Chapter 15: Back to the Memory



Faith starred into the wall across the room. Her face downcast with the realization of what had happened only hours before hand. Brian had disappeared, she’d handed Thomas over to a killer and no even knew what they wanted.

She buried her head into her hands. She didn’t understand the signs, they pointed to something, something buried deep in Faith’s mind, but they also lead to something that no one around her knew - at least so she thought.

“Is there anything else you can tell us, any ideas where Catherine could be hiding”
Hiding Faith almost smirked - Catherine never hid
“It’s not her” she muttered
“I’m sorry?”
“This isn’t Catherine, there isn’t a rhyme, there isn’t a clue, there is just knowledge, and not hers”
“We have no reason to believe any one else was involved”

Faith bit the tip of her nail cracking it brutally.
“Could I have some time alone please?” she spoke, her eyes fixed now to the tiles below her feet
“Sure”
The Detective stood and nodded and 3 uniformed guards. They left in succession closing the door behind them.

Faith stood the pain seeping through her body the least of her worries. She dressed quickly, still unsure if her mind was possibly playing tricks on her.

She opened the door slightly and looked into the corridor. The Detective was gone and only 2 of the three officers remained in the hall. She glided along the wall, careful not to distract them from talking to the nurse at the other end of the hall.

She looked over her shoulder quickly as she pushed the elevator button.
“Too long” she muttered before ducking into the staircase.

She finally reached the openness of the carpark. She only knew once place to go, one place she couldn’t afford the Police to go. She wouldn’t let them put Brian and Thomas at risk. Wherever she was going, she was going alone.

************************************

Faith hurried from the taxi up the drive to the front door. She stepped over the yellow “police” tape and unlocked the front door. Without a second thought she hurried up the stairs and went straight to Brian’s bedside table. She opened the second drawer slowly and starred down at the shiny black object in front of her.

She'd begged Brian not to keep that thing, she’d made him promise he would get rid of it as soon as Thomas started crawling, but now it was she who needed it. She grabbed the gun in her hand and lifted it from it’s home. She slid it into her bag and went out the same was she had come in.

She started the car and clutched tightly onto the steering wheel. Tears overwhelmed her and her head fell to her chest in a torrent of tears.

************************************

Catherine slowly etched her way through the dense marshlands. The air was thick with a pungent smell hanging in it. A branch cracked beneath her foot and she almost jumped back. She didn’t like this place, it was eerie and unfamiliar. Two things which put he on edge.

She stopped and listened. A sound she recognized grabbed at her ears. She looked around trying to gauge where the sound was coming from. As her eyes moved deeper into the marshlands she focused on the direction of the noise - right in front of her.

************************************

Brian’s ears perked as he heard the footsteps outside the door. His eyes lurched upwards waiting for a figure to appear.

“And he’s awake” the figure coolly said
Brian squinted in the dusty fog, he could barely make out an outline. There was however something in the figures hands, another dead animal? No, it was moving.

“Look Thomas, Daddy is all tied up” then a laugh - a chilling meticulous laugh
Brian tried to scream though his cloth gag, but nothing more than a muffled call came forth. He struggled against his bonds, but they didn’t release him.

“For fucks sake, stop trying to get out, I think I fucking know how to tie a knot” the figure smirked as it stepped in closer.

Brian’s eyes widened. His helpless child was in the arms of a someone he thought he knew.

************************************

Faith calmed herself down.
Ever second counts she whispered to herself

That was her husband and her baby out there she would not let them be hurt, even if it meant putting herself in the line of fine.

************************************

December 11 - 2:55

Seven and a half hours after she’d left Tampa, Faith’s eyes were burning with adrenaline. She had not slept and had driven all night, but she couldn’t risk taking too long. As it stood she may have already been too late.

She shock the thought off and pulled off I-285 onto Roswell Road, Atlanta, Georgia. It was a place she had not seen in years. A place that held memories that were neither happy nor able to be erased. It held a memory - a memory of a terrible accident along the banks of the Chattahoochee River.

The memory of an accident, one she herself was not involved in, but one that shock the very foundation of her life nevertheless.

Azalea Drive was where her parents life swiftly ended. She never understood why they were out this far from their destination, just merely assumed they had lost their way on that cold wet night.

Faith stopped the car beside the antique oak tree. She wept quietly then gathered every ounce of strength she had to face whatever, or whoever, was waiting for her.

************************************

The boggy ground sunk beneath Faith’s feet as her eyes focused on whatever the slowly fading moon shone down onto. The ground beneath her flooded almost everytime it rained. Just down the road lay a Center dedicated to protecting the wetlands down the river.

She steadied herself and pushed forward, deeper into the mess of trees and plants before her.

************************************

“Surprised?” a voice laughed behind Brian.
They had come in earlier with Thomas, shut him in a second room then disappeared for what seemed an eternity.

Brian’s heart lurched when Thomas began crying. He was only a matter of hours old and he was away from his mother and confined in this damp little rotting cabin.

“Please, let me see him” Brian muttered through his gag
“Humm, I don’t think so” followed by a snicker.

Brian’s gag was removed.
“Why?” Brian pleaded
“God, is that the first question everyone asks?”
“Please just let me see Thomas”
“He’s fine”
“He’s a baby, he needs his mother”
“Oh, she’ll be here soon”
“Please”
The smirked widened as the gag was replaced and tied tighter.
“Better get the little man ready for mommy”

Brian struggled in vain against the ropes that held him. A tear slid from his eye as a prayer came up from his heart.



Chapter 16
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