Stolen Love

16

16

It's been a week since Thanksgiving. There still has been no sign of Ryan or my brothers. My hope fades a little each day.
Right now I'm in the car with Chris. We are going to see if I can finally get this cast off. "Stefan reminds me to much of Edward from Twilight," Chris says. He is officially hooked on 'The Vampire Diaries'. "I say she should go for Damon."

"You aren't the only one," I laugh. Things have gone back to normal, well as normal as it ever was. He never mentions my brother and Ryan. He doesn't even know that I know who it is.

So I act like it's nothing too, but I'm always waiting for that knock on the door. The knock that will get me out, before it's to late.
"How much longer?" I whine.

"A few more minutes," he says.

"A few?" I ask. How much is a few? I always hated it when Mom said a few.

"Yeah," he says. I groan, guys can be so pigheaded sometimes. I lean back in the chair.

The heat is blasting in the car. It feels comfortable. The temperatures having been getting cold quickly. Just last night it was below 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
I'm not even wearing shorts for once. I'm wearing a Doubt Me t-shirt and a pair of comfy jeans. My hair is in a tail and I'm wearing a Columbia jacket.

Chris is wearing a tight black shirt and a brown leather jacket over it. His jeans are loose and his short brown hair is messy. He looks cute- He looks comfortable.
We still kiss from time to time, but I've been trying to keep more distant from him. Don't want to do anything stupid. He doesn't really seem to notice, he's been more distant too.

We left around noon so that we wouldn't get there so late again. "Where are we at?"

"Just outside of Great Falls Montana." This surprises me, Great Falls was about an 11 hour drive from my home. Maybe I'm closer to my family than I
originally thought, but that does make sense. Ryan and my brother did find the place.

About ten minutes later, Chris pulls over at a familiar doctor's office. It's almost 9, the sun has set a long time ago. When we get out of the car, a cold breeze greets us. "Why's winter always have to be so cold?" I complain. He laughs a little.

"It's not even winter yet," he says lightly.

"I know," I laugh, "Can't wait for spring to get here."

He smiles, "I can't wait for it either."

He doesn't look happy about warm weather though, he looks happy about me. Oh yeah I forgot, the wedding is going to be in spring.

He's about to say more, but his phone starts ringing. "It's Danny," he says, "You can get back in the car if you want to."

I quickly open up the door, it's still warm inside. I close the door before the heat can escape.
I don't know how he does it, but Chris stands outside the car to talk. I still have goosebumps crawling up my skin. He looks comfortable, he leans against the car smiling.

He looks excited about something, he laughs loudly. I can faintly hear it in the car. Watching him act so careless and happy almost makes me forget what he did.

Almost.

Instead it makes me wonder how different things could be if he hadn't taken me. Why couldn't he have been like a normal guy and just talk to the girl he likes? Nope, he has to have a psychotic father that teaches him right is wrong and wrong is right. Like I said, I'm just not lucky.

He closes and phone, then opens the door for me and says, "Guess what?"

"What?"I say trying to sound interested when I'm not. Why would I care about anything that weasel Danny has to say?

"Ashley's pregnant," he says excitedly.

I know I should've said, "Oh really? That's great!" Or, "What?" But instead I choose to say, "So she finally told him?" Out of everything, I chose to say that. I really need to think sometimes.

My only hope now is that he didn't hear it or something. But his smile falters a little, and I know I'm in trouble, "Oh, so you knew already?" He asks, but he doesn't seem mad, just curious.

"I was the first she told," I say looking at the doctor's office.

"Ok, lets get inside. Joseph is probably wondering why we are sitting in the car."

That's it, I guess. He wasn't even mad. We get out and walk to the door. I swear it dropped another ten degrees outside.

He's about to knock in the door, when a thought occurs to me, "You won't tell Danny, will you?" I'm not worried about myself I'm worried about Ashley.

He makes a "Pft," noise then says, "Of course I won't, we don't need to be causing problems between them."

This makes me so relieved. Maybe Chris isn't as pigheaded as I thought. He at least understands some things like this.

"Thanks," I say.

"Anything to keep you happy," he says smiling at me.

I want to say then me go, but before I can he knocks on the door.

"Joseph," Chris says in greeting when Joseph opens the door. Sometimes this family seems so loveless to me. I've never heard any if them say that they love each other.

"Come on in," Joseph says with a small smile on his lips. I rush inside the office, it was starting to get really cold out there.

"Thank gosh," I breathe to myself. Chris takes his jacket off and tosses it in the chair, it's like he's immune to cold or something. I keep my jacket on to help me warm up a bit.

I never really looked at what this place looked like. Why would I? I was in serious pain last time. The walls are painted a soft blue color and the floor is a royal blue carpet. The few windows that are in the room have royal blue curtains pulled over them. Uncomfortable looking chairs sit in lines around the room. Toys and little colorful chairs litter the floor in the far corner and racks of magazines sit randomly between chairs. An empty receptionist desk sits near the children's toys. A few file cabinets are behind the desk and a computer is shut off. It looks like a basic waiting room. It even has a fake potted tree sitting right by the door.

"So did you hear the news about Danny and Ashley?" Chris asks siting down on a chair next to his coat. I sit down opposite of him. The chair hurts my back as soon as I sit down.

"I got the call just before you knocked," Joseph says. He is wearing the regular doctor uniform, except his white coat is missing. "The family just keeps on growing." He smiles. It really is amazing how alike the two look, if it weren't for the age difference, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

My body freezes for a moment. How big is this family? And how many girls are there like Ashley, Olivia, and I? I wonder, Joseph has a wife. She must've been kidnapped to.

So that makes four I know of, but I don't know how long this has been going on. Nor how many girls are currently in this situation. Olivia made it sound like this has been going on for a while. How many generations can a family do this and not get caught?

You'd think the police would be able to get some sort of connection. Unless if the abductions are spaced out over periods of time and distances. And it's not like Ashley, Olivia, I even look the same. The police probably think none of our disappearances are connected.
Without that, they probably think I'm the only one gone. Which also makes it harder to find a mistake that could lead to my rescue. Fewer known abductions means fewer mistakes made. Besides, if this has been going on a while, they probably nearly perfected the art of stealing girl's lives.

This just keeps getting better and better.

If someone by some chance were caught, they wouldn't turn anyone else in. Maybe the lucky girl would try, but how would the police know where to find anyone else. I still don't know the exact area of this place or the one I'm being held in.

Another possibility is that if a guy is caught. The girl could lie and say she ran away with him. She would be so blind from love that she would see nothing wrong with any of this. So she could think that everyone else is happy, and won't say anything about the other girls. Dooming people like me in to the same fate. But maybe I won't ever fall in love with Chris, or maybe I'm already getting close to that point.

I don't know, this is all so confusing. Thinking about all of the different scenarios is starting to give me a headache. There are so many ways this could go wrong compared to ways I'm found.
My only hope is that Ryan and my family somehow piece together that Chris took me. Yeah, my hope keeps getting smaller and smaller and turning in to something else.
And what scares me is, I don't know what it is turning in to.
Or maybe I don't want to.

"So are you ready to get that leg checked out?" Joseph asks bringing me out of my thoughts.

"I'm ready to get this off," I say getting up.

"Believe me, I hope you can." I follow him in to the same room as last time. Once he's done taking the x-rays of my leg, I go back in to the waiting room. Joseph is examining the x-rays.

Chris is sitting in the same seat. He has his iPhone out, it looks like he is playing Doodle Jump. It looks kind of funny to me, it's hard to remember that he is like a regular guy sometimes.

He doesn't notice me till I walk over and sit down next to him. "Hey," he says putting his phone back in his pocket. He kisses me quick on the lips. I barely feel it, but my stomach still does turns, but not in the nauseous kind of way.

I wish I could say that I was annoyed or horrified, but then I'd be lying.

"So I was thinking," he says. I brace myself, it's almost always bad news when someone starts a sentence that way. "What kind of flower do you want for the wedding?"

I relax, that's it? He must be excited for the wedding, it's months away and he is already planning for it. At least I won't have to worry about being stood up at the alter.

Way to think positively, I think sarcastically to myself.

"Whatever you want," I say.

"How about some sort of blue flower then?" He asks, "Something to match your eyes."

I shrug, "I'll leave most of the planning to you. Most things I touch turn out as a disaster anyways."

"Ok," he says, "But you have to pick the dress and everything like that." He pulls out his phone and starts looking at flowers on the Internet.

A few minutes later, he says, "How about blue carnation?" He asks showing me a picture of a pretty blue flower. I've always loved carnations, "I think it matches your eyes and is as beautiful as you."

"I love it," I say still looking at the picture.

"Great." He pulls the phone away and starts doing something else.
Joseph walks in to the room. He's smiling. "Your leg healed faster and better than I thought it would," he says. "Lets get that cast off."