Adopted by Phan

Chapter 61

Tw- Rape

Dan's P.O.V.

One day without Jay. 24 hours gone. Officer Briny had told us that most missing children are found within the first 24 hours, but that was without the confirmation of what had happened to them. We knew who had taken Jay, we just didn't know where she had gone or what had happened to her.

I knew the statistics, I knew that 20% of missing children aren't found alive. I knew her father was violent, I knew he had the capabilities to do terrible things, maybe even kill if it came to that.

I didn't want to think about it, I just hoped she was still alive and kicking, fighting with her life, which I knew was exactly what was at risk.

"Phil?" I looked across the bed, we were back at home. Officer Briny had practically forced us home after midnight the night before but we were so worried, we didn't know what to do. Phil had called Louise sometime around dinner and she had come over to the house a little while after that, mostly for support. "Phil?"

His head turned, eyes still heavy with sleep and black bags hung underneath them from the lack of sleep. Neither of us had actually slept much.

"Hmmm?" His blue eyes met mine and he leaned up, pulling me into a hug.

"Come on, we're meeting Briny at the station soon." I sighed, standing up and getting dressed.

As I walked down the hallway I realised how empty the house felt with Jay gone. There wasn't anyone curled up on the couch between us as we watched television, she wasn't clattering up and down the stairs grabbing things, her things didn't seem to appear in a different place each morning like a sock under the kitchen table or her sketch book dangerously close to falling into the sink.

I halted outside her bedroom door, seeing the bed already made like she had made a habit of doing before school each morning. I stumbled, everything hitting me like a ton of bricks falling on top of me. I heard Phil come up behind me and he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me back so I could feel his body heat.

"I'm scared. I want Jay to come back home." I felt his lips on my forehead, trying to reassure me as well as himself.

"I know, so do I. We'll find her, I promise." I sighed, thinking back to what Jay had said to Phil. He had told me.

"I know you can't promise me that. No one can."

Jay's P.O.V.

I couldn't breathe. It was dark again and if I was counting right that would make it around 36 hours since I had been drugged at school and forced to wherever I was. I was back in the basement again, this time there was a well-worn and rather smelly mattress on the floor but I wasn't complaining. It was comfortable, at least more comfortable than the floor.

My clothes were ripped, my sweatshirt torn off somewhere upstairs and no longer with me. My t-shirt had a large tear down the side and my jeans had been torn down the seams, making them mostly useless but I was in too much pain to think straight, my legs trembling with the effort of having pulled myself onto the mattress.

I knew exactly what had happened, I had been awake the whole time and now the images of my naked father and several others I didn't recognise burned into my brain. I shuddered. I felt disgusting, I could feel the bruises along my stomach and arms and the stickiness of my lower half, making me flinch every time I moved.

I didn't know how I had survived going through that before, even though I didn't remember it and something told me it wouldn't be the same outcome.

My chest was heaving, something told me that one of my ribs was at least cracked, if not broken and it was making breathing obscenely difficult. I could still take blood in my mouth, someone had punched me at some point and had either split my lip or the inside of my cheek, I didn't know. I was too numb.

I was slipping into the depths of my mind, replying all the best memories of my life. Jax, Officer Briny, my new friends at school, Mrs Livingstone, Dan and Phil.

I thought back to what my life might have been if I was still with my real family. Dead probably, but I knew the rest of them were still out there, my brother and mother somewhere. I hadn't seen them in years and I didn't want to see them again, my mother had let what had happened to me happen and my brother had tormented me, knowing he was wanted and I wasn't.

With my mind thinking back, I remembered my father. The man who I knew as a child, someone I actually respected as a father figure. And then he changed. The man who abused me, beating me night after night was a completely different person, he had morphed into monster with no sense of compassion.

And this new man. The one who had glared at me, pulling my clothes with such force that they ripped and leaving bruises on my face and body. The one who had lost over a third of his body weight but still weighed twice as much as I did, and was much, much stronger than I was, able to hold me down with seemingly no effort.

He was new to me. Prison had changed him, and not for the better either. To me, he was more terrifying, capable of much more when he already knew he was going back to prison, probably for life after the kidnapping charges, that is if he was caught. There was nothing stopping him from killing me anymore, and I knew that would more than likely be my outcome.

I didn't want to accept it but I knew everything would have to come to an end eventually. I wanted to fight and I knew I would. I would fight until I took my last breath and if I had the chance, I would take my father with me so he couldn't do that to anyone else.

I raised my head, reaching out my arm to search around the floor. I found something and closed my fingers over it, finding out that it was a sharp, pointed rock and an idea popped into my mind. Slowly, painfully, I rolled onto my side and reached out towards the wall with the rock, starting to etch words, tiny words, into the corner.

I was writing something in case I didn't make it out alive again.