Chapter Thirty-Three
Emma woke up a few hours later, or many hours later – she wasn’t quite sure, and had quite effectively lost track of time a long time ago. Her throat was caked dry, and her lips were beginning to sting from a lack of hydration.
Her stomach was hurting from hunger pains, and the stress of the situation had begun to induce nausea.
Clayton and Jackson hadn’t returned after their first appearance and it felt like it had been hours ago. They hadn’t left her with any water, food or blankets and the winter chill was beginning to seep through the stone floor and hardwood walls. She had fallen asleep out of pure weakness, but woke up to the sound of the wind whistling through the window.
She sat up again, and pulled against the chains for the umpteenth time, grimacing as the iron chafed her skin.
The sound appeared to have been enough to alert Clayton, who creaked open the door and walked in. He had a sheepish smile on his face, as if completely in denial about the severity of what he was doing right now. “Hey, Emma.”
She quietly stared at him, gritting her jaw in response.
He pulled a chair and sat down in front of her again, “I was waiting for you to wake up.”
“Let me go, Clayton.”
He groaned, “Do we have to go back to the same topic of conversation over and over again?”
“This isn’t you.”
He rolled his eyes, “You don’t know anything about me, Emma.”
“I know that you didn’t murder that girl. You don’t have it in you,” she was pulling at strings here. She did not, in fact, know if Clayton had it in him to kill anyone. All she knew was that Clayton was in the hospital for a broken leg at the time, so it had to have been Jackson. “If you let me go, I won’t press any charges. I’ll pretend none of this happened. I promise.”
“Dad said you’d probably try to convince me to let you go. I’m not that stupid, Emma.”
“Clayton -.”
“Sh,” he hissed, leaning back to unbuckle his belt, “I don’t have much time before dad’s back.”
Her stomach dropped in horror, “what are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” He slipped off his belt and pulled down his jeans to his knees, “you’ve been giving it for free to the Sheriff. Not nice not to share, now is it Emma?”
“Clayton, don’t,” she kicked out as he leaned forward, and yelled out as he caught her legs in his hands. “Clayton -.”
“I’m not going to rape you,” he was surprisingly strong, and held her legs apart firmly. “I just want to see you.”
“Please,” she yelled as he roughly grabbed the hem of her pants and pulled them down off of her, “don’t do this.” She felt a panicked sob catch in her throat as the cool air of the room hit her bare thighs. With her hands tied behind her back, she could only kick out as he tore open her shirt.
“There we go,” he sighed with satisfaction, and sat back in his chair. “See, I wasn’t going to rape you. I just want to see.”
“You’re disgusting,” anger was rising within her to mix with shame, and she tried to bring her knees to her chest to hide her bare stomach. She was in her underwear now, and she felt mortified. He didn’t respond, and to her horror, it was because he had begun to masturbate in front of her.
She closed her eyes and pretended it wasn’t happening. Her heart was pounding in pure horror and she felt disgusted, both by her own nudity in front of Clayton and from what he was doing.
What lasted mere minutes felt like an hour, and she winced as she felt the wetness of his orgasm cover her thighs and legs.
Her eyes were still tightly shut as she heard him pull up his pants and buckle his jeans again, “see, it wasn’t that bad.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Easy now, you’re still alone with me for the next few hours.”
She chose not to reply, deciding there was no point in trying to negotiate with a sociopath. She simply leaned her head back and stared up, willing with all her might that she could pretend that she wasn’t here right now.
“Come on, let’s wash you up.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“God, you’re such a drama queen,” He unhooked her chains and pulled her to stand up straight. Her knees buckled underneath her from having sat for so long but Clayton held her up and pulled her forward.
He walked her through an abandoned cabin of sorts, with limited furnishings and boarded windows. No lights were on, but the place was brightened by the white sunlight spilling in through the cracks in the window boards.
Clayton led her to a dingy bathroom where he forced her to sit on the edge of a bathtub. Her body was shivering from the cold but he ignored that, and instead, started running the tap to get some water.
“Your dad commits murder but draws the line at sexual assault?” she remarked, only to receive a blow to the side of her head as a response.
“One more word out of you and I’ll make sure you regret it,” he said calmly, while dampening a wash cloth with water. He turned and began to wipe Emma’s thighs clean, the motion making her feel nauseated all over again.
She didn’t know what struck her, but one moment she was felt weak, and in the next, a rush of adrenaline coursed through her. Reeling back, she raised her knee up sharply and made contact with his groin, pushing up as hard as she could.
Clayton yelled out loudly, immediately doubling over in response to the shooting pain.
Emma sprinted. Furniture crashed behind her as she flailed around trying to gather her footing, but the moment her feet touched the ground, she was running.
She had never run so hard and so fast in her life. Spiralling down the hallway, she turned the corner to find the living room. Clayton yelled out from behind her and she could hear him limping down the hallway.
Sheer adrenaline kept her going. Spotting the door, she grabbed a random cloth/ blanket/ cover (she didn’t have time to see what it was) and propelled out of the doorway.
The light blinded her at first. Snow upon snow upon snow was all she could see around her, and her bare feet sank two feet down into the soft whiteness of the ground.
Objectively, she was sure this was cold as fuck. But she couldn’t feel anything. In fact, her body felt like it was burning. Despite her aching bones, empty stomach, and parched throat, she began running through the snow. The panic gave way to allow her mind to observe one thing in front of her: the forest.
A barren, leafless, forest lay ahead of her, and she zeroed in on it. She didn’t turn back to see if Clayton was hot on her heels. All she knew was that she needed to get to the forest. She was a red hot target in the open snow. In the forest, she could actually lose him.
Her breaths came out in pants as she forced her muscles to move as fast as they could. She had a furry piece of cloth fisted tightly in her hand and she held it against her chest to protect her lungs from the freezing cold outside. If she wasn’t so high on adrenaline, she would’ve been more worried than she was about the fact she was running naked into a forest. But as things stood, all she cared about was making it past the branches so she could lose Clayton.
Pure survival instinct kept her going and she let out a guttural cry of relief as the sturdy branches of ancient trees rushed past her as she ran into the woods. Her feet were beginning to tingle, but she kept on wading through the woods, zig-zagging and climbing, and crawling through branches to try to lose him. Realising she was leaving prints, she tried her best to cover them as she went along, acting out from pure hysteria.
It was only when she had run a considerable amount of distance did she finally stop to rest on a high rock. Her body was trembling. Shaking. And all she had was this flimsy cape that she had picked up from the floor of the living room on her way out. Unraveling it with shaky hands, she wrapped it around herself the best way she could and tried to puff warm air into her hands to warm herself up.
She needed to keep moving.
She had watched enough survival movies to know that the moment you stopped walking in cold climates, was the moment you forfeited your life. Your body began to feel warmer, in order to deceive you into thinking that you were actually doing okay, and then the quicker you descended into hypothermia.
She needed to keep walking, she needed to pee to eliminate any energy that was being wasted in keeping her urine warm, and she needed to get to safety.
She looked around the woods, not knowing where the hell she was. All she could see for miles were thick tree stumps and branches.
Emma breathed out slowly, trying her best to stay calm. Closing her eyes, she focused.
She could hear the rustle of the trees.
And the water.
The ocean.
They were near the ocean.
That’s where she had to go. The moment she reached the ocean, she would be able to see the lighthouse.
Teeth chattering, she wrapped the cloth tighter around herself and started walking as fast as she could.
She needed to act as quickly as she could. It was a matter of life and death.
x.x
There were two of them. Hunter kept replaying the security camera footage over and over again, his heart sinking every time he saw two masked men appear outside of his house and kidnap Emma.
One was bulkier, and taller, and the other was shorter, and skinner. Both were male, that was one thing he was certain of, and had definitely been lying in wait for Emma to come out of his house.
They had collected all evidence on the scene, the dropped cellphone and keys, and had run it through forensics. The meeting had been short and succinct, dedicate all station resources to identify who had taken her and where.
“No fingerprints,” Jackson came back, and dropped a pile of papers on Hunter’s desk, “they came back clean. They either wore gloves, or didn’t touch them.”
“Fuck,” Hunter tore his eyes away from the camera footage and looked down to the paperwork on forensics, “they only found Emma’s.”
“Just Emma’s fingerprints and yours. We’re gathering footage from all CCTV footage of the nearby roads to see where they could have taken her.”
“Ok,” he breathed out and leaned back in his chair, pressing two fingers against his brow bone to ease the raging migraine that had settled there.
“We’re gonna find her, Hunter,” Jackson put one hand on his shoulder, “don’t you worry.”
“I know we’ll find her. I’m just worried about time.” The longer it took, the higher the chances that she was…dead.
“I’ve sent two patrols out in the city to start interviewing potential witnesses. We need to bring in that friend of hers, Sarah, into the station.”
Hunter narrowed his eyes, “No – I’ve told her to stay at the house in case Emma contacts her in any way.”
“You’re not thinking clearly right now. We’ll send officers there, but Sarah needs to come down to the Station for questioning. She may have noticed something that can help us. We’ve got another unit patrolling the area to see if they can find signs of any local disturbances. We’re on it the best we can, you need to keep your head on your shoulders.”
Hunter sighed, feeling as if the strings of his life were unraveling around him. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t see clearly. All he could think about was what Emma was possibly going through right now. “I’m going to kill those two motherfuckers.”
Jackson gave him a warm nod and patted his shoulder before walking off to give instructions to bring in Sarah.
Hunter sighed, clenching his jaw. He felt absolutely fucked, and his chest hurt from the stress. He couldn’t mess this up, but why did it feel like he was doing just that? He was missing something. Something that was staring at him straight in the face. He just didn’t know what.