Darkest truths, p.3
Darkest Truths, page 3
"I should have known. We need to make sure that she doesn't end up in the crossfire of this shit show. You and your team are still responsible for ensuring she is safe. When we get the go-ahead, you need to make it to her and protect her. Go in with the team going in the back. It should be quicker, and she sometimes exits out of that way, too. That is, if she doesn't go to her room after Daniel has dismissed her." I explain to him, wanting more than anything to storm up to her right now and get her away from here, but that would blow this whole operation to pieces.
"You got it, Holland." He moves swiftly off to brief his team and to organise them, allowing me to turn my attention back to where it needs to be. Well, I try to get my head back in the game, but with the giant curveball that has been thrown my way, I have no such luck as my eyes drift automatically back to Ava.
Watching her father give her the nod to dismiss her, I audibly sigh with relief, knowing that she will now disappear, however just like every other part of our well-established plan, it goes out the fucking window as Martin bloody Mertens puts his dirty hands on her and forces her to her damn knees.
I suddenly find myself pinned to the ground by three of my tactical team. I must have blacked out, and now all I can do is watch in anger as I see what he is forcing her to do. Then all I see is red as I witness her father drugging her and telling Martin to have his fun. How could he do this to his own flesh and blood, his own daughter? And how did I not realise that her life was worse than I knew?
With the phone buzzing in my pocket, I know that the last part of the plan is in place and we can go ahead, and I am more than ready. I want them to die in the crossfire for what they have done to her. Giving the order for everyone to proceed, I storm forward with my comrades, shooting anyone who dares shoot at us.
To my dismay, I see that someone has already gotten to her father, a clean shot right between the eyes. He deserved so much worse than a clean death.
Storming into the house, I head straight up the stairs with four of the tactical team behind me. The sounds of her crying out and his grunts are the first thing I hear when I reach the top of the landing. My gaze falls to my right, where the door is wide open, and I see him brutally thrusting into her.
It only takes me a second to react, and I rip him off her, flinging him onto the floor. Following him down, I land blow after blow on him. Not long after, someone pulls me off of him and yanks me into the hallway as I curse them out, trying to get back to the dead man walking bleeding out on the floor.
"Detective. Get your shit together. She needs you," Troy commands me, well, I think that is his name. All I see right now is red. Yanking my eyes off him takes all my willpower. The temptation to kill the son of a bitch now pinned to the ground is riding me hard. Troy is right, though. Ava needs me right now, and I will be there for her no matter what. I wasn't going to let her down anymore.
Realising that I've calmed down, he releases his grip on me, allowing me to step back into the doorway. Keeping my eyes off my prey, I look towards the mattress where I last saw Ava to find her gone. My heartbeat increases as slight panic eases its way into my mind, but then I catch movement on the other side of the room to find her slumped against the wall, her glazed, squinting eyes locked onto me.
Taking steady steps towards her to make sure I don't alarm her in her already fragile state, I stop at a respectable distance and crouch down to stop her, straining her neck to keep me in view. Shrugging my jacket off, I pass it over to her to cover her naked flesh. From the glimpse I got of her, every part of her skin has motley bruises and scars of various degrees, my poor Ava. I can see the indecisiveness in her eyes. Her hand trembles as she reaches out and timidly takes the jacket before she jerkily wraps it around herself, engulfing herself inside it.
Now that she is covered, I can look at her better. Her skin is pale, almost white from her usual, tanned skin. Beads of sweat have formed across her brows, and her glazed eyes make it look like she is squinting at me to see me properly. The most noticeable change is how her face is starting to swell up from the beating she received earlier.
"Thank you." Her voice has become slurred with the effects of the drugs, but I am still able to understand her and nod to reply. I carry on accessing her to see if she has any significant injuries that need dealing with immediately before I realise that she probably couldn't see my nod.
"You're welcome, Sweetheart." Tilting my head, I watch her as she seems to argue with herself while she tries to work out what is going on. "I'm just going to sit here whilst we wait for the medics to get here, okay?" I watch her facial expressions to see if she understands me when her face scrunches up, as though it is taking her effort to work something out, which, in her drugged-up state, she probably is.
"Your voice sounds familiar," she mumbles as she cocks her head to the side, assessing me. The action causes her to become unbalanced, and I lunge forward to slow her descent to the ground to ensure she doesn't bang her head. She really doesn't need a brain injury on top of everything else, well, that is, if she hasn't got one already.
"Rest, Sweetheart. I will watch over you, and we will talk when you have been checked over," I reassure her as she attempts to get away from me, settling a hand on her side to keep her still to make sure she does no further injury to herself. I slowly stroke my other hand through her hair as she drifts in and out of consciousness while muttering reassuring words to her.
"Detective Holland. The medics are on their way up now. How is she doing?"
"How do you think?" I snarl. The poor sod has had to deal with all my anger outbursts tonight. I'm just thankful he is a stand-up guy who hasn't retaliated, understanding that I'm worried about Ava. "Sorry, Troy. You do not deserve my anger. This thing has-"
"I completely understand, Sir. She is one hell of a woman and has been through a lot," he says, grinning down at me as he allows the medics into the room to do their thing. I hate seeing them touching her whilst she is in a vulnerable position. The arrogant one will soon receive a punch in the face and a broken nose if he isn't careful. Even with Troy holding me back yet again, I can hear the faint comments.
Outside, it's fucking freezing, her body jerks as it hits her skin, and without looking, I carefully push her back down using my spare hand, not holding hers, alongside the other medic who's working quietly on the other side checking her vitals. I carry on snarling at the arrogant medic, requesting they use a blanket to cover her, but end up in an argument with him instead as he tells me rudely to mind my own business. How on earth did this man become a medic? He hasn't got a sympathetic bone in his body.
"Eddie," her strained, scratchy voice is like music to my fucking ears.
"There you are, Sweetheart. You had me worried there for a minute." I tell her, rubbing small circles on the back of her hand that I'm holding and trying to deliver the best 'I am not a threat' smile I can while trying not to kill the medic, who is lucky to be standing with his attitude.
"Eddie, you're a cop," she blurts out in astonishment and pops the 'p' in cop. The surprise of her outburst almost makes me throw my head back to laugh in one of those full-on belly laughs, but I manage to hold it in.
"Yes, Sweetheart. I'm Detective James Holland, and I have been undercover for the past two years." I tell her, not entirely sure how much she is actually understanding.
"Well, fu-uck, that's unexpected." She closes her eyes, and I think she may have passed out again, but then they suddenly open again. "Sooo. Why am I not in handcuffs?"
"Err…because you are not under arrest, Sweetheart-" Why does she think we would arrest her? She has been through so much already.
"But I have done shit loads of bad stuff."
"Did you? Or was you forced to?"
"Well, some I did. It was much easier to do as I was told, and then there were a few occasions when I hurt people that I wasn't told to, but they attacked me, and I had to get away, not allowed to get caught. Oh, ohhhhhhhh shit if you, if you're a cop. I've been caught. They're going to kill me. He said he was-" To try to calm her, I quickly wrap my hands around her frozen, clammy hand.
"Shh. Sweetheart. Everything is going to be okay," I tell her, squeezing her hand between mine. "You are not in trouble. You are safe, and your father cannot do anything as..." Shit, this is not how I wanted to tell her. "I'm sorry, sweetie, your father was killed in the raid. He's dead." I thought she might look slightly upset, not that the man deserved it, but I did not expect her to look confused. The drugs still must be weighing heavily on her.
"No. No, he wasn't."
Great, I knew I should have waited to inform her. This was not how I wanted to tell her. Mind you, the whole fucking night, no scratch that, the entire fucking plan hasn't gone right and has been a disaster since the very beginning, and if I were being honest with myself, it probably would have ended up as shit show however we planned it, the main thing is that Ava is right in front of me safe and relatively unharmed from what I can see.
"I don't even know where my dad or mum are anymore. To be precise, I know nothing of where my family are or what happened to them."
"Let's wait until the drugs are out of your system, Sweetie," the drugs are clearly affecting her, and they really need to get her out of the damn cold. Glaring at the arrogant medic in charge, he is still fiddling about without a care in the world as the other one tries to get him to hurry up with no such luck.
"Eddie. Sorry, Detective," giving her my full attention again, I notice that her face has paled more. If that is even possible with how white she looks already, I'm pretty sure she may even be on the verge of puking. "Do you think the man I was living with was my father?"
"Well, I know he didn't act like it-"
"Non-un." I patiently wait as she swallows, not wanting to cause her more upset tonight. "None of them were my family. Well, as I know of. I don't remember much, but I still have snippets of memories from my childhood, but none of them are part of my family. Not any of them. I'm not sure what happened, but-" Her voice rises through the rafters.
"Woah. Woah. Wait a second, you're telling me you were kidnapped?" I blurt, finally interrupting her. No, I need to calm her down. This will not do her health any good, getting wound up even more. "Let's get you checked out at the hospital and talk this through when you aren't drugged up, Sweetie."
"Well. I don't fully know if I was kidnapped or not. I just remember being called Mikayla at some point. Then suddenly, I was Ava."
"Fuuuuuccccckkkkk," slamming my hand over my mouth, I sheepishly respond with a "sorry." I really shouldn't be overreacting when she is in this state.
I shouldn't be around her while I'm still high on adrenaline.
"Hey, all good with me. I've heard worse." I chuckle briefly, immediately stopping when I realise her eyes are closed and not looking good. I need to distract her.
"By any chance, do you remember your surname, Ava? Hang on. Would you rather be called Mikayla or Ava?" Perhaps the best way to keep her calm is to go along with it, which will be an excellent way to distract her.
"Looks like we are both having name trouble tonight." I laugh, trying to put her at ease. "I don't know, to be honest. I'm so used to being called Ava that I don't actually know how…you know?" She takes a deep breath before continuing, not allowing me to answer. "The surname thing, if I remember right, I have this memory of school and the teacher calling me Mikayla Roberts, but I could be wrong."
"Give me a second." Fumbling my phone out, I ring Tim from the Missing Person department. Her demeanour seems to calm as I appease her, so I might as well fully commit to this now, and it is keeping my mind off killing the medic who has only just decided that we can start making a move in loading her up.
"Hey, can you look up a missing person for me? A Mikayla Roberts," I ask, not even exchanging pleasantries with the poor guy. That seems to be my MO of the night anyway, plus I don't have time for a social call right now.
"Yeah, sure, give me a second. It's bloody late, James. You bloody owe me for waking me up," he grunts as I wait for him to complete his search.
The only sound I hear on the line is the tapping where his fingers type on the keyboard. Oh, and his mumble rambling about me waking him up. He was lucky he was able to go home and sleep. Some of us haven't slept in days. "Here we go. We do have a hit on Mikayla Roberts, but it is from ten years ago. She'll be seventeen now. Don't tell me you bloody found her!" He squawks.
"Can you send that information over to me ASAP?" I don't wait for an answer, knowing he'll follow through. Can it actually be the girl in front of me? Can Ava actually be Mikayla Roberts, who went missing ten years ago? No, this cannot be right. The call was only meant to entertain the thought of what she said. I didn't actually expect Tim to confirm a missing person report on Mikayla Roberts. Mind you, didn't she become part of Daniel's life ten years ago? Something about her mother dying.
"That good of a news then. Story of my life," huh? My brain is so scrambled that I don't even understand what she is on about. "So, if I am not under arrest, does that mean I can maybe go back to school? I haven't been to school in years, and it might be nice to have…well, I actually don't know, as all I know is that life you just took me from. And well, you obviously know some of it. Do I need to testify? I'm not sure how I feel about that, as a lot of people will kill me for it. Mind you, if you have them all, I should be safe. Oh, I just realised I have nowhere to live now, and what the hell am I going to do?" Woah, now that is a whole lot to digest, and I'm not even the one who has been drugged. How the hell is she still functioning?
"Woah, woah, woah. Calm down, first off. If we can find your family, they will most likely take you in, and you will be going back to school. We will have to send your transcripts to your new school, but that won't be a problem, and we will ensure that no one finds you. And yes, it would help if you testified."
"What do you mean transcripts? And I don't have a school. Well, since I was…Well, I don't know, to be honest."
"Oh, how on earth have you not been going to school? How did we not pick up on this?" How have we missed all this? Why didn't we pick up on this in our investigation? Okay, I need to deal with one problem at a time. "Well, in that case, how about we take one step at a time? Step one is to get you checked out at the hospital, and step two is to find any family you may have still alive."
"Okay, I know this request will sound stupid, but I erm…well I…Would you mind staying with me, that is, if you don't mind and if you don't like to have anywhere to be as I'm-"
"Yes, I will stay with you." I would have stayed with her regardless. I'm not letting her out of my sight, well, not any time soon, and not until I know she is completely safe.
◆◆◆
Sitting on the chair beside the bed, I hold her cold hand in mine. It feels like I am holding a block of ice, but there is no way I am letting go of it. I listen to the sounds of the machines steadily beeping around me. It somehow soothes my agitation even though I watch her chest rise and fall as she sleeps. It's like another reminder that she is still alive and with me. It feels like forever since we arrived, and they conducted their examinations. However, I am still waiting for the results and, more importantly, for her to wake up.
She looks so tiny in the hospital bed, and even with the IV hooked up to her and giving her fluids, her skin is still pale compared to what it usually is. Well, from what I can see amongst the bruises and swelling. The shadows under her eyes have become even darker than before. Did this girl ever get any sleep? I suppose that is a stupid question when I think about whom she lived with. And now, now I find out that she probably shouldn't have been there in the first place.
According to the information currently lit up on my phone from Tim, Mikayla Roberts was kidnapped ten years ago on her way to school right in front of her best friends. If Ava is genuinely Mikayla, she would have only been seven years old when she was taken.
Has she really spent ten years in that hellhole after being taken from a loving family? How did no one see this? How did I not see it? Not wanting to make any more mistakes regarding Ava, I requested an urgent DNA test to be done after they had dealt with her injuries. Hopefully, it will give us the answers we need.
Thankfully, they agreed to push the tests through, promising they would have the results by tomorrow. They will then confirm whether what she believes is true or not.
Even though I hope it's true, there is a part of me deep down that hopes it's not because if it is true, she has been through hell and back whilst she has had a loving family somewhere else who would have loved her unconditionally. Hell, if we had known she was kidnapped, I may have been able to get them to act sooner. Who knows.
I'm just relieved that she is out and doesn't have to worry about anything anymore. I'll make sure she doesn't. She deserves a normal life, to make friends and go to damn school. A knock on the door draws my attention before it opens up, revealing Doctor Adams. He took his fucking time in getting back here.
"Sorry, it has been a busy night here," he sighs, holding up his tablet. "First off, we have completed various tests on her blood. We have discovered the drug that you informed us about. It was one of the basic date rape drugs mixed with that new drug going around at the moment. We did, however, find other traces of various drugs in her system that would suggest she has been taking or been given other drugs in the last couple of weeks. She will probably feel drowsy and sleep quite a bit over the next few days. We expect her to have withdrawal symptoms as they work their way out of her system as well, so we will be keeping a close eye on her. Now, the x-rays we took. There is no easy way to say this. They're horrific-"
"What does that mean?" I don't even recognise my voice as it snarls out of me at the doctor. It's probably not the best thing to do with him being her doctor, but I need him to start spilling what he knows quickly.
