Chapter 362: TAKEN
"Are we the boys?" John directly asked without beating around the bush and Jude’s heart skipped another beat.
’John is too smart for his age,’ she commented in her mind.
"How can we possibly be the boys? Use your sense for once," Luca asked his brother and the latter glared at him.
"It was just a question," John defended himself.
Before the boys would start an argument, Jude immediately intervened to stop them.
"It wasn’t you boys, that was just a story that I used to tell my daughter," she said, hoping they wouldn’t start any sort of argument.
"That reminds me, Ms. Jude, you’ve never brought your daughter for us to see one day. You only said she was our age mate. What happened?" Luca asked, curious.
Jude sighed, not sure of where the topic was going to end up so she lied.
"She’s in school but she can come see you boys one day."
Luca nodded while John gave Jude a weird look. "I think we’ve walked too far away from the beach house. We need to go back before Mum starts looking for us," suggested and stopped walking.
It was at that moment that Jude also realized that they’d walked quite a distance.
’This is the perfect time to do it,’ she thought to herself.
"I didn’t think we would walk that far honestly," Luca said. Before another word could come out of his mouth again, a handkerchief covered his nose as he inhaled the content in the material.
"What are you doing? Let him go now!" John tried to help Luca escape from Jude’s grip and when he noticed he was too small and fragile to do anything else, he decided to run with his small legs.
"Mom! Dad!" He screamed with tears streaming down his face as she ran towards the beach house but they were far away from it.
He heard Jude’s footsteps from behind him, catching up to him and he tried to run faster but he was already getting tired of running.
"Mom!" One last scream and Jude caught him and placed the handkerchief on his nostrils for him to inhale the content.
**
"Where are the boys?" Ethan asked, wiping his wet hair with a towel with another wrapped tightly around his waist.
"Jude took them for a walk around the ocean. They’ve been gone for about 20 minutes now. Let’s follow them after you are dressed up," she said and he nodded.
Ethan got dressed and both he and Erika walked out of the house and started looking for the kids.
"Where did they go?" She mumbled under her breath. Opening her phone, she dialed Jude’s number but it didn’t go through.
"They must be on their way back," Ethan tried to reassure her before she started having a panic attack. "Let’s walk around for a little while more. We should see them on the way back," he added and Erika nodded.
They walked a little more until they noticed a slipper on the shore. Running towards it, Erika scanned the slipper and recognized it as John’s own. Looking around the ground, she saw some of his steps walking back home with another big foot following him and Erika concluded it would be Jude’s.
"Where did she take my kids?"
***
"I’m glad you made a good decision to save your daughter’s life," Adrian commented. "Don’t worry, your daughter is very much alive," he added when Jude glared at him for a second.
She was sitting in the back seat of the car while the boys slept, leaning their heads on her shoulders.
"Are you going to kill them?" She asked him.
Adrain stared at her from the rearview mirror and questioned. "Why do you want to know? You’ve done your part of the job so what I do to them shouldn’t be any of your concern."
Jude sighed but didn’t say anything anymore.
’I just hope they will find the slipper I left behind and come quickly,’ she thought to herself.
"So that’s Erika’s and Ethan’s child? The other one looks more like Erika and that one looks like Ethan," Felicia commented from the front seat. "I want to be the one to kill them both."
"W-what? You are going to kill them? But they never did anything to you," Jude held the boys protectively.
"You’d better mind your business, woman. Don’t forget that your daughter is still held hostage by us. If you dare provoke me, I will kill her in your presence once we get to our location," Felicia threatened and from the look in her eyes, she wasn’t joking at all.
"Let’s not get bloody now okay?" Said Adrain. "You will get your daughter back Jude but in return, you will have to promise not to tell the police about any of these."
Jude nodded her head, immediately agreeing with what he said.
Felicia and Adrain both shared a look and smirked.
The journey to their destination took a few hours before he stopped and parked the car in a bush.
"Take them inside and tie them to the chair," he ordered Jude and the woman reluctantly did as she was told.
Getting inside, she sighted her daughter who was also tied up to a chair and tears immediately brimmed in her eyes.
"Don’t you even think about it," Felicia warned Jude when she saw that the woman was about to go untie her daughter.
"But I’ve already played my part. I need to take my daughter and get out of this place, please." She pleaded.
Felicia smirked before saying, "I love how desperate you are but the one thing now that’s stopping me from giving you back your daughter is that you might run to the police immediately and report what we’ve done."
"W-what?" Jude stuttered. "But I did exactly as he said. I brought the kids and they are right here. Now it’s time for you to give me back my child."
"We are not doing that. At least not now, not until we have what we want from Erika and Ethan once they find out that their children are gone," Adrain said.
