Prologue

Elizabeth Webber sat in a daze at a corner table at Kelly’s. It had been the first day of her senior year of high school. The day had been full of the usual senior traditions. Getting to eat at the tables on the carpeted side of the cafeteria; getting to parade into the gym under a wall of underclassmen at the first day of school assembly; and getting to park in the front of the parking lot. She used to look forward to such traditions, but now they all seem so useless. What was the point of sitting on carpet or no carpet if you didn’t have anyone to share the experience with? Nikolas had a professional job and Emily was a year younger than she was. And Lucky…

Oh Lucky. You are the one I want to share all of this with, Liz thought to herself. Her senior year, her time at art school, her whole life. But apparently fate had other plans for her, or he’d be hear with her across from the table making her smile in any way possible. Smiling had been hard for her do since that fateful night when Lucky died. It sure didn’t make it any easier that the people around her had a hard time smiling as well, Lucky had touched so many lives in his short life.

Life was different without Lucky around, she had grown used to having him around, him always helping her, her helping him. Loving each other. It got easier and harder as the days went by. As the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. People kept telling her that she was young, she’d love again. But somehow she didn’t think she would. Her first love had been so strong, intense, and loving, she didn’t think she’d ever find that again in her lifetime.

So she went on with life, doing things that made her happy and would make Lucky happy. It was all she could do to fulfill her time and help the dull ache in her heart get duller each day. Liz now tried to celebrate life, because she knew all too well how precious it was. She worked on her art from time to time, but her inspiration was gone. Her heart didn’t feel into it anymore. She still worked at Kelly’s. She loved having Tammy as a cool and understanding boss, plus she still had a reason to keep in contact with the Spencers.

As if the Spencers would let her stop contact with them. Liz immediately realized after Lucky’s death that they had already started thinking of her as a daughter. Even though the Spencer’s relationship had remained strained, each of them took time to make sure that she was okay. They always assured her that they were there for her in anything she ever needed. Liz was glad for that, and she used them for support. She had long talks with Laura and Bobbie, took Lu ice skating with Nikolas, made sure Luke got a decent meal when he popped into Kelly’s, in short they had accepted her into the family she wanted to be a part of.

The thing that had given her the most fulfillment was her volunteer work at the local elementary school. The kids she helped with class work and art projects after school reminded her that there was plenty of life in the world. She would always make herself go smiling so that she wouldn’t scare any of the kids away, and she would always find herself leaving with a genuine smile on her face. At first she felt guilty about this, but then she realized that Lucky would have wanted her to smile, and then she found it easier to smile, life, and enjoy simple things in life.

Speaking of little things as she glanced at her watch she was supposed to be at the elementary school now. She had promised her little cousin Tommy that she would meet him after school and take him to baseball practice.

She got up quickly from her seat, grabbed her schoolbag which she had unceremoniously dumped on the floor when she had walked in the door, thankful that it wasn’t her day to work. She had just come for a little bit of quiet time during Kelly’s lull in the afternoon. With the bookbag flung on her shoulder she called goodbye to Tammy and flung the door open, running into Jasper Jacks.

~*~*~

She felt a cold compress on her head and moaned slightly. She heard a voice shush her, but she didn’t care, her head was throbbing. She felt like an 18-wheeler was driving circles around her skull and she was sure if she sat up she’d be very nauseated. She moaned again and the voice shushed her again, this time more forcefully.

She opened her eyes then. She looked into the dark eyes of a woman hovering over her than it hit her. She was still trapped. Correction, they were still trapped. The other lady and she had been in this place for months now. She for a less amount of time than the lady, but it still felt like forever.

Their accommodations were perfect, it was their freedom that had been dampered. The two of them were living together in little house off of isolated property with a gigantic mansion. It was larger than the Quartermaine mansion she mused.

Try as they might, they could not escape the little house, it was too heavily guarded. There were guards, dogs, and twice a day visits from the master of the mansion. A cold man indeed, with perverted obsession with the other lady. The poor woman despised the man with all her heart, as did she. But the things he would try to do to her…it was too awful to bear.

And there was the matter not pleasing the master that really bugged him. She couldn’t stand by any longer and watch the torment he tried to put the woman through so she stepped in. That’s when he sent her flying across the room with a shove. She landed on the floor with a bookcase toppling over on her. Before she passed out, she heard the man scream, “I don’t understand you. I would give you any desire in the world if you just let me. But no, you provoke me to hurt other people. Why do you do this, my pretty Anna?”

She was unconscious by the time the woman answered with vengeful words, “Because you won’t let me near my husband, you filthy rat.”

He left after a few more words were exchanged, a few more attempts to fulfill his temptations denied. He had puffed one last breath of cigar smoke into the room, dropped the cigar onto the carpeted floor, smashed it with a stomp of his foot, and left the women to take care of their own injuries.

As she regained her conscious, she realized that night had fallen and that Anna had stayed up to make sure she was okay. The stubborn woman she thought, Anna was the one that needed to be looked after. She told her as much as she attempted to sit up, but was forcefully, but gently pushed back down.

“No, my dear you’re the one with a concussion. You lay and rest. I’m fine, really I am.” As soon as I get you and myself out of this awful place, she thought as she soothingly pushed long strands of hair from her patient’s face.

~*~*~

It was a damn cold day in hell. And that wasn’t an exaggeration. He was trapped in some hellhole of a room. It had been spring, but it sure wasn’t in this room. It felt like the middle of winter. He couldn’t get warm enough, no how many blankets were thrown into his room. He used to think he was immune to the cold, never heeding the many warnings he had received on wearing a coat in winter. He didn’t like to bother with it, like most kids. Now however he would love to have an extra blanket in this stone cold room.

Some freak had built this room have large white cement brick walls, ceramic tiled floors, a heavy (locked) iron door, and an iron bed with a terribly lumpy mattress. At least he was given the courtesy to have a small bathroom off to the side that was equipped with running water, a toilet, and a shower. He had meals delivered to him twice a day that he mostly picked at. He wasn’t sure if he could trust the food, but it hadn’t poisoned him yet, but that didn’t stop him from being cautious.

He had always prided himself on being cautious. Oh he had a temper when it came to certain things, mainly people, but he had worked on those feelings on the last year. A cool head during an emergency was what he was known for. This time was no different. He quietly defied his captor; not wanting upset him to the point that tragic results would result, but just enough to irritate him so that he knew that he wasn’t going to cooperate easily. At first he had screamed, yelled, and demanded to be let out so he could go home…but he had gone unanswered.

At least unanswered by his captor, he had been quieted by a voice on the other sided of his wall. A voice who refused to give him a name, but had been very efficient in calming him. It was as if he knew him and he him. If he ever got out of this damned place he would have to find a way to get the other prisoner out too.

Maybe there were other prisoners here. What kind of place was this anways? What kind of man was his captor? Taking people from their homes in the middle of the night? What the hell for? And why him?

Time was unknown to him. He had no idea of how long he had been here. He knew it was more than days, more than weeks even. A month? A couple of months? A year? The way he spent his days in solitude, except for his nightly chats with the other voice, he felt like he had been in there forever.

Familiar faces of friends and family were starting to blur in his mind. That hurt him more than the random thoughts that constantly ran through his mind. Sometimes he felt perfectly sane, and other times he wanted throw anything he had out the window. But he had nothing to throw, nor was there a window in the room.