Page 88 of Forever Found
“I’m here,” Kane said as he came jogging into the house in long basketball shorts and a tight fitting muscle t-shirt. He’d obviously been getting ready to work out, I assumed. “You okay, angel?” he asked as he dropped to his knees before me and framed my face with his hands.
“I will be. I just…I need you to find this girl for me, Kane. I have to know what happened to her,” I explained.
“You will. I’ll find her,” he assured me as he rose up and kissed me chastely on the lips.
“Is Jenny alright?” I asked, hating that he’d had to leave his sister for me.
“She’s asleep right now, but she’s feeling better. She knows she’s safe here,” he told me, and I nodded, relieved she was calmed enough to get some rest.
“Okay,” Asher said as he jogged down the stairs with Eli right behind him. “You ready to tell us what you remembered, little dot?”
Eli walked past the back of the sofa and leaned over it to briefly hug me from behind, before he took a seat in the armchair in front of the window. Asher walked over and perched on the arm beside him, then they all looked to me expectantly.
“I honestly don’t know how I forgot this for so long,” I started as I leaned forward and placed the soda on the large glass coffee table before me.
“You had a bad head injury, Addy, from that car hitting you. The doctor told us it was normal for you to lose some memories,” Eli reminded me.
“I know. I just….it was a big thing to forget,” I sighed.
“Tell us, baby. We’re all right here with you,” Adam soothed as he wrapped his arm around me again and pulled me into his side. I lay my head against his bicep and smiled when Jordan placed a warm hand over my thigh.
“I know how I got away,” I began. “I was in that cage…restrained. Hilton…he’d hurt me until I passed out, and then I guess he locked me in there. I was woken by the sound of a girls voice. Shewas on a call, I think. She…she didn’t live with Hilton. She lived with her mom and she wasn’t talking to her father, but she’d snuck into his house to steal some wine from the basement for a party. Libby…that was her name.”
Kane had moved so he sat on the floor before me, facing me, and he reached for my ankle and circled it with his hand as my voice started to waver a little. I glanced to him with a shaky smile, then took a deep breath to continue, “I started screaming for help, knowing if I could hear her, she had to be able to hear me. She f-found the hidden door and came into the cell. She was so scared and shocked. I could see the horror on her face as she looked at me, shackled to that cage, naked and bleeding. She was young…too young.”
“She must have been brave too if she helped you escape,” Jordan told me, and I nodded.
“She was. I told her how long her dad had been holding me there, and I begged her to help me. Once she got over the shock, she did. She told me the code he used for his alarm system, and that worked to open the cage, then she…she ran off and f-found some cutters. She had to cut the cuffs from my wrists and ankles.
“She had some clothes in her purse, so she gave them to me to put on. I got dressed and we set off running. I wanted to get her out of the house before her monster of a father came back,” I explained.
“But he came back,” Asher guessed.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “We were almost at the door when he started unlocking it. Libby dragged me to the office and we hid behind the desk. Libby…she knew Hilton had a loaded gun in his desk and she g-got it out.”
“Deep breaths,” Adam prompted me and I realized I was gasping once again between my words. I paused to take some deeper breaths, then looked to Kane again.
“Hilton…he knew she was there because she had disarmed the alarm and she was the only other person who knew the code. He called out for her. She told me to stay down, and then she called back to him. He c-came into the office and he was really short with her. She confronted him about the rooms in the basement and he…he grabbed her. He was going to hurt her, so I stood up. I wanted to try and help her. There was a struggle between us all, then Libby fired the gun.” I gasped for breath as a single tear ran down my cheek.
“It hit him in the chest and he died instantly,” Asher said, and I nodded.
“She s-saved me. She had to shoot him. He was going to…to hurt her. She didn’t do anything wrong,” I cried in defense of Libby.
“We know, beautiful. We all owe her everything,” Jordan agreed as he ran his hand up and down my thigh soothingly.
“What happened next?” Eli asked.
“I…I wanted to protect Libby. I took the gun from her and told her she had to leave. I told her to forget she was ever there and not to tell anyone. I could hear the police approaching and I was freaking out. I got us out of the house and Libby got in her car and drove away. I…I ran. I had the gun, and I was a mess. Hilton had been right in front of me when he was shot so h-his blood…it was all over me and Libby. I panicked when I heard more sirens coming close and I just ran. The sun was blinding me and I wasn’t thinking straight. That’s when I got hit by the car, and everything went black.”
“That’s why you had the gun with you,” Asher summarized and I nodded again.
“The police didn’t find Hilton’s body until the next day though, so the cops weren’t coming for you, Addy,” Kane added.
“It doesn’t matter now. I just…I have to know what happened to Libby. She was just a kid and she was a mess when she got in her car and sped away. I have to know if she’s alright,” I told them all.
“I’ll look into her right away. She shouldn’t be hard to find,” Kane told me as he got to his feet once again and stood facing me.
“I don’t want her to get into trouble. She s-saved me and who knows how many other girls like me. Hilton deserved what he got,” I said firmly. I had no doubt about that fact.