April stared into the woods, "Rilley?" Autumn called, and April cleared her throat.
"I..........I don't remember much," that was a lie. April remembered every single bit of it. But telling her tale would mean putting Autumn through the same agony she went through.
"April, please," Autumn took April's hands into hers. "You refuse to speak in therapy. You don't talk to Mom or Dad or me. Who will you speak to?" Autumn noticed that April was avoiding her eyes.
"Please. April," Autumn's heart broke into pieces. Two years had gone by, and April was still not ready. When will she be ready? When will she open her heart?
Inhaling a deep breath, "Liam," she let out that breath. "He was my savior," which was true. Liam saved her from Ryle many times. She wouldn't have survived there if not for Liam. "He was my tormentor," the times he ruined her life were clear as a day. "He was a lover and an enemy," April didn't know why it had to come to this.
"He was an angel when he chose to be," she whispered, reminiscing about the nights he had cradled her to sleep, a guardian in the darkness. Those were the nights when he had cared for her when illness had held her captive.
"But he could transform into a malevolent demon with equal ease," she continued in a hushed tone, her memories turning darker. Those were the nights when her own sickness was a direct result of his hostility, and she had suffered in the shadows of his darkness.
"I.........." her throat closed. "He......" April held her tears.
"Take your time," Autumn rubbed her sister's back soothingly. "I will wait."
"I fell in love with him. At least to the human side of him," April scoffed, remembering how well he had fooled her. Autumn sat there listening to her sister's sad tale.
"Or maybe I wasn't. Perhaps it was Stockholm syndrome," she rubbed her teary eyes as they started to itch. "But you have to understand, Atty," she turned to her sister. She didn't want Autumn to judge her for falling in love with her kidnapper's son.
"He was the only human touch I had. Only human interaction I had all those years."
Autumn understood April's dilemma. "Rilley," she touched April's cheek. "I will never judge you for what you feel or say. Never, not even for once, think I will, okay? You did what you had to do to survive. Anyone would do the same, Rilley."
April nodded in understanding. "He changed when I discovered his true form. I saw him killing someone."
Autumn's heart stopped. Her sister was in the same situation as her. Cruelty of fate or these men?
"It was as though a switch had been flipped within him," April recounted with a haunted look. She recalled the moment when something inside him had shattered when the very essence of his being seemed to darken. "That was the path to my doon." She placed her trembling hand over her heart, willing it to slow its frantic pace, but the memories continued to race through her mind like relentless demons.
"He chased me, caged me, tormented me, but I wasn't willing to give away your names to him. I would've died but wouldn't have revealed it to him," April saw Autumn's guilty face. A tear dropped, and another, and a flood followed.
Sobs racked through her body. "Atty," April called, but Autumn wasn't stopping. "Atty, please," she pulled her sister into a hug. Autumn hugged April tight and wept until the wool shawl turned wet.
"This was all my fault. I shouldn't have left you there, I should've fought back" Autumn struggled to form words between the sobs. Guilt coursed through her veins.
April knew this. This is precisely why she didn't tell anyone what she had gone through all these years.
"Atty," she pulled Autumn back from the hug. "This is why I didn't tell you what happened to me."
Autumn wasn't meeting April's eyes. "Look at me, Atty," she called Autumn, but the girl's guilt made her look elsewhere. "Autumn Willow Wraith," she exerted with command. "Look at me," April demanded, and Autumn did.
April's gaze bore into Autumn's eyes, her understanding running deeper than words could convey. In that instant, they both knew that the threads of destiny and the cruelty of others had conspired to separate them for over a decade.
"Autumn," April began, her voice carrying the echoes of their past, "you can't carry the weight of this burden alone. I know that guilt is eating you alone," she said. Her slender fingers reached out and found Autumn's quivering shoulder, a touch that conveyed a bond stronger than any hardship. "It was my decision to ask you to run, to save you. I am the eldest, and it was my responsibility."
Autumn's tears welled up, her emotions cascading like a waterfall, the torrent of guilt and regret nearly overwhelming her. "But I left you behind," she confessed, her voice trembling with the painful truth. "I felt like I abandoned you to face that darkness alone. I should've stayed. I should've fought."
April's grip on her sister tightened, a silent testament to their unbreakable connection. "You didn't abandon me, Autumn," she asserted, her voice resonating with the wisdom etched into her soul by years of captivity. "I made that choice. It was me, not you." April was right. It was her choice to do that.
April pulled Autumn into a hug. "It wasn't a good decade, Rilley. Life was hell after you left. Every moment in our room was agony. It was painful. The side of your room was cold. The toys you touched, nobody moved. Your dresses were organized as they were. The pages of the books you read were clipped in the exact same spot" Autumn refused to move April's side of the bed. Even when her parents offered to clean up the room, Autumn would lash out at them. There were very few moments in her life when she was genuinely angry, and that was one of them.
"It was like time stilled in that room," Autumn had to tell April. "A lot of time had passed, and no one time had passed. Your memories burned us all, Rilley. Every day for the past decade."
April chuckled. It must've been hard for them to go on with their lives after she disappeared.
"Your favorite red dress was still on the hanger," Autumn would put that dress next to her and sleep on the nights she missed her.
"It must've been hard for you all, wasn't it?" April knew the answer but couldn't resist asking. She knew she was the apple of her parents' eyes. She knew their cousins and extended family didn't like April for her slow development.
"Life was never the same, Rilley," Autumn squeezed April tighter. "Mommy and Daddy didn't know if you were alive, but I hoped you were. I hoped that you forgot us. I wished that you had a head injury and forgot about us all, and in that way, you would be free of this pain."
"I am sorry, Atty," her chin wobbled. There was so much they lost. So much they never got to experience. Their 20th birthday they always talked about never happened.
April's eyes fluttered shut as she delved into the depths of her imagination. In that poignant moment, they sat side by side, their tear-stained faces mirroring a lifetime of sorrow. Each drop that fell was a testament to the years of separation, aching to release the pent-up anguish that had haunted their souls.
The weight of their shared history pressed down upon them like a heavy, unyielding burden, and as the tears flowed, it was as if the very fabric of their existence was unraveling. Time seemed to stretch infinitely, the pain of twelve long years washing over them in relentless waves, pulling them further into the abyss of heartache.
Her voice trembling with the agony of a dozen lost years, Autumn was the first to break the silence. As she pulled away, her eyes, glistening with unshed tears, met April's, a reflection of a sorrowful reunion that had been a lifetime in the making. Autumn was the first one to pull back.
"Were you raped?" she wanted to know. She had never asked this before.
April squirmed. She didn't want to let Autumn know. That would break her heart. So, she decided to lie. "NO."
Somewhere deep down, even Autumn knew it wasn't true. Liam wasn't human. He was a demon. But she decided not to probe April further. A comfortable silence passed.
"What next for us?" April looked lost, and so did Autumn.
"I don't know. We get on with our lives. We move on?" was more of a question.
"How did you find me?" April asked the question that had been nagging her for ages.
"My boss," she didn't want to take Zyler's name. It was painful for her. "He was the one that freed you."
April gazed at Autumn with confusion. "He and Liam had something going on, and he kidnapped you to get a reaction out of Liam."
"And how did you get me out of there?" April knew something was missing. She learned how powerful Liam was, and if this boss of Autumn's could get her out of Liam's clutches, she assumed he was equally, if not more, powerful than Liam.
"I got him arrested. I betrayed him," shame took over Autumn. April's brows creased.
"He was a criminal, April," Autumn wasn't okay with using the word criminal, but to ease her guilt, that was the best she could come up with.
"And this boss of yours. He let you walk away with that betrayal?" April knew Autumn was leaving something out of this equation.
"Yes," Autumn shrugged.
"Either he is obsessed with you or in love with you," she wasn't asking. She passed a statement.
"Neither. FBI helped me," Autumn got up as it was time to prepare dinner. But April could beneath the shrouded veil that Autumn had over herself. She was missing him.
"Right," April laughed. "I have to thank him for it."
Autumn rolled her eyes. "I don't think we will ever meet him."
"We will see," April teased Autumn.
If she knew one thing about dangerous men, it was that these sinister souls willingly surrendered themselves to the whims of fate, driven solely by a twisted obsession or a love mired in the depths of depravity. She knew who Liam was, but she wasn't sure what Autumn's boss was.
.......................
Two years ago, after April and Autumn escaped.
Zyler sat in the darkness. He refused to eat, drink, or acknowledge that he was alive. Autumn's disappearance left him broken beyond repair.
A knock on the cell interrupted Zyler's thoughts. "Who is it?" he growled.
"Zy," the head of the FBI, called Zyler. But Zyler didn't care.
"Open the door, Eric," he yelled at his subordinate.
"Sir," Eric tried to stop the director, but the man was having none of it.
"I said open the damned cell," seeing that Eric wasn't doing what he wanted, he grabbed the keys out of Eric's pockets and opened the cell himself. Turning the light on, the director looked at Zyler.
"Turn the lights off, Haupt," Zyler screamed, but the director didn't care.
Walking toward the man, he grabbed his keys and pulled the chains off Zyler's legs.
"Get out, Eric," he screamed for Eric to leave the room.
"Why are you here?" Zyler asked, not caring why he was there.
"Zy, I am getting you out of here," he tried pulling Zyler up, but Haupt was in surgery when this was all happening. Nobody told him what was happening with Zyler.
"Why? I have nothing out there," Zyler wanted to get out and run after his dahlia, but he didn't want to. He would hunt her down again if he were out there, but he didn't want that. He wanted to give her space, or maybe he didn't. He wasn't sure.
"I don't know what happened with you, Zy, but this is not my friend's son, I know," Haupt and Zyler's dad went way back in the past.
"Your Eric filed cases on me," Zyler mocked.
"And I am the one in power here. Varney deserved to die, and so did Eric's team. That idiot had no idea how corrupt that department was. He has no idea about many things." Haupt picked Zyler up and Zyler got up.
Eric barged in, watching everything unfold. "You cannot take him out. He killed my team," Eric's fists clenched his fists, and Zyler rolled his eyes.
"And you dare question me?" Haupt challenged Eric.
Eric's anger burst out, and the man charged, "It is because of people like you, men like that escape," before Eric could accuse further, Haupt grabbed a pen drive and threw it at Eric's face.
"Watch it," Haupt grabbed Zyler by his arm and walked out.
"I heard that someone attacked Liam. He was shot and in hospital. He had overestimated his capabilities. He had no security, and it was at your warehouse." Haupt gave Zyler a bottle of water, and Zyler grabbed it.
Zyler smirked. My baby girl learned well. He was so proud of her. "Liam refused to speak, but as the head of FBI, I will have to investigate," Haupt grabbed a cloth and handed it over to Zyler.
"I don't know what happened between you, too, but you both are broken," Haupt knew something was dragging these men down.
"You don't have to worry about me," Zyler threw the bottle into the trash can, and Haupt handed over his cell phone to Zyler.
"Take care, Zy," he bid farewell while he called Cole to bring him his vehicle.
.............
Present.......
Zyler came home after three days. His house didn't feel like home without her. He walked into the shower and washed the blood on his body. Coming out and not bothering to wipe his body, he walked to her side of the closet.
Grabbing her dress, he breathed in her scent. His moment was interrupted by a phone call.
"How are you, Cole?" He hung Autumn's dress onto the hanger and closed the closet door.
Cole had a healthy baby girl who was turning two years old the next month. She grabbed the phone from her father and began babbling nonsense, to which Zyler responded enthusiastically. Cole grabbed his phone after talking to Lily and Lily walking away with their baby girl.
"They are in Ireland. You know that and I don't know why you haven't gone for her," Cole knew where Autumn and April were. "She was under the impression that you couldn't go to Ireland," he had easily caught Carly, and Carly spilled the truth after Cole threatened her family. Zyler didn't harm Carly as he knew how important she was to his dahlia.
"And Liam?" Zyler grabbed his sweatpants and put them on.
"He found them too," Cole found out that information 10 minutes and he immediately called Zyler.
"I want our security to follow them closely. I don't know if Liam will try anything, but if he does, we must be prepared." Zyler knew Liam would be on it, and he was sure he would be looking for April the minute he was out of the surgery.
"I will keep you posted," Cole ended the call. Zyler couldn't sleep again. He wanted to bring her back, take her into his arms, but he knew she wouldn't like that. So, he decided to give her space.
As for Liam, he suspected Liam had already found April as well, but he wasn't sure why the man was out there hunting for April. Maybe he had gone soft; maybe he was repenting for his sins.
Only time will tell.