My Life: Congrats, You Lost Me

Chapter 24 - Ring Ring

****August 22nd****

I stand over her pale body and watch as her chest rises and falls. She took shallow breaths and the many machines she had hooked up to her beeped slowly. She hadn't woken up since her rough time earlier. It had been almost 16 hours and she hadn't moved, besides her breathing.

"Jessie," Allan whispers, taking my hand. "You need to sit down, you're going to be hurting later if you keep standing here. You've been standing there staring at her for 2 hours. A watched pot never boils."

"If a watched pot never boils then how could this have happened while you were watching her? How could she be stuck like this," I ask venomously.

"Jess, please forgive me already," he pleads. I don't even turn my head to look at him, knowing that all I'll see is that face full of sadness, begging me to forgive him for this.

"She may as well be dead, Allan," I snap. "What's going to happen then?"

"Please stop," a small voice says. We look around to see Eliza standing in the doorway. "Don't fight in front of her. She can still hear you, you know." I look back down at Becca and run my hand down her arm, careful to avoid the IVs going through it. I look up at Allan, tears threatening the backs of my eyes, and turn my back to him.

I walk out of the room and down the hallway. I hear Allan and Eliza calling my name faintly, but I press on. I walk down the stairs one by one. I have no idea where I'm going, but I'm not stopping until I get there.

****August ??****

I wake up and am on my feet quickly, but as all the blood rushes from my head I get dizzy and almost fall back down. I look around nervously, realizing that I'm not in the hospital anymore. I pull my phone out of my pocket and quickly dial Allan's number.

Ring..... Ring..... Ring..... "Jessie, Jessie are you alright?" A spark lit up in my chest when I heard his voice.

"Y-yeah, I think so..." As I speak I try to look around the room I was in, but it was far too dark.

"Oh thank God... Where are you, I thought you were never coming back to the hospital."

"W-why? It hasn't been very long..."

"Jessie," Allan sounded extremely worried. "It's been 4 days. We called the police and they have been looking for you for days now. Where the hell are you?"

"I-I don't know... I just woke up. It's really dark so I can't see where I am."

"What are you talking about," Allan asks. "It's noon, it's no where close to dark out." I look around the dark room again in hope that I could find something.

"I see you're awake," a strange voice says. "Nice of you to join me." A light flicks on and I see an all too familiar face. It was the officer who questioned me about my mother. The one who also paid my mother to-.

"Jessie," Allan hisses in my ear. "Who is that?"

"Jessamine, hang up the phone or I'll do it for you," the officer says. I stare at him, my throat tight, and drop my phone on the ground. I could hear Allan yelling into the phone. The officer walked over to me, bending down to pick up my phone. I move to take a step toward him, but something was holding my legs. I look down to see chains binding my legs to a post.

"Jessie, Jessie, Jessie," he says slowly. "You don't think that I'm just going to let you sit here unchained if I hope to keep you here, do you?" I stand stiffly, my hands clenched into fists. "You made me lose my job. I was fired because of what you said in that courtroom. Fired and put into a federal prison for a long.... Long sentence..."

"It's only been months," I stutter. "How..."

"I escaped you idiot. And I found little old you, walking down the street. We had good fun for the last few days.... Until you woke up..."

"You're sick," I yell. He swings his arm up and punches me in the jaw. My hands fly up to my face as it throbs.

"You best mind, little one. You best mind while I have you here with me."

"Who are you anyway?"

"Oh, names... You never got my name did you? It's Cole. Now shut up and get on the ground. Don't move until I get back," he says. "Am I clear?" He uses his hand to push up my chin to look at him. I couldn't find anything to say. "I said, 'Am I clear?'!"

"Y-yes..." I get onto my knees after he releases my chin and try to shift as far away from where I had been standing as possible. I let my eyes track the grains of the wooden floor and I notice one incredibly unsettling thing. Blood. Lots of it, both dried and fresh. I tug on the chains that bind me to a stake in the floor. They looked like steel.

Cole soon returns to the room with 2 plates of food. One had what looked like mashed potatoes, beans, and a hamburger, while the other had crackers and beans. He drops the cracker plate in front of me and sits just out of reach from me. "Eat," he says. "You need to." I look at him warily but my stomach growls angrily. The smell from the food made it irresistible. I nibble on crackers and try dipping them into the beans to give it a bit of flavor.

After several minutes of agonizing silence Cole stands up and picks up my plate, moving it just out of my reach. He places more crackers onto it and the scraps of his meal. He leaves the room again, leaving me with nothing but the plate and myself, or at least that's all I could see of it. Minutes that feel like hours go by before the lights go out again and I hear heavy footsteps entering the room.

"You're all mine, little one," a new voice says. It was deeper and fuller, like an older man's voice. I hear his steps walk towards me, soon I can see a faint outline of his shoes less than a foot away. I hear his knees pop as he bends down to eye level with me. I could smell alcohol on his breath as he breathed in my face. His hand wanders over my leg and up my side, making my blood run cold.

You best mind, little one.

His hands travel up my back bringing my shirt up with them. I cry out loudly, hoping that someone, somewhere would hear me and stop this sickness. This prompts the large man to punch me in the side of the head, making me feel extremely dizzy. He pins me against the hard floor, his legs on either side of my small frame. I force myself to pull my mind away from what was happening now, knowing that I could do nothing to stop it.

*******************

Hours pass and 2 more men come and go throughout the time. Cole eventually comes in himself and does nearly the same thing all the other pigs wanted who came through here. He drapes my clothes over me and leaves the room again, this time turning on the lights as he went. I sit up and look down at myself, a sick feeling in my stomach. I slip back into my clothes again and pull my knees up to my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible.

Maybe if I make myself small enough I'll just disappear.

******************

Days pass, each the same as the last, but the last time I had eaten was the first day I woke up. My stomach was gnawing on itself as I sat in the little wooden room. My lip had been busted open, I gained a black eye, I had a beer bottle broken against my good leg. I was covered in bumps and bruises from head to toe. I heard Cole talking in another room using a very loud voice. He was screaming at somebody and that person was screaming back. A new man runs into the room and I see his badge flash in the light. An officer! I scream as a gunshot fires through the air. The officer stops in his tracks and collapses onto the floor in a growing pool of his own blood.

Cole walks up to the officer, kicking his body until he has it pushed up to the back door. He pushes it outside and closes the door again, locking it's 2 locks. He walks up to me, his face covered in rage. "You," he snaps. "You little bitch." He punches me in the jaw and I can feel the inside of my cheek tear where it hit my teeth. I taste blood in my mouth as he kicks at my side. Once I'm down and on my side he kicks the back of my head, making my vision blur and the dimly lit room to go black.