, let's head to the Boltons."

Gabriella nodded though she was still shaking and crying. She tightly held onto the necklace afraid to loose it again. She didn't want to let go of it. Jason wrapped his arms around her and Chad continued to walk next to them. Together, the three of them made there way to the Boltons hopeful that they would find something good there.

Yet none of them truly believed they would find anything good.

When Troy woke up he hurt like hell. His head was pounding horribly. His entire body was hurting so much because of this. And he had never felt more frightened in his entire life.

Troy let out a painful moan as he slowly opened his eyes, afraid to open them. He could immediately sense that things felt different and that made him feel terrified. He so wished this was some nightmare that he could wake up from. Yet he knew this was real and he was trapped here.

It had taken him a few seconds to adjust to his surroundings but he noticed that the blindfold had been removed. He was surprised to see that he could see again. However, the gag was still unfortunately there. He then realized something else. He was no longer trapped in the van but he was now tied up very tightly and securely to a chair. He could feel himself panicking like crazy. He tried to remain calm but it was impossible to do so. He desperately struggled a bit to free himself from the chair but soon discovered that the ropes were extremely tight and it was difficult to bust away from the chair. His whole body was shaking with fear now.

He fearfully looked around his new surroundings trying to figure out as to where exactly where he was. He suddenly observed that he was being held in a semi - large basement with no windows. Only one dim light hung from above. There was pretty much nothing in the room he was now trapped in and he also noticed that the door was locked. He looked hopelessly around the room as he came to the horrifying realization that there was pretty much no way out of this place.

He suddenly cursed at himself for having stupidly knocked himself out as one of the results was a killer headache. It also prevented him from estimating how long the man had had him in the van and it stopped him from having another chance of trying to escape.

He suddenly frantically tried to break away once more from the ropes, only to find it pointless. He soon gave up, helplessly, feeling close to tears.

He shut his eyes, closed them tightly, and then reopened them again. He wanted to cry so hard. Oh God, he desperately had to get out of here! It just felt so impossible! He was insanely frustrated by this and just didn't understand it. He couldn't stop panicking. He tried to calm down and think. Who was doing this to him and why? What was going to happen to him? Did anyone have a clue that this had even happened to him? Surely his friends realized something must have happened when he didn't arrive at Chad's party. Considering he had gotten knocked out he had no clue how long he had been here but he knew the party was most likely over. His Gabriella must have been worrying like crazy when he never got there. She was probably beyond worried.

Gabriella! His heart ached to be with her. Somehow he just knew that she was probably very worried about him. He couldn't stand knowing that she was worrying over him. She knew that he was excited about Chad's party and wouldn't miss it for anything. Plus she knew he couldn't wait to spend most of the night with her. She had to know something was really wrong.

As he thought of Gabriella his eyes immediately looked down towards his neck. But his heart suddenly broke as he noticed something. It was gone. His necklace was gone. The one thing that was his only connection to Gabriella right now was gone. What the hell? He sighed in frustration as he realized he must have lost it during the attack. He only wished he still had it so he could feel connected to her in someway.

More than anything he wished that he could just break free from this awful place and be with her.

But what killed him the most was he had no idea if he would ever see her again.

Gabriella was extremely nervous for some reason as they finally reached the Bolton house. Oh, she just hoped and prayed he was here! It was driving her crazy that they hadn't found him yet. The three of them looked nervously at each other before walking up and all walked up to the doorway together.

Chad was the first one there and rang the doorbell.

The door swung open and Gabriella could see Troy's father, Jack Bolton standing inside the house. He looked up at the threesome in surprise, "Well hi Gabriella, Jason, and Chad!" He greeted them, but looked rather confused, "Why are you guys here? I thought you had some sort of party tonight somewhere."

"We just left there," Gabriella somehow managed to find her voice, "We are looking for Troy. You haven't seen him by chance have you?" She asked hopefully yet she was starting to feel a little afraid by the confused look on Jack's face.

"But Troy has been with you three all night I thought," Jack told them, Gabriella's heart broke as he said that, and she could see that Chad looked upset and frustrated as he said that to them. Jason was being rather quiet and didn't say anything.

"We," Chad stuttered, "We haven't seen Troy since about four o'clock, Coach. We were getting a little worried about him and thought we'd see if he had been here at all." Chad explained.

Jack frowned at them suddenly, "You mean he never went to the party? That's not right. I saw him last at about five-thirty and he told me he couldn't wait to go pick up Gabriella and head over to Taylor's. He looked really excited about it. And you're telling me he never made it? That was over a few hours ago!" Jack started to look at them with a worried expression written on his face now.

Gabriella couldn't stand seeing Jack starting to worry now also. It was absolutely killing her. Oh God, something bad had happened to Troy. She could just feel it. She only wished she knew what. Where in the world was her Troy? And why did it feel so impossible to figure out were he was?