Stolen Secrets

Stolen Secrets- Chapter 13

~Jeff~

I glanced over at Natalie’s still sleeping form. I can't believe she had been about to electrocute herself. What had they been doing to her there?

I called George again, but he hadn’t picked up. So instead of taking Natalie to her apartment, I was taking her back to my house.

I pulled into my house and mentally prepared myself for the wrath of my mother. It was almost one now, my disappearance could not have gone unnoticed.

After pulling the keys from the ignition, I went around to Natalie’s side of the car. I slung my bag over my shoulder and then carefully took Natalie in my arms. Some miracle made it so that the sweatshirt, I had wrapped around Natalie hadn’t slipped.

I hadn’t even made it to the door when it flew open to reveal a seething Mum.

“Where have you been?” She screeched.

I shushed her. “Mum, calm down,” I said. I was still only at the bottom of the front steps. She clearly hadn’t noticed the sleeping angel in my arms yet.

“Calm down?” She nearly screamed. “You’ve been missing for hours and you stole the car even though you don’t have a licence, and you want me to calm down.”

Okay, note to self. Never tell a women to calm down. It clearly has the opposite effect.

“Mum, you’ll wake up Natalie. Just please shush,” I pleaded.

“Natalie?” She asked her voice now at its usual level. Then she glanced down at the bundle in my arms and she stepped back immediately, allowing me into the house.

I laid Natalie down on my bed. We didn’t have a spare room, unless you counted Brandon’s old room, but his room was filled with boxes and the creepy things he had left behind when he left for college.

Mum buzzed around me asking questions, her anger from early was gone and was instead replaced with concern.

“Shh,” I said for what must already be the millionth time since I came in the door about twenty seconds ago.

Mum nodded, then gasped. “Oh dear lord! What happened to her?” she asked as I moved the sweatshirt away from Natalie’s face. The hood had flopped over, obscuring most of her gorgeous face. I just had visions of her choking to death on it or something as she slept.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. I also don’t know why Mum was just realizing Natalie’s injuries. My sweat sure was big on me, so it was even bigger on Natalie. It reached about mid-thigh on her and went far past her hands. The many cuts and bruises down her legs made my stomach churned. What kind of evil would do something like this to a harmless girl?

I was glad my sweatshirt covered her upper body, it had been too dark to assess her injuries at that crack house, but here they would be just all too clear. 

Mum left the room and came back a moment later with her rather large first aid kit tucked under her arm.

She started to clean out Natalie’s cuts. I just watched in silence.

“Is this your sweatshirt?” Mum asked pinching a bit of the fabric.

“Uh, yeah?”

“And what was she wearing before?” Mum inquired.

“Um…”

Mum shook her head. “The poor, poor girl.” Then she said to me, “have you called those detectives yet?”

“No, only her dad.” Wow, now I felt stupid. I should have done that earlier.

Mum looked up at me and raised her eyebrow. I nodded and took out my phone to call them.