Read My Lips: Chapter 23

Chaper 23

I’d tossed and turned all night in bed thinking about those men who I’d unfortunately bumped into. The main issue on my mind was if they were going to come for me again. Fair enough they didn’t exactly know where I lived but what if they saw me again and followed me home.

What those men had said remained in my head. They knew Zach. But why would they want to tell Zach about me before they found out that I knew him? Was he working with them?

My mind was all over the place.

Walking into school the next and final morning of the term, I kept my eyes wide looking for Zach. It was the last day of school today before we broke up for the Christmas holidays. To say I was excited for Christmas would be a total understatement. It was my favourite time of the year by a mile. I loved it.

Rebekah was the first person who I saw. Unlike all of the other times we’d saw each other; she pulled me into a hug. I frowned as I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her back.

“Oh my God, Maisie, I’m so happy!” She gushed, jumping up and down as she spoke. Excitement was clearly written across her face.

“About Christmas?” I teased knowing that wasn’t the reason at all. This reason had Jake Thomas written all over it. He was behind her happiness.

“No!” She retorted playfully smacking me across the head. “Jake asked me out!” And she was jumping up and down again.

I grinned at her. “I’m so happy for you.”

Rebekah grinned back at me, happiness covering her face. She looked so content that it made me happy. “I can’t believe it, I knew we were taking it slow but this is the first time that he’s asked me out and I’m just so happy.”

She linked my arms and began dragging me through the hallways of the school and towards our lockers.

“When are you both going out then?” I questioned, stopping in front of my locker and opening it. I pulled out my folder that I’d left in there the day before since I had no homework. Now that it was the last day though, I needed all of my schoolwork out of there to prepare for exams that were slowly approaching.

She grinned at me again, her eyes lighting up at the question that I had just asked. “Oh my God, you’ll never believe it! He’s taking me out on Christmas eve, how romantic!” She gushed.

“That pretty cute.” I answered, locking my locker and turning back to face her seeing her doing the same thing.

“Isn’t it just,” She sighed dreamily looking down at the floor with a grin on her face. She was so happy with Jake it was adorable. “I’ll make sure to call you and tell you about what happened.”

“Sure.” I answered simply; I really didn’t want to hear about her happy relationship.

As she began to ramble on about her relationship, my mind began to wander. I needed to talk to Zach as soon as possible. At that moment, my mind was made up. After school today I was going to Zach’s house and I was going to talk to him. I had to do it… at least to put my mind at rest.

“I think I’m going to talk to Zach tonight.” I announced, cutting her ramble about Jake short.

“You what?” Rebekah demanded, stopping us both and standing in front of me. She put her hands on her hips and stared at me sternly.

“I said, I think I going to talk to Zach tonight.” I repeated.

She frowned, appearing to me confused about what I had said. “Why would you do that?”

I looked down at the floor before looking back up at her face. “I need to. I just need to talk to him and tell him how I feel about what happened. I need to put my mind at rest over this.”

Her face softened. Then before I knew it, arms were wrapped around me and she was pulling me into a hug. “Then go for it. You go tell him and you go win him back. And if he doesn’t want you then it’s his loss. My gain.” She chuckled at the last sentence.

“I do it.” I grinned, looping my arm with hers as she dragged me off down the corridor once again.

As we began walking, my eyes wandered the corridor. I was feeling happy until my eyes locked with a pair full of hatred. Amy was staring right at me with Luke beside her.

----

Standing outside of Zach’s house, I took a deep breath before raising my fist and knocking at his door. I stood there staring at the door as if that was going to make it open. Outside, it was freezing but I didn’t move. The last day of school was over and it was now Christmas, I knew that if I didn’t get to talk to Zach now then I probably wasn’t going to get to until we went back in January.

After what felt like hours, the door opened to reveal his mum. She smiled warmly at me before she started to speak.

“Maisie, hi.”

“Hi, erm, is Zach in?” I asked quietly. I wasn’t sure why I was even nervous, I had been over his house many times whilst his mum was there.

She smiled sadly. “He’s not, sweetie. I think he mentioned something about going to that little park near those alleyways if you want to look for him. I wouldn’t recommend you do though, those alleyways are awful when it hits the night time.”

“Ok, thank you anyways.” I smiled gratefully at her, praying she thought I was going to go home. I wasn’t, I was going straight to that park.

“It’s no problem. Make sure you talk to Zach at some point, he’s been really upset lately.” She sighed before we said our final goodbyes and she shut the door.

Turning away from Zach’s house, I headed down the pathway that led to that little park his mum was talking about. I hoped he was there, I really did.

From a distance away from the park, it looked empty. There was no sign of life except for the slight snow that fell from the trees. The sky was beginning to get even greyer which only meant that it was going to snow soon.

As I turned the corner that leads to the park, I saw the silhouette of a body. A body that I knew well; Zach’s body. I let out a sigh of relief after finding him but that soon caught in my throat as I realise he wasn’t alone. No, he was with another girl.

Sure, I had that slight feeling that he was going to move on and find someone else but seeing him with another girl soon after us breaking up hurt. Did he miss school just to hang out with her? I wasn’t sure whether to walk up to him or to just turn around and walk off.

After staring at him conversing with this new girl, I turned around and headed off. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go up to him and witness him personally with a girl. It would destroy me and I knew it. He meant too much to me and seeing that would hurt too much.

Considering my hearing wasn’t the best, I didn’t hear anyone coming up behind me. They were far too quiet for my limited hearing to pick up.

A hand clamping over my mouth made me automatically intake a deep breath. I lifted my hands up to my face, grasping at the hand that was wrapped around my mouth. Struggling to get out of the persons grasp, I kicked my legs whilst moving to try and get loose.

My eyes set on where Zach was sat, the only option I had left was to try and get his attention. I tried my best to scream behind the hand but it only came out muffled. My attempts at trying to get Zach’s attention only made the hand around my mouth tighten, muffling the sounds leaving me even more.

I could feel my breath picking up at the thought of what could happen. What if I never got away from them? The person’s other free hand then grasped around my waist as they lifted my up pulling me down the closest alleyway to them.

Tears filled my eyes as I was dragged further into the darkness. I was terrified. I’d never encountered something like this in my life, ever. This was all knew and I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know how to fight. I was stuck.

We must have reached the end of the alleyway because before I knew it, I was thrown down onto the ground. I let out a gasp as I landed on the floor with a thump. Pain shot through my back off the impact. Letting out a groan, I turned around to face the person who’d captured me.

I automatically froze when I was faced with the two men from yesterday. Paul and the other man whose name I never did learn.

“You remember us, sweetie?” he grinned, pushing his hands further into his pockets and walking closer to me. His partner followed behind him.

Words wouldn’t leave my throat no matter how hard I tried to answer. I had to get out. If I didn’t get away now then there was no way that I was making it out alive. They would kill me, no hesitation needed.

“I said, do you remember us.” He snapped, walking up to me and grabbing my chin in his hands forcing me to look at him.

I nodded in reply, that feeling like the only action I was capable of doing. I was frozen, I couldn’t do anything.

“Now, you know I’m Paul but this is my friend Max,” he said gesturing to the man to his side. He gave me the creeps. There was something about him that I just didn’t like. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“Am I supposed to?” I questioned, finally finding my voice. I didn’t want to push it though. Risking my life wasn’t something I planned on doing.

The man whose name I’d learned to be Max shrugged. “Eh, I guess not. Ok, I’ll tell you a story,” Walking over to me, he crouched down so his face was level with mine. “You know Zach, we want Zach. So we came up with a wonderful plan. We get you to Zach somehow and then when you see he’s over you, we take you.”

They knew. They knew all along that I was going to find Zach. “How did you know I going to see him?”

He chuckled, his breath fanning my face. “Oh dear, we work with Zach, we know which school yous two go to. Once you know the facts its simple really. So we found out you were going to see him, and then we made him go to the park with this random girl. Oh! You might know her, she’s called Amy. I believe she goes to your school.”

I felt myself freeze. That girl was Amy. How hadn’t I noticed when I saw them before? I was so caught up with Zach been with another girl that I failed to notice who she was. I felt sick to the stomach. If I’d just gone over to them then I wouldn’t be in this position.

I wasn’t sure it that was good or bad. Having to face someone like Amy wasn’t something I wanted. But then again neither was been kidnapped by the two idiots that were currently stood in front of me.

“It was easy from there, you saw them two, and you got heartbroken and then bam! We get you.” He continued, breaking my thoughts about Amy.

“But why you want me?” I questioned. None of it made sense. So what if Zach was working with them, why did they want me?

Paul stepped forward then, taking over from Max. “He tried to quit working with us today. Said there were more important things he needed than fighting for us. But you see, yesterday we had a run in with you. We knew you were together, or had been. Once we knew that piece of information, everything came together.”

Grabbing me by the top of my arm, he pulled me up so that we were now facing each other. “We knew that if he found out we had you, he’d do anything to keep you safe. Therefore, joining us for good. We’d already told him that we’d hurt someone he cared about if he didn’t join us. And he threatened to leave so voila, here you are.”

In that moment, it was like everything fell into place. Zach had left me to keep me safe. He didn’t want them knowing about me and hurting me. My heartbeat picked up at the thought. Then it dropped back into my stomach. He’d broken up with me and broke my heart for nothing. They still knew about me.

They still had me.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked, fear was taking over my stomach at this point. I was genuinely terrified.

“We use you as bait.” Paul grinned, grabbing me by my arm and pulling me away from the alleyway.

After being bundled into a car with no one around to help me, we sped off in an unknown direction. I had no idea where we were going. We went so far out that there was nothing surrounding us but trees, trees and more trees.

“Where are you taking me?” I voiced from my position in the tatty backseats.

The pair of then snickered from their seats in the front. “Like we’d tell you.”

Realising I wasn’t going to get an answer from them; I shut up and leaned back in the seat, facing out of the window. Maybe I could find a clue that would give away the location we were in. There had to be something that would show where we were.

But there was nothing.

It was like we were driving around the middle of nowhere. We had to be far out from where I lived. I had absolutely no idea where we were heading. All I wanted to do in that moment was jump out of the door whilst the car was open.

I knew it was a bad idea as I placed my hand on the handle. Looking to the front of the car, I checked to see if either Paul or Max were looking but they weren’t. They were too focused on the road in front. Or so it looked like that.

Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself to open the door and jump. Only when I went to push the door open, it proved to be locked. I tried again and again but it was no use, it was locked. I wasn’t getting out.

Loud laughed from the front made me jump and drop my hands from the door. “Did you really think that we’d leave the door open when we finally had you?”

I felt my whole posture fall as I slumped down. There was no way I was getting out.

I must have fallen asleep because before I knew it, I was been dragged out of the car. Surprisingly, I was met with a nice looking little cottage. Part of me expected us to turn up at an abandoned building or a factory.  A cottage was unexpected. It wasn’t a cute, cosy looking cottage though.

There were no flowers or picket fences surrounding it like I thought there would be when the word cottage sprung to mind. Instead, there were dead weeds and overgrown fence. It didn’t exactly look abandoned but it looked far from being taken care of.

My arm was once again gripped into large hands and I was pulled into the house. Like before, I was thrown to the ground. This time however, falling on my arm which made me let out a yelp of pain at the sudden impact.

The room we were located in was empty. There was a tatty chair in the corner but that was it. From the view it looked like I had been chucked into a bedroom or something. It definitely wasn’t a kitchen or anything like that.

“How long are you going to keep me here for?” I asked, sitting up and cradling my arm to my chest.

“For as long as we need to.” They smirked before turning around and shutting the door behind them. Hearing a key turn made all of the hope that I had left drain from my body as I realised I was alone, locked in a room in a strange house.

----

What felt like hours but was probably only minutes, the door re-opened and Paul and Max stood there. Both of them had grind on their faces as Max held a phone in his hand.

“So, I’m talking to Zach,” he began, grinning as he sat down in the only chair in the room. I hadn’t bothered moving from my space on the floor. “He demands we let you go but, you know what, I think I’ll keep you for longer.”

From the other side of the phone I could hear Zach’s muffled shouts. I hoped he’d come and find me and get me out of this position. I hated it; I just wanted to be with him again. It was Christmas, why was this happening.

“What was that? Don’t touch her?” Max gasped, having held the phone to his ear once again. “Hmm, nah I don’t think I’ll listen to you. Paul.”

At the sound of his name, Paul turned his attention to Max. Max just nodded his head, giving Paul some unspoken instruction. As Paul began walking towards me, it hit me what he’d been ordered to do.

He was going to hurt me.

A hand grasping my hair made me jump as I lifted my grasp to his hands to try and release some of the pressure. I let out a shout of pain as the grip tightened and I was lifted from the floor. As if he’d sensed the pain in my arm from where I’d landed on it, he gripped it in his own hand and squeezed my wrist.

I let out a loud cry as the pain shot up my arm. The sound obviously loud enough for Zach to hear as Paul let go and pushed me up against the wall, holding me there by pressing his forearm against my neck.

“You hear that, Danvers?” Max chuckled as he crossed one ankle over the other, seemingly comfortable in his current position. “Oh, you don’t like it? Too bad. Listen now, you get over here as quick as you can and I won’t hurt her… any more than she already is that it.”

Max went silent as he listened to whatever Zach was saying from the other side of the phone. He obviously thought his reply was funny as he let out a laugh, tipping his head making it appear heartier that it really was.

As Max hung up on Zach, he looked back over at Paul and I. He smirked at me before speaking up. “Do it Paul.”

And with that, a fist struck the side of my head, knocking me out cold as my body hit the floor with full force and everything around me went black.

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Slow update, I know, but sixth form is runing my life :))

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