Hold My Hand (Sequel to Saved: Adopted by Brendon Urie)

Chapter 25

The car stopped outside a normal looking building. There was nothing to indicate that  it was anything other than an apartment building. 

But to Abby, it was more. It was another place she didn't know. 

They  hadn't driven for very long, maybe fifteen minutes through side streets and one-way streets. 

Then the car had stopped and the woman had taken Abby's wrist again, pulling her out of the car. She hadn't said anything since they'd gotten in the car. She wouldn't answer any of Abby's questions. 

By now, Abby had been gone for roughly twelve hours.

She has no idea if Brendon is even looking for her.

She is sitting in an unfamiliar flat, on the edge of a bed in a small upstairs bedroom.

She still had her shoes on.

She hasn't slept.

Her phone is gone.

The woman has told her that she's safe.

Abby didn't believe her.

The woman also told her that her father will eventually cooperate.

That frightened Abby more than anything else.

That means the woman knows who Brendon is.

And Abby has begun to understand something:

This wasn't random.

She curled her knees toward her chest.

She thought about the last thing her father said before she left.

I'll see you after.

She'd nodded.

She hadn't even said goodbye properly.

She'd just smiled and told him she'd see him later.

Now she's wondering if he knows.

She's thinking.

Dad is looking for me. He has to be. 

And that thought gives her a tiny bit of hope.

Because Brendon has always told her the same thing.

No matter where she is.

No matter what happens.

He will come for her.

Abby doesn't know that, twelve hours later, Brendon is sitting in a police operations room staring at a photograph of the car that took her.

She doesn't know that investigators are trying to trace it.

She doesn't know that the search is closing in.

She only knows that she's frightened.

And that somewhere in London, her dad is awake. 

Abby sat in the middle of the bed with her knees pulled up against her chest.

The room was silent.

Not quiet.

Silent.

There was a difference.

Quiet meant there were still things happening somewhere. Cars passing outside. Pipes knocking in the walls. Someone talking in another apartment. A television through a wall.

This was nothing.

Abby listened anyway.

She could hear the faint hum of something—maybe the heating system—but otherwise there was nothing.