Aren't I evil to keep you guys waiting?! Haha! I was going to update tomorrow, but my friend is forcing me to update now…lol :P

Hope you enjoy this long chapter haha!

…

Tori's POV

Andre, Beck, Robbie, Cat, and Jade all turned and looked at me. I could literally see the shock appear in their eyes, especially in Andre's. I guess my mom was in there talking to them, but as soon as I came into view, she smiled and walked out.

I ran down the stairs at the same time Andre ran towards the stairs. We caught up to each other a few feet from the stairs and I practically jumped into his arms. He wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace and held me against him. It was so overwhelming that I just burst into tears. Andre even started crying as well. At first, no words were spoken. We were just hugging and crying. Being back in his arms was one of the best feelings in the world.

"Oh, my God, Tori," he mumbled and kissed the top of my head several times. He tightened his grip around me if that was even possible. He was holding onto me as if his life depended on it. "I love you so much, baby." I cried harder when he said that. If he told me he loved me and called me baby, it meant that we were most likely still together and that he didn't find another girl to date.

"Andre…" I said, sobbing into his shoulder. "I…I thought that…you had forgotten about me."

"I could never forget about you in a million years. I thought about you every day." he whispered and pulled back just so he could kiss my forehead. Then he continued to embrace me. "I love you so much, Tori, like…I can't even explain it. I missed you so much."

I cried harder hearing those words. "I love you, too, Andre, and…I missed you more than you could ever know." I held onto him and cried a little bit longer before speaking again. I said, "I dreamed about you."

"What?" he said and he pulled me away so he could look in the eye. "What do you mean?"

"I really don't know why I tried to run away since the man told me that if I ever tried to or if I told people who I was that he'd kill me and my family and…my friends." I sighed heavily. "A few months back…I tried to run away, but…it didn't do any good. He caught me and…he took me back to his house. And…he…I don't know how to say it, but…he…" I bit my lip.

Andre nodded and rubbed his hand on the side of my cheek. "I know." he whispered. "You don't have to say it."

I sniffed and continued. "Well…after that…he pushed me against the wall and…tried to choke me to death." I shivered thinking about that. Andre squeezed my shoulder. "He told me that…after he killed me, he would go and kill my family, including…my friends." The memory was coming back to me and I didn't like it. Instead of telling the complete story, I shortened it. "Long story short…he wanted…you guys' names." I looked at the faces of all my friends. "At first…I wouldn't give it to him, but…he forced me to, so…I did. And then…he made me go back to my room. And that night…I dreamed that…he killed all of you." I looked down as tears fell down my cheeks. "I seriously thought he was gonna kill you guys. I was scared to death."

I heard Andre sigh. "Tori, look at me," Slowly, I looked up at him. "I would not have let that guy do a thing to me or any of us. And besides…even if he had come near me…and I knew that he was the man who took you and…hurt you like that…I'd rip him to pieces. I hate his guts."

"I love you so much, Andre." I would have kissed him, but since all our friends were around I restrained from doing that. I simply gave him another hug.

When we finally pulled apart, I stepped away from Andre and looked at all my other friends and smiled widely. Beck smiled and nodded and said, "Okay, now it's my turn. Get over here, girl." I giggled and wrapped my arms around his neck, giving him a huge hug. He hugged me back tightly. "Don't you ever scare us like that again!"

"I don't intend to." I said and then we came out of the hug.

Then Robbie and I hugged. When we pulled apart, I asked, "Hey where's Rex?"

"Oh, he's partying it up with Northridge girls." he said. "You know Rex…he loves his Northridge girls."

I laughed loudly. I never thought I'd be so happy to hear those words. "That's great, Robbie." I said.

Afterwards, I hugged Cat. She squealed really loudly in my ear. "I missed you so much, Tori!"

"I missed you, too, Cat," I said. I was suddenly happy that I'd defended Cat when that man made fun of her name. I chose not to tell her about that for fear of hearing, "What's that supposed to mean?"

When we pulled apart, she said, "I just can't believe it's you, Tori!"

"I know, Cat," I said. "I know,"

I hugged Cat one more time and then walked up to Jade. Her arms were crossed and she was looking around the room. I softly smiled and said, "I know it was you, Jade."

She shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about." Her voice was shaking and she looked as if she was trying really hard not to cry.

I smiled and looked at the ground. I cleared my throat and looked back up at her. "Jade…you saved my life. If you hadn't called the police when you saw that that was me in the store…I would be with that man right now and God knows what he'd be doing with me." I didn't say that to get sympathy; I said that because it was the truth. "You could have easily ignored me and gone about your business, but no…you picked up your phone and called the police. I don't know what else to say besides…thank you."

"You don't know it was me," she said in an argumentative tone. "There were a lot of people in the store. Someone else could have called."

"Funny story…when I got to the police station, I asked if the person who called told them who they were and they said yes. They told me it was Jade West." She quickly looked up at me. "Now I'm pretty sure that's your name."

"Don't flatter yourself," she said shakily. She was getting closer and closer to crying.

I slowly smiled. "Love me? Love me now? Yeah, you do, come on, give Tori a squeeze," I said jokingly and opened my arms. That was the exact same thing I said when I wanted Jade to hug me after I helped her get her play produced.

She sighed heavily and then we hugged. Jade and I had hugged a few times before this, but this hug was way different than all the others. Jade literally broke down crying and I even started to cry a little.

After Jade and I hugged, we all went and sat around the living room. We sat in pairs: Beck and Jade, Robbie and Cat, and me and Andre. Andre and I had our hands intertwined and it felt amazing to have him so close. I looked around the room at all my friends and said, "So what did I miss?"

"Nothing, really," said Andre. "Just day to day life. The only difference is that you weren't here. Oh, my gosh, if only you could have seen how crazy the search was for you."

Everyone else agreed that it was in fact craziness.

"How did you guys find out that I was missing?"

I looked around at all of them, but none of them responded. Finally Andre said, "Well…I found out first. Trina called me while I was on my way to school and asked if I knew where you could have been and I said no. She told me that her and your parents looked around the whole house, but found nothing. I told her to keep me updated and then we got off the phone.

"I got to school and I immediately told everyone about you being missing. No one said anything since it was so shocking. We stood there in silence for a while and then the bell rang, so we went to class. We all thought we'd be able to concentrate, but we couldn't. An hour into the day, we left and went to your house and it was absolutely insane there. There was yellow police tape everyone, cops and detectives were swarming your house, and there were probably ten cop cars.

"I talked to one of the detectives and asked if there's any way we could help and he said that there was a search center about a mile from your house and he said we could go there and see what we could do. So we got in the car and headed down to the search center and it was even crazier there. There were so many people there it was insane.

"We got in line to help search and once we got up to the front, the guy said that we had to be eighteen to search and we were all still seventeen at the time. Because of how badly we wanted to help, I looked him straight in the eye and said, 'We are eighteen.'

"We all looked at him with a serious expression and then he smiled a little and handed us orange vests while saying, 'Just be careful,' I think he knew we were lying, but he could see how badly we wanted to help.

"We searched off and on for the next four months. We would have kept searching, but as time went by, people stopped showing up at the search center, even the people in charge of searching. It's sad to say that so many people gave up."

I felt my heart drop. I can't believe people would give up hope. "But…why? Why didn't they just keep searching?"

Everyone shrugged. "People thought you were dead." said Beck. "The searching was pretty solid for the first four months, but it seemed to die down overnight."

"Honestly…did you guys think I would be found alive?" I asked. "Don't sugar coat it; I need the truth."

Andre sighed and said, "We wanted to believe that you'd be found alive, but…after months of searching and not finding a thing, it became highly unlikely that you'd be found at all. I hoped and prayed everyday for you to come home safely, but…I was beginning to lose hope. When I found out that you were found today…it was just the best feeling in the world; I can't even explain how happy I was. It was like a big weight had been released from my chest."

I smiled at him; it took everything I had not to lean in and kiss him right there. I knew that if we kissed right there that we'd get in a make out session and I didn't want to do that in front of all our friends. Instead, I said, "How much was the reward money?"

"One hundred thousand dollars," said Jade.

I laughed. "And you would know that, wouldn't you?"

She smiled and shook her head. "I just know from what the posters said. I'm supposed to get a call later this week, but you know…I don't even want the money. I'm really thinking about telling them to keep it."

Everyone in the room basically yelled at Jade when she said that, even me. After a few moments, she snapped, "One person at a time!"

"Me first!" I said. "Okay, Jade, take it from me…you deserve that money. I'm not even kidding, you didn't have to call the police and I didn't expect you to when I recognized it was you when I was behind that disguise. I didn't even think that someone had called the police; I just thought that there were police in the store already." I sighed. "There were three cops there. Two went and talked to the man while the other talked to me. He asked me questions for over an hour and all the information I gave him was fake. I didn't want him to know who I was, so…I tried to hide it best I could. It didn't do any good, because the cop knew all along that it was me.

"When I got to the police station after I finally revealed who I was, I asked what made that cop so sure that it was me. They said that a young lady had called and told them I'd been spotted. They thought it was a little unlikely since it had been six months since I went missing, but the person was very assertive. I asked if that person provided a name and they said it was Jade West."

"Dang it," she said jokingly. "Why did I tell them my name?"

Everyone laughed at that. "Well, they probably would have asked for your name anyway." I said. "But anyway…you're keeping that money. You completely deserve it."

"But I didn't call just to get the money." she argued. "I didn't even think about it."

I groaned and looked at Beck. "Help me out here,"

He smiled and looked at Jade. "Jade…you deserve that money." he said in a sweet voice. "You saved Tori's life. You don't even have to spend it all right away; you could put it in a savings account and use it for later. But you deserve it," He smiled at her. "Okay?"

She sighed and crossed her arms. "Okay," she said in a small voice. I said aww in my head. Beck and Jade were seriously perfect for each other. Beck is the only person I know who can get Jade to be sweet.

We all sat and chatted for a good thirty minutes, but they finally had to leave. They still had school tomorrow. When they mentioned school, it got me thinking about what I would do for school. I was covered for my junior year, but I'd already missed almost half of my senior year. I could always come back, but I'd be so behind in the work that it would be next to impossible to get caught up. I just shrugged it off for the night. I told myself I'd talk to my parents about it the next day.

Andre was the last person to walk out. Before he could step foot outside, I grabbed his arm and pulled him back inside. I closed the door and leaned my back against it. I crossed my arms and smiled flirtatiously at him. He said jokingly, "Oh, wow, I'm scared now."

I nodded. "Yeah, you should be." I stepped forward, snaked my arms around his neck, and kissed him. He immediately kissed me back and wrapped his arms around my waist. His hands were feeling up on my waist and back and it gave me chill bumps, but I loved it. It just added to the fireworks exploding in my stomach.

Just as the kiss deepened, we managed to go lay on the couch, him on top of me. I ran my fingers through his hair and kept him in place. He had one hand holding himself up and his other hand was on my cheek. We momentarily pulled away, but he just started to give a trail of kisses on my neck. "Hmm," I said softly. "I've waited so long for this moment."

"I have too, sweetheart." he said softly and then kissed my lips.

My eyes shot open and I pushed him away. "Stop," I said shakily.

He looked at me confused. "What's wrong?" he asked worriedly. We both pulled ourselves into sitting positions.

I let out a few shaky deep breaths. I blinked a few times and before I knew it, I was having a flashback.

I dropped the clothes and backed up against the wall, but he pulled me away from it and pushed me to the ground.

Andre grabbed my shoulders and gently shook me. "Tori, what's wrong?"

He ripped all of my clothes off of me and didn't stop until I was completely naked. He started to take off his own clothes, but I hid my eyes from him. I was terrified for what was gonna happen next.

"Baby, talk to me," Andre whispered and gently caressed my right cheek.

Next thing I knew, he was on top of me. "No reason to keep your eyes closed, sweetheart," he told me. Then he raped me. I let out a few shrieks of pain, but he slapped me when I did that. There was nothing I could do except endure this awful pain and wait for it to end.

I let out a cry of pain and fell back against the couch. I turned on my side and began to cry my eyes out. I wasn't even thinking about that moment while kissing Andre, but when he called me "sweetheart," my mind instantly thought back to that awful moment. No telling what other things could provoke a flashback.

Andre moved closer to me and gently picked me up and rested me against his torso. I clutched his shirt and cried into his chest. He gently wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head. "It's okay, I've got you." he whispered. "You're safe," It's like he knew why I was crying.

It took me a good ten minutes to recover. Even when I felt like I didn't need to cry anymore, I kept my head on Andre's chest. I felt so safe with his arms around me. I would have given anything for that moment while I was kidnapped. The moment was better than I could have ever imagined.

Because of how happy I was, I started to cry silently. I thought Andre didn't hear me until he said, "What's wrong, darling?" He soothed his head over my hair, which was still a little damp.

"I'm just so happy." I mumbled. "All while I was gone…I wanted you to be holding me in your arms and now you are. It's…it's just so overwhelming." I closed my eyes and listened for a moment. I heard his steady heartbeat. "I love having you so close."

He kissed the top of my head and whispered, "Well, I love holding you in my arms."

We laid there in silence for a few moments and then I said, "Thanks, Andre,"

"No problem, Tor." he told me. "Are you okay now?"

"Yeah, I'm good," I said. I set up and looked Andre in the eye. "Andre…I love you so much and you can call me any term of endearment you want, but…I just ask you to please not call me sweetheart. It's not your fault and I'm not mad at you, but…that man called me that all the time, usually before…well…yeah," He nodded. "It's just a name I'd rather not be called, but you can call me anything else."

"Okay," he said. "I'm really sorry about that. I'd never intentionally hurt you." He grabbed my hand and rubbed his thumb across the top of my hand. "I got scared there for a minute; you were really in a daze."

I nodded. "Yeah, I was having a flashback. It was so weird; I was here, but then I wasn't at the same time. It was almost like a dream, but I couldn't wake up from it. I heard you talking to me, but I couldn't respond."

"Well, I'm glad you're okay now." he said. "If you ever have another flashback, what should I do to help?"

"What you did just now was great." I said. "Just talking to me gently and letting me cry was the best thing you could have done. I just need to be able to let it out."

"Gotcha," he said and leaned forward. "So just to clarify…" he whispered while just a few inches from my lips. "Kissing you doesn't cause a flashback, does it?"

I smiled softly. "No way," I whispered and pressed my lips to his. I pushed him back on the couch and got on top of him. He ran his fingers through my hair while I tried to keep myself held up, but it was getting difficult.

We pulled apart and he smirked at me. "Having trouble staying up?"

"Yes," I said. "I don't wanna crush you."

He laughed and then tucked my hair behind my ears. "Yes, because you could really crush me." He quickly kissed me. "But if it makes you more comfortable, we could just lay side by side."

I nodded. "I like that," I got off of him and laid next to him. "Okay…where were we?"

"Right…about…here," He pressed his lips to mine and our little make out session continued for probably fifteen more minutes.

After our little make out session, we simply sat up and just started to talk. At one point, he randomly said, "Hey, Tor, do you remember when you were on the Platinum Music Awards?"

I smiled widely. That was one of the most magical nights of my life. "Of course I do. But I haven't thought about it in forever. Why do you bring it up?"

"You know how you were supposed to sing for it, then you got fired and Jade did it, but then she let you take her spot?"

"Uh…yeah?" I said this in question form. "Why?"

"Well…do you know the real reason why Jade let you take her spot at the last minute?"

I thought about that for a moment. I remembered back when that happened and I could not figure out why Jade was suddenly nice and gave me my spot back. I was definitely grateful she did that, but I still didn't know why. It was like one day she was mean and the next she was nice. I shook my head and said, "No. It's confused me for so long. She was mean to be one day, but then nice the next day. I didn't understand it."

He nodded. "Well, guess what? I know the exact reason."

My eyes widened. "Seriously? Then you've got to tell me!"

"It was the day before." he started off. "Jade was at the Boomerang Theater doing rehearsals and Cat was down there with her. You and Cat got on video chat and talked for a little bit. Remember? Me, Beck, and Robbie were at your house."

I nodded. "Yeah, I remember."

"But then when Cat said that we were all allowed to go down there, me and Robbie immediately left."

"Yeah, thanks for abandoning me." I said sarcastically.

He giggled. "But you were okay. You had Beck with you."

My heart started pounding remembering what happened once Andre and Robbie had left. I hadn't thought about that in so long. I gulped and said, "Uh…yeah, I guess."

"Anyway, while you and Beck were talking and…had your almost kiss…Jade saw that." he said. "The video chat was left on."

"Oh, my God!" I said and threw my hands to my head. "She saw that?"

He nodded. "Yep,"

"Oh, no," I said and groaned loudly. "I can't believe she saw that!"

"But she wasn't mad," he told me. "They were broken up at the time. And she just thought it was really nice of you to not kiss her friend's ex-boyfriend and how you said that you couldn't do that to a friend."

"Huh," I said, looking off into space thinking about it.

"And…I guess she felt like she had to pay you back," he said.

I nodded. "Yeah," I cleared my throat. "How did you find out all of this stuff?"

"Beck told me that you and him almost kissed twice and Jade overheard Beck telling me this," he said. "So she told me that she saw that second almost kiss. But she's not mad about it, trust me."

"Wow," I said. "That's…really crazy,"

"Yeah, it is," he said. Then he changed the subject and started talking about something else. I still couldn't believe that Jade saw me and Beck's almost kiss. I reminded myself to talk to Jade about that sometime.

A little bit later, Andre had to leave, but I walked him out to his car. When we reached his car, we hugged each other tightly. I kid you not; we stood there with our arms around each other for at least two minutes. Neither one of us wanted to let go.

When we finally did, Andre ran his fingers through my hair. He kept his hands in my hair with his thumbs caressing my edges of my cheekbones. I put my arms around him and I didn't wanna let go. "I don't want you to leave." I whispered.

"I know," he whispered and kissed my forehead. "I don't either. But I'll be seeing you tomorrow, right?"

"Of course," I said. "But I have a doctor's appointment at twelve."

"Okay," he said. "Will you be done by three?"

I giggled. "I would hope so."

"Okay, I'll be here after school tomorrow." He leaned in and gave me a quick kiss. We kept our foreheads together. "I'm just scared to go to bed tonight. I'm afraid I'll wake up in the morning and all this will be a dream. It's just too good to be true."

His words almost made me cry. "I'm here, Andre." I said shakily. "And I'm not leaving you. I promise you, I'll be asleep in my bed when you wake up in the morning. I'll be safe."

He sighed. "Somehow that's not enough," You'd think that Andre was acting selfish by saying that, but I didn't think it sounded selfish at all. The agony I felt missing him was probably nothing compared to the agony of how much he missed me. While I was missing him, I knew he was alive. He probably thought I was dead. I couldn't even begin to imagine how that felt.

"Well…do you want me to come to your house and wake you up in the morning?"

"Oh, babe, I couldn't ask you to do that," he said. "I wake up at 6:45. You'd have to wake up at like 6:15 or 6:30 to get to my house by then."

I pulled my arms from around his back and put them around his neck. I leaned in and kissed him. When we pulled apart, I said, "I'll do anything I can to make you happy, babe."

"You know, I should be saying that to you." he said with a smile.

I smiled at him. "Well, what kind of relationship would this be if I didn't make you happy? It has to be mutual."

"Hmm, I agree," he said. "Okay, so…are you sure you wanna wake me up in the morning? I mean, I'd love if you would, but I can't ask you to get up that early."

"Andre…" I said and slowly kissed him. I could tell that the kiss took his breath away. "I love you so much, okay? I wanna do this for you."

"Well, okay, then." he said with a smile. "I better go so I can get to bed and be able to see your beautiful face in the morning."

I smiled, but then something occurred to me. "Uh…I just have a quick question…did you ever date another girl in the last six months?"

"What?" he asked shocked. "No, of course not. There was no way I'd be able to date another girl after getting in a relationship with you. Girls flirted with me and asked me out, but I turned all of them down. You were always the only girl for me."

"But…" I said shakily. "I could easily not be here right now. What if I hadn't gone to the store when I had? What if I hadn't stood next to some random girl when I did? What if that girl wasn't Jade? And what if Jade hadn't called the cops? I could easily not be here right now and still be with that man. I mean, while I was kidnapped, I hoped that you wouldn't find some other girl, but I couldn't ask you to wait around for me when I may or may not have come back."

"But you did, that's the thing." he said. "You and Jade were both at the right place at the right time."

I sighed heavily and nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I have to stop thinking about the what-ifs and just be happy about what happened."

"Yeah," he said and kissed me. "Okay, that was my goodnight kiss to you. I've got to go home and get some sleep; it's already after ten and I have school tomorrow. But…when I wake up, I know I'll wake up to your gorgeous face."

I giggled. "Goodnight. I love you."

"I love you, too." he said and kissed my forehead. "I will see you in the morning."

I gave him another quick kiss. "Have a good night sleep." I smiled at him and then walked back to my door. I waved at Andre and he waved back to me. I couldn't wait for the next day when I'd get to wake Andre up.

When I got in the house, I locked the door behind me and went to my parents' bedroom. I knocked on their door. "Come in," said my dad.

I opened the door and walked in. "Hi Daddy,"

They both smiled at me. "Hi baby," he said. "Come here,"

I half-ran to their bed and climbed in between them. "I love this house so much!" I said.

"This house is so much better with you in it." said my mom. "We're so glad you're here with us."

"I know, me too." I said.

"Would you like to sleep in here tonight?" asked my dad. "After all of this…we wouldn't mind if you did."

"Oh, no, it's fine," I told them. "I need to sleep in my own bed and I promise you…I will be here when you wake up in the morning."

"Aww, Tori, you're gonna make us cry." said my mom and wiped at her eyes.

I smiled. "I love you guys." I gave each of them a hug and told them goodnight. Just before I walked out, I said, "Oh, by the way, I'm waking up at 6:15 in the morning. I'm gonna go to Andre's house and wake him up."

My parents looked at me in shock. "Uh…okay, why?" asked my mom. "Can't he wake up on his own?"

"Well, yeah, but I wanna wake him up." I said. "He still feels like it's a dream that I was found at all, just like so many other people, but him especially. I wanna do this for him."

"Well…okay, I guess," said my dad. "Do you want me to wake you up in the morning?"

"No, it's okay," I said. "I'll set my alarm clock."

"Okay, sweetie," he said. "Have a good night's sleep."

I smiled at them. "Night," I waved and then walked out of the room and closed the door behind me.

On my way to my room, I ran into Trina. "Did I hear you say something about waking up at 6:15 in the morning? Are you crazy?"

I laughed. "No, I'm going to Andre's house and I'm gonna wake him up at 6:45. And don't say I'm crazy because of it; I wanna do this for him. I love Andre."

She shook her head. "Wow, Andre better understand what an amazing girlfriend you are." She yawned. "Well…I'm going to bed. Good night, baby sis. You better be here in the morning." She said that half-jokingly, but also half-serious.

"I plan to be." I said and we hugged.

Afterwards, I headed to my room. I set my alarm to 6:15 and then crawled under the covers. Looking at the view around me, I nearly started crying. I hadn't been in this spot in six months. It was so overwhelming to me. It took me awhile to fall asleep that night from all my childhood memories flooding through my mind.