Looking for Something

Chapter 18

I love you in a place

Where there's no space or time

I love you for my life

You' re a friend of mine

And when my life is over

Remember when we were together

We were alone

And I was singing this song to you

-Donny Hathaway; A Song For You

~~Sydney~~

Rose is apparently mad at me. She refuses to feed me anything, or give me anything to drink. I mean, she has only given me sips of water every now and then...and only a cap full, so I am very dehydrated and weak. The time that I got free was before I really lost my strength.

"Shut up Maurice! You don't know what you are saying!" I hear Rose yell this and then the basement door opens and she comes storming down the steps. "Sydney Pooh, how you feeling? I know your punishment has probably been hard on you, but it is for your own good." I don't even look at her. I just keep looking at the ground. "It is very rude not to look people in the eye." I don't say a word, I just keep looking at the floor. "Did you HEAR me?" She jerks my chin up and makes me look at her. I give her the most disgusting look I can muster.

"Let me GO!" I shake my chin free and she steps back, probably shocked that I am still willing to fight back after all the s**t she has put me through. My hatred for this girl grows everyday...right now I think we are on my one hundredth time killing her...in my mind that is.

"I don't understand! Why don't you love me?"

"Seriously? You have to ask?" She looks at me confused. This bitch... "You cannot make someone love you! At least not this way! Kidnapping me and trapping me in your f*****g basement starving me, abusing me, and hiding me just makes my hatred for you grow even more! I HATE YOU ROSE! This is not how you make someone love you and your desperate ass KNOWS that!" I see her eye twitch. I don't give a f**k. I feel myself start to breathe hard. That took too much energy. She starts screaming, just like literally screaming. Holding her ears, and screaming at the top of her lungs. What is wrong with her? She looks at me and her eye does that twitching s**t again. "What did you expect to happen? For me to realize it was you and then be happy that we could finally be together and want to run away with you? You knocked me out with a bat and dragged me away from life. But you know what Dominic is going to find me. My REAL love! And--"

She slaps me again! Again with this slapping s**t. "How could you SAY those things to me? Dominic will NEVER love you like I do. But fine, if that is who you want..." She walks up to the pole I am chained to and unlocks the chains. I feel her start to drag me towards the stairs. I can't even pull my arms free, honestly I am not really feeling like myself at the moment. I am sweating, my vision is blurring in and out. These stairs are murdering my back as she bumps me up them. I start to see a more lit room and Rose is standing over me. I cannot even attempt to stand. Rose leaves me on the floor, no telling where she is going or what she is doing.

I hear a few drawers open and her mumbling to herself. What is she looking for?

Then I find out. I feel my shirt lifted, and then I scream out as I feel a sharp pain on my back. A tear escapes as she whips me with the belt again. s**t, I scream again, this one louder than the first. I can feel the wind as she brings her hand back up to hit me again, but it never happens.

Instead, an ear shattering scream comes from behind me. I know it is Rose, but why? I cannot even turn to see why. The world is spinning and I wish it would stop. It is still blurry. Where am I? What is going on?

"LET GO OF MY HAIR b***h!" I hear Rose say this, and then I can tell, as her voice gets distant that she is now outside.

I can't even move anymore. I feel too weak. Knowing Rose is far away from me allows me to focus on trying to get up off the floor, but my body will not do what my mind is thinking.

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~~Dominic~~

"Alright, section one are you ready?" I hear officer Banks say this into his walkie talkie, and some raspy voice answers back. f**k this section s**t, they better break the house down, before I do! No telling what she is doing to her.

Since we knew it was Rose, earlier today, she came to the station and hung around, and then she said she needed to leave early again today. So, this time I followed her with Banks, and we found the dingy house we assume she is holding Syd in. s**t, I jumped out the car so fast and ran for the house, but two officers tackled me. I didn't even know they were following us. They wouldn't even let me go in and get her!

So now, basically more than half of the station is here and they have 'sections' set up on all four corners of the house. They have Andie and I under surveillance to keep us from 'doing anything stupid'. They need to f*****g make a move, NOW!

"Oooo, don't let me get my hands on that b***h. They are going to have to take me in for murder, Dee! WOO! I almost broke her neck the first time I met her, now she is just asking to get killed." She has been like this since yesterday when I told them what I had figured out. I am actually afraid for Rose if Andie gets to her first. "AH, WHAT THE f**k ARE YOU GUYS DOING? Go in the damn house and save her before it is too late!"

"We have to be sure that this is the right house. We need probable cause to enter." All of a sudden we hear a scream coming from the house.

"OKAY, GOOOO!"

"Not yet, we are not sure yet!" The scream comes again and it just makes me want to shoot every dumb ass police officer on the damn street. I ball my fists up and try to find another tree to punch. I look at Andie and I can already read the look on her face. 

"That's good enough for me." Andie takes off in the direction of the house.

"ANDIE!" Banks yells after her, but she does not stop.  Two cops start running towards to stop her, but they are too slow. Andie is at the house in a blink of an eye. She reaches the front door and kicks the door open. I hear another scream, and she enters. A fourth scream erupts now, but it is not the same voice. After about thirty seconds pass and you hear the same scream again.

"LET GO OF MY HAIR b***h!" Andie drags Rose out of the house and down the steps by her hair.

"NOPE! YOU f****d WITH THE WRONG ONE!" Andie looks at me and motions me towards the front door. I don't have to think twice. I take off for the house.

"DOMINIC! STOP!" I hear Banks yell this, but I don't f*****g listen. He has stood in the way of me saving Syd long enough and I have to keep my promise to her. When I enter the house I see a dark hallway leading to a lit room. I hear someone sniffling and whimpering. I make my way down the hallway, and when I enter the lit room, I see Syd on the floor. Her back is to me and the sight I see upsets me. No, upset is an understatement.

"Aaaahhhh!" I hear this come from behind me and when I turn around I see some big guy charging towards me. He knocks me down, but seems to stumble a little so that he can stay up. He is a big ass dude, but I don't care. Lets handle this now so I can take Sydney home! I pick myself up off the floor, not fazed by a damn thing. I pull my jacket off and throw it down. He charges for me and I put all my power behind my right fist and I punch him harder than I punched the tree. I see a few of his teeth and blood fall onto the floor. He falls to the ground, but he is not done. He gets up faster than I expect him too. Even though he stumbles a lot.

"Come on!" I egg him on. He seems to get mad and comes charging for me again. I time it perfectly, and I aim my head at his stomach. When he runs into me I use my head and both of my arms to lift him up and flip him over onto the table sitting in the kitchen. He starts moving his head like he is dizzy, and his hands seem to be trying to find solid ground. The table broke under his weight, making it floor level. I drop down on my knees and I punch him again and again in the head until he is knocked out.

I realize that I am crying when the tears hit his head and I wipe my nose. I crawl over to my baby. I pick her up and put her in my lap.

"Syd." To my surprise, her eyes open slowly and she squints to look at me. She works up a small smile for me, and that makes me cry even harder. Her eyes close again, but I feel her place her hand on my cheek. She wraps her arms around my neck, and I kiss her on the forehead. "It's okay baby, it is finally over." She passes out in my arms, but her arms stay locked around my neck. Footsteps start to come up behind me and pretty soon the place is swarmed with cops. I carry Syd out to the ambulance so they can check on her.

When I reach the ambulance, they instantly take her from me and put her on a stretcher. They hook different tubes up to her and then they slide her in. I climb in, with the nurse following behind. We sit down, they close the doors, and we take off. I watch her laying on the stretcher, and I start to cry silently...the picture of the scars on her back keep playing in my head...and there was nothing I could do. I feel the nurse rub my back lightly.

Nothing I could do.

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"Here Dee, I brought you some coffee." Andie hands me a Starbucks cup and I take it, but I keep pacing around in the waiting room. It feels like we have been waiting for days.

"Dominic, you need to sit down, rest a little." I don't listen. Rest? Resting is the last thing I can do. They can rest all they want.

I am in the waiting room with Chasity, Andie, China, Unc, Auntie Missy, Hope, Aaliyah, Nick, Dax, and Dax Jr. They all got in yesterday morning, and they stayed at the station when we went to go get Sydney. We have been here since I rode in the ambulance with Sydney. It is around three in the after noon and they are still working on her. It must be worse than I thought. Which just gets me even angrier.

"Uh Dominic, Andie." I look up and officer Banks is now standing there looking at us with a furious look. I can tell he is pissed at us, but I really don't think either one of us cares about how he feels. We did what we had to do to save her. He said he needed to be sure and we were sure enough. Wait any longer and she would have had even more marks on her back, and she could have died. "Please follow me."

"What is this about?" Unc stands up, but I just shake my head.

"Unc, I'll explain later. Just relax." I don't even look back to see his expression as Andie and I follow him out into the hallway. He rubs his head frustratingly and blows out a breath. I sit down preparing myself for this ear load. Andie just stands there and glares at him, daring him to go off on her. She is not in the mood.

"Do you two realize the extreme danger you put yourselves in?! You could have been KILLED!" We don't flinch, we don't budge, we just look at him waiting for him to continue. This is the type of s**t my mom would do, and I would listen because I am her son. I have only known this mane for four or five days. Nobody has time to deal with him.

"Maybe if you did your damn job, my best friend would not have those marks all over her back, and maybe we would have been in this hospital yesterday instead of today! Of course we know we could have been killed! Do I care though? Nope! Hell yea I knew that s**t because I would die for her little ass and he would too, ten times! You can't understand what we did because you are not close to her!"

"Yes, I know I am not close to her, but I know what it is like for a loved one to go missing. You cannot break protocol just because you feel like it!"

"Yes THE f**k I can. Who stopped me when I did? Huh, oh yea...no DAMN BODY! Don't come in here lecturing me like I am a little kid! I'm a grown ass woman and when I want something done, and nobody else is going to do it, I get it done my own damn self."

"What if they had guns Andie? You would be dead in the blink of an eye!"

"At least I died trying!" She leans back on the wall with a pissed off look on her face. I just listen to them argue. I don't have the time or the patience to deal with this.

Officer Banks just shakes his head. I think he finally sees that it is impossible to argue with her. She is stubborn and sticks to her point. I think she said she is going to law school when she graduates.

"What about you? You don't have anything to say?" I don't answer him, I just keep the same blank expression on my face and after a while I hear him give a sarcastic chuckle and he rubs his head in frustration again. He paces away from us then comes back over. "Well, you two are going to kill me. You know I have to charge you right?"

"For what? We did exactly what you guys would have done if you went in there!"

"Well, you were interfering, and that calls for me to charge you both...but I told them to drop the charges."

"Why?" I look up at him. He jumps a little from my voice. Honestly, I didn't recognize my voice either. It has gotten raspy from not using it for so long and I clear it up a bit.

"I've been in your place before. I know what it is like to have a loved one taken from me...and I honestly admire you guys courage. Something I wish I would have had at that time." He sits down beside me and lets out a breath. I would love to sit here and learn about some story from his past, but I really don't care.

"Well thanks man."

"Um, excuse me." We all look up and a nurse is standing there looking a little scared. What for, I do not know. "Which one of you is Dominic?" I raise my hand and a smile grows on her face. "Great, could you follow me?" I get up and she leads me to another more secluded area.

"Is this about Sydney? Is she okay? Something bad happen?"

"No, no everything is fine. Great even. So, we just got done cleaning her up, making sure she is stable for visitors, and getting all her bandages together and things."

"Okay, anything broken?"

"Well, she explained to the detective that was inside her room what was going on while we were cleaning her up and apparently at some point, she got pushed down some stairs, and that tore a ligament in the upper part of her arm, right on the shoulder blade. She will have to wear an arm cast for a while. We told her that and she immediately did not like that." The nurse laughs a little, obviously at something that Syd must have said. She must be doing alright if she has her sense of humor back.

"Anything else?" Her facial expression gets more serious as she looks at her clipboard again then back up at me.

"Sh-she, had scars on her back. Like she had been beaten or something. They were inflicted by a black leather belt. The size of the scars can make you see the type. They have been treated now, and bandaged up. No telling how long they are going to take to heal, and I am sorry but those are the type of scars that don't go away." If it is not one thing, it's another.

"Please say that is all."

"Other than a few stitches here and there, very mild wounds...that's it. All the serious stuff."

"Thank God!" She flips her paper over on her clipboard and smiles.

"Oh, one more thing..." Damn, but apparently it is good news since she is smiling like that.

"What?"

"I...think this is something she should tell you herself."

"Well, can I see her?"

"Um, yea...she requested that you go in first before the rest. So, follow me." She takes off back towards the waiting room where our families are still sitting and I try not to make eye contact as I make my way down another hall, and she leads me to Syd's room.

"You call this food?" I hear the nurse laugh inside the room. When I walk in, I see her frowning at the plate sitting in front of her. She then looks over at me and smiles! "You came!" She reaches out for me and I walk over and hug her. She kisses me two times before I walk and sit in the chair beside her bed.

"Why wouldn't I have come. I have not left this hospital since I brought you in." 

"Yea, I figured."

"How are you feeling?" I take in her appearance. Even under all the sleep deprivation, dehydration, and hunger she is still breathtaking.

"Weak, but I'm getting better...my arm hurts a little bit, but they have me so doped up it only feels like a pinch every now and then. They had like three nurses working on me at once. Was I really in that bad a condition when they brought me in?" I look at her, and she is just picking it the 'food' on her plate. I can tell this is hard for her to talk about.

"Um, yea...pretty bad, but like you said. You're getting better."

"I missed you. I think that was the worst part about this whole thing. I couldn't run to you, let alone run, at all and I wanted to. If I ever got free, the first place I would go was to you. I just hated it there so much. It was dark, and lonely...only company I had was Rose and she was the worst company you could ever have. The abuse was unbearable, and to know that I could not fight back was infuriating. What kind of human being does that to a person?" She starts crying and I think my heart cracks a little. I get up out of my chair and I sit down on the bed beside her and I hold her close to me.

"Syd, it's over now. Just relax. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." I hate to see her cry, and I stay strong for her. No telling how this will affect her mentally, but I'm here for her. I'm going to hold her up through whatever.

"What happened to your hand?" She picks my hand up and sees the bruises. I chuckle a little bit.

"I punched a tree." I feel her laugh a little. God how I missed that laugh.

"You're insane."

"Well, I couldn't stay sane. I didn't know where you were, what was being done to you, who had you, and I missed you. A lot. If I could have, I would have traveled to every house in f*****g Florida and blew everybody's brains out until I found you." I feel her laugh again.

"I wouldn't want you to do that. They would probably arrest you and then you would be away from me forever."

"That's why I didn't do it." She looks up at me and kisses me again. It's too good to be true...I found her. Just too good! "The nurse said you had to tell me something though." A smile grows on her face, just like it did on the nurse's face. "What?"

"Do you love me?"

"With all my heart."

"You'll stick with me through whatever?"

"I'd die for you, if it comes to that." Why is she asking me all this? Her smiles grows even bigger, and she reaches up to whisper in my ear.

"Mickie, I'm pregnant."