Always with You (WIth You Trilogy) (2 page)

Sunday, 23rd June 2013

When I woke up, Jason was still wrapped around me and
Craig was asleep in the chair opposite me. I could tell Jason was asleep by the steady rise and fall of his chest against my back.

I suspected he hadn’t slept much the night before so I tried to remain still and not wake him. A nurse came in and started bustling around the room, refilling the cupboards. I saw Craig jer
k awake and smiled over at him.

The throbbing in my head had turned into more of a dull headache and seemed much more bearable. Craig shook his head a few times to wake himself and stood up, making his way over to me. I raised my finger to my lips so that he would keep quiet and not wake Jason up. Craig grinned and looked like he was contemplating waking Jason up but I scowled at him and he let it go. He raised his eyebrow and made the sign for
‘thirsty’ against his neck and I nodded eagerly.

When Craig handed me the water, I carefully pushed myself up onto my elbow so that I could sip it without waking Jason.
God, I ache everywhere
, I cringed inwardly as awareness of my sore body returned to me.

When I’d finished my water,
I saw the evil gleam in my brother’s eye return as he circled round the bed and went to wake Jason with a knuckle between the ribs.

“Don’t even think
about it, Carter,” Jason mumbled his warning sleepily. I could feel his smile against the back of my neck.

“Morning,” I
beamed, rolling onto my back so that I could kiss him on the jaw.

“Morning, Jamie,” he smiled
back, kissing the tip of my nose.

“Can you help me up?” I asked him.

“You should stay in bed, Jelly,” Craig frowned, coming back to stand by my side.

“Craig, I need to pee,” I blushed.

“I’ll get you a bedpan,” Craig answered seriously.

“I’m not peeing in one of those things,” I cringed, already pushing myself up and swinging my legs off the side of the bed.

“Jelly,” Craig growled his warning but I ignored him because my bladder was about to explode.

“I swear to God, Craig, you either help me or I
will
pee on you,” I threatened.

Jason laughed and followed me off the bed and towards the adjoining bathrooms
with his arm around me. I spotted Ian still stood by the door but he had his back to me.
Did he sleep at all last night?

“You shouldn’t be on your own, Jelly,” Craig frowned, following us into the bathroom.

Jason kept his armed wrapped around me, supporting me on my admittedly unstable legs.

“You are
not
staying in the room while I pee, Craig,” I scowled.

“I’ll stay,” Jason nodded.

“You neither,” I warned him. “Get out both of you!” I snapped. I didn’t mean to be rude but I was less thank thirty seconds away from an embarrassing bladder leakage.

“It’s not up for discussion, Jamie,” Jason shook his head, ushering Craig out the door and locking it behind him.

He lifted up my hospital gown and helped guide me down onto the toilet seat, ignoring my angry glares. He grinned at me before turning the tap on full pressure and facing the corner with his hands over his ears.

I wasn’t in a position to argue. He couldn’t see or hear me and that was as good as it was going to get. I breathed a sigh of relief after I eased some of the pressure from my poor bladder.

“It’s cute, you know,” Jason chuckled, wrapping his arms gently around my waist as I washed my hands. “You’re too embarrassed to pee in front of me even after everything we’ve done.”

“Watching me pee is in no way sexy, Jason,” I chided. “If you see me pee, you’ll never look at me the same again.”

“You’ll never be anything other than beautiful to me, Jamie,” he reassured me, brushing his lips over my forehead as he pulled me into him. He breathed deeply and held his arms around me tightly as I breathed in his scent. “I’ve never been so scared in all my life,” he whispered, finally broaching the topic.

“Me neither,” I admitted, feeling the
nagging fear make a return, crawling its way up my throat.

We didn’t speak any more, we just held each other, the embrace soothing us both. I was having a hard time wrapping my head
around everything that had happened. I still didn’t really remember how I’d gotten to the hospital, nor understand the fact that I was miraculously still alive.

After an admittedly mediocre hospital breakfast, I was feeling much more
human. My brothers had returned and it looked like they’d spent the night in the hospital waiting room, although the bags under their eyes didn’t seem to bother the female nursing staff.

“The police will be here in a bit to talk to you, Jelly,” Ian said bluntly. No beating around the bush. “You need to tell them everything you can.”

I nodded glumly. I wasn’t to keen on rehashing it but it needed to be done. “I don’t remember how I got here,” I admitted.

“You were unconscious,” Ian grimaced. “Looks like you got hit in the back of the head with the butt of a gun.”

Flashbacks hit me in a wave and I vaguely recalled the sting of pain as one of my captors slammed something hard against my skull. A tremor of fear racked over me, remembering the cold, hard look in his eyes.

When the police arrived to take my statement, I resolved to push through and get it over and done with. They let my brothers stay, for which I was grateful. I needed familiar faces around me. I took a deep breath and prepared myself to go through the whole horrifying ordeal again.

The officers listened patiently whilst I told them all I remembered. They had question after question and I answered as best I could but there wasn’t much I could tell them. They wanted to know what the men looked like, if they’d used any names, but they’d had balaclavas on every time they removed my blindfold and they hadn’t used any names that I’d heard.

I’d described each man’s build, accent, eye colour, and skin colour as best I could, but that was all I could give them. I felt completely useless. I learned that the two men I’d last seen were both dead. After they knocked me out, they’d engaged the police in a firefight and it hadn’t gone in their favour. I shuddered at the idea that I’d been stuck in the middle of a shootout without even knowing about it.

I was immensely grateful that I’d not had to witness it. I didn’t think I could stomach watching somebody die, even if they were t
he monsters who’d kidnapped me.

The third man was unaccounted for. The police had
n’t seen hide nor hair of him and the idea that he was still out there somewhere made me nervous.

“You look tired, Jelly,” Ian said once the police had left.

“I’m okay,” I smiled weakly. “I just want to go home.”

“You can soon,” Craig nodded. “But it’s a long drive and you should sleep a bit first, get your strength back.”

“Long drive?” I asked in confusion. “Where are we?”

“Norwich,” Ian answered grimly.

I frowned. I had no idea we were so far from home.

“You all came all the way over here?” I asked sleepily. It had taken a lot of energy to go through the whole ordeal and I was feeling sleepy again.

“Of course we did,” Ian smiled, leaning over to kiss me on the forehead and pulling the blankets over me.

Karl came over and placed something soft next to
my head. I half-opened my sleep-filled eyes to see my stuffed elephant, Nelly. I smiled to myself because it was incredibly sweet of him to bring her to me. I may not have been a little girl any more but the small gesture brought me comfort and helped carry me back off into the land of nod.

Monday, June 24th 2013

The sight of my house had never been so welcoming. I yawned sleepily as I stepped out of the car and stretched out. I’d slept almost the entire drive back. I’d never slept so much in my life. I’d fallen asleep after the police had left and hadn’t woken up until this morning.

“You want some Coco Pops?” Ian asked once we were in the kitchen.

“It’s Monday,” I laughed. When I was a kid
, I was only ever allowed chocolate cereal on weekends. Although it was sweet of him to bend his strict rules on my behalf, it bothered me that Ian was acting like I was made of glass.

He shrugged awkwardly and I could see that he wasn’t sure what to do. Ian had an
inherent need to fix everything; if something stopped working, he’d take it apart piece by piece and figure out what had gone wrong so he could solve it and put it back together again.

I closed the space between us and wrapped my arms around him. He hesitated a second but returned my embrace.

“I’m okay, Ian,” I reassured him.

He breathed out
heavily but remained silent. Ian was never any good at expressing his emotions so I didn’t push him.

“I’m okay,” I repeated.

Knowing Ian like I did, I assumed he was blaming the whole thing on himself. No doubt he was convinced he should have been following the two of us whilst we’d been shopping.

“Want a cuppa then?” Ian offered, avoiding the issue as I
’d expected.

“Yes, please,” I nodded, shuffling away from him so that I could sit on Jason’s knee by the island.

“Still tired?” He asked me cautiously.

It was just after two in the afternoon and I was finally starting to feel awake so I shook my head, ignoring the slight twinge of my headache.

“I’m starving though,” I complained with a playful smile.

“What do you want to eat?” Jason smiled back. I suspected he was very glad I was hungry, it always made him happy when I ate.

“Anything,” I shrugged. “I could even eat Jake’s cooking and it would taste good,” I teased, grinning over at Jake.

“Impossible,” Craig beamed, trapping Jake in a headlock and messing up his hair, which was starting to get a little
shaggy.

Jake squirmed away and scowled at Craig but didn’t say anything snarky to me and I sighed, annoyed that they were all walking on eggshells around me.

“Want me to make you chickpea curry?” Ian offered. He knew it was one of my favourite meals.

“Yes, please,” I nodded enthusiastically.

I felt a million times better with some delicious food in my belly and let my brothers usher me into the lounge to what looked suspiciously like another family meeting.

Once we’d all filed into the room, Ian stared around at us all and spoke. “Jelly’s not to leave the house unless one of us goes with her,” he said firmly, his tone indicating that he was deadly serious and not to be messed with.

“Ian-” I started to protest. I was scared. I’d admit I was terrified but I wasn’t about to let that change anything. I didn’t fancy the idea of leaving the house on my own either, but what was I going to do? Never go out again without using one of my brothers as a bodyguard? No, thank you.

“Don’t you dare, Jelly,” Ian snarled, cutting me off. “You don’t get a say in this.”

I scowled at him fully prepared to say that he didn’t get to decide that for me but Jason squeezed my hand gently, imploring me not to argue with Ian. I bit back my retort for Jason’s sake.

“We
don’t know who did this or why and, until we know more, it’s not safe for you to be on your own like that,” Ian continued.

He’d hit the nail on the head. We didn’t know anything and that made
the whole thing ten times worse. I couldn’t understand why it had happened, or why it had happened to
me
.

I studied Ian’s face, observing the tension that lined it with a sudden curiosity. I wasn’t entirely sure but I thought there was something he was holding back.

“Ian, what is it?” I asked him, a hint of fear creeping up my throat once more as I clung to Jason’s hand.

“Nothing, Jelly,” he sighed. “
Just… Did you tell the police everything?”

“Of course,” I frowned. “Why would I lie?”

He shook his head and sat down on the futon in front of me. “They didn’t say anything in front of you?”

“No,” I shook my head, confused as to why he was asking.

“What you thinking, E?” Karl asked, exchanging a look with my eldest brother that made me nervous.

“I’ve got something going on at work,” Ian
grimaced, rubbing his temples. “The timing feels too much like a coincidence.”

“Shit,” Karl groaned,
cracking the knuckles on his hands by pressing his fists together. “You sure?”

“No,” Ian shook his head. “I need to check it out. I’m going in later.”

Karl nodded, seeming to understand much more than I did, and much more than the rest of my brothers as well judging by the looks on their faces.

“For now, you all need to keep your eyes open. At least until I know more,” Ian said, looking around at us. “If they found Jelly through me then you’re all at risk too.”

“What the hell do you work with?” Jason demanded, gaping at Ian like he was seeing him for the first time.

“Not important,” Ian shook his head dismissively. “What is important is that you all need to be on your guard.”

“Ian you’re scaring me a bit,” I admitted. I usually didn’t like admitting I was scared to my brothers but I’d had enough fear to last a lifetime over the past few days and I was done holding it in.

“You don’t need to be scared, Jelly,” he soothed, smiling reassuringly. “You just need to be aware of the situation. We know now that there’s a threat and we’ve got it under control. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Promise?” I whispered, fully aware that I sounded like I was six again and making him double-check that there wasn’t a fire-breathing dragon hidden under my bed.

“Promise,” he nodded.

I knew it was stupid, because I couldn’t expect anybody to protect me like that, but his promise made me feel a bit safer. Jason wrapped his arm around me a little tighter and I looked up into his handsome face, noting the worry highlighted in his cerulean eyes.

“I’m so glad we found you,” he whispered, pressing gentl
e kisses to the side of my head. None of my brothers protested, for which I was grateful.

“I’m glad you
found me too,” I replied earnestly but then I frowned as I thought about it. “How did you find me?” I asked, turning to Ian.

“We didn’t. T
he police did,” he shrugged.

“But how?” My frown deepened. “They took the battery out my phone and we changed vehicles. I can’t imagine how they found me.”

“Tracked your phone,” Ian said curtly, shrugging his shoulders.

“But the battery was out,” I frowned. “You can’t track it if it’s off. Can you?”

Ian shot me a “stop asking questions” glare and I automatically shrank back into Jason’s embrace but I wasn’t going to back down. I understood very little of what had happened to me, and Ian seemed to have more information than I did and it just didn’t seem fair.

“I want to know how, Ian,” I said firmly.

“There’s a separate, independent GPS tracker in your handset,” he sighed, giving me another look. This time it was the “I don’t want to hear any of your shit, Jelly” look.

Clearly, I was becoming immune to Ian’s fury-glares because I wasn’t about to let that slide.

“You mean you put a tracker in my phone?” I demanded.

Jason’s
arms tensed around me slightly and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was irritated too or if he was trying to stop me from flying off his lap and lashing out at Ian for tracking me like some sort of puppy he wanted to keep tabs on.

When Ian didn’t answer, I continued. “That’s so messed up, Ian!” I raged. “You have no right to invade my privacy like that.”

“Jamie,” Jason said gently in my ear. “Calm down, baby.”

“Calm down!?” I screeched, becoming irate because I didn’t think Jason would take Ian’s side in this.

“Yes, calm down,” he said more firmly. “I’m not saying it was right, Jamie,” he continued, cutting off the protests I was about to spew. “In fact, it’s a pretty despicable thing to do,” he shot Ian a glare. “But if he hadn’t done it then you might not be here right now.” Jason’s voice shook slightly with the last words and I reminded myself that I wasn’t the only one who’d been through hell and back the past few days.

“It’s not like I’d been tracking you, Jelly,” Ian
sighed softly. “You know you had my old phone. It was put in years ago, before you even got it.”

I frowned at him. Putting a GPS tracker in his own phone seemed like a strange thing to do, but Ian
didn’t lie and I figured he must have had his reasons.

“
Okay,” I mumbled, regretting my outburst because Jason was right; I might still have been with my captors if it hadn’t been for the tracker.

“The prank calls you were getting were some pretty advanced and extremely illegal technology. Every time you answered, a small piece of tracking software was planted on your phone until the software was complete. Same thing with the house phone only they bugged it.”

My eyes widened at this, I had no idea that such a thing was even possible. I immediately felt guilty for answering the calls but then mentally chastised myself because it was stupid to blame myself. The only people at fault were those behind my kidnapping.

“I’ll pick you up a new phone on my way home,” Ian continued, thankfully ignoring my childish complaints
and glossing over the phone bugging without placing blame. “One without a tracker,” he added his promise.

I smiled back appreciatively, grateful that he wasn’t being unreasonable and invading my privacy.

“No social media,” he warned. “Only give your number out to people you trust.” His instructions were to all of us and I hated that this was affecting everyone’s lives. I didn’t understand what Ian could be working with that could possibly make kidnapping me a possibility.

Ian turned to address Jason. “It would be helpful if you could stay off social media as well.”

I expected Jason to protest Ian’s bossiness but he just nodded and held me close to his chest.

“Alright,” Ian nodded, seemingly satisfied. “I best head off. I’ll be back tomorrow night. Keep me updated,” he nodded. “Jelly, come with me a sec.”

I climbed off Jason’s knee. He seemed reluctant to let me go but he did so after I pressed a warm kiss to his jaw. I understood his reluctance to let me go, and it was adorable, but unnecessary.

I followed Ian up to his room. I didn’t go in Ian’s room often because he didn’t like us messing with his stuff.
He was never the half-naked-women poster type. In fact, he never really had anything on his walls. He always kept his room neat and tidy with no clutter. He had a few family pictures around the room, and a few medals from various races and competitions but, other than that, his room was pretty bare.

He shut the door behind us and immediately pulled me into a hug. I was caught off guard but gratefully returned it.

“I’m so sorry, Jelly,” he said quietly.

I very rarely heard Ian talk without the confidence in his voice. It almost hurt to hear.

“It was never my intention that you get dragged into something like this. If I’d thought for one second that I’d put you at risk I never would have… I’d have done things differently.”

“It’s not your fault, Ian,” I reassured him. “I don’t blame you.” I felt like I’d said the same words to Ian quite a lot over the past month and hoped they weren’t losing their meaning. I couldn’t imagine the burden he must have been shouldering feeling a sense of responsibility for me and my brothers. He was only thirty. He should have been settling down with a nice girl and giving me a few nieces and nephews but instead, he was still spending all his time worrying about us.

“I couldn’t ask for a better big brother, Ian,” I smiled
, squeezing him affectionately.

He
smirked slightly and let me go from the hug, chucking me on the chin and turning to pack an over night bag.

I considered myself dismissed and left him to get ready for work.
Karl left shortly after to take a tired looking Elise home. That woman was made of strong stuff. She was eight months pregnant and still toughed out a six hour round trip just to make sure I was okay. I hadn’t heard her complain once and she’d even refrained from torturing Karl’s nipples in deference to the situation.

I felt restless just sitting still so I ventured into the kitchen to bake. Of course, this meant Jason followed me. He seemed unwilling to leave me alone for more than a few seconds. I’d been half expecting him to follow me into the bathroom, although I’d been relieved when he didn’t.
I liked him being near me, but not the reasons for his sudden need for constant proximity.