The Boss

Chapter 5 (part 1)

Chapter 5  

Maddy was not feeling too good. Her head was throbbing and her pulse was beating and jolts of pain shot through her body. None of these were symptoms to a miracle. Maddy was getting silly suspicions of death.   

It made no sense. And being in this dark empty space with solitude for a companion – and, possibly, different kinds of creepy crawlies, though she didn’t want to think about that – gave her enough space and time to think. Besides, she needed a healthy distraction from her current position. At the back of her mind Maddy had already decided that she was in some sort of a closed, cramped tomb and there was no getting out. She might as well try – she was afraid of the creepies but they were crawling all over her in a very effective attempt to keep her petrified – to figure out why she was in this position.  

It didn’t take a genius to figure out her father was the root of the problem. Even if what had just taken place was completely absurd, and far peculiar than usual, it still had to be him. He was the one who was a damn pro at digging his own grave, and hers too while he was at it. He’d done it more than once, but never had she literally ended up in her grave.  

Maddy had gone through more than her fair share of near death experiences for an average school teacher. When she was three, back when her mother was still alive, her father had auctioned her to a drunken man, well over a hundred. Her mother had fished her out then. When Maddy was eight, two years after her mother had passed away, he struck again, bundling her out of the horrid foster home, she had been dumped into by the ever caring authorities, by the help of his two henchmen, into the boot of a car. Maddy never got a glimpse of its make or its number plate.  

That was one of the times the authorities had come to the rescue. Someone had seen her being dumped into the boot. Lucky her – not. It didn’t even take a month and her father was back, kidnapping her once again, this time playing the role of the remorseful father and taking her out on a ‘father-to-daughter bonding’ thing which included being sedated and gagged. The foster home people didn’t even complain when she never returned that night. They were no different to the man that had taken her.  

While she was being held in a basement, somewhere in Wales, the police were trying to track her in England. She had no idea how she escaped then. Just that an anonymous person had called the police and told them where she had been held. Her luck was good, in a very ironic way. She had been found before her father had done whatever he was supposed to do with her.  

Maddy had not been affected in a very positive way. After all she had only been eight and she had been kidnapped twice, by her only blood relative. Before she even had a chance to even try and recover, her father had returned. The police had never managed to catch him. This time, he managed to leave her at the doorstep of some foreign man who was giving her father a good deal in exchange for her.  

Some part of Maddy had realized being kidnapped three times in a row was more than enough. She had learned that matters had to be taken in her own hands. How she managed to escape was a complete mystery. She had been drunk when she was found by a young couple on their way to their honeymoon. Maddy definitely knew why she was intoxicated, and she had remembered her captor’s headquarters. It wasn’t long before he was behind bars. This time the authorities had had about enough too. She was moved to another foster home, half way across the country. It was a far better place and her father had no idea where she was. That was the only reason it took his three years to capture her again. It really wasn’t because he’d seen the error of his ways and decided to change them. That was a very far stretched vision – if anyone was crazy enough to have it. Maddy didn’t have it. She’d been through enough in his hands to even dare dream he’d change. Second chances were far past.