Taken

Chapter 14

Songs to Listen to While Reading:

La La La By: Naughty Boy

Ain't It Fun By: Paramore (You should check out the music video)

Love Me Again By: John Newman

Annabelle's POV: 

We drive for about a mile before I tell Travis to pull over. His knuckles are split open and bleeding quite profusely onto the steering wheel. He doesn't say anything but I can tell that he is in pain by the wincing he does with every turn. He pulls onto the side of the road and gets out of the car. We trade seats and I am driving us home. I allow him to put his address into the GPS as I begin to drive once more.

"You have a lot of explaining to do."

"I know," is all that he says. We pull up to a stop light and I turn to look him in the eye. His eyes are no longer their beautiful blue and gray color. Now, they are a dark gray. It frightens me as I notice they are nearly black because his pupils have grown to an enormous size. 

"Well, I hope everthing was worth it. Whatever you did pissed him off so much that he sexually assaulted me."

"Belle. I can't even put into words how sorry I am. You didn't deserve that. I could have found a better way to fix the situation." He lets out a breath as he stares out the window. He pushes his head to the window and I almost think he is going to smash his forehead against it until he speaks again. "It's a long story so I will have to start from the beginning. I used to have a brother named Jeremy. When I was in the sixth grade, Jeremy and I were walking home from school with Jackson. Although Jackson was my age, he had taken a liking to Jeremy and you could say they were friends. Jeremy was in the fifth grade at the time and was very intelligent. I hate to admit it, but Jackson is as well. Jackson just doesn't ever use his mind. When we got home, Jackson and Jeremy left to hang out at the park down the street."

I hear a sniffle and see that Travis is crying. I pull over quickly and unbuckle. I climb over the box between the driver's and passenger's seats. I straddle Travis and wrap my arms around his neck. He cries into my shoulder. I stroke the back of his head in a comforting way. His arms are tightly wrapped around my back. I breathe in his scent and realize that it is mixed with the smokey smell of cigarettes. I get the notion that Jackson is a heavy smoker. I don't doubt that he uses drugs. He may even be an addict.

"You don't have to continue," I whisper into his ear.

"It's okay," he wipes the tears off of his face with his bloody hand. I take my thumbs and swipe them across the stains to remove the red smears. He lifts his hand to my cheek and I smile. He looks like he is going to kiss me but decides not to. I get off of him and sit back in the driver's seat. 

The pain returns to his eyes when he begins talking again. "They were on the way to the park to do homework and hang out. A drunk driver was speeding down the road when they were crossing. A car hit him and Jackson didn't do anything. I should have gone with them. It's mosly my fault because they asked me to go but I said no because I wanted to relax. It was so selfish of me and I regret it every day. The worst part is, they never even found the guy who killed him. What sick person speeds in a subdivision, drunk. There were so many families in that area and so many people that could have been killed. One woman said that she saw the license plate and called 9-1-1 but they couldn't track the combination. Nobody had ever registered with the numbers and letters that she saw. She ran to Jeremy and tried to help him but it was too late. Jackson could have helped him. He was supposed to keep him safe and that's the one thing he couldn't do."