OLIVIA
I sat on the freezing cold, damp concrete floor, in the very back corner of the dank basement. I had tried for a long time to make Hailey talk to me, but she wouldn’t utter a word, which was terrifying. It had been near impossible not to remember the beating I had taken to make me stop talking that first week in The Darkness, and I could only hope Hailey had been more compliant than I had, since it was too dark for me to see her injuries to know for sure.
I had spent time talking soothingly to her, reassuring her I wasn’t there to hurt her, and eventually she had taken hold of my hand and clung to it, but still not a syllable had left her lips.
I couldn’t see her beside me, so I had no idea how badly she was injured, but she moved very cautiously and I was pretty sure one of her legs was injured. I had tried to check her over with my hands, but she had shied away from me, terrified.
I had no idea how much time passed with me just trying to calm her, talking to her about anything and everything, just wanting her to hear my voice and be comforted by it. It must have been around an hour before she released my hand and wrapped her arms tightly around my waist, a silent signal of her trust in me. I took that as my cue and held her back, then slowly ushered her across the room, as far from the stairs as possible. Now she sat on top of my outstretched legs, her head resting on my shoulder, having silently cried herself to sleep. She was freezing cold and trembling, and no matter how hard I held her, she wasn’t getting any warmer.
She was small for her age, not much bigger than Evie who was half her age, but still she was heavy to me. My legs beneath her were aching and tingly. I was frozen myself and the damp had soaked through the denim of my jeans, right into my bones, but I tried not to think about any of it. Poor little Hailey had been down there for weeks suffering. She needed the warmth and comfort of another human for as long as I could give it.
The shadow was above us, the sound of his heavy footsteps moving around, so very, unsettlingly familiar to me. I was terrified for the door at the top of the stairs to open. Terrified he would come down and punish me for daring to speak in The Darkness, but I hadn’t let that fear stop me from speaking to Hailey, knowing how desperately she must have needed to hear another human voice, to have a sign that she wasn’t alone.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Chris, and how similar me being put down there with Hailey was to him being put into The Darkness with me. He too had spoken almost non stop, just constantly trying to comfort and get through to me. I remembered how wonderfully welcome his voice and words were to an inexplicably lonely and broken little girl. He had been so determined to take care of me, and to get me out of there, just as I now was to get Hailey out. The difference was, I knew the monster I would need to face in order to do that, better than anyone, and I would use that knowledge to my advantage the very second the opportunity presented itself.
In the meantime, I had to keep it together. In the silent darkness I longed to break down and cry; to let the debilitating flashbacks attack and take over, just so I could give in to my desperate battle to hold them back, but I couldn’t. I had to be strong, for Hailey, for myself and for the guys, who I knew by then, would be out of their minds thinking they would never get me back whole again. But I would get back to them. I was determined. I hadn’t lived through the years of hell, escaped and found them, only to lose them after just a few months. We all deserved a happily ever after, and I was going to make sure we got it. I just had to get Hailey and I out of there and back to safety. I’d fall apart when I was safely surrounded by the men I loved.
KADE
It was the early hours of the morning when I slipped quietly into the house with the intention of a quick shower and change of clothes, then straight back to the office.
Livy had been gone for fourteen hours and I was beside myself with guilt that it was my damned fault, and with fear for her and what she may be going through.
I had the entire Chicago police force searching for her, but so far no real leads had been turned up. Kyle’s tech guy had found traffic cam footage of the green van headed out of the city of a lesser used road, so we had confirmation that The Shadow once again had her, but we had been unable to continue to track the van and had only an indication of the general direction it was headed.
I had got the recording and transcripts of the radio call that had sent Keenan to Olivia’s school to collect her, but it too had been a bust. The voice on the other end had pretended to be me and had asked for Olivia to be brought in immediately. Keenan had no reason to doubt that and had simply done his job by bringing her in.
The voice was completely nondescript and no one recognised it. The radio call could be traced to the precinct, but not to a specific radio, so it was a dead
