Trapped

Chapter 12

Luke

She can't be gone. I've checked every corner of the house 3 times over, but she's nowhere to be found. What am I going to do? What if he kills her? We don't know anything about him other than the fact that he has killed all the other girls he's taken and that he's taken Lilian before. Sam and I are the only ones who remember the first kidnapping vividly. Cam and Justin being around 5 and 6 when it happened have some recollection, but they don't remember that painful event like I do. I remember everything like it was yesterday.

I was 12 years old when it happened. She was 3 and went wandering off in the back yard. I was supposed to be watching her but I was kind of a dick older brother at the time and ignored her pleas to be played with. She walked off and when I didn't hear from her for about half an hour, I started to get worried. I couldn't find her anywhere and the next day she was pronounced missing. I have blamed myself for that ever since and when she was found by a police officer walking on the side of the road, I vowed that I would protect her with my life to make up for what I did.

Now she's gone and I can feel my whole world shattering once again. I should have told her about it, but I wanted to protect her. Her childhood mind didn't like the memory and blocked it out. I thought shielding her from her past was helping her, but I know that was wrong now. What I wouldn't give to hug her right now.

I'm being questioned about that night by Detective Ramirez. We sit at the table in the kitchen after the room has been emptied of officers. "What did Lilian say as a 3 year old the night she was found?" Right into it then. Good, no time wasted with small talk.

"She repeated the words punishments and bad girl over and over again." Remembering these things is hard. Saying these things is even harder. When she was found, she would say bad girl every time she would play without permission or go get something to eat without asking first. She reprimanded herself and it took her almost 9 months to understand that she had free will with those things.

"Punishments?" He asks confused.

"That's all she would say. Punishments," I was just as confused as he was and still am about what she was talking about.

"Bad girl?" This one I can answer.

"She would reprimand herself for not asking permission about the tiniest things. She also never left a speck of food on her plate after we found her. Before that she would always leave almost half of she would take," I remember. She acted as though it was a crime to leave food behind at meals.

"Did she have any scars? Possibly from being beaten or harmed in some way?" Oh gosh.  I was going to throw up.

"Yes," I stumble over the word, "She had one right above her belly button. When she grew up and forgot about all of this, we told her it was a birth mark." We were such idiots.

"Hey, if this is too hard for you we can stop," he tells me as tears start to come to my eyes.

"No. No, it's fine." I say, vehemently. I already feel useless as it is.

"Okay. Well I needed to tell you we found something in her bedroom when we were searching the house." He states and I instantly give him my full attention. Anything that can point to where she was taken, I have to know. He holds up an evidence back with a cotton swab inside. "A drop of a liquid muscle relaxant." Muscle relaxant? She was drugged before she was kidnapped?

    "Muscle relaxant? So she wouldn't put up a fight? Why not just knock her out?" I'm confused.

    "We are pretty sure it was injected. But the drug isn't even the weirdest part." He ignores my questions.

    "What is it?"

    "Her towel was laid out on her bed and none of her clothes were missing. She had just taken a shower, but she didn't put on new clothes?" I see where this is going and I suddenly feel physically ill.

    "How do you know none of her clothes were missing?" I ask him.

    "Forensics took pictures of all of her things. Anything that Daniels might have touched when he went into her room before. We matched the pictures to how the drawers looked and nothing had been tampered with." Makes sense. Now I know I'm going to be sick. "Anyway, we think she was wearing only a towel when he came into her room." He takes a long pause saying the next part. "We think he changed her after the muscle relaxant kicked in."

    I was wrong. I wasn't going to puke. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. I was going to kill him.