Shynonie's Shorts

Another Tea Party, Another Game

Another tea party, another game. The days have started to blur together by now. My last day of freedom was about 20 sleeps ago. 20 times I slept for hours and not minutes. I don't really know the man that took me, but I know his daughter. She's a lonely girl with no friends her age because her mind isn't as old as it should be. She should be preparing for prom but instead we just finished a Barbie movie marathon. I had only met her dad a few times. I often come home with his daughter; after all, I went to the same school as her but I also, for lack of better words, babysit her. Sometimes I aid the Special Ed teachers and in doing so, I made a friend in her. I had a few good friends and they had even started to accept the sweet girl into our friend group; it was like we all adopted her as our little sister that we wanted to protect at all costs.

Cassie is kind and soft spoken with porcelain skin that no longer contains bruises in questionable shapes or places. Now my skin was black and blue while covered by the glittery, itchy fabric of homemade princess dresses. Her dad is an angry man that decided that having a sleepover with Cassie would be beneficial. I agreed because her face lit up like the sky on the 4th of July. I couldn't say no to that and especially not to her puppy dog eyes. Cassie's room is the whole attic, it's walls are pastel pink and fit for the happiest of princesses. We have tea parties and play games in her room, I can't go downstairs because my feet have long lost their ability to feel or withstand my weight. My room is inside a small door in the back of Cassie's room. A blown up mattress and a few old quilts with lumpy pillows are the only place I find physical comfort. My mental and emotional comfort comes from the fact that a few days ago, I talked Cassie into grabbing my purse from wherever her father had hidden it.

A little outlet blocked by cardboard boxes labelled Christmas Decorations made it easy to charge my dead phone. It's late now, the sky has been black for hours but it looks like it's on the verge of a deep blue and that the sun will be rising soon. A rough guess suggests I have an hour or so before Cassie and her father are awake. Cassie will go to school and her father will take her there on his way to work, but not before he reminds me that in this house I am nothing more than a living broken doll that Cassie can't seem to stop talking about.

But I can't wait for a hero anymore. My phone's on and it's charged enough to survive making a desperate phone call. A call that would change everything.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"I've been kidnapped and held hostage by Mr. Williams. The address is 660 Elm Street. I'm upstairs in the back storage room of the attic that's his daughter Cassie's bedroom. Cassie doesn't know that what's happening is bad. Please, get us both out of here before he wakes up."

There was typing for a moment before i heard the operator speak again.

"Alright. I have officers headed your way. The closest one is 15 minutes away. Can you tell me your name?"

"Alice. Alice Mikaelson."

"Okay Alice, police and an ambulance are on their way. You should hear sirens in a few minutes. I need you to stay on the phone with me until they get in the room with you, can you do that for me?"

"I'll try." I was whispering now. Tears leaking out of my swollen shut eye while I tried to make myself smaller behind the boxes I kept my phone and purse hidden behind. I could hear the shower running downstairs. "I think he's awake, I can hear the shower."

"Okay, stay on the line with me. You don't have to talk, you can stay as quiet as you need to be. Are you safe?"

"I'm behind a box of Christmas Decorations with two broken feet and a black eye. I've been safer." I think I finally understand how the damaged kids I saw in the halls at school used humor to cope with their experiences. It was better than forcing tears past swollen eyelids.

More typing before I finally heard sirens in the distance. There's a window in the room acting as my only source of light, but I can't get to it without leaving my hiding spot.

"Okay Alice, they're approaching. Can you hear or see them?"

"I can hear them but I can't see them, I can't look out the window without leaving my hiding spot. Just tell them to get in here, I wanna go home."

"It's going to be okay, Alice. They're about to come in."

I heard the faint sound of shouting, banging on the front door before what sounded like a small explosion that was probably just the thick wooden front door being kicked in. I almost started crying again when I heard the small door to my crawlspace open and close, only to breathe a sigh of relief when Cassie crawled behind the boxes with me and took ahold of the hand I wasn't holding my phone with. She was pale and started shaking when the sounds of gunshots starting echoing from downstairs.

"Everything's gonna be-"

"Thank you, Alice."

"For what?"

"For saving us." Her doe eyes no longer held childlike innocence. They now contained a mix of tired wisdom and relief too old for someone who was only 17.

"Us?"

"My real name is Abigail, Abigail Smith. Mr. Williams took my from a park 12 years ago."

I was too stunned to notice that the guns had gone quiet and had been replaced by the sound of heavy boots clamoring up the attic stairs. Muffled voices were on the other side of the wall which was soon being pounded on before the small door was forced open, just for us to be blinded by flashlights shining into the room at us.

"Alice Mikaelson and Cassie Williams?" A deep voice far kinder than Mr. Williams asked, causing me to sag in relief against Cas-Abigail.

"Yea, yea that's us." I answered as Abigail and I started pushing the boxes out of the way of us. I hung up my phone and tossed it and my charger into my purse before slinging the strap across my body so it wouldn't be forgotten.

"Actually," Abigail spoke up as she finished pushing the last box away from us, making it so that the officers could clearly see the both of us. "My name's not Cassie. I'm Abigail Smith."

"Abbs?" The same voice that had called mine and her fake name was now thick with emotion. The officer was quick to scoop Abigail into his arms into a crushing embrace.

"Dad?" Abigail was muffled by his shoulder but I could still hear the shock in her voice.

"It's okay, I'm gonna take you home." Then the officer was letting her go, coming over and helping another officer get me out of the room without further injuring my already broken feet and aching body. "Thank you, Alice, for keeping her alive. We've already called your family, they're meeting us at the hospital."

In the ambulance with Abigail curled up in the gurney with me was when I asked a question that I still regret. "Did you get Mr. Williams?"

"Ma'am, Mr. Williams killed four officers and escaped through a downstairs window. He's gone, I'm sorry girls." Just as the ambulance doors shut and we started pulling away, we heard it. A sound that made us both look as sick as we suddenly felt.

A single gunshot followed by the image through the ambulance doors windows of the officer who'd answered my question falling to the ground. Cops swarming a fleeing figure that disappeared into a black pickup truck that sped away, followed by several cop cars.

Mr. Williams had escaped but so did we. Right?