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“What? What sister? I don’t have a sister.”
“What do you mean you don’t have a sister? Are you telling me you didn’t know about Joy?”
“Who the fuck is joy?”
“You’re not serious.”
He proceeded to tell me the story about my little sister, who was all of eleven years old at this point. I think I lost all the blood flow to my brain that day. Those two fucking ingrates had another kid? A girl at that? What the fuck have they been doing to her?
I couldn’t be mad at my friend for not realizing that I didn’t know about her all these years. Our conversations, as I said, were far and in between, and I had warned him since the beginning never to bring my family up to me so I could see how he wouldn’t know.
“What do you mean she’s missing?”
“She never came home from school. We’ve been looking for her for days. It’s been all over the local news.” I don’t remember what else I said to him before hanging up.
At this point, the Internet was in full swing, so it was no hardship pulling up the information. The first thing I saw was this adorable little kid with my mother’s face, and my heart did some kind of weird shit in my chest.
I read the story, but there wasn’t much there to go on. I called in my four closest assistants and told them what was going on, had the Cessna made ready, and lit out in less than an hour after the phone call.
It was hell getting any information from local law enforcement, so I hit the ground running. My guys and I spread out and got as much CCTV footage from the buildings in the area where she’d been taken along with home security from people who were willing to help.
Questions were asked, and threats were made until the third night we were there, when someone called in a tip. I ran to the shack. They said she was being held because my head wasn’t on straight just then.
My boys drove the rental and followed me, and I still beat them there. I still remember all the backroads through the woods. She was asleep, curled into herself with tear stains on her face. “Joy?” I didn’t know if I should touch her or what to do really.
The others waited outside the door, and I stood there looking down at her, not knowing what to do next. With the other kids I’d rescued, it was always a no-brainer, but this was my little sister, and I was already dreading what might’ve happened to her here.
She rolled over and opened her eyes, “Thunder?”
“You know me?” She sat up and wiped sleep from her eyes with a nod.
“Mama showed me pictures.”
“Are you hurt anywhere?” I almost choked on that question.
She shook her head and held out her arms for me to lift her. For all that she was eleven, she weighed about as much as a four-year-old would. I lifted that little girl off that filthy cot and right into my heart.
To make a long story short, I pretty much bought her from my parents. I gave them a hundred grand, and they signed over their rights. I would’ve given more, but they didn’t know I had more, so they didn’t ask.
I was back home in less than two weeks after the whole ordeal had started, but the cops had still yet to find the men who had taken her. I never stopped hunting those fucks down. This one was the last to survive since I’d ended the other two. They only knew about taking her, but this one was the one who had spent the most time with her in that shack, and I wanted to know what went down there because she wasn’t talking.
Not to me, not to her therapist, no one. But she’s still bearing the scars from that time. I listened to him scream as I broke all the fingers in his left hand. “You ready to talk now?”
AMANDA
Idon’t know how long I stood there after he left, but it was way past closing by the time I snapped out of it. I was so flustered I forgot my closing routine for a few minutes and turned out the lights before doing one final walk-through like I usually do.
I couldn’t wait to get home to the safety of my apartment to sit alone in the dark and evaluate what just happened there. It’s true that I’ve never really looked at another man, and I certainly never looked at one with lust.
I believed that since I was already taken, it was disrespectful to my partner to admire other men, but that’s just me. So, with that mindset, I can honestly say that this was the first time a man had knocked me off my feet, so to speak.
I don’t even know anything about him just his looks alone had garnered my attention. So much for choosing my next partner with care. But why am I even thinking along those lines? I’d seen the man once, and this is how I was acting. I’ll probably never see him again.
That thought, though comforting, was a bit disheartening as well. Why that should be, I’m still not quite sure. He was attractive in a very aggressive way if that even makes sense. His good looks didn’t have an ounce of softness about them. Not his face and not that rock-hard body. Gulp!
I thought the words rock-hard, and my mind went immediately to the lump behind his zipper. My breathing got a bit choppy, and I had to press my hand against my chest. Something is most definitely wrong with me. I’ve never even objectified Dan like that.
I never once saw him as a sex object, but that, too, could be based on the fact that we got together so young. But this total stranger who I will never see again, maybe it was safe to think of him in this way.
