I woke up shivering, reaching for blankets that were not there. I opened my eyes, trying to work out why Aiden’s bed felt rock hard and cold. I quickly realised I was no longer in his bed. I was lying on my stomach on a cold, hard cement floor. There was wire fencing not more than a foot in front of my face, and there was a stench I couldn’t quite place.
I lifted my head, trying to figure out where I was. “What the...” I pulled myself onto my knees. The last thing I remembered was falling asleep in Aiden’s arms, but I was inside a cage of some sort, like the ones in dog kennels.
Turning around, I realised I had woken up in my worst nightmare. Bile started rising in my throat as I took in the scene before me. There was a girl strapped to a chair against the back wall of the cage. Her matted, blood-stained blonde hair fell over her face. Her head hung forward lifelessly. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew it was Chelsea.
It was the strangest sensation to have my feelings divided over what I was seeing. In one way, seeing her there made me sick to my stomach. It made me want to scream, cry, and puke all at the same time. Yet another part of me was hoping that what I was seeing was another vision. Yeah, it was probably the worst vision I could have hoped for, seeing her dead and all, but if it was a vision, then I could use it to try to figure out something that might help us find her. Then the vision might not come true.
There was only one way to find out. I had to try to touch her. If my hand passed through her like some apparition, then I was definitely having another vision. But if my hand made contact with her skin, then… Well, I didn’t want to think about what that would mean.
I crawled on all fours over to her, hoping to God that I was having some sort of vision and there was still time to save her. I reached out slowly… and made contact.
My hands trembled uncontrollably. I couldn’t save her. I quickly turned away, unable to look at her for another second. This was all my fault. I was supposed to save her, but she was dead because of me. Because I couldn’t work out what was already inside my mind. It had been there all the time, but I failed her.
I knew I was going to puke, yet I tried my hardest to fight it, causing my body to go into convulsions while I tried desperately to keep it down.
Then the inevitable happened—I spewed my guts up. Once it started, I couldn’t seem to stop.
“Jade?” a raspy voice whispered behind me.
It took me a minute, even with my supposedly superior brain, to work out what was happening. And it took me another minute for my dry heaving to stop.
Once I had finally gotten control over my body, I turned around, hoping that I had heard correctly.
Sitting in the chair was Chelsea, with her head up. She was alive.
Without thinking, I lurched toward her, wrapping my arms around her. I couldn’t believe I found her. I actually found her. And most importantly, she was still alive.
“Jade,” she whispered.
I pulled back so I could look at her. “Yeah?” I couldn’t believe I was actually holding her in my arms. The slice across her throat, which I had seen in my vision, was right there on her neck, but it didn’t look half as bad as it did in my vision. Looking down at her blood-stained clothing made me think that she had lost a fair amount of blood.
“I’m glad to see you and all.” She gulped hard, leading me to think she must be in desperate need of some water. “But you kinda stink.”
I looked down at myself. Vomit smeared my clothing, as well as Chelsea’s. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I said, pulling away from her.
“Don’t worry about it.” She laughed. “We’ll be able to change into something else soon.”
I laughed too. I couldn’t believe that she still had her humour about her. If I had been abducted and held captive for three days, I was sure I would be a friggin’ mess. I sure as hell wouldn’t be joking around.
My smile faded when I realised why she was in such a good mood. She was looking around behind me for someone else. She wasn’t looking for the psycho who took her. She was searching for her rescuers. She thought that I was part of her rescue party.
“Where are they all?” she asked, her eyes finally returning to mine.
“Um….” I paused, not wanting to give her the bad news. There was no rescue party. There was nobody but me—that’s when it hit me. Fear gripped me around my heart, and squeezed tighter and tighter. I was actually with her, but I hadn’t a clue where we were. I didn’t know how I got there, and I didn’t know how I was going to get home.
“Jade?”
I looked at her, too scared to say the words out loud. Too terrified of what the words circulating through my mind meant.
“Jade?” There was a catch in her voice.
“It’s just me,” I finally replied, my voice barely audible.
A lone tear rolled down her cheek, and her eyes glazed over as she lost all hope that her nightmare had come to an end.
“Come on.” I moved around to the back of her chair and attempted to free her from her restraints. It was useless. Her kidnapper had used zip ties. “Don’t worry, we’ll get out of here. You’ll see.”
She didn’t respond. If I was her, I wouldn’t believe me either.
“Jade?” Aiden’s panic-stricken voice screamed through my head, making me jump. Chelsea was too caught up in her own misery to notice.
“Aiden!” I was so relieved to ‘hear’ his voice.
“Where are you?” His words were a lot calmer this time.
“I’m with Chelsea.”
“What?” Aiden’s voice was once again filled with panic.
“I don’t know how I got here. The last thing I remember was falling asleep with you, and the next thing I know, I’m waking up here with Chelsea.” Tears started running down my face. I was so relieved to hear his voice, but I was so terrified of not having him with me.
“Are you hurt? That psycho hasn’t done anything to you, has he?” I could hear the fear in his voice, making my heart tighten. I could only imagine the fear he must be experiencing, not knowing where I was. If the situation was reversed, I would be a total mess.
“No, he hasn’t done anything to me. I don’t think he even knows I’m here.” I hoped that would ease his mind a little.
“You’re the one trapped with that psycho, and you’re feeling sorry for me?” He sounded surprised.
A small laugh escaped my lips, which got Chelsea’s attention. “What’s so funny?” she asked.
Oh, crap. I was so not ready for this. Aiden had years of practise covering up his secrets, but I had to learn to cover up that I was having a telepathic conversation with someone who wasn’t in the room whilst also trying to concentrate on finding a way to get us out of there before the kidnapper came back.
“Jade?” Chelsea said.
“Just calm down,” Aiden said. “You’ll be fine.”
“Oh, nothing, Chels,” I replied. “I just can’t believe I’m here.”
“Neither can I.” She looked at me for a moment, as if she was trying to figure something out. “Actually, how did you get here?”
Oh, crap again. When I thought about it, I could only come up with the possibility that I had somehow transported myself there. But that didn’t make sense. Apart from the fact that I had never transported myself anywhere before, Anna had said that you had to know the exact place where you wanted to go, and that it wasn’t possible to transport yourself to a person without knowing where they were. “Umm… I don’t know,” I finally replied.
She sat there thinking for a minute without saying anything. “He must have drugged you,” Chelsea mumbled. That was probably the most logical explanation she could come up with, which wasn’t a bad thing to go with.
“I’m not sure. Maybe…” I tried sounding confused, but I was pretty sure that he hadn’t drugged me. Then again, how else could I be there?
“Look, I know you’re freaked out and shit, but we really have to figure out where you are,” Aiden said, bringing me back to my conversation wi
th him. “Can you see or hear anything around you that might give us a clue?”
I looked around. The only light in the room filtered in through a few small windows too high up for me to see out of. Besides, they were frosted glass with security wire laced through them. Even if I could get up there, I wouldn’t be able to see through them.
“Don’t waste your time,” Chelsea said. “The only way out is through that door.” She cocked her head to the right. “And even if you could get to it, he locks the damn thing.”
I hated to admit it, but Chelsea was right. There was no way out of here. We were both locked in a cage at the mercy of some psycho. For all I knew, we could be in another state.
“Hey, hang on.” An idea had come to me. “If we can talk to each other, then don’t we have to be close to one another?” If I was right, then Aiden should be able to find us that much easier.
“I thought about that, too, but I can’t feel you.”
“Feel me, what the hell does that mean?”
“Okay. I guess I should have explained this one to you earlier.”
“You think?” I hated that there were things about me that I should have known and didn’t.
He sighed. “Now’s not the time to get your knickers in a knot. Let’s focus on finding you, and then you can let me have it. Okay?”
Okay, maybe I was a little quick-tempered. “Sorry.”
“As I was saying, I can’t feel you. And by that, I mean that I can sense when you are close by. And the closer you get, the stronger I feel you.”
Okay. That was kind of creepy.
“It’s not creepy. How can I explain?” He paused for a moment before continuing. “I guess it’s kinda like how a blind person knows if someone is in the same room as them, even without that person making a sound. They have developed their other senses way past what a seeing person has.”
“How’s my mum?” Chelsea asked, interrupting my silent conversation with Aiden.
I thought about the frail woman I had seen when we first turned up at her house yesterday. And then I thought about the woman I saw after I left her alone with Aiden. “She’s doing okay,” I informed Chelsea. I just hoped that whatever Aiden did lasted more than five minutes. “I don’t know if she is just in denial, but she really believes that the police will find you unharmed.” Thanks to Aiden, but I didn’t tell her that.
A wave of relief seemed to wash over her. “I was so worried that she would revert back to how she was when Dad died.”
“No, Chels, she’s not at all like that.”
“Yeah, it lasts longer than five minutes,” Aiden said, butting in to my conversation with Chelsea.
“Okay, I’m back,” I said, returning to my conversation with Aiden.
“I’ll explain it more in depth to you later, but in short, we can sense a person’s energy. Every person’s energy is different, and I can’t feel yours. What’s really strange is that I can still talk to you, and even hear your thoughts.”
“What’s so strange about that?” I didn’t understand. I mean, yeah I still found the whole telepathy thing kinda freaky, but I didn’t think Aiden had a problem with it.
“No, it’s not that. It’s… well, I shouldn’t be able to hear your thoughts or talk to you unless we are in close proximity.”
“So, what you’re saying is, we shouldn’t be able to talk to each other unless we are close, which should mean that we are close. Yet, if we were close, then you should be able to sense my presence. So what does all that mean? Are you nearby or not?” This was really starting to do my head in.
“I don’t know what it all means.” Aiden sounded just as frustrated and confused as I was, which wasn’t helping to calm my nerves.
“Well, do your parents know?” I hoped they might have some answers, but more importantly, I hoped they would help get us the hell out of wherever we were.
“What does she think happened to me?” Chelsea asked.
I looked over at Chelsea, who stared back at me, waiting for an answer. All I wanted to do was finish my conversation with Aiden, not that she knew I was even having a conversation with him.
“Look, how about you talk with Chelsea while I go call Anna to see if she has any ideas on what’s going on? You’ve barely said two words to each other since you’ve been there, and I’m sure you two want to catch up on what’s been going on the last few days.”
He was right of course—again. Thinking about it, I must have looked pretty rude, sitting there not saying anything to Chelsea, not asking her if she was all right or what the kidnapper had done to her since he took her.
“Mum, I mean,” Chelsea clarified. She must have thought I didn’t answer because I was confused by who ‘she’ was.
“Okay. But don’t be long.”
I turned my full attention to Chelsea. “Oh, yeah, sorry. The police originally thought that Ben had something to do with i—”
“Ben!” Chelsea interrupted me. “How could anyone think Ben could have done this to me?”
“I don’t—”
“How is Ben? The police know it’s not him, don’t they?”
I smiled at her. She sounded more like the rambling girl I knew and loved.
“What?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing. I’m just glad you’re alive.”
She sighed. “Me too.” She turned her head to the side, not looking at anything in particular. “A couple of days ago, I thought he was going to kill me for sure. But now….” Chelsea shook her head. “I really don’t know what he wants.”
I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t.
“What do you mean?” I asked. If she wasn’t going to give it up in one of her usual storytelling rambles, then I was going to have to probe it out of her.
“The whole thing is kinda strange.” She bit her lip as she thought about what to say. “Well, when he first brought me here and strapped me to this damn chair...” Chelsea lifted her arms futilely. There was no way she was getting out of those restraints any time soon. Unless, of course, I got some of the strength back that I’d hit Chrissy with the other day.
“This is gonna sound a bit strange,” she continued. “I’ve been racking my mind the last few days and can only come up with one logical answer. And I don’t want you to get upset or freak out or anything, though I probably would if I was you. I’m not you, and I’m still freaking out. But that could be because I’m the one tied to a chair. And I guess I could be wrong about this. But I don’t think I am. But I could—”
It was my turn to cut her off. “Would you just say it, for Christ’s sake?” She was doing her rambling thing, which in past experience could go on for the next ten minutes without her getting to the point.
“Okay, okay. No need to get your knickers in a knot.”
I glared at her. What was with everyone talking about me and my knickers? I wasn’t that quick tempered, was I?
“Only sometimes,” Aiden said, butting in.
“Have you spoken with Anna yet? Does she have any idea what’s happening with us?” I asked Aiden, wishing that I had let Chelsea ramble on for a little bit longer. At least that way I would have been able to have a conversation with Aiden without having to worry about fully listening to Chelsea.
“Well, as I said, this whole thing is strange as hell.” Chelsea continued speaking, making my conversation with Aiden that much harder to maintain. “When he first brought me here and strapped me to this chair, I was sure he was going to kill me. He kept going on and on about me being so special. That I was going to be worth the wait. I had absolutely no idea what he was on about. You see, I still had a bag over my head at that stage. And then when he took it off, he completely flipped out. The look on his face when he saw me… It was like I wasn’t who he thought I was. And then he slit me with that knife of his.” She flipped her hair to the side, revealing the slice across her neck.
Instinctively, I put my hand up to my throat, in the spot he had cut her. Her cut was in the same
place as where I’d felt like my throat had been sliced open that day in science class.
At the time, I’d had no idea why I’d had the searing pain rip across my throat when it was my stomach that was on fire. Now it was all making sense. It wasn’t the fire at all. It was a vision of what was going to happen to Chelsea.
“It’s not as bad as it looks. I think it’s just a superficial wound,” Chelsea explained. I think she thought that I was in shock about her getting sliced, which I guess was better than her knowing that I’d seen everything that was going to happen. I didn’t even know what the hell the visions were at the time, but I wasn’t sure she would see it like that after everything that had happened to her. And I wouldn’t blame her. I would be pissed at me too, even if there’d been nothing I could do to stop it.
“Anyway,” she continued. “After about fifty f’n this and f’n thats, he walked through that door and hasn’t been back since.”
“That was three days ago. Hasn’t he given you anything to eat or drink?” I asked. Who would go to all the trouble of kidnapping someone without bothering to feed or even torture them? It didn’t make any sense.
“Now you know why my voice is so damn raspy. I don’t suppose it sounds like a sexy bedroom voice, does it?”
I shook my head. “You’re unbelievable,” I said, laughing. “Even when you’ve been kidnapped, slashed, and left for dead, you’re still thinking about sex.”
“Hey. How do you think I got through the last few days?”
“Chelsea!”
“Thinking about Ben.” She sung his name.
“Oh, God.” I cringed, thinking she was going to give me the juicy details.
“Hang on,” I said, just as she was about to open her mouth. I remembered there was something that Chelsea was worried about telling me, and I didn’t think that her fantasizing about Ben was it. “What were you so worried about me freaking out about?” It was amazing how conversations with Chelsea so easily strayed from the topic where it started.
“Oh, yeah.” She sounded disappointed. I was sure she would have much rather been talking about Ben. It was funny how quickly she’d changed her mind about him. And I still hadn’t asked Aiden how that happened.
“As I was saying before, I’ve been racking my mind the last few days and can only come up with one logical answer.” She paused, as if she was working up her courage. Chelsea took a deep breath, then blurted, “He thought I was you.”
“What?” I asked, thinking I hadn’t heard right.
“Well, it makes sense. He took me from your house just before six in the morning. I was wearing my hoodie, so he couldn’t see the colour of my hair. And let’s face it, at that time in the morning, who else would be crazy enough to be up and about? He probably thought that I was you sneaking back home from your boyfriend’s house or something.” She stopped her rambling and looked at me with a serious expression on her face. “Think about it.”
A sick feeling settled over me as I took in what she had just said. No matter how much I wanted her to be wrong, it made sense. That was why I had heard him calling my name in the vision I’d had during my car accident. I was the one he wanted. It should’ve been me strapped to that chair, not her.
“I could be wrong. Maybe I’m a little delusional. After all, I have been here without food and water for three days. That’s gotta do something to a girl.”
I was about to interrupt her when a chilling voice stopped her in her tracks. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter 17