Cheryl x Liam: Inevitable

Part 18

The two days that passed after Sophia had been kidnapped had been the longest couple of days ever in Cheryl's world...

Friday had been such a struggle; God it had been such a struggle. Due to the nightmare that Cheryl had been plagued in, by Friday morning, she had been in no shape to even get out of bed let alone get up, get ready, and go into court. She had called Nicola last minute and asked Nicola to represent her client in her absence, and of course Nicola agreed straight away. Throughout the whole of the day, Cheryl had done absolutely nothing but lay in bed and cry whilst checking her laptop every hour it seemed, desperate for these "instructions" or whatever she was waiting for so that she could get Sophia back. She kept checking the live feed; anger flashed through her as she saw that Sophia's arms and legs were bound by rope, and her heart would break some more every time she saw Sophia's little face looking confused, sad, lost, scared, and alone – all at once. She could tell that Sophia was trying to be brave just like Cheryl had taught her to be, but still, the fear was in her eyes – and the fear was in Cheryl's eyes too.

Saturday had been no better. Throughout the day, Cheryl once again continued to check her emails for any instructions but none ever came through. She seemed to have watched the live feed all day long, watching as Sophia spoke to someone, watching as Sophia talked to another girl who was sitting there "babysitting" her Cheryl assumed. She tried to make out who this other person in the video was, but she couldn't figure it out. All she could see was that the girl had long brown hair, but that's all she really picked up on.

The technicians that worked in the Information and Technology department for Cheryl's law firm weren't even able to trace where this live feed was coming from; having explained to Cheryl on Saturday that no matter how hard they tried to hack into the systems, nothing was showing the location. The police even tried to get their technicians to try, but no luck came about this either. Nobody could figure out where the email had come from or where this live feed was streaming from, but nobody was giving up on this.

Liam had stayed with Cheryl throughout the last couple of days, just being as supportive as possible for her as he knew there wasn't anything they really could do and knew that Cheryl was feeling incredibly helpless. He held her as she frequently burst into tears over the weekend; it concerning him that she was going to have an emotional breakdown of sorts as he had never seen this side of Cheryl. The only side of Cheryl that he had ever seen was this strong woman who was not only feisty when needed be, but was also an extremely caring, polite, respectful, independent young woman who was just living her life being a mother and having the job of her dreams. Now, this woman in his arms was a complete shell of the one he'd met over a month ago. This woman was lost, confused, and broken; and it was all down to the fact that her reason for living was locked away in some place and they had no idea where to even find her.

When Sunday rolled around, the clouds settled in the sky – this immediately causing Cheryl's mood to plunge even more than it already was. She looked to the side of her to see that Liam was still fast asleep, leading her to lean over and lightly kiss his cheek before getting out of bed. She made her way out of the room and went straight to the island counter top where her Macbook was; sitting down on one of the barstools and opening it up. The cold leather of the stool caused tiny goosebumps to appear on the bare skin of her legs that were on display due to the fact of her only wearing Liam's t-shirt, but she didn't even care. She just wanted to check the live feed and make sure her daughter was okay.

She clicked through the emails and clicked the link for the live feed, but her heart plunged as soon as she saw the message that came up when the box popped up...

Live Feed Offline.

She closed the box and clicked the link over and over, getting increasingly frustrated each time as the message said the same thing. For the last two mornings, the feed had been online so that she could check in, but today, there was nothing. Now, an overwhelming sense of fear crept up in her throat and caused her tears to fall; what if something had happened to Sophia?