Missing

Disclaimer: I own nothing

A/N:

Chapter 11 (Dreaming of Knights)

Trina brought her gaze up from her arm and removed her fingernails from her flesh when she heard footsteps outside the cell door. She swallowed hard and wrapped her hand around the red scratches on her forearm. Her lip tucked beneath her teeth and she pressed herself up against the wall as the door slid open.

Cat entered the cell, announcing herself just as she stepped in. The girl's eyes were puffy and tearstains looked like streams of fire on her cheeks. "I couldn't be upstairs anymore. I can't stand Robbie and Andre fighting so constantly." She sat against the left wall and Trina rolled her eyes. "I know you don't care, but you're the only other woman I can talk to."

"Why do they keep me alive?" Her voice was raw and tired from crying all night. "They wanted to kill my child, why don't they kill me?" Cat's hand moved to her stomach and her chin dropped to her chest.

"They'll kill me, Trina. They'll kill all of us when we're no longer useful. But I think they're going to kill me within the next few months…" Trina raised an eyebrow and let her arms fall beside her legs. She knew as long as Andre was around, Cat wasn't going to die. "You've still got years left according to them. She blames you for imprisonment or something-"

"What fucking imprisonment?" Trina's voice echoed off the walls and Cat whimpered as Trina screamed out an angered cry. "Just because dad wanted to take care of me, she wants to keep me down here? Torture me? For how fucking long! What did I ever do to her? What did Victoria ever do to her?"

"I don't know. I think they want to keep you locked up for a total of twenty years, it's only been nine, so…eleven more years of this." Cat moved her hands up to her face and began to sob, her body shook terribly and her sobbing increased. "I can't do this anymore."

"Knock it off." She sank and glanced to her forearm. She didn't understand Cat, primarily because it was clear Cat wasn't at the same point she was. "You want to tell me you can't live like this anymore, and you see what situation I'm in. You're scared they'll kill you, I want them to kill me."

"I'm scared." Cat took a deep breath and shook her head. "I'm scared because I'm pregnant, Trina." Her heart stopped and she rolled her head in Cat's direction, staring blankly at the woman. She was amazed, because she thought Cat was into Sam, but at the same time, she wondered how Cat could have possibly gotten pregnant.

It was a dangerous place to be. Flashbacks to her first nine months in captivity were horrifying. Likely the most terrifying part of her imprisonment. Victoria wasn't even born in a hospital, she was born in this cell, and Cat was the only person to help her deliver the baby.

"That's why I came to you, you're the only one to know what to do."

"I don't know what to do. I wished Victoria could have had a normal childhood, that she could have been born outside." Trina struck the wall with the back of her head and closed her eyes. "W-Who's the father? Robbie?"

"N-No, that's what's surprising." Her eyes shot open and she moved her head away from the wall. "It's Andre's." Her jaw dropped and her fingers slid inwards on the cement floor.

Doing a double take, she stammered out his name and watched as Cat hugged herself and started to cry again. "I don't know what came over me, Trina. I knew if I got pregnant, I'd be forced to have my baby here, but-"

"He's comforting. Probably more comforting than Robbie, who I thought you were into."

"God I stopped liking him that way when I found out he went through with kidnapping you." Even though Robbie had been forced and blackmailed into the crime, he still could have done or said something to prevent it from happening. Cat threw her hand into the air and narrowed her eyes. "He's just a coward. They'll tell him to bark and he'll bark."

"With Andre. How did it happen?"

"God." Cat brought her hand to the top of her head and she wiggled her nose. "It was a few weeks ago, he came in to check on me because I was scared about something. It was nighttime, he always comes to check on me to make sure I'm doing okay, and well…I was doing really bad that night. Not diminishing you, by the way."

"I get it Cat. I do." She rolled her eyes and looked away with an angry huff. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't deny knowing that Cat had it difficult. Just because she was in the situation she was, it didn't mean the others weren't in pain either. "Just go on."

Cat ran her hands along her legs. "Okay." The girl's chest was trembling and her body was rigid. "Well he sat with me and I leaned up against him. I just, I was missing Sam and my grandma, and my family. God, even my stupid little brother Jacob, I missed. He held me and he told me it would be okay, and I don't know. I just, there's something about how he makes me feel safe."

"You kissed him, I'm guessing."

"Yeah…and I haven't felt that feeling in-well ever, so…" It was the standard one thing led to another case, and it was what happened between her and Sinjin many years ago. "He doesn't know. None of them know. I'm scared they'll find out, and if they find out, they're going to kill me."

"How do you know?"

"It's been a few months. I've been hormonal, I've felt sick...also missed my period completely after that time. I managed to convince them to take me to a drugstore, bought a couple pregnancy tests and immediately hurried into the bathroom so I could take it."

"And?"

"Positive. Every single one." As far as Trina knew, pregnancy tests had gotten more accurate over the years. She felt bad for Cat, and she was scared for her, but she didn't know what to say to comfort the girl. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Protect your baby as much as you can. That's all I can say about that." Her fingers trembled and she struggled to pull her thoughts together to find something cohesive to tell the girl. "That feeling of comfort you said you had with Andre."

"Yeah?"

"The only time I feel safe anymore-the only time I feel comfort anymore is when I get to go to that café." Cat lit up and her lips finally turned up into a smile.

"Andre says you meet somebody there, you talk to without being able to tell him everything for obvious reasons."

"Yeah, his name's Jesse. He works narcotics." She rolled her head to the right and closed her eyes, visualizing the man in her mind. "It's funny. I'm not sure why but I feel safest, and the irony? He was in a small time gang a decade or so ago." Cat's hand moved up to her mouth and she gasped out.

"A gang? Really?"

"Called the Black Knights. He says it was for a short period of time, but he became their leader when his father died. He tried to shape them up, and for him personally he never did any criminal activity."

The girl brought her hand back to her knee, chuckling as she shook her head. "It would explain how he's in law enforcement. You feel safe with him? Why?"

"I don't know, it's hard to explain. He even has a good effect on Victoria. The only time I've ever seen her smile was when we were at that café. She was always fond of him. Somehow he just figured out when I go to the café, on a monthly basis, and he's there for me." She dropped her head back onto the wall and closed her eyes. "Now my dreams are all I have left."

"What dreams?"

"Passing along the day, I have to think of something. Jesse, Victoria, they're the only things keeping me from going mad anymore. Sometimes I fantasize, I think Jesse's a knight and he'll get me out of here, but I know that's just a silly dream-or maybe a wish." Her chest began to throb and her shoulders sank down. "I'll die here, I know I will."

"They're looking for us, Trina." She opened her eyes partially and let her head fall to the side, resting on her left shoulder as her dull gaze dropped onto Cat. Cat's fingers compressed on her knees and her head bowed. "Tori and Jade."

"They'll never find us, Cat."

"They've reopened your case. They're onto something-something got them to look into it again. They're fired up."

"What part of 'we are going to die here', don't you get?" As much as she wanted to believe her sister and her harsh friend were going to come to her rescue, she couldn't. Unlike Cat, the stories she'd heard about Tori were only stories. "Somewhere along the way you want me to think my sister gave up singing to be a detective-my dream-that used to be my dream. Not hers."

Cat lifted her head and opened her mouth, but could only sigh in her defeat. "Then you expect me to believe Jade would give a damn about whether or not I was found? Jade. The one that was constantly on me about everyone, the one that always told me how unloved I was-how nobody liked me, and you know what?"

"What, Trina?" The redhead's tone was terse and flat.

"Look around you." She pulled her knees up to her chest and dropped her forearms over them. "She was fucking right. Even if Robbie were forced and Gary held him at gunpoint in the back of that car, he still went through the kidnapping. He could have told Beck what was up, the one time that day he wasn't being watched, and Beck could have gotten help. Did he? Nope, he thought only of himself! Nobody likes me, nobody wants me alive. Not even the woman I wanted to believe was my mother. I was terrified of her all my life, and I had good reason."

"I know." Cat looked into her eyes, her mouth tugged into her cheeks and flattened into a line. The girl's face grew firm and her body tense. "I know that's what you think, and I understand why it's easy to think that. But for nine years, Andre and I have tried to protect you. For nine years, your dad and your sister, and our friends have been trying to find something that would give them a lead on finding you-and right now they're not even concerned about us, they're concerned about you."

Trina looked to the right, dismissing the girl with a scoff. "If anyone really wanted to find me, then why hasn't it happened yet?"

"Because." Cat pointed out the door and narrowed her eyes. "The bitch out there…" Trina flinched and shot a stunned look to the girl. Cat's voice rose and filled with anger and grief. "That bitch is a manipulative little shit that knows how to twist stories, make people believe what they want, and use the things people care most about to get her way about things."

"Well I-"

"And she knows damn well how to con her own family into thinking she's innocent, but from what I'm hearing when she and Gary discuss things…that hold's breaking. Tori has become more and more suspicious of her, and soon she won't be able to do anything."

"All I want is proof, Cat."

"What reason do we have to lie to you?"

She narrowed her eyes and scowled at the girl. "Do you really want me to answer that?" There were a number of lies that everyone told her, she didn't trust people anymore.

"Do you trust Jesse? You've talked to him for two years now."

"I don't know! I don't know who to trust. I've seen him eighteen times, and for two hours a time-that's hardly enough time to get to know someone when you don't know how to trust anymore."

"Yes, I get it, bad comparison, but still why should you believe things that he might say before you believe anything we say?"

"For one thing, it was Robbie who grabbed me off the street, trying to tell me he wanted me to go to the store with him to help find something! That lie is what got me put in this fucking place. Andre, as much as he tries to protect us told me he wouldn't let bad things happen, and there are so many times he just stands there while that bitch up there and that man start hitting me!"

"He can't stop them all. They'd probably kill him, or his grandmother for that matter-or even his family." Cat blinked twice and bowed her head. "Granted, his family only consists of his mother and his grandmother and little sister."

Trina furrowed her brow and straightened herself against the wall. "What happened to his father and two brothers?"

"They died a very long time ago. After his mom divorced Ray, Ray and his two sons died in a hurricane while his mother brought him and his little sister to California and took on her maiden name."

"Oh…"

"Holly knows this." Trina held her breath and Cat crossed her arms. "And that's how she manipulates him. If he does truly act out, she'll go out and kill them. All of them. Just like she forced him to go out and kill Robbie's sister. The only reason she made him was because he suggested doing the task himself just so he and I could try and get your daughter to safety. He didn't want to kill them, he didn't want that blood on his hands, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make for you and for Victoria."

"What sacrifice?"

"Can you not tell that Robbie hates him now? That's a friendship that probably won't ever be fixed. He also has to live with that blood on his hand-though we all live with everything we've had to do or watch for the past decade…"

"Knowing you guys have to live with it, you expect me to feel better?"

"No, but I wish you could see you're not as alone as you think. People care, people are looking. And maybe, if you're dreaming about knights, there's a reason for it. I think like that too, thinking maybe there will be those knights out there to save us…but for now, we have one right here. Andre. He's the only reason Gary and Holly haven't killed us yet."

The girl pulled away from her and despaired. "But if you need proof, I don't know how to get that to you. I know Tori and Jade, even your dad…they're looking for you. They're knights, and they'll find you, I know they will. Me, Andre and Robbie? I don't know what's going to happen to us. If we survive this-"

"If?"

Cat's eyes closed and her hand moved up to her stomach. "If Gary and Holly don't kill us first because we know too much, we're all three going to jail…for helping them." Trina looked on in a state of shock as Cat rose to her feet and started for the door. The girl stopped and turned around one last time. "You will make it. Somehow."

A sudden sensation stabbed her heart and she looked away from Cat when she spied a new tear in the girl's eyes.

"I only hope when you're rescued, you don't always remember us with hatred."

It would be difficult for her not to be angry with them or distrustful for years to come, but that is understandable at this point. It is good that there is a little bit of hope for both of the girls, though, even in a hopeless situation.