JESSICAThe days pass and then the weeks pass, yet there’s no news about Charlotte’s recapture. She has simply vanished into thin air, and while I would like to think that she has run away to a foreign country to start over her life, I know that that is an impossibility. She’s most likely laying low and thinking of the best way to kill everyone who in her mind has offended her.Two days ago, I received a call from one of my neighbors, telling me that someone had broken into my apartment and trashed the place, leaving a dead pig behind as a souvenir. I had received this alarming news much more calmly than the situation warranted. In fact, ever since this whole jailbreak situation started, I have been weirdly calm.Mrs. James assures me all the time that I’m perfectly safe in her house, and as much as I would like to believe that, I can’t help but think of the fact that her husband was killed right here in this very house, despite all the protection that they had. However, then, there h
The touch of his lips against mine causes pure pleasure to course through me immediately, and my head goes blank immediately. For all his gentle and reserved looks, Charles is a seasoned and expert kisser. He takes his time, kissing me slowly and thoroughly, and to my utter shame, I’m helpless to stop him.Instead, I begin to kiss him back, leaning into his touch. I inwardly blame my stupid and haywire hormones for my inability to push him away. I haven’t been with anyone since Charles on the island, and I’ve only shared a sloppy kiss with Jeff, which I instantly regretted.Charles smells and feels so good that I don’t want the kiss to stop, ever, but it does stop. My eyes are still closed and I’m still kissing Charles when he abruptly pulls away and gets up. My eyes fly open immediately to see him standing a short distance away, running his hand through his hair in frustration. My cheeks pinken immediately and I wish the ground will open up and swallow me.“What is it about you, Jess
There is a moment of stunned silence as Charles stares at me in the rapidly dwindling light. Sooner or later, one of the staff will turn on the garden lights. I stare back at him, a sinking feeling in my gut as I wonder if I’ve made a mistake telling him. If he rejects the baby, it will hurt like a bitch.“Excuse me?”“I said you’re my baby’s father. I found out sometime after we got back from the island and I left the hospital that I’m pregnant, but I was not yet ready to tell you about it. I’m not still sure I should have told you, but I…” I had said all this in a rush, trying to get the words out as fast as possible, but now, I trail off.“You’re carrying my child?” Charles asks again, but this time, he’s asking to be sure that he’s not hearing things. At my nod, the widest grin that I’ve ever seen graces his face and he lets out a whoop of delight which is so in contrast to his usual somber demeanor, that I find myself returning the smile.“Something tells me that you did not rejo
SAMANTHAIt does not take long for my illness to go away, but now, I’m dead bored and lonely in this house all by myself. Charles has been avoiding me ever since I came to his house, which sucks, to say the least. On some days, he doesn’t even bother to come home and stays away for two to three days at a stretch.He hasn’t said anything about the house he said he would get for me, so I’m hoping that he has realized that it’s in our best interest to live together. However, what’s more important is the fact that I need to get him to like me again as he once did. As I’m thinking these thoughts, I hear the door open, signaling that he’s home, and I quickly get up to go welcome him.“Welcome home,” I say meekly when I get to the living room, where he is loosening the first buttons of his shirt while sipping a glass of cold water. He raises his gaze to meet mine and nods in response to my greeting, but the expression in his eyes is not in the slightest bit pleasant.“How was work today?” I
SAMANTHAI immediately open my mouth to scream, but Charlotte is as quick as a striking snake. She moves her hand in a flash, and when she raises it, she’s brandishing a wicked-looking gun. I slam my mouth shut immediately, no other warning needed.“Who are you and what do you want?” I manage to ask, my voice quivering as my eyes dart this way and that way, looking for an escape route, but there is none to be had. I also size the bitch in front of me up and down, but even though we’re roughly the same size, I know without a doubt that I’ll be unable to take her on. For one thing, Charlotte is a seasoned murderer, so she will surely have skills that I can only dream about. For another, I’m heavily pregnant, so I’m definitely not in any position to be demonstrating any Kung Fu skills. My best option is to keep her talking. Hopefully, Charles will come back on time. I become aware that Charlotte is staring at me in surprise, as though she isn’t quite sure what to make of me, or as thou
“Ah, I see you’re not the angel that I thought you were. What are you doing with that thing?” Charlotte asks me, shaking her head slightly, as though in sore disappointment. The smile is still on her face, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and it gives her beautiful but hardened face a creepy look.“I … I wasn’t going to use it.” I defend myself feebly. Earlier, I had been too tense and focused on getting the knife that I wasn’t too aware of my surroundings. Now, though, I can see my mistake. There’s this huge painting that is in a reflective glass case and is resting on the floor against the wall opposite us, and in it, I can see my reflection and that of Charlotte. Apparently, she had been watching my every move in the glass of the painting.“No? So what were you going to do with it? Peel a potato and cook it to make me feel at home?”“Look, you’re wielding a gun at me. Naturally, I got scared a little that you were going to use it on me. A knife is no match for a gun, though.”“Yeah,
CHARLES It’s almost one in the morning, but instead of being in bed, I’m driving aimlessly around the mostly deserted streets, with only the occasional vehicle or two driving past once in a while. The thought of sleeping in the hospital for another night when I have the most comfortable bed in the world does not appeal to me in the least bit. I’m of a mind to simply take my things, get another place, and leave her all alone in the house, but it’s my house, which I happen to like very much, and no blackmailer is going to run me out of there. No way in hell am I letting that happen. Finally, I’m spent and no longer angry, so I make the decision to head back home. Samantha must be asleep by now anyway. The last thing I want is to be drawn into another altercation with her. I begin to drive home, thinking of the blissful moment when I’ll be able to collapse on my bed and sleep fitfully. The closer I get to my house though, the more an uneasy feeling starts to grow inside me. It is a fe
JESSICA The singing and chirping of the birds on the exotic trees in Mrs. James’s garden wake me up before I’m ready to get up from bed, but I don’t mind. I’ve overslept anyway. It is past nine in the morning, and I went to bed around nine-thirty the previous night, so that means that I’ve slept for almost twelve hours straight, something that I hardly do. Staying here with Mrs. James is good for my health and pregnancy. I take a quick shower and head downstairs because I can faintly hear the familiar voices of Sebastian and his wife, Carol, coming from downstairs. They hardly ever come here, not to talk of coming here so early, so I wonder what the problem is. By the time I get downstairs, I don’t need anyone to tell me that something horrible has happened. It is obvious from the dejected and horrified looks on the faces of everyone in the living room that everything is far from fine. Sebastian is there, as is Carol, Mrs. James, Carol’s father, and about five men I don’t know, alo
JESSICASix months later, it still feels like a dream that it's finally over. But life is finally getting back to normal, or at least it’s finally getting back to what I think normal should be, and it’s blissful. I can go out any time I want, go wherever I want, and do whatever I feel like doing without having to watch my back.I have my loving family, both my immediate and extended ones. By extended, I mean Sebastian and his family, along with Mrs. James, of course. They’re the only family that I’d ever want or need. My brother, who had been estranged from me for a very long time, despite all my efforts to reach out to him over the years, finally reached out to me three days after the whole Charlotte saga.He’s a stranger to me now though, and I don’t consider him family, although once, I worshipped the ground on which he walked. He had literally raised me up until my teenage years when he disappeared without a single word. Now that I know the reason why he disappeared, I'm glad he d
“I don’t want either of us to get hurt, Charlotte. If I try to grab the gun, one of us will surely get hurt, or wind up dead. You still have enough time to run if you don’t want the police to catch you.” Charles tells his sister after about two minutes or so of them going back and forth.The pain in my knee is beginning to be unbearable, but I struggle with all that is in me to swing my legs as silently as possible from the bed. My legs feel rubbery, as though they belong to someone else, but I know that it is now or never. If I fail, Ava might not grow up with her father, mother, or both of them.Although every muscle in my body is in protest, I struggle to move silently, and I’m almost all the way to where Charlotte is when all hell breaks loose. She’s backing me, while Charles is facing me, so he obviously sees me trying to move to where they are, but he pretends not to and continues to engage Charlotte.However, she must have noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, or maybe
"You’re joking, right? I mean, how is that even possible.” Charles asks in bewilderment. From his expression, and the tone of his voice, it is clear that he thinks that his sister is batshit crazy, which she obviously is. As for me, I remain silent, not even daring to breathe too loudly, so that Charlotte would not be reminded of my existence.What she is saying is pretty wild to me too. I mean, I haven’t seen or spoken or heard from my brother in well over a decade, and neither do I have any desire to speak to or hear from him, so I don’t know why someone would want to harm me just because of him.“I wish I was joking, because if I were, then my daughter and her father would still be alive, and maybe, just maybe I would have someone to love me too because it’s clear that you don’t give two hoots about me.”“Well, you make it hard to care about you, considering the fact that you go about killing innocent people for no reason other than the fun of it. Wait! What’s this bit about a daug
“What the fuck?! You’re not supposed to be here. How did you get here so fast?” Charlotte asks him, her composure cracking for once. She immediately dives for the gun which she had discarded earlier, and points it at Charles. There’s no need for her to be worried about me, because I’m in no condition to do anything other than lay on the mattress on which she placed me. Charles is not armed, and neither had I thought that he would be, because where on earth would he get a gun in a foreign country? But then, I had expected him to at least come with help, and not just charge in alone, although come to think of it, I should be thankful that he showed up when he did, else, Charlotte might have amputated my leg by now. “I drove like a maniac and no doubt, broke all the laws there are about driving too fast in this country, but I had to get here, considering the fact that you’re hell-bent on obliterating my family.” “How did you find this place?” “By sheer luck, and technology too, plus I
"Get on the bed? Wh … why?”“Don’t ask me questions. Just do as I say.”“What are you going to use all those tools for?” I ask her, backing away as she inches closer. I’m not prepared for the loud bang of a gunshot from the gun in her hand. I don’t hear the sound of the bullet whizzing past me, but I feel it, and my heart jumps into my throat. It takes everything in me not to turn and run out of that building, but I manage to stand my ground.“Next time, you won’t be so lucky. Now, get on the table. If you think you’re stalling long enough for help to arrive, you have another thing coming. You’re never going to be found, and there’s no reception here, so just do as I say and this is going to be a fast, painless experience.” Charlotte orders.Looking at her, one would be forgiven to think that she’s a socialite or a very respectable banker, with her well-pressed clothes and perfect hair, not the mentally deranged criminal that she really is. Still, there’s no way I’m getting into that
"Okay, I don’t want any problems. Please give me my daughter, and we can forget that this ever happened, while you go back into hiding or something. Look, I forgive you for all that you did to me.” I tell Charlotte, my voice wavering so badly, but there is nothing that I can do about it, or about anything.“Ava, isn’t it? She’s a very beautiful baby. She takes after my mother’s side in the looks aspect. My mother was a very beautiful woman, although I can’t say the same about my birth father.”“Yes. She looks just like you and Charles when you were babies. I saw your family pictures.”“You did?” Charlotte asks, sounding genuinely surprised.“Yes. Charles showed me.”“Cool, cool.” She says, still rocking Ava as slowly as though she has all the time in the world. To say I’m confused is an understatement, but I’m starting to relax a teeny tiny fraction.“Please give me Ava, and we’ll both be on our way,” I tell her, wondering what the meaning of all this is. She doesn't seem to be in a h
The road is rough and bumpy, but I’ve turned on all the lights of the car to illuminate my way. Charlotte isn’t making it hard for me to follow her at all, which makes me believe what Charles has said, that she’s leading me into a trap. Anyway, trap or not, I can’t just leave my infant daughter at her mercy, so I have no choice but to follow her.Soon, she branches off into a bushy part, which makes driving even more difficult than it had been when we were still on the gravelly part. It is difficult to follow her closely here, considering that the car I’m driving isn’t made for rough terrains, while the one she’s driving is, and after a while, I lose her, but it is easy to follow her, because of the tracks that her car makes in the bush.My phone keeps ringing all the while I’m chasing Charlotte through the woods. I know this because its lights keep coming on, lighting the dark interior of the car with each call. Finally, I decide to answer it, knowing that it’s Charles who’s calling.
JESSICABy the time I gather my wits about me and rush up the staircase, taking them three at a time, so I can get my phone, I can no longer hear the sound of the car in which Charlotte is getting away with my baby. I speed-dial Charle’s number and rush down the car, grabbing the key to the spare car that we had rented.I send a silent prayer of thanks above that Charles had had the foresight to rent two cars, even though I had kicked against it, saying why would we need two cars, as I felt that it would only bring us unwanted attention. Now, though, I’m grateful for the availability of the car, because I don’t know how I would have gone after Charlotte without it.Charles picks up the phone on the first ring, just as I’m rushing down the stairs in my robe and slippers. There is no time to change into more suitable clothes as my daughter’s life is at stake.“Hel…” Charles begins to say, but I cut him off desperately.“She’s here! Oh, Charles, she’s here, and she has killed the nanny a
CHARLOTTEI’ve barely gotten to where I parked my getaway car when I hear the unmistakable voice of Jessica screaming out Eric’s name in a panic. She has no doubt discovered the lifeless body of her nanny and the fact that her daughter is missing, which means that very soon, she’ll take the bait and follow after me in a bid to recover her daughter.“Sorry, honey. Eric’s body is preparing to stiffen somewhere out there, so he can’t hear you.” I say, laughing gaily to myself. Once everywhere is silent again, I start the car and rev it loudly so that she can hear it and give pursuit.Luckily enough, Charles isn’t around, as the men who were spying on the cabin this evening informed me. Eric had told us that Jessica and Charles were supposed to go to dinner, so the men had been watching the cabin to alert me to when they’ll leave, only for Jessica to stay behind.This was actually better for my plans, as it gave me the chance to lure Jessica alone. Getting into the cabin had been very eas