Our Broken Girl

Chapter Two

   I do not sleep that night, in fact I do not sleep the next couple of nights. How could I knowing that my girl was in the hands of a psychopath? He is doing God knows what and thinking about it for too long makes my jaw clench painfully. As soon as I get my hands on him I am going to kill him. I will kill him with my bare hands and not feel a thing. I will squeeze the life out of him with one hand tied behind my back. I jumped out of bed and to my feet, my gray sweatpants hanging low off my hips.

With anger coursing through my body I stomp to the kitchen and yank open the freezer. I grab the whiskey and chug straight from the bottle. After a few swallows my throat is burning and I put the bottle back in the freezer. I gasp for breath and lean my forehead against the freezer door.

“Funny, I was just going to do the same thing.” I hear Richard say from the doorway. I check the time on the stove's clock and see it's three in the morning. I pull open the fridge and grab the bottle, holding it out to Richard. He takes it from, opens it, and tips it up taking a long swallow. He hands it back and I plop it back into the freezer. After I close the door I lean my shoulder against the door.

“Have you found anything?” I ask, Richard has been working on looking at places surrounding the apartment complex. Trying to find the location from which Travis could watch us from.

“A few places seem to be worthy candidates. Both warehouses, they are a good distance from the complex but if you are up on the top floors of the warehouse you could see easily into the parking lot.” He leans his hip against the countertop as he explains this to me. “There is also a house next to the back of the complex that has direct eyesight to his building.”

I nod my head taking in everything he tells me, turning it over in my head. “All seem worthy of a good look through.”

“Agreed, so when are we going?” Richard pushes off the counter.

“Now.” We both hear the soft but firm voice coming from behind Richard. He turns and we see Sam standing there, her tiny arms wrapped around her small frame.

“It is a little late at night to go searching for her.” I say not quite feeling it. It is never too late when it comes to Lilly.

“Bullshit. Let's go.” Richard says storming out of the kitchen and into his bedroom. Quickly we all get dressed and dart out the door. We jump into the car and take off, Richard pulling up the address for our first location. It's fifteen minutes away and we all settle in for the ride. We are quiet the whole way there. Each of us is stuck in our own personal torment in our minds. When we pull up outside of the first warehouse we all jump out and meet at the front of the car.

The warehouse is tall, dark, and almost sinister looking. Multiple windows are sharded and the front door looks as if it's been kicked in. “This is gonna take all night.” I murmur to the rest of my group.

“It better not. We have three hours until the sun starts to rise. We need to take at most two of those three.” Richard murmurs back and then starts forward. He reaches the steps with us on his tail and then he hesitates. Looking deep into the darkness beyond the door, then with a deep sigh he plunges forth in the building. Sam and I follow behind him as we all creep silently into the building. As badly as I wanted to turn on a light I did not want to give away our location. So instead I creep slowly, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. Once they do I find the inside filled with junk. Old file cabinets, desk, and chairs as well as old mattress, clothes, and food wrappers. Someone had definitely been squatting here at some point if they were not here still.

“God this place reeks.” Richard whispers and I nod my head even though he can not see me. It smells of mildew and mold, as well as human waste. I try to take only short, small breaths in. We decided to split up, deciding that will cover more ground quicker. I got upstairs, Richard got downstairs, and we left Sam to cover the main floor. I try to sweep quickly through each and every room but with some floors being rotten and all the trash spread over the ground I have to be careful where I step. As I move I just find more proof of someone living here. I also find evidence of rampant drug use.