Taken Captive

Chapter 37

Throughout the night, Axel woke up a few more times, screaming and crying. Callum and I took turns waking up and rocking him back to sleep, but Axel seemed more comfortable with him during the night, I had no problem with that.

The more I looked at Axel, studied his features consisting of dark, curly hair, green eyes and light skin, the more he looked somewhat like Callum. His nose, his lips, it was those little things that really reminded me of him.

Finally, he stayed asleep after rocking him back and forth again at around five. I cuddled him up in my arms, his head resting on my chest while Callum cuddled me from behind. The familiar suffocating feeling of a child clinging to me, needing me and wanting my comfort brought tears to my eyes. I gave him a final kiss on his head and let myself fall asleep.

What felt like just a second later but really was hours, my hands moved around the bed, searching for a tiny body I could've sworn I fell asleep with. Panic filled up inside me, I turned around to see Callum who didn't have the kid with him either and shot up. I looked around my side of the room, the foot of the bed and then on Callum's.

He's not here.

"Callum!" I shook him awake, "Callum, get up! Axel's gone!"

He shot up, bumping his head against mine, "Oh, sorry baby."

"Ow," I rubbed my head, he helped me, kissing it then searched around himself.

"Fuck," He muttered. We quickly got up, noticing that Miles wasn't in bed either. I felt nervousness fill up in my chest.

"Miles," I called. I turned towards the closet doorway where he was walking out, doing a little stretch and letting out a big yawn. My chest fell in relief when I walked closer to the closet, seeing Axel cuddled up in between Alex's blankets with all of his toys lying around him.

"Oh my goodness," I sighed, walking over to him. He blinked his eyes open as I kneeled beside the mess of baby stuff and lifted him to sit in my arms.

"Honey, please don't wander off like that, okay?" I told him, holding back tears of anxiety as I tried getting my breathing in control.

"I'm sorry." He looked down, ashamed.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," I assured him and lifted his head to look at me. "If you need something during the night, you wake me up, okay?"

He nodded, "Okay."

I smiled, pulling him back and brushing my hands through his hair as he wrapped his arms around my neck. "Let's go brush our teeth and get dressed and then we can go see Kara, how's that sound?"

He nodded, letting me walk him over to the bathroom where Callum was brushing his teeth. I grabbed a new toothbrush and my own. He looked into the mirror with the toothbrush in hand, watching me brush my teeth and copying my movements. Callum walked over to the door when we heard a knock, Mary handed him a bag full of new clothes for Axel to wear while he was here.

I washed his face, he watched me as I washed my own, asking questions as to why we had to brush our teeth, why toothpaste is the thing that makes our teeth clean, why do we clean with a brush, why not use our hands?

I shrugged, "You know what? I really don't know, Axel."

"Hm," He dropped his shoulder. "Maybe it's because our um, our hands don't have the proper texture to clean our teeth completely but a toothbrush does, so when we clean with a toothbrush, it cleans outside and in between our teeth as well as our tongue. So if we used our fingers, it wouldn't be as thorough."

I widened my eyes, looking over at Callum who froze, then back at the boy, "You're-wow, you're right."

"Thank you." He nodded, acting as if what he just said isn't supposed to be something a four-year-old would generally think about or know.