What Lies Beneath

Chapter Twenty-Three

(Nathaniel's pov)

Its been exactly one month since I was taken that night. One month of pure hell, one month of nothing but pain.

My days started off the same, I'd wake up, they'd let me shower, eat something, then that's when it would start.

My question had been answered, about whether or not those knifes would be used on me.

I had several deep cuts, scattered across my body. Most of my body was covered in bruises at this point, if I wasn't getting cut on I was getting the shit beat out of me, kinda like how I was right now.

My body tensed as another hard kick was delivered to my stomach, causing the wind to be knocked out of me.

I was currently on the floor, curled up in a fetal position, trying to get air into my burning lung's.

"That's enough Vlad," the man named Father said, I could hear him walking closer to me, until his leather boots were level with my eyes.

He crouched down, running his withered hand across my bruised cheek.

"You're strong, I'll give you that much, most would've broke by now," Father said.

"W-Why?" I asked, my voice barely over a whisper.

"Why what?"

"Why are you d-doing this." Tears blurred my vision, as they threatened to fall.

"Well you see, I had a daughter once, her name was Katie, but my sweet little girl had a few things wrong with her, so she had to spend a little time in treatment, and at the time Hanson Orphanage was the only one who treated mental illness, so that's where she went, but she wound up staying there a little longer than originally planned, she eventually did get better though, they were supposed to release her on December 25th, 1966, but something tragic happened, I'm sure by now you know about the fire that killed everyone. Well my little girl was one of them, and do you know how the fire started?" Father asked me.

"N-No."

"Then I'll tell you, your grandfather was a doctor there, so your Father would come by and visit him from time to time, your Father was about fifteen or so at the time, so one night your Father and a few of his friends was just hanging around and one of them lit a cigarette and they dropped it, never finding it. Then that night everyone died."

My eyes widened as I stared up at him, was he telling the truth?

"Now I know what your thinking, oh my Father wouldn't do that, but you're wrong, you see one his friends felt so bad about what happened, that they went to the police, your Father only spent a year in prison for what he did, but your grandfather had a lot of pull in this town so it wasn't to surprising, when he made sure no one found out about it, also made sure that his prison record couldn't be found, so your Father just went on living like nothing happened, while I had to go home day after day to an empty house," Father said angrily.

"It was just an accident," I said defending my Father.

"An accident that took my little girl from me," he angrily yelled, causing me to flinch.

"So since you can't have her back you go and kidnap all those kids that went missing, trying to find a replacement for your daughter, but when you realize you couldn't you would just kill them," I yelled right back, causing him to give me an unreadable expression.

"That is until I found sweet dear Elizabeth over here," he said pointing over to where Lizzy stood, looking terrified.

"I was walking through the store one day when I spotted your Father, it took me a few minutes to recognize him, I mean he was a lot older than the last time I saw him, then I saw Elizabeth run up to your Mother, and I thought, I found her, I finally found Katie, after all that time I finally found her."