Vengeance

Chapter 24- Hostage

A refreshing breeze hit my face after a long time, I felt like such an outcast in Detroit, a city that was once my hometown. The traffic on the roads was going wild, it was rush hour. I hadn't been out in rush hour in what felt like ages. Trying not to get lost as I indulged myself in the place around me I paced after Sheila, hot on her heels. 

We'd planned the route we were going to take on our journey here, we would go to the hospital first, search the floor Alex was meant to be on and then look around the areas surrounding the hospital.  

We took the bus to the hospital. We were crammed at the back of the bus, the person on the other side of me was playing Pacman on his phone, his phone was flooded with notifications. He caught me staring and removed his headphones.

"Wanna play?" he asked.

"No," I shook my head and started to look forward. 

"Have you been watching the news lately?" He asked trying to make conversation, as his glance fell upon the phone screen of the person seated in front of him who was reading an article on the update of my parents murder.

"A little," I nodded my head.

I had stopped paying attention to the news ever since they'd incriminated me for something I hadn't even committed. Also, because it hurt to keep seeing flashbacks of my family home, which was now in pieces and my parents faces. 

"What do you think about Kayla Ford?" He asked. 

"I'm not sure," I replied, a little taken-a-back. "But I think she's innocent." 

"So do I," he replied, "her speech changed my mind, but my parents thought it was a load of garbage and that she did it for publicity and pity so, she could get away with murder. I don't think the police bought into it either since they're still on the look out for her." 

The bus stopped outside the hospital. 

"It was nice talking to you. Bye." I waved as I followed Sheila off of the bus. 

Police cars lined the hospital entrance, with a few media reporters standing outside with their cameras. The news of Alex's disappearance had probably reached them by now. 

We went inside, to the reception area, a shiver ran down my spine as I walked past the police, they were armed with guns. Sheila signaled to me to follow her to the lift but a nurse stopped me in my tracks. 

"Sorry, but this area's been cordoned off, if you have a family member at the hospital you're going to have to return after an hour, once the police have finished their search and have left. The hospital premises is closed right now for the public." She announced. 

Disappointed, me and Sheila were escorted out of the building. 

"Shall we try find another way in?" I suggested.

"No," she replied. "Instead, we go to plan B." 

Plan B, was to do everything in reverse, so, to check the local area and then return to the hospital to complete our search. For hours we trekked around the area like headless chicken, we didn't even know how Charles was dressed. What if he had taken on a disguise? 

"Don't you have a phone number that you could contact him on?" I asked out of breath, holding onto the wall, I'd gotten a stitch. 

"I do, but I wanted to use it as a last resort," she sighed, but changed her mind when she saw the exhausted look on my face as I held onto my hip in pain. "Let's go find a phone box." 

We walked for another five minutes to the phone box, it clinked as she put the coins in and typed in the number. The line was ringing but there was no reply on the other end. She tried again, but still no answer, she rang again for a third and final time but he still didn't pick up. Why wasn't he picking up? What if they'd killed him, that's why he was no longer to answer his phone? I tried to stop myself from bursting into a panic attack. 

"What are we going to do now?" I asked, a lump stuck in my throat making it difficult for the words to come out. 

"I'm going to call Travis," she replied after a while. "I'm gonna ask him to triangulate the signal, before his phone switches off." 

She phoned Travis and explained where we were and asked him to triangulate the phone signal, to narrow down Charles' location. 

"He said, he'll ring back in five minutes," she replied. 

We waited around inside an antiques shop near the phone box. The rustic interior reminded me of the shop I used to work at, it even had the same smell of damp. I allowed my fingers to trail along the small, animal carved pieces of antique gold, dad had bought something like that for me when he'd gone on a trip to Sri Lanka, it was a golden elephant, an ornament that lived on my desk. From the corner of my eye I could see Sheila constantly throwing daggers at me, but I tried to ignore her. She still hadn't forgiven me from running away from her with Damon and Mia and she still wouldn't talk to me properly either unless she wanted me to do something, an awkward silence would just linger over us when we together.

After 5 long minutes had been, we walked back to the phone box. It was ringing. Sheila picked up the phone and spoke to Travis. 

"He's at the hospital," she turned to me. "The GPS on his phone is on, he's probably in some kind of trouble and knew we'd come looking for him so he switched it on. Let's go." 

The two of us raced down the streets, retracing our steps to the hospital. The idea of Charles being in any kind of trouble was eating me up, especially after Sheila's words from yesterday were being replayed in my head. Charles was my biological father, he'd risked everything for me, I couldn't lose him too because if I'd die of guilt as he'd come out here because of me, my selfishness, my impatience on finding Alex. 

By the time we reached the hospital, the last few police cars were leaving the premises and the news reporters were packing away and preparing their vans in order to leave. Following Sheila's lead we entered the hospital and casually blended in with the rest of the people who had most likely come to visit a loved one, or to seek medical advice. We slid into the washrooms on the second floor and got changed into the scrubs we'd purchased from New York before we'd commenced our journey to Chicago from a costume shop, they even came with badges. Mine read Clarence and Sheila's read Gulliver.  

Trying to avoid the other nurses we made our way up to the floor, where Alex was kept, in an attempt to find Charles. We took the stairs so, we didn't bust our cover, as most people including the nurses used the lifts.  

There was a POLICE LINE- DO NOT CROSS tape on the floor Alex used to be, the whole ward had been cordoned off, it was dark and gloomy, the light kept flickering every now and then adding to the suspense. The eery silence wasn't helping either. We went under the tape and started searching through the rooms. There was no sign of life, every room we entered was just as deserted as the next. 

A loud moan caught our attention, making us bump into each other with fright. 

"What was that?" I exclaimed. 

Sheila pointed to the direction it had come from. Sticking close together we propagated in the direction of the noise, looking left, right and center in case of an ambush attack. Sheila pushed open the door of the room and looked around before signalling for me to enter. 

The sight before me made my jaw drop in agony. Charles was sitting on the floor next to a heater, his arms shackled to it, his mouth had been gagged and he had blood oozing out of his forehead. Me and Sheila raced to his side. 

Sheila pulled at the gag, taking it out of his mouth. He coughed and spluttered as he gasped for air. I yanked at the chain, but it was of no use, it wouldn't give way no matter how much I tugged at it, it was interlocked with the heater.           

"Go," he ordered. "You need to leave now." 

"We're not leaving without you," Sheila stated trying to figure out how to untie the chain.   

"You don't understand," he breathed, "she's here, it's a trap." 

Slowly, Charles' eyes rolled, to look at the ceiling and then his eyelids drooped down. All of a sudden our surroundings started to grow clouded, a fog started to snatch at us. I felt as if I was losing consciousness, my eyes started to become droopy, I tried to call out to Sheila but my lips dropped, I fell into a dark paralysis.