Truth of Dark Pasts by Serena Wood (win 10 ebook reader TXT) 📕

“Relax, Kathy. It’s gonna be okay.” she wraps her arms around my neck and smiles at me encouragingly. On instinct, I move to hug her again, breathing in the sent of her that I’ve known my whole life; She’s always been my security blanket. I don’t know what I would do if I were in River’s shoes right now, when she had brought it up it sent a shiver down my spine. I couldn’t stand to see Shay in the state Ellie’s in now, I don’t know how River has stayed as strong as she has for so long.

“I love you.” I pull Shay closer and nuzzle her neck, it brings me comfort knowing she’s still here in my arms. She runs a hand through my hair and kisses my collarbone lightly before replying.

“I love you, too, Kathy.” I tighten my hold on her when she says that and for a few minutes we just stay like this. Until a phone erupts with noise and I’m forced to pull away. She kisses me on the cheek and smiles at me again before standing up.

“I’m gonna check on River real quick, you can get the phone right?” I nod in agreement and she walks back into the living room as I stand up. I walk rather sluggishly to my cell  phone, now resting on the counter. I pick it up and answer it rather reluctantly.

“Hello?” I grumble in a tone that’s anything but inviting to whoever is on the other end.

“Where’s River?” the voice that reaches my ears sends this cold chill of fear down my spine.

“How did you get this number?” it’s the first thing that comes out of me, but I stick with it nonetheless. She shouldn’t have our phone numbers, God, I hope she doesn’t know where we live too.

“I asked you a question first. You and your stupid little girlfriend are the only ones that would bother to come after them. Where. Is. She?” the growling tone that’s now in her voice makes her voice one of the only voices that has managed to scare me this badly. But still I’ll hold my ground, I’ll keep River safe to the best of my ability.

“She’s safe, she’s away from you.” Even through my fear I try to show strongness with a growl of my own.

“She was safe with me, I took care of them both for months without you in the way. I want to talk to her, she needs to come back home.”

“I’m not letting that happen, you’re never coming near her again.” adrenaline starts to pump through my veins, anger towards her giving me the strength to fight against her words. Shay comes back into the room, hovering near me nervously as she catches the last of my sentence.

“Who is that?” she asks as soon as Chloe demands to speak to River again and I watch her eyes shift from calm into a whirlwind of panic within seconds. I hear myself making some kind of reply into the phone as I rub her arm with my free hand.

After that, Chloe goes silent, thinking over the situation.

“Is your girlfriend there?” She asks after a moment and even through the phone I can tell she has sinister intentions. But I reply as calmly as I can, despite what she might say.

“Put me on speaker, I want to talk to both of you.” I dread what she plans on doing but I follow the order silently, allowing her to talk to the both of us.

“She wanted to talk to you to.” I mutter and on instinct Shay mutters some kind of greeting in response to Chloe’s request.

“Nice to hear your voice again, Milk Girl.” she manages to keep a calm tone as she utters the insulting nickname she often used on Shay when we were in school. But Shay’s way too distraught to even care about the name right now.

“What do you want?” She hisses in response.

“You both know what I want.” She’s quiet for a minute and I can tell she’s thinking over ways to make us bend to her will.

After a minute she must come up with a plan, because she starts to speak again. “You know, I’ve been inflicting wounds on this one for hours now but she’s yet to tell me where you took River.” her plan instantly starts to have an effect on us. Shay’s expression turns to one of worry and I try to come up with something to say to help ease the burn Chloe had inflicted on her.

“She doesn’t know, don’t hurt her anymore. She has nothing to do with us getting River out.” Chloe chuckles as soon as I say it, humming a second later as if she’s pondering my words.

“Well in that case…” with a quiet click her voice is gone and the phone flashes the words ‘call ended’. I stare down at it with worry, trying to decide whether or not I should call back. Shay reaches for the phone, grumbling something about letting her call back. But before either of us has a chance to do anything, the phone lights up again. This time it’s a FaceTime call. I hit the accept button as soon as it shows up and Shay scoots closer as Chloe comes into view.

She smiles this pure evil smile before speaking, “I just thought since she’s no use to me, you would like to see her. Maybe I can get some use out of you two then.” she gives us a chance to take in the words before the video blurs out of focus as she turns the camera. The room that they’re in is dimly lit but I can still see Ellie clearly, curled up on the floor. Chloe moves to sit beside her and the poor girl’s broken state comes into finer detail. Her nose is bleeding, along with her bottom lip, her right eye is swollen shut and a crushed and broken hand moves up to cover her other eye carefully as she adjusts to the light the phone gives off. Shay buries her face in my shoulder to prevent having to look at it and I pull her closer in a vain effort to comfort her.

“You’re sick, what do you want from us?” I find myself growling in response to Chloe’s actions. She turns the camera back to herself and smiles again.

“I’ll compromise with you. Get River and bring her back to me, in return I’ll give you your worthless little friend here.” She leans closer to Ellie and plays with her hair, in response she chokes back a whimper of fear. The sound breaks my heart but I can’t do what she asks of us, if we do then River will just suffer the same fate. I have to find a way to get Ellie out without risking River.

“No.” I growl back instantly and Shay looks up at me with this expression on her face that I can’t read. “You’re not in the position to compromise. You give us Ellie and we won’t go to the cops.” Somehow I manage to come up with something to threaten Chloe with and her eyes spark with fury at the statement.

“Go to the cops. By the time they do anything, she’ll be long dead. And you know that, don’t you?” she gives me this knowing look, like she somehow knows my history with the cops. She pulls a pocket knife from her back pocket and presses it to Ellie’s throat, making sure that we can see her draw blood. I expected her to cry out in pain but instead she utters this low whimper and I can practically hear her body giving up. The sound is a thousand times worse than I imagined a scream of pain would be to hear and instantly I look away from the phone; trying not to hear it.

Shay moves back to my shoulder as the sound leaves Ellie’s lips and she starts to sob into my shirt as Chloe speaks up again.

“If you’re not here with River by noon tomorrow, I will grow bored with keeping her alive and believe me; I won’t hesitate on killing her. It’s your choice. I’ll call back in an hour.” with that the screen goes black as the call is once again disconnected. I set it back on the counter and move to wrap Shay up in a tighter hug as her sobs start to increase in volume. As I do so, I notice River standing silently in the doorway, shaking like a leaf. Her body can’t even manage to produce tears anymore and it leaves her with this pained expression that I find hard to keep eye contact with.

“River… Don’t listen to what she said, we’ll figure out something.” My voice startles Shay out of her daze and she looks up to follow my gaze to River. She tries to voice something to comfort her as well but before she can say anything, River is walking out. She heads straight to the door, not bothering with shoes or a jacket. It’s not like she came here with either of those things anyway.

“River, where are you going?” Shay and I both follow her as she leaves and in a panic I move in front of her and slam the door back shut when she opens it.

“Where do you think? She said she would let Ellie go, I have to go back.” I block her as soon as she tries to move past me, a loud “No!” leaving me in a fit of panic. She doesn’t seem to affected by it though and tries to push by me again. I grab onto her shoulders to prevent her from leaving.

“I can’t let you leave. I couldn’t live with myself if I let you go back there. Please, River. You’re my best friend, I can’t lose you again because of Chloe.” her eyes soften at that and she takes in my words for a minute before stepping away from the door.

“Then what else am I supposed to do?” She moves to sit on the couch again, her head falling into her hands.

“I… I don’t know.” I mutter honestly, I hadn’t planned on her actually listening to me so I didn’t think that far ahead. I move to sit beside her in the center of the couch and a few minutes of silence passes.

“W-what if we just do what she said?” Shay suggests after a minute and River and I both turn to look at her oddly as she moves to sit in the empty spot on the couch beside me.

“The whole point of my protest was to convince River not to go back, babe.” I point out, just in case she missed it. She glares at me lightly and I go silent to let her explain herself.

“I know that, I never said she had to stay. Maybe we can just take her there and when Chloe gives us Ellie, River can just come with us. It can’t be too hard to over power here right? It’s three of us and one of her.” River brightens up at the idea but I have my doubts.

“She’s going to be expecting that, I’m pretty sure she knows very well she’s outnumbered.”

“She won’t see it coming though, if it’s me that initiates it though. She trusts me.” River’s eyes start to light up with hope and it’s a nice sight to see her bring back a small part of herself. But not even that can convince me, every part of me is just telling me this is a bad idea. Chloe clearly has the state of mind to kill right now if she doesn’t get River back and