Hi all! Thanks so much for all the feedback and encouragement from past readers… and welcome new readers! I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far! I really hope you all enjoy this next chapter… we're getting near the final stretch of this story… though there's still more to come (and hopefully not such a long wait between – sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up!) -- MAC
CHAPTER 20
As Tad leads me through a dark corridor that definitely feels as though it's underground, my mind wanders. When you can't see anything and you're only option is to think about the fear gnawing at your insides, it happens. Your mind wandering, I mean. My mind wanders, of course, to Cooper. Poor stressed-out Cooper.
In my mind, he's rushing to my side, saving me from Tad. He runs to me desperately, sweat covering his forehead, his brows pressed together with concern. He gets to my side, stares intently into my eyes. With love, of course. And then… he crushes me against him, drowning me in the most passionate kiss. The kind borne from dire life-or-death situations. Like in the movies!
Ooh, is it hot in this dark corridor, or is it just me?
"In here, baby," Tad says, opening a door, breaking me from my sweet reveries. He takes my hand and brings me inside a very small room.
"Tell us what you're seeing, Heather," Barrett says. "Find a way."
"What's this room?" I ask, trying to be helpful to my Save Me Squad.
"An elevator," Tad says, smirking at me like he's privy to some inside joke. "Ever been in one?"
"Yes," I shoot back indignantly. Obviously Tad's making fun of me. And that's so not cool. I mean, I've had a very stressful night. I'm allowed to not recognize an elevator… even if it is pretty standard-looking.
"We're going up?" I venture aloud.
"Yup," Tad says. "To your new abode."
I sigh.
"You're doing great, Heather," Cooper says.
After what seems like eternity – but in all actuality is about ten seconds – the doors slide open, and I find myself in another dark room.
"I can't see anyth—"
Before I can finish, a light turns on, and I see Tad smiling at me. "Welcome home, baby."
My mouth falls open as I look around this room. Pictures of me are everywhere. Every inch of every wall is covered in photos of me. Real and computer generated. "Oh god," I mutter. I feel like I'm going to be sick.
"What is it, Heather?" I hear Cooper say softly into my ear.
I look at Tad and try to smile. "I mean, oh wow… you dedicated this whole room to me. All these pictures… you must really care about me."
I barely get the words out, but I'm trying to be as descriptive as I can.
"Is it a shrine?" Barrett asks. "Is the room covered with pictures of you?"
"Yes," I say automatically. Then, remembering myself, I turn to Tad. "Yes, I can see you really care."
"Of course, baby. I love you."
"I… can tell," I manage.
I can't shake the feeling that there's something really familiar about this room. Have I seen it before? I look around. There's something about it. I have. I've seen it before. Though, obviously, when I saw it, every inch was not covered with photos of me.
I swallow, trying to be nonchalant as I look around, trying to picture the room without the shrine. I look for anything familiar. I inhale, hoping a smell will trigger it for me.
Nothing.
Dammit! My life depends on me figuring out where the hell I am… I instinctively think I've been here before… and I have a mental block? I cannot afford a mental block!
"Hey, baby, calm down. This is your new house. I mean, look around. It's all about you, Heather. Take a deep breath, and just relax. This is where you're going to spend the rest of your life."
That's when it happens. That's when I can't pretend anymore. Can't act calm. The rest of my life? How long will that be? Is he killing me soon? Am I here until I'm eighty? Both options absolutely suffocate me. So that's when I freak out. Like, really freak out.
I start breathing heavily. I can't catch my breath. "Oh god." I can't breathe. I'm beginning to wheeze.
"Heather," Cooper says. "Stay calm. Please." He's begging me; I can hear the desperation in his voice on that word, that please. To do what, I'm not sure. Clearly he knows I'm losing it. That all the control I had is completely slipping away. "Pull it together. You're strong. You are the strongest person I know," he says slowly, measuring each word with emphasis, with feeling. "You're so much stronger than him. Don't let him win."
That's when I notice it. On the wall. Straight ahead of me, over a fireplace. A bear's head. Wooden paneling on the walls. I look to my right and sure enough I see a floorboard lifted… the place where Cooper and I had first found photos of me. I was here with Cooper when I figured out that Tad was definitely my stalker.
This is Tad's house. The one in Jersey. Well, Seymour's house. I was here with Cooper, but the photos of me were in the floorboards. Now… they're everywhere. The room barely looks the same. But I am completely sure it is the same.
And I have to find a way to let Cooper know without outright saying it. I squeeze my hands tightly, together, grasping at my fingers, my thoughts racing. How can I tell Cooper, but seem normal to Tad?
Then, something occurs to me. And it's worth a shot… since it's the only shot I currently have, and all.
"That floorboard is broken," I say to Tad, trying to get my breathing back to normal. I wait. There's silence in my ears. Tad's just looking at me. I look around for another clue. I see the bear head. I had jumped when I saw it when I was here with Cooper. He joked that it wouldn't hurt me.
"And that bear head over the fire place is kind of scary," I add. "I really don't like it near so many photos of me. His mouth is right near my neck in that one picture, like he's about to bite me."
"Curious positioning," Taylor's angry wife says to me, sarcastically.
"Angel," Taylor says, like he's feeling defensive of me. And all I can think is: this scary chick's name is Angel?
"Picky, picky," Tad says to me, interrupting my flow of thoughts. "You're here all of five minutes and already you're shouting out your decorating orders. Remove the bear head, fix the floorboard."
"Well, you told me to calm down, so I'm just looking around. Taking it all in. My new home, I mean. And if it's going to be my new home, I thought I should tell you—"
"—I get it. You want to make it perfect," Tad says. "Like any couple's first home together should be."
So not what I was thinking but that works! "Exactly," I say brightly.
"Don't worry, baby, this is the house you're going to grow old in. So I'll fix it up good for you. There will be lots more pictures on these walls. Not just pictures of you, no. These walls will be covered with our new history. With pictures of us. But first, before any pictures are taken, Baby, we do need to take care of one thing."
Tad leers at me, and I wonder for a moment how it was even possible that he acted normal when I met him! Normal enough that I actually began to date him. I mean, now all I see when I look at him is this intense and deeply sick gaze fixed on me in the most obsessive and possessive way. And that's just upsetting; I've always thought of myself as such a good judge of character!
I strain my ears trying to figure out if Cooper figured out where I am from my clues. I am not sure what else to say without drawing attention to myself. But Cooper, Barrett, Angie - none of them are saying anything, which is kind of unusual since they've barely shut up since I turned the microphones on. Even if just to try to calm me down. But right now, they're not saying anything, and I have just explained the room to Cooper - the room we've both been in before, together - as best I can. It's my only chance of getting out of this! I am dying to know that he at least heard, so I can at least have hope that he's now on his way – moments away, even, from busting through that door.
I listen more closely.
Silence.
As three sets of eyes – four now, as another familiar-looking man enters the room – stare at me, I feel completely alone. I feel an icy cold hand grip my heart in the absence of the comforting chatter of my friends in my ears.
"She thinks this is the whole house," Taylor says, a cruel smile on his lips.
I swallow nervously. "There's more?" I ask tentatively.
"This way, baby," Tad says, turning on his heel to walk toward the fireplace where the bear head is located.
My feet are stuck to the floor. They literally feel rooted to the spot. Fear has taken over my whole body. I don't want to follow him. The uncertainty about what he has in store for me, or some other sick room - maybe a bedroom - has created the most awful kind of fear that I have ever felt. My blood feels like it's really, actually run cold, and that it's no longer circulating to my fingers, or my toes, or even my face which feels totally numb.
Aside from that, the silence in my ears - the missing sound of Cooper's reassurance - is somehow deafening. And, the blurriness in my eyes makes me think that I may be crying. Though, I can't be sure. You know, because I'm so numb and all.
"Stop crying," Taylor says, and I detect a mixture of aggravation and sympathy. Is it my imagination, or do I also sense some guilt in this tone?
"Sorry," I stammer.
"Let's go!" Angel says angrily.
"She's stunned, I think," Tad says, a little triumph in his voice.
I can't move. Angel moves towards me and grabs my arm so hard that I gasp. And I think, once again about the awful silence in my ears.
It's kind of funny how silence can be deafening. I mean, not funny "ha ha", but… weird. All I want to hear is the sound of Cooper's voice – or anyone's for that matter – even though on some level it feels a little like I have multiple personalities. But as the silence intensifies, so does a feeling in my heart.
I am completely alone. With these people. Who want to kill me.
I wipe the tear that has just escaped my eye, and put my chin up just a fraction of an inch higher, fixing my face with a determined expression. After all, I must remain calm. I mean, that's what Nancy Drew would do, right?
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Okay, I can handle this for a little while longer until my crew comes to save me.
I notice the other guy – the one who drove the van, I imagine, since I don't recognize him. He moves toward the bookshelf by the fireplace, near where Tad stands whispering something to his little brother. He moves a book very quickly – pulls it out – and puts it back. There are so many books on the shelf. Hundreds! I try to keep my eyes on the book he pulled, since I'm noticing it's the book. You know, the one that opens the whole case. No, I'm serious. The book case just split down the middle and revealed a room behind it! I've seen it in movies and on TV! But it's actually happening to me right now! Scary as that is, I can't help but feel like that's totally cool.
I stare at the book that he pulled, trying to remember which one it is.
"Come on, Baby," Tad says. "Let's look at your whole house."
"Um… okay," I say. "Is the rest of it behind the bookcase that just opened up?"
Even though I can't hear Barrett, Angie or Cooper anymore, it can't hurt to be as descriptive as possible. I speak with hope, because I guess I know there's nothing else I can do right now to save myself.
Angel – Taylor's so wrongly named wife – grabs my arm again and pulls me toward the book case.
"Ow!" I say, straining to pull my arm free. "Care to lighten the grip at all, Xena?" I say, knowing the request will be granted with most likely a tighter grip on my arm. But I don't care. She grimaces and does just what I'd suspected.
We're getting closer to the book now, and I focus on it.
"Moby Dick," I say, as we walk past it. "Um… good book!"
I think that's the right one anyway. It could be "Little Women," which I also mutter aloud. Suddenly I'm not so sure, so I name about three more titles on the two shelves it could have been on, knowing I'm confusing my captors at best. And if Cooper is somehow still listening, I'm sure he's confused as well.
We walk into the new room, and I look around fearfully. I hear a noise behind me, and see it's just the bookcase closing, locking us into what I can only describe as hell on earth.
Treadmills. Ellipticals. Stationary Bikes. A big pool. A sauna.
I'm in Tad's own fitness world… just as promised.
Oh. My. God. It's my very own Death Gym.
"Dammit," I whisper, as tears prick my eyes. I can't believe someone thinks I look so bad that they'd resort to this. Do I really look that bad? A crazy group of people have kidnapped me, and before they can even do anything with me, they need to put me on a treadmill. They need to starve me.
Before I can get too lost in self-pity, however, Tad's voice comes up on me like a nightmare in the dark.
"I think we'll start with ten minutes on the treadmill, then you'll hit the sauna. Then the pool for laps."
I want to throw up, but instead I walk numbly to the treadmill. Well, Angel drags me there more or less. And I get on, while she sets the pace – "a mild jog for now."
As my feet begin moving like robots on the moving belt underneath them, tears fall from eyes freely – many of them. I wonder once again how someone could hate me – and the way I look – so much.
I didn't care before. I really didn't. But now, it kind of hurts. All over.
I pray silently, though loudly in my heart, for Cooper to burst through the door – or bookcase as it may be – to save me. Cooper, who couldn't possibly, I realize, want to date someone that is so out of shape that she'd get kidnapped and put onto a treadmill. I mean – who does that happen to? Not the datable type, that's for sure. My hopes for him are gone. I know he really cannot be attracted to me. Who could?
But I pray for him to save me all the same. We are, after all, friends. Best friends.
Sweat rolls down my face as I run until my legs start to feel like jell-o.
I look desperately up at Tad. He meets my gaze with his own laughing one.
"Baby, this is just the beginning of our lives together."
The tears continue falling as my feet stomp the ground and I run…
And run…
Sweat pours down my face as my ten minutes is almost up.
I just run, wanting so badly to run away. But I'm trapped. These sick people – they're all around me. They have me.
And all I can do is run. To nowhere.