Chenford Story ✔️

52

Tim's POV

77 hours, 21 minutes.

That was how long it had been since Lucy was safe at the station.
105 hours since I had last seen her.
And that last conversation we had.
Her just leaving the house after getting her memory back.
Our argument.

If that turned out to be the last words I said to her...
I would never forgive myself.
God after everything's she had been through...
When Emmet abused her she tried to kill herself. Now she had been kidnapped, tortured, traumatised. If, I stopped myself, she was getting out of there alive.
When, Lucy made it home to me and Juniper.
She was going to be wreck, rightfully so.
I just hoped she wouldn't try and.... again.

For her to get through all of this. If she were to end it like that. I would never forgive myself.

The entire reason she sent me away, the reason I wasn't here to protect her, was because she didn't trust me enough for me to know. If she dies because I lied enough for her not to trust me...

Angela taps in my shoulder softly.
"Hey... Tamara's here if you want to go say hi."

Tamara and I hadn't really seen eachother all that much.
But she had been with Lucy after she ran away for a year, and for that she was eternally welcome with me.

"Hi Tamara. How's college going?"
Tamara nodded, appreciating my attempt to avoid the real reason we were all here.
Just hoping not to have to look on the screen and see Lucy being killed.
None of us would survive Lucy dying like Jackson did.

I looked over to the roll call room where officer all suffering from sleep deprivation all day together, staring at monitors and boards of information to try and find Lucy.

"She's going to be ok Tim. We're going to find her."
Tamara enveloped me in a hug.
Something I hadn't gotten since Lucy went missing.
It reminded me so much of her.
I knew she wasn't dead. But even the thought of her suffering somewhere alone made me feel ill.

I hugged Tamara back, squeezing her tightly in an attempt to dam the tears that had started falling from my eyes.
I saw Angela look at me, hugging and crying, and think about making a joke.
Luckily she decided against it.
It wasn't the time.
Though when this all worked out, it would definitely be brought up later.

Lucy's POV

It must have been at least a few days in the basement now.

My wounds were definitely infected now.
I was barely conscious most of the time from the sheer pain making me pass out regularly.
My voice was hoarse from the screaming.

Rosalind had given me a single piece of bread what I imagined to be every 12 hours.
That meant I had been here about three days.
At least I had all the water j could want. Often I used it to at least slightly wash out my wounds, the dried blood from my hands.
By now I had a decent enough idea of where I was.
Somewhere in the national forest north of LA.
Knowing my captors, it was somewhere in the middle of the woodland.

I heard the door opening.
"Oh look who's awake."
Emmet spoke first.
Rosalind followed up.
"Guess what time it is now?"
Oh god no.
Please no.
Anything but that.
My eyes flicked to the barrel that had sat in the corner of the dingy basement since I had arrived.
Rosalind, noticing where my eyes were focused, nodded happily.
"Oh good job Lucy. We're putting you in a barrel again. Don't worry. You won't make it out of this one alive, I learnt from my former protégé's mistakes."
I shivered.
I wasn't sure if it was nerves or the cold.
Possibly both.

I walked, more stumbled, out into the Forrest.
I was right on where we were at least.
I chuckled slightly to myself, mostly to try and hide my own pain.

"In." Rosalind commanded me.
I heard the familiar click of the gun loading.
"Unless you want me to shoot you unconscious first?"
Honestly that didn't seem like a completely awful idea.
I got in the barrel anyway.
I saw Rosalind was on a call, pointing the camera at me for a second before the lid crashed onto the top of the barrel and I was submerged into darkness.

The lid tightened on top of me.
My knees hugging my chest as even my small frame filled up the space.

Since Caleb I had done my research on oil barrels.
150 litres.
21% oxygen.
8 litres inhaled a minute.
7-6 if I could control my breathing well.
5% of the oxygen decreased in those litres every minute.

That gave me about two hours.
Two hours to live.
I was going to die alone.
In an oil barrel.
In the ground.
Alone.

I needed to sleep.
You breathe slower when sleeping.
That would give me more time.

I lay me head down on my hands as painlessly as possible before shutting my eyes.
Maybe I wouldn't wake up after this.
And all the pain would be over.

I fell asleep quickly as my brain flashed back to thoughts of Juniper and Tim.
My eyes closed and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

A/N I did actually Google all the information about the barrel and oxygen levels so it is accurate I think.

Tim's POV

* Before Lucy is out into the barrel*

It had been hours without anything.
Hours of nothing.
Lucy may not even be alive anymore.
My phone's dings.
I answer the call, knowing that Rosalind might tell me that Lucy is dead.
"Hello again Rosalind"
"Ah Bradford. I have something to show you."
Rosalind turned the camera around to show me a live video of the lid going onto the barrel.
I tried to memorise everything about the image.
Lucy's bloodied body, the greenery that surrounded them.
Rosalind hung up and the lice video ended along with it.

"Um Grey places semi nearby with lots of greenery, trees, bushes but also no one around?"

I poured over the maps.
Everywhere either wasn't green enough or too populated.
"There!"
I practically screamed, pointing at a remote cabin that Emmet's parents used to own in Angeles National Forrest.

I sped at possibly hundreds of miles an hour above the speed limit.
I wasn't really aware of anything as the sirens blared in my ears and Angela sat in the shop next to me, her leg shaking anxiously.

Lucy's POV

I woke up after an I determined amount of time.
Tha air was stuffier and I was starting to sweat from the heat.
My vision had started blurring slightly but I couldn't tell if it was because of the oxygen deprivation or the injuries and blood loss.

By now I was sitting in a thin layer of my own blood, sweat and tears. literally.

Suddenly my throat felt tighter.
I remembered this feeling.
I started humming to myself to try and distract myself from my impending death.

My vision started to blur so I shut my eyes.
My ears were ringing, the only thing grounding them to reality was my humming.
I felt like I was in a sauna that wouldn't let me out.
My thoughts started to cloud and I felt the wounds all over my body start simultaneously going numb and stinging awfully.

I wasn't sure what I would die of first,
Oxygen deprivation or blood loss.

My entire body started tingling.
Teh pins and needles slowly rising from my extremities until they reached my core.
My entire body was quickly shutting down.

I had five minutes left maximum.
I started singing to myself with the last of my strength, small amounts of blood coming out of my mouth as I did so.

"Stars shining bright above you.. night breezes seem... To whisper...."
I started struggling to breathe at all.
"I... I love you"

Everything went dark.