𝐃𝐚𝐰𝐬𝐨𝐧|𝟑| [𝟏𝟖+] ✔

Chapter 27

ZARA

"Send her back," Grace said, my vision blurred so badly that I can only see silhouettes. I feel some hands tug me off the floor, drag my feet along the cold room before they dropped me in a room, and locked the door behind them.

On my hands and knees, I crawl towards the small metal bed, the same thing I do every day before passing out for hours.

Grace keeps injecting me with something that burns my skin and makes me dizzy, or sometimes, they give me something that makes me feel like I could run a marathon.

"Julie?" I call out, slapping the tiled wall behind me. "Are you here?"

She usually talks to me through the wall, gives me these motivational, hopeful speeches that I'll see my son again, that I have enough in me to keep going.

But, for the past two days I haven't heard a word from her since I heard her screaming and a door slamming. Not long after that I heard Grace through the door saying that 'they' were coming for the girls, and we needed to move. I was gagged and tied up before they injected me again, putting me into a deep sleep that I only woke from a few hours ago.

Either Julie isn't next to me, she's dead, or she escaped.

I hope it's the latter.

Grace keeps sending my Dad pictures I took of Teddy days before they got me, fooling him by making me speak on the phone, pretend I'm fine, or else Julie gets hit again. The woman is so hell bent on finding my son, and no matter how much she has me doped up, I won't give in. She can kill me and Julie before I give up his location.

She tied me to a chair an hour ago and swiped through all my pictures and videos, telling me that I was a failure as a mother, too young and naive to look after myself never mind look after a child.

Her words affected me, planting it in my brain that I'm a useless, shitty mom.

I still won't give him up for the world.

I believed that Thomas and Theo were dead until I heard Grace say that they found us, and even though I was high as a kite, I felt the butterflies, the cheer that I couldn't let out of my mouth, the explosions in my brain taking over all the negative thoughts.

The silent celebration in my head didn't last long though. The heart twisting, gut-wrenching news came out her mouth, gloating as she told me she left Julie at the old facility because they no longer needed her to torture information out of me, they found Teddy and Jane.

And she broke me into shattered pieces when she told me she killed them.

I break from my rumination, my eyes shoot open, and I gather enough strength to sit up when I hear Theo's voice. I need him to hold me, assure me, comfort me. "What's wrong?" I feel Theo's hand on my face, his thumb on my cheek. It feels like home, I'm safe.

I haven't looked into his mesmerizing blue eyes forever, or it seems like it anyway. I pay no attention to his bashed-up face, just his eyes. They dazzle the same blue hue that our son once had.

I need him to know. "Teddy's dead."

I pass out before I can catch his reaction.

_______

An extremely long week has passed, and we are still in the safe house. I only left my bed yesterday after Theo dragged me out of it naked, thrashing in his arms before he forced me into a warm, relaxing bath. He got in behind me, and we lay there for what seemed like hours, silent, no words were needed for the mixed emotions we felt.