DURABLE (completed)

Caught

"She promised! Damn it! She promised!" That was all I could think as I watched the morning sun rise through the hotel window. It was close to eight hours and I had yet to hear anything from Nikki although she promised to call me as soon as she arrived at Dr. Wilson's. Worse, her and her parents' numbers kept going to voicemail. As hours dragged by, the fear in my heart grew until I couldn't draw a full breath.

Poor Aria, my little baby was feeding off my crappy energy and had been fussy since waking up. I bobbed her up and down in my hands as I paced the length of the living room hardly noticing the room décor that had only days before left me in awe. I was at a loss! What could I do? I had no idea where Nikki was or how to get a hold of her.

As the fear in my heart grew so did my desperation. At the edge of a mental break down, I contemplated doing the one thing Nikki had expressly forbade me to do...call Josiah.

Nikki would probably skin me alive when she found out, but at least she would be in front of me and not missing. I drew in a ragged breath and raced to my room.

While I bDevonced Aria on my hip, I turned my bag upside down and searched through it for the card Josiah had given to Nikki. She had tossed it in the trash but, I had retrieved it when she wasn't looking. I knew that there would be a day that we would need his help I just didn't think it would be this soon.

Taking a deep, calming, breathe I punched in Josiah's number and prayed that he would answer. One ring, then two, by the fourth ring I was ready to hang up, dreadfully disappointed, when the line suddenly connected.

"Hello, Josiah, is that you?" There was a brief pause before a hypnotic voice answered, "Josiah is out of communication at the moment darling. I'll have him call you back when he's well." My heart skipped a beat, there was something sensual about this man. I could sense it even through the phone.

"I can't wait. Tell him it's about Nikki." There was another pause, this one filled with reluctance, followed by footsteps and the man's voice. "Hey, mutt! Wake up! There is someone on the phone saying it's an emergency involving Nikki."

There was a painful gasp and a groan before the rustle of the phone exchanging hands and then Josiah's hoarse voice crowed in my ear.

"Nikki?!"

"No, it's Tianna but Nikki is in trouble and I don't know what to do." As the words fell from my lips all my pent-up frustration and fear also fell as tears from my eyes. A pain filled groan sounded through the phone followed by colorful swearing that made my eyes bulge in shock.

"Shit, shit! Tell me exactly what happened."

It took almost ten minutes, but I spilled everything that happened since Nik kicked him out four mornings ago. When I was finished there was a deafening silence on the other end followed by a crash.

"Josiah, Josiah?"

There was another flurry of swearing followed by a lot of muttering. Just as I was going to call out for him again, footsteps sounded followed by growling and hissing that sent unease down my spine and plugged my throat with trepidation instead of words.

It was faint but amidst the growling and the hissing I could just make out their conversation, "Keith, you have to help her. It's Nikki! The girl you helped to hide from her parents 5 years ago and said you have been watching over ever since."

There was another long pause and the voice that answered the phone was on again demanding my location. I stammered it out through the fear that gripped my heart at the cold fury that now filled the voice, a stark difference from the sexy voice that had answered.

"I'll be there within the hour," forgetting that he couldn't see me I nodded "and Tianna," "Yes?" "You need to leave that hotel right now. Chances are if Nikki's family has kidnapped her you will be at the top of the list of people they want to get rid of so they can cover up what they did."

There was click and in the ensuing silence my blood ran cold as I processed what the voice had said. A few heartbeats later I was a tornado. I tore through the room grabbing all of Aria's things and a few of my own.

I was halfway through packing when a thought occurred to me, I couldn't walk out the hotel with my luggage. For all I know Nikki's parents has someone watching the place. I would have to be slick about leaving; but where would I go?

The anxiety in the pit of my stomach was rising again. Just as it was about to flood my throat my cellphone beeped scaring me so badly I almost let out a scream.

I picked up the phone and was surprised to see a text from an unknown number. It was an address with a message below it. "Go here until I arrive. You will be safe. Leave everything. There will be clothes for you and the necessary items for your daughter."

The tension in my body slipped away and I almost burst into tears of gratefulness. Whoever Josiah was sending was a godsend. Within 5 minutes, I packed Aria's small baby bag and walked out the hotel. I had intended to call a taxi but with danger breathing down my neck I thought it best to take the bus first and then jump into a cab.

*****

My parent's silver BMW was moving quickly down the highway making good time to the outskirts of Boston. We had been talking about my life back in Phoenix when out of nowhere we were surrounded my four black Hummers with dark tinted windows.

At first I wasn't worried thinking that they were with my parents but then I noticed the dismayed look and unease in my dad's eyes and the tightening of his grip on the steering wheel. They weren't with us. Something wasn't right. I was about to call out to him when all the cars stopped short. It was so sudden that my father had no time to maneuver the sedan and even if he did, there was nowhere to turn.

Brakes screeched and there was a thwack as we crashed into the car in front of us. None of us were wearing seatbelts. Just as the force of the crash propelled me forward, I moved instinctively, and at lightning speed, grabbing my seat belt and wrapping it around my arms so I wouldn't be thrown out the car.

It was just in the nick of time and instead of my whole body flying through the windshield, my head smashed into the center console and I blacked out.

The throbbing in my head was the first thing I felt. Groaning in pain, I tried to open my eyes only to be met with a blinding light that sent my ears ringing. Intuitively, I tried to raise my hand to cover my eyes only to realize that I couldn't. There was something wrapped around my hand. Wiggling a bit more I came to the horrific realization that all my limbs were bound. I was trapped! Someone had strapped me to a table.

I am back in the library of hell! With that thought, I let out a bloodcurdling scream that reverberated through the room.

"SHUT HER UP!" A terrifying and familiar voice rang through the room scaring me into immediate silence. With a herculean effort, I snapped my eyes open only to be sucked into the moss-colored eyes of Dr. Levi Titus.

"D-D-Dr. Titus?!" At that moment, the pain in my head reached new excruciating heights and I was sucked back into the dark abyss of unconsciousness. With one thought going through me head, "Tianna was right I shouldn't have trusted my parents."