Abducted #1 By Gere Ochuko

Ethan, Desireé’s father couldn’t quite get over the fact that his wife was right in saying their little princess had died.

With each passing day, he never stopped believing that Serena wasn’t dead though at a point he had to accept reality but Luke won’t hear any of it. He insisted that Serena was alive; he knew it was insane, but that was the only thing he could rely on to live.

After nineteen years, Serena shows up out of the blues. It was hard to recognize her, but she proved it was her then she announced that she changed her name. Everyone thought it was the stigma, shame and fear at work here, but it wasn’t. She didn’t seem affected by anything despite the fact that she went through hell.

She always had a smug look, a huge grin on her face and maybe one of the reasons why Luke can’t get enough of her. Ethan smiled at his thought; he had teased Luke that he should get married to her before someone else. And now it’s nowhere near reality…

Ethan sighed.

*****

“Son you know I’m not in support of this” Mrs. Jefferson. Luke’s mom said for the umpteenth time

“Mom, she’s more of a daughter to you too”.

“I won’t sacrifice my child for a lost course. We both know she has lost it completely and as such cannot love”

“Those who can’t love are those who needs it most”.

“Romeo…. go ahead with the poetry”

Luke sighed. How could he get his mom to understand that no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t help but be in love with Desiree? He made a promise to love her till the end then she disappeared. It turned out she was abducted, but that didn’t stop him from living her dream… She’d always wanted to be a doctor when she was barely four years old after seeing her grandmother in so much pain but couldn’t help her even her doctors couldn’t help decrease the pain she was in. She then decided to become a doctor to help those in pains, to be a step closer to finding solutions to certain pain doctors or drugs could not reduce.

“I know you want to help her, but she doesn’t want it from you or anyone related to her,” His mother said interrupting his thoughts. After getting his attention, she continued “The other day I was talking to her she kept on laughing, in a tragic, insane way. She didn’t say a word, She’s not in her right mind Luke!”

“Who wouldn’t? Laughter is the best medicine for the soul.  and then she toiled alone to make something for herself. Doing all sort of things because she didn’t want anyone’s sympathy-”

“Stop defending her and face reality!” Mrs. Jefferson barked at him then walked out on him

“I made a promise to save lives, no matter whose life. Every life is important and now more than ever Serena needs my help, and I’ll go to the very extreme to get her life back and to make her happy again”. He heard his mom scoff and mutter words he didn’t understand.

Luke sat down on a nearby stool and ran his hand through his hair, took a deep breath and closed his eyes… he flashed back to his early child memories. He wished more than anything that Serena wasn’t abused sexually, addicted to hard drugs, tortured, used as a sex slave, wasn’t experimented on or that she didn’t….

“Hey…” Miles touched Luke’s shoulder. “I thought you were on call. Desiree is still blaming me for our mother and grandmother’s death and still on her lone wolf thing”

“You heard my last statement”

“I really don’t understand how you still do all these, with everything Desiree does… like, dude how do you do it? How do you get her? You are probably her most hated person right now. Annie filled me in on her first day at work scenario. Who doesn’t love flowers?”

“Your sister” Miles gasped in pretense

“My sister? I didn’t know I had one till seven years ago”

“We all thought she died Miles…. And that devastated your mom, she couldn’t bear it”

“So what now? Are you giving up?”

Luke smiled probably his first real smile that wasn’t forced all day, he had thought of giving up on Desiree but then that would make her right, that would increase her hate for everyone around her, so in order to prove….. Well, there wasn’t anything to prove besides being hopelessly in love with her and thus help her heal.

“Honestly, I haven’t thought about that” Luke started “Nothing was the same after she disappeared……nothing had meaning or significance. I tried living but couldn’t….I only found solace in my memory of her and that’s where the problem lies. After nineteen years, I found myself still been drawn to Serena…. Or rather Desiree as she calls herself now. I love her and I’ll be there for her like old times which she doesn’t remember but no matter how impossible it seems, I’m not going to give up. I’ll get through to her I’ve to…. I know I’ll get through to her…..I just have to…. she has literally disowned her family and changed her name who wouldn’t? After everything… she thought her family didn’t try hard enough to rescue her. But everyone who loved her did everything humanly possible to find her. Then she found her family but wouldn’t be with them, that’s insane. Why would you want your family to know you’re alive and not be with them?”

“To use distance to inflict pain on them.” Miles chipped in.

“For all our sakes let’s hope she doesn’t destroy herself in the process. And Luke get some sleep…you don’t want to be grumpy while attending to your patients now, would you?” 

“You should too and don’t stay all night on Skype,” Luke said standing up.

“Luke…”

“Yea?”

“I wish you were blood related”

“You are just imaging things, of course, we are related,” Luke told Miles and left.

Luke looked over his shoulders at Miles; he didn’t blame him for his last comment. His mother was pregnant with him when Desiree was abducted, she was devastated, depressed and weak, she couldn’t push while in premature labour she eventually died and it was a miracle he survived after being incubated for a long time.

Miles found out seven years ago that he has an elder sister who had been abducted. He was thrilled to meet her, but she had other plans. She wasn’t interested in family. They prefer believing that they didn’t understand her or her interest.

Miles had tried reaching out to her like everyone else, but she just won’t bulge. She’s like a basket that water is poured into… at every given opportunity she echoed her hate for them. How Miles killed his mom, her father not being good enough, couldn’t rescue her resulting in the death of her grandmother, but above all these she wished all those horrible things didn’t happen to her and that the person to blame wasn’t her Uncle and their trusted family maid, Holly.