Missing

21

Chapter Twenty One

That Night

A faint knock woke me up from my light sleep, I began sweating even at the small noise. Whatever they wanted I knew it wouldn't be good. I don't know why they knocked because there was no way for me to open the door and let them in, the person realised that after no one answered for a while. Slowly the bolts of the other side of the door were slid across and anticipation grew in my stomach. What could they possibly want in the middle of the night?

When the door opened I saw the suburban mum peek through, standing in the dark corridor looking down at the floor. She was obviously not supposed to be knocking on my door, she probably wasn't even prohibited to talk to me.

"Hello?" I whispered and the lady looked up with eyes brimming with tears, she closed the door behind her and then made her way over to me.

"I know you hate us, I just came in here to say sorry," that took me off guard, I never expected one of 'them' to apologize for their actions. I thought they didn't care about me in the slightest.

"I don't hate you," I whispered to her, and she looked at me like I was mad. I knew I was mad, I should have hated her with every fibre in my body but I couldn't bring myself to hate someone who cared so much about their child's health that they would go to an organisation like the black market to help that child. She was kind of mum that I wished I have, the one who cared about her child more than anything.

"How can you not hate me? I have helped kidnap you from your perfectly good life, hell I'm contributing to your murder!" the lady sat down on the bed and I joined her there, she had her head in her hands as she tried to process my words.

"I know you don't mean me any harm, you just want the best for your child," I put my arm around her as she let out a few sobs, letting them run down her rosy cheeks.

"I never thought about the whole human part of it, I just saw it as another way to get organs. I never realised how awful it would make me feel knowing that I would be leading a poor innocent person to their death bed," I nodded as she talked, I felt the same way about the case. I just saw it as a way to get Mark back, I never thought about what would come after. The horrors I would dig up.

We sat in gentle silence as she wiped away a few tears and I tried to think of what to say to this stranger, the one who had just poured her heart out to me.

"What's your name?" I asked her quietly, hoping to make some simple conversation. I felt weird asking that to an adult,it felt so alien.

"Susan," she was like a stereotype, a very normal person who could blend into the crowd. But there she was, doing something that was illegal by anyone's measure.

"Who's your child?" she sniffed and looked at me in the eyes.

"My child needs a liver transplant, my wife was holding her yesterday," that surprised me, I suppose the woman was breaking every preconception about her that I had. Automatically I had assumed that she had a husband.

"How did you meet your wife?" I asked, trying to normalise the situation. I was never very good at talking to adults, making normal conversation wasn't my forte.

"We went to university together, we just fell in love. We got married and had a beautiful baby, then we found out that she had an issue with her liver. We thought everything would be alright, that we would get a transplant in time. But we couldn't get one, the NHS couldn't give us one in time. So we came to Mark, he said that he could get it to us within a few weeks. We paid him vast amounts of money, and then he just disappeared. Disappeared just like our hope," she dabbed her eyes with the hem of her jumper.

"I'm so sorry," I said slowly, knowing my words would never be able to comfort her.

"No need, you're the one saving my baby," I grimaced as she spoke, I knew that I had no choice. I had no escape. But now I was beginning to believe that it was the right thing to do, I felt bad for wishing that someone would come and save me. Susan was good, she was a manipulator. I only realised it when she left, when I realised how crazy my thoughts had become. I thought I was a martyr, dying for a good cause, when in fact I was nothing more than a lamb being sent to the slaughter house.