Taken By the Stranger by Jenna Rose
Sophie
Nausea…
My stomach rolls, spasms.
Am I going to throw up?
I open my eyes, but the world is blurry. I roll over but am blocked by a wall of pillows.
“Phoenix...” My voice is weak, and my mouth barely wants to listen to me. “Phoenix?!”
“Easy, dear. Take it easy; you’re all right. You’re all right, just take it slow.”
That voice. That…that’s not Phoenix!
I start to panic and open my eyes again, blink to force the world into focus. I see two large windows and pale, off-white curtains. A large dresser.
This isn’t Phoenix’s room. This is my room.
“Slowly, dear. Slowly…”
And this isn’t Phoenix’s voice. It’s my mom’s voice!
“M-Mom!?” I gasp as I manage to get my elbows under me and sit up. “What…what am I doing here?”
“It’s all right, dear. You’re home. Take it easy, you were drugged. You’re going to feel nauseous for a little while.”
“D-drugged? What are you talking about?”
Another wave of nausea almost knocks me down. I cover my mouth as my mom hands me something.
“Put this under your tongue. It will help.”
It’s some kind of pill. Very small. I quickly take it and slide it under my tongue, where it begins to dissolve.
“We got the call two hours ago,” my mom says. “The man who kidnapped you saying your father was to meet him with three million dollars if he wanted to get you back.”
“Three…million?”
“We were worried for your safety, so we didn’t have the police with him this time,” she explains. “When your father got there, he found you passed out on a mattress and immediately took you home. Oh, thank God you’re all right, Sophie!”
My mom throws her arms around me and hugs me tight. Even if I wasn’t feeling sick, this sort of thing would be enough to trigger me. I push her away.
“Found me? Found me where?”
“The field behind the old landing strip,” she replies. “All by yourself too.”
“Ph—he wasn’t there?”
My mom shakes her head. “No sign of him.”
“And the three-million?”
“Your father kept it. We don’t know what happened. Maybe he got cold feet or was afraid the police would trace the bills or something. But none of that matters now, honey. What matters is you’re home and you’re safe!”
Safe…
Something cracks inside of me. My entire reality shifts. Instantly, I’m flooded with a cold adrenaline that can only come from one thing: pure, savage betrayal.
He did it. He really did it. Phoenix drugged me while I was sleeping and then he did the worst thing imaginable: he returned me straight back into the lion’s den. And why? He didn’t even take the money. It makes no sense. If he’d at least taken the money then I could have written him off as a simple greedy, cold-hearted bastard, but now I don’t even know what to make of him.
Did he simply get tired of me? Get all he wanted from me and then decide he was done with me? And on top of it all, he took a coward’s way out. He drugged me, and not just so I couldn’t see where he lived, but so he wouldn’t have to confront me and let me know what he was doing.
My heart shakes in my chest.
“Mom – I really might throw up this time…”
“Here, honey.” She quickly hands me a bucket that I puke directly into. I hate throwing up, but the worst part of it all is that I know it has nothing to do with whatever drugs Phoenix gave it, and everything to do with the actions he took that have me feeling utterly destroyed.
“Oh, dear,” my mom says softly, rubbing my back. “Let me get you some ginger ale to calm your stomach and tell your father you’ve woken up.”
She leaves the room, and I want to call after he to tell her to stop, to not get my dad, and to just leave me alone. But I don’t have the strength, and I’m too busy wiping the vomit from my lips to do so anyway.
Why? Why, Phoenix? Why did you return me to this hell?
He didn’t even take the money…
It just doesn’t make sense.
Why didn’t you take the money, Phoenix?
At least if he’d taken the three million then I could have simply hated him for being an evil, greedy little son of a bitch and ground my feelings up into a burning, molten ball deep inside my chest and held it there. But without that to hold on to, I’m lost, spinning in a desperate sea like a boat without an anchor. And without an address, a number, a way to reach him, I’ll never get an answer—
Wait. The Dungeon!
I scramble to my feet and fall out of bed as I go to my computer. I only have a few seconds before my parents get back, so I quickly open my browser and load up The Dungeon. I ignore the messages I’ve gotten in response to my post and go straight to my message with Phoenix and type.
What the fuck!? Are you kidding me? You drug and abandon me? What the hell is this? Are you trying to break my heart or were you playing me the whole time? I want to hate you, Phoenix, but I can’t believe you’re that big of a bastard. Write me back…please.
I almost delete the please,but I leave it in because I think it will give me the best chance of getting a response from him. I’m clicking the reply button when I hear my parents’ footsteps. Quickly, I lock my computer and hurl myself back into bed, triggering another wave of nausea as they enter.
“Oh, how’s my little girl doing?” my father asks.
I promptly barf into the bucket.
“Here, dear. Drink some of this. It will help.”
She hands me a glass of ginger ale that I don’t want to like, but do of course, and it actually does help my stomach and the disgusting taste in my mouth.
Dad puts a hand on my shoulder that I want to shrug away, but I’m just too beaten down and tired to resist, so I let him do it. We don’t have many of these father-daughter moments, and it feels forced. Neither one of us really knows how to react.
“Glad to have you home,” he says. “Your husband said he will be stopping by later.”
Pure panic hits me like a double-drop kick to the chest. “No!” I blurt out. “No, no, no. Ken cannot come here tonight.”
“Honey, he’s your husband,” my mom says. I close my eyes and take a breath. It sounds insane, but honestly, after the last few days, I’d completely forgotten I was a married woman. Forcefully married completely against my will, but married just the same.
“Tomorrow,” I reply. “He can come tomorrow, but not tonight when I’m still recovering from being drugged and kidnapped.”
“Honey—” she starts to say, but I cut her off with a vicious snap.
“Mom! I’m not discussing this. Tomorrow and that’s that.”
Both of my parents look at me like I’m a doppelganger that’s been sent to replace their daughter. It’s the most explosive and assertive I’ve ever been with them, and it feels good, but I also know that it’s Phoenix rubbing off on me, and that makes me ache inside.
Not surprisingly, my father removes his hand from my shoulder and whispers to my mother, “Let’s give her some time,” then turns to me. “You want some time, sweetie?”
“Yes, that would be nice, Dad,” I reply quickly. He wants to get out of here just as much as I want him out of here, and once I look at him and nod, he gives me a smile and stands.
“Okay. We’ll give you your space then and let Ken know that he can come and visit tomorrow.”
“Yes, thank you,” I say, trying not to sound too bratty.
Once they’re gone, I let the tears fall. All of this – everything that just happened – has me feeling more violated than anything that happened between Phoenix and me. I collapse back into the pillows and cry harder than I’ve ever cried before in my life, until I’m dry sobbing with nothing else coming out of my eyes, until my throat is sore and my muscles are cramped.
Then I fall asleep and dream of Phoenix…
* * *
The first thingI do when I wake up is check my computer to see if he’s replied to my message.
He hasn’t.
“Fucker,” I mutter under my breath as I twist my hair up into a ponytail, slide into some jeans, and go downstairs. If he thinks I’m going to go away this easy, he’s wrong. I’ve got until tonight before my “husband” shows up and I’m forced to deal with that. So in the meantime, I’m going to go full private investigator on Phoenix’s ass. And the first place I’m going to start is with my father.
I find him on the back patio with an apricot juice and a couple hard boiled eggs. Thankfully, my mother’s not with him.
“Hey, Sophie. Feeling better today?”
“Perfect.” My stomach is still not great, but I’d like to avoid another awkward moment between us, so I lie. “Hey, Dad, I’ve got a question.”
“So do I. Namely about this guy who kidnapped you. Did you ever see him? Get a look at his face? Where he was holding you? His voice? Anything that could help us or the police hunt him down? They’re coming over to the house this afternoon to ask you some questions.”
Oh, I got a look at him all right. I can’t stop myself from smiling, so I pretend I have an itch on my cheek and scratch it with a nail.
“No, he…he kept me in a dark room the whole time.”
“And he never spoke to you?”
“No,” I say, trying my best to sound traumatized. “I’m sorry.”
My dad sighs and drops a heavy hand against the table. “That’s all right, sweetie. What is it you wanted to ask me?”
How to phrase this without it coming out too suspicious…
“I know it’s a weird time to ask this, but…I was wondering if I could learn more about the family business sometime,” I say. “Maybe like…real estate?”
My dad sits back and looks at me with a mixture of surprise and pride. “Real estate, huh?”
“Yeah, I remember Mom mentioned a long time ago that you’d done some development somewhere around here once? Maybe you could take me down there and show me sometime?”
My dad chuckles. “Yeah, down by A Street. Place was a dump before the town and I got together and turned it around. How about sometime this week when you’re feeling a hundred percent?”
I smile.
Got him.
“Sounds great, Dad.” I think about leaning in to give him a daughterly kiss on the cheek, but that would be overselling it. So I just do as I normally do and awkwardly leave the room. I take a circuitous route through the house and out front to the cars, then hop in my BMW and pull out of the driveway, my heart absolutely pounding in my chest.
A Street. I know exactly where that is and the buildings he’s referring to. I also happen to know that just a few blocks down the street is a not-so-nice neighborhood, and if I’m lucky, it will be the one where Phoenix is living now.
I speed, knowing the cops won’t give me a ticket anyway, and probably won’t even pull me over knowing who I am, and before long, I’m passing the A Street neighborhood my father mentioned. I keep going and take a turn into the section of town where the people living in that neighborhood like to avoid. And when I slow down and look at the houses, for some reason, I get the feeling that I’m in the right place.
Now I’m looking for a house with an attached garage…
I drive and drive, circle the streets but start to realize that this may be a lost cause. There are just too many houses. What am I supposed to do? Get out and knock at every single one of them? If Phoenix sees me at his door, it’s not like he’s going to come and answer.
“Shit,” I sigh. I reach the end of a dead-end street and do a u-turn and am just about to head home when I see something that stops me, something that causes my eyes to go wide and my heart to hopscotch several beats.
Phoenix’s car parked on the street in front of a modest brown house with an attached garage.
“Got you.”
I park in front of it, get out, and stride up the lawn to the front door. I don’t even bother knocking. As far as I’m concerned, this house is as much mine as it is his at this point. The door is unlocked, and I push it open and walk right inside. The flood of emotion I feel when I find him standing in the kitchen with his shirt off is almost too much for me to handle. I literally almost collapse right then and there.
“You!” I cry out as the tears burst from my eyes. “Have you lost your fucking mind!?”
“Sophie?! What – how did you find me?”
“Yeah, crazy, right!?” I laugh like a mad woman, getting right up in his face. “Not so helpless after all, am I?”
“Is your father – are the police with you?”
“No, you big dummy! No one’s with me. It’s just me! The girl you love. The girl you gave back like an idiot! What is wrong with you, Phoenix!?”
“I – Sophie, I…”
“And you didn’t even take the money? Three million dollars? Why?!”
Phoenix hangs his head. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t sully what we had by doing that.”
A laugh forces its way out of my throat. “Couldn’t sully it!? Then why give me back at all!? Couldn’t be cruising around in your Lamborghini pulling blond bimbos and think about me back at my house with my terrible husband?”
“The money wasn’t for me, Sophie! It was for all those people whose lives your dad ruined!” he belts out. Then, quickly, his face changes. “Wait, you’re married!?”
I punch him straight in the chest where I think his heart is. It probably hurts my fist more than it hurts him, but I don’t care.
“Yeah, you feel that? That’s how I felt when I woke up in my bed feeling completely betrayed by you! Not so great, is it!?”
“Would you stop!” he bellows. “Our lives will never mesh, Sophie! Look where you come from. Look where I live! You’re going to give that up to be with me?”
“Yes, you big dumb idiot! Of course I would!”
Phoenix scoffs. “Not a chance. Maybe for a few days—”
“For the rest of my life!” I shout, throwing myself onto him. I wrap my legs around his waist in a death grip and throw my arms around his neck. “All the money, all the cars, all the million-thread-count sheets and diamonds and pearls and horses and yachts couldn’t keep me away from you, Phoenix…my daddy. My love.”
I stare into his eyes, those blue eyes that now show a hint of ice, and watch as they slowly warm and focus on me with a tenderness that wraps around me like a golden blanket. The tears continue to fall from my eyes and drip down onto his bare chest.
“You mean that, Sophie? You really mean that? Because if you wake up in a month and want out—”
“I won’t,” I say firmly. “Now, tell me you love me, Phoenix. And tell me you’ll never do something dumb like you did yesterday, and I’m yours forever. Forever and ever.”
I’m hanging on the edge, walking a tightrope with a thousand spiked blades beneath me. If the next thing out of his mouth is wrong, I’ll fall, and that will be the end of me.
He holds my gaze, freezing me with his eyes. Then slowly, the corners of his mouth twist up, and he smiles.
“I love you, Sophie. Forever and ever.”
I laugh. I cry. He crushes his lips against mine, and when I’m finally able, I respond. “I love you too, Daddy.”
