Abducting Avery ( completed )

Abducted

After the interview, everything went black.

The smell of anesthetics greeted Heather and a cool gust of air coming from a nearby window washed over her. Her vision was blurred but only for a second, and when she was finally able to see clearly she realized where she was. Heather put a hand to her throbbing head and groaned.

"Why am I in a hospital?" she muttered softly, staring at a nurse now entering the room, smiling sympathetically at Heather. 

"Miss Hayden? Do you know where you are?" The nurse offered a gentle, uneasy smile.

"Am I in the mental hospital again? They must have readmitted me." Suddenly, she felt the presence of warm tears tearing down the length of her face. She was crying, and it wasn't long after the nurse mentioned it being a normal hospital that she remembered why.

"Avery... Where's Avery? Did they find her yet?" Heather asked quickly, sitting up, ignoring the large amount of energy it took to do so. The sad look on the nurse's face said it all. Her baby was still gone, still missing and here she was sitting in a hospital, unable to do a single thing about it.

"I need to get out of here! Get me out of here!" she yelled, her voice tinged with desperation as she shot up in the hospitable bed.

'You have to find her, Heather. Someone has Avery, and they're going to hurt her.'  The voice was as familiar as the perfect, innocent ringlets of Avery's honeycomb hair. As always, it came with a sense of urgency and left her head hollow with pain. Heather's hands went to either side of her face and she squeezed her eyes closed. 

The nurse shook her head, putting a hand on her shoulder. She looked concerned, but also looked as if it were something she'd expected.

"Calm down. We'll get you out of here as soon as possible, you just need a few more hours of rest before we can get you back home, okay?" She looked to be in her forties with specks of gray in her auburn colored hair and sad teal eyes that meant she could only imagine what Heather was going through. Heather felt and saw no sympathy; just a woman constructed slowly to restrict her and keep her from finding Avery.

"Why am I even here?" Heather snapped, laying back down. The nurse sighed.

"You passed out after the police were unable to find any leads on your daughter's case. Which reminds me..." 

The woman rummaged through a small bag sitting on a chair next to Heather's bed. It was brown and looked so alone, sitting on the dark blue arm chair all by itself. It looked scared. Like it was trembling. The soft voice in her head compared the bag to Avery. Another sting of pain shot through her head and she had to bite down hard on her bottom lip to stifle in the grunt. This one came with more tears.

"That's weird... I swear the stuffed dog you came in was in here somewhere. I don't know where it could have went," the nurse muttered, sighing softly. Heather widened her eyes, the tears stinging them painfully.

"I have to go. Right now." She managed to speak through her sobs, giving the nurse a careful glance. The woman sighed and nodded, unattaching a few things and handing Heather the bag with her clothes in it.

"You have a neighbor here that's going to take you home. They're waiting outside for you, have been since you were admitted. Must have known you wouldn't have a ride."

With that, Heather was released.

- - - - -

Avery was scared, shaking and crying. The room she sat in now was dark and was not her own. This was where she'd woken up and she struggled to make sense of it all. It was near impossible, especially for such a young girl like her.

 She called out into the darkness. Her voice bounced off the walls and rang in her ears, reminding her that she was alone. "Mommy? Are you there? Mommy help me, I'm scared." Her little body was curled up in the corner of the room, against the dirty wall. The room smelled rotten and the only light came from a tiny space beneath a door some feet away from where Avery sat now.

The light beneath the door was shaded by the shadow of feet. The door was eased open by a careful hand. Avery squinted her eyes, hiding her face in her hands when she realized the person walking toward her now was not her mother. The door closed and a man now stood at the barely visible entrance.

The man spoke softly, handing her something. "Here."  It was soft and familiar. Avery hugged it to her chest, laying her head down against it's fur. "Biscuit," she murmured.

"I want my mommy," Avery told the man in a shaky, quiet voice as he stepped away from her, lighting something up with a match.

"Your mommy can't help you now," he replied in a rough tone, holding a freshly lit candle out in front of his face.

Avery screamed and kicked at the ground, pushing herself farther away from him and hugging her toy.

His face was bruised, scarred and dirty. Aside from smelling terrible, his over-all appearance was sickening and was enough to scare any young child. To her he was something close to a monster. He reached out, stroking her cheek gently with his thumb.

"Now don't be scared, Avery. I'll take good care of you," he whispered to her, reluctantly setting the candle down next to her. "I know you're scared of the dark, I'm sorry I had to leave you in here so long without any light. I'll be back later. Get some sleep." His tone was bittersweet and honeyed. With that said, he left the room.

Avery slowly moved so that she was laying down, resting her head on top of her stuffed dog. Her eyes were heavy with tears and fatigue and her head hurt. Without really meaning to, the terrified toddler fell into a terror-filled sleep.