Chapter 4

My arms and legs begin to ache a little the more time that passes. Soon I can hear them coming up the stairs to where I am. I hold my breath as one seems to check the larger cabinets and then I hear his footsteps walk over to the toilet. I'm about to cry when a sound comes from my sister Elizabeth's room. The man and his companion move quickly into Liz's room and that's when the tears begin to fall from my eyes hard. I barely have the strength to hold myself up because I know what's going to happen next. No. No. No. No. I chant in my head as I begin to cry harder. I can hear Piper yelp out when the men find her, and I assume grab her. Her snarling permeates the walls and I can feel the raw emotions coming from her.

"Well, well. What do we have here, ay?" A scratchy voice says from the other room. "Looks like a good supper to me."

Bile rises in the back of my throat at his words. I do my best to keep it down. "Too bad we didn't find any people. I was hoping for a woman. Would have been nice to have a female companion, ha." The second man leers and what he just declared lets me know that there is no way Piper and I are both going to make it out of this.

If I give myself up and beg them to let her go, they will torture and do god knows what to me and then the odds that they'll let her go or myself are incredibly slim. I sink my teeth into the flesh of my lower lip as hard as I can stand while the men snicker in the other room as Piper growls and fights their hold on her.

A sickening crunch is all I hear before the sounds of her resistance are gone. Then the only noise is the men getting ready to leave the house. At that moment my feet choose to slip, and I scramble slightly to keep myself from sliding fully down the chute. I can hear one of the men tell his partner to hold on.

His footsteps grow louder as he enters the laundry room downstairs, his heavy-duty boots thudding against the tile floor. I hold my breath and close my eyes, waiting for the inevitable. I can hear the chute door at the bottom open and then close. The man's footsteps hesitate but eventually, he leaves the room.

"Fucking old houses, dude. Must have been a shift or something." The man that checked the room says.

His partner swiftly replies, "Let's get the fuck out of here. We still have a few stops to make." His voice has a slight southern accent and I recognize him as the one who had talked about Piper making a good dinner. I'll get you someday motherfucker. Just wait. But first, my family is my top priority.

Once I hear the front door, I slide down the laundry chute and climb out the other side into the laundry room by the dining room and front door. I begin to see spots before I forget that I was holding my breath still. I rush air into my lungs with shaky breath and close my eyes for a moment to let my vision recover. I sneak across the tile in the dining room to peek out the front window. My hand flies to my mouth in shock and I can't fight the audible sobs that rack through me as the men toss the lifeless body of my lifelong companion into their truck. They high five and then climb into the large military issued truck. As they pull out of my driveway, I am paralyzed on the cold dining room floor and only when I fall asleep from exhaustion do my tears secede.