Chapter 40

Shannon

~~~

My phone buzzed beside me, my eyebrows drawing together at the unknown tag on my screen. I could barely hear a thing with the noise in the room so I excused myself to the kitchen.

“It’s been a while, have you missed me?” I froze, my hands trembling at the voice I knew all too well. “Don't hang up, I'm watching your mother cook.”

My grip loosened and the phone hit the ground, my palm flying to my mouth in panic. I leaped back when the phone rang again, my heart pounding hard against my ribcage.

Dropping to my knees, I grabbed the phone and pressed it to my ear. “What do you want? Don’t touch a hair on her head!”

He laughed. “What will you do?”

My lips parted to speak but nothing came out. Tears rolled down my face, my breathing heavy and strained. I didn’t want to imagine any harm towards her.

“Relax, I haven't done anything, yet. I'm only watching her from the window and if you want to keep it that way, you better prepare yourself to come back to me. Now be a good girl and pay me a visit when you’re done playing around. And oh, say hi to your friends." With that, the line went dead. I let out what was supposed to be a scream but sounded more like a wounded animal.

Footsteps echoed towards me, Lionel taking me in his arms and whispering, “What’s going on? ”

I couldn’t find my voice so I clung to him and let my waterworks soak his sweatshirt. His arms tightened around me, giving me the strength to speak up. He was quick to call my mother, but the calls only went unanswered, the same for Ashlie and my father.

What if he killed them all? I should have hearkened to him. I should have conceded to be his slave. I shouldn’t have gone against him. Maybe then, my family would be safe. They would be alive.

“Shannon,” Lionel called, my anguish-filled eyes meeting his. “We have to go. I want you to put yourself together because we have to do everything to make sure they’re all safe.”

I nodded, drying my tears and getting to my feet. There was no time for weeping. If I had to die protecting my parents, so be it.

“The officer said they’re on their way there,” Calvin announced.

“Alright, have you guys prepared yourselves?” Lionel asked, waiting for Calvin, Andrew, and Luke to confirm whatever he was asking them. A nod from each of them had us dashing out of the house and into the awaiting car. The Hernandez brothers were already inside with one of them as the driver.

Kayleigh and Lionel kept trying to assure me that everything would be alright but my heart said otherwise. Something was wrong and I dreaded finding out what it was.

When we got there, the gates were ajar, giving us the full view of the two police cars in our compound. I jumped out of the car and scurried into the house. Three officers stopped me at the door, asking for my identification before letting me in.

My eyes landed on my parents first before going to the officer questioning them and back. Mom’s eyes were red and puffed up. Dad’s ever bright orbs were moist and filled with grief. Before I could take a step towards them, the blood on the floor called out to me and a wail escaped my lips. My parents quickly covered the distance between us and crushed me into them.

“Where’s Ashlie?” I pulled back to ask my father. He shook his head and looked down, confirming my fears. My hands dropped limply to my sides as I tried to find the right words to ask the question I probably didn’t want an answer to. “Is she,” I paused, the word too painful to say out loud.

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

“What happened? We have to look for her,” I cried out.

“Through my dispatcher, a colleague alerted me that a 911 call had been placed for my house. I was a few blocks away from your mother’s office so I picked her up and we walked into this.” He waved his hands around the disarrayed room. “We just got here.”

“It’s him,” I said. “He called me. It was him. We have to find him.”

Dad’s expression immediately changed from sorrow to anger while Mom’s sobs only increased. “How come I didn’t think of him?”

“Sir, this is as a result of shock. It clouds your thinking and mostly allows you to feel sad,” one of the officers said. “We should start the search now while we still have the chance to catch up with him.”

“Have all the perimeters within this state closed immediately. He can’t have gone far and won’t have anywhere to go so it will be easier to catch him,” Dad ordered the officers who swung into action while he made calls to alert the head department of the crisis.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Lionel’s question reminded me of their presence in the room.

My father nodded, his hand gripping Lionel’s shoulder. “I would like you to stay here with them. I trust that you can keep them safe while we go looking.”

“You have my word, Sir. No harm whatsoever will come to them. I will kill if I have to.” Lionel’s tone and statement shook me. It felt like an alien was the one voicing out what he just said.

Dad pulled Mom and I to him, his hands wrapping around us as he whispered words of affirmation. I knew he was going to find her but didn’t want to visualize him coming back with her lifeless body. Blood was everywhere, like an animal had been slaughtered.

Two officers stayed back, ready with distinct types of equipment that would track Matthew’s whereabouts in case he called me. He was after me so he was likely to call any minute.

Hours of agony went by without any news. The crime scene was assessed, samples taken by forensics and the house cleaned. It was hard to believe anything had happened there but the images still plagued my mind.

Pacing back and forth in the enormous room, I couldn’t help but blame myself for everything. Had I listened to my parents before Matthew’s interest in me intensified, we wouldn’t be here now. Everyone’s incalculable attempts to persuade me into believing I wasn’t at fault proved futile. Until we could locate her, the foreboding feeling in my chest was going nowhere.

My phone’s ringtone startled everyone into silence. From where I was standing, I could clearly see the unknown number that had contacted me earlier. The officers quickly connected their servers to it before handing it to me. My heart picked an erratic beat as I brought it to my ear.