25. Chapter 25

NICOLE’S POVNicole had to pry herself from Waverly’s tight embrace the morning after the barbeque at their place. After everyone had left for the evening, Waverly and Nicole made sure that their 4-month-old sons were tucked in their cots, before they headed into their bedroom. Nicole made sure that she took good care of attending to Waverly’s heat and need, by making love to her wife to well into the late hours of the night.

As soon as Nicole entered the bull pen at the Police station, Nedley asks for her to come into his office.

“Nicole, how are you finding parenthood?” Nedley asks as he sits in his chair.

“It’s one of the greatest things that I have ever experienced, next to falling in love with Waverly. I just can’t get enough of watching the boys every day. Waverly is so great with them, it amazes me, how much they have grown during these last 4 months. And they both love Max, they seem to know that he is there to watch over them.” Nicole says as she looks at Nedley in his chair.

“I still remember the moment, when Chrissy’s mother told me that she was pregnant. When Chrissy was born, it was the most amazing experience of my life. She looked so small lying in my arms, and I knew she was going to be the most precious thing in my life.” Nedley says as he takes a sip out of the mug that Chrissy made for him, when she was younger.

“I know what you mean, even though the boys take after me in looks, they have their own personalities. Nicholas is always wanting to be on the go, whereas Alberto is wanting to be cuddled. The best part of my day is the moment when I walk into the house and hear Waverly singing to our boys and then hearing Nicholas and Alberto’s giggles because Max’s fur is tickling their legs or arms. I know that all is well and I can relax knowing that my family is sa…..ugh.” Nicole says as she starts to double over in pain.

Nicole right at that moment she can feel that Waverly is in pain and calling out to her, through her thoughts. Nicole tries to react out to Waverly by thinking, ‘Waves, tell me what is happening?’ The only thing that comes back to Nicole is a strong sense of pain and distress.

Nicole looks at Nedley with fear in her eyes, as she doesn’t receive any more thoughts from Waverly.

“Nicole, what’s wrong? Are you sick?” Nedley asks.

“It’s Waverly, she’s in trouble and hurt.” Nicole says, just then there is a knock at the door.

“Yes, come in.” Nedley calls out. Another officer appears in the doorway, looking nervous as they tap on the doorframe.

“We just got a call, saying that a Father and Son have gone missing while out hiking out near the Earp homestead. And Nicole is rostered to attend to call outs.” The officer says.

“I’m on it, Sir. Could you call Wynonna and ask her to check in on Waverly. I will try and call on the way.” A nervous Nicole says as she walks out of Nedley’s office.

“Nicole, I get right onto it. Take care.” Nedley says as he starts to pick up the phone and starts to dial Wynonna’s phone.

MEANWHILEWaverly’s POVWaverly, Wynonna, Alice, Nicholas and Alberto were travelling towards the city, as Waverly and Wynonna had planned to have a girl’s day out with their children. As Wynonna drove, Waverly kept an eye on the children in the back seat, as Alice was talking to her cousins, whom could only respond with coo’s.

“Waverly, there’s something that we need to talk about?” Wynonna nervously says to her sister. Wynonna keeps her eyes focused on the road ahead.

“What have you done, Wynonna? You’re pregnant.” Waverly says with a questioning tone in her voice.

“No, God No. It’s about Bobo, Dolls has told me that Bobo’s trail is coming up and they want you and Nicole to testify at the trail. I’ve been visiting Bobo in jail.” Wynonna says as she holds up a visitor jail pass for Waverly to see.

“You WHAT! Wynonna, look out.” Waverly yells at Wynonna.

As soon as the words are out of Waverly’s mouth, Wynonna tries to steer her truck around the obstacle that is on the road, but she is unable to prevent the truck from hitting the spikes that lay across the road. The truck’s tyres blow causing Wynonna to lose control of the truck, with the truck rolling several times. Waverly and Wynonna are thrown from the truck, while Alice, Nicholas and Alberto remain in their car seats.

Waverly finds herself being pulled away from the truck, leaving behind her a trail of blood as she has sustained injuries to her arms and legs. She screams out to the person whom is pulling her away from the wreckage.

“No, my babies are inside the truck. I can’t leave them. We need to get them out. WYNONNA!!” Waverly says as she points to the wreckage, before realising that the person was not listening to her pleas, so she screams out for Wynonna. Waverly is unsure if Wynonna is conscious and could hear her screams.

The last thing that Waverly saw as she was being dragged along the ground, was the teddy bear that Nedley had given their boys, laying on the ground. She knew that Nicholas and Alberto would start to become upset at the loss of their treasured item. The person who was dragging Waverly was rather tall and strong, as they were able to keep control of their hold of Waverly, especially as she was thrashing her body to free herself.

Waverly started to lose consciousness as she was being dragged along the rough ground. When she was awake and alert, Waverly could taste on her lips the metallic taste of her own blood, which was running down the side of her face. Waverly had hit her head on the dashboard of the truck and she also could see that her right leg was injured as well. She was not sure as to what extent, but she knew from the pain she was experiencing, it was not a good sign. Waverly hoped that the person, whom was dragging her away from Wynonna and the children, would take care of her and not cause her any more harm.

Several hours later was when Waverly got a good chance to look at her abductor was when he stopped at the door to his hut. The man was dressed in a full-length fur coat, made from the furs of wild animals. He wore long boots, which came halfway up his calves and were also made from the skin of wild animals. The first thing to catch Waverly’s sense of smell was the man’s poor body odour, as he reeked of rotting flesh. The smell was so overpowering that Waverly became violently sick, as she vomited on the man’s boots.

“That’s no way to treat your rescuer.” The man said as he opened the door to his cabin.

The man leant down and picked Waverly up and threw her over his shoulder and carried her inside his cabin. After closing the door, the man then started to jump in a pattern across the floor to the other side of the cabin. The man then placed Waverly down onto a crate so that he could tie her up to a meat hook which hung from the ceiling. Waverly looked around the cabin and noticed that the man, killed and skinned animals for a living and it looked as though he was going to treat her in the same way as the poor animals, who met their fate in the traps that he set. The man tied Waverly’s hands and placed her onto a meat hook, causing Waverly to groan in pain.

“You’re a lot smaller than the last one.” The man said as he sniffed Waverly.

“You’ve kidnapped people before?” Waverly says as she takes in her surroundings.

“If you look around, you might find parts of them, lying around.” The man says with a smirk on his face. Turning his head, his gaze caused Waverly to notice several human body parts located in different parts of the cabin.

Before Waverly could try to escape, the man struck her with the blunt end of a pistol to the side of her head. As Waverly’s limp body fell to the ground, the man walked over to his work bench to pick up a chain to tie up Waverly and hang her up from one of his meat hooks.

MEANWHILEWYNONNA’S POVWynonna starts to stir from having hit her head after she had been flung far away from the truck and passed out. Wynonna looks around and finds that she is lying face down on a hard-cold surface. As she becomes more conscious, she realises that the surface beneath her is rock, hard cold rock. Wynonna starts to push herself up with her arms, causing a shotting pain to travel up her left arm. Wynonna uses her right hand to feel her left shoulder and finds that her humus bone has come out of its socket.

“Mother-fucker.” Wynonna screams as she realises that she is on a rocky ledge of a cliff. As Wynonna looks up to see how high the top of the cliff was, she hears the cries from her daughter and nephews.

“Alice, Nicholas and Alberto, Mummy and Aunty Wynonna is here. I’m going to come and get you.” Wynonna knows that she must put her arm back into its socket, before she can even try to climb to the top of the cliff.

Wynonna reaches her left arm into a hole in the rock and braces herself for extreme pain as she pops her shoulder back in. “OOCH.”

Wynonna starts to climb her way towards the top of the cliff. Once she reached the top of the cliff, she raced over to the wreckage of her truck. As soon as she reached the truck, Wynonna crouched down onto her knees and pecked into the back of the truck and finds that Alice, Nicholas and Alberto are still strapped into their car seats.

“Hey, there baby Holiday, told you Mummy was coming back. How’s my baby boys?” Wynonna coos to the extremely upset toddler and babies, she reaches in and gently touches their faces. She assesses them for any sign of injury before she unstraps them from their car seats. As soon as she had all three babies out of the truck and moved as far away from the crash scene, fearing that the vehicle might catch alight.

Alice as soon as she was able to, clung onto Wynonna so tightly that Wynonna almost lost the ability to breathe. Once Wynonna was able to console Alice, she then picked up Nicholas and Alberto, planting kisses to the tops of their little red heads. Wynonna knew that she needed to try and find Waverly, but firstly she needed to try and reach Nicole and Doc.

Once Wynonna had utilised all the pieces of clothing from within the truck, to tie Nicholas onto her front and Alberto to her back, Wynonna picked up Alice and placed her onto her right hip, as her left shoulder was sore and causing her pain. Wynonna started to trek across country, in the direction of Purgatory. As Wynonna walked, she soon realised that Waverly’s boys had drifted off to sleep and Alice was resting her head on her shoulder but hold onto Wynonna’s torn shirt.

Wynonna trod through the trees towards the town, hoping that along the way, she maybe able to locate a home or farm and call for assistance.

MEANWHILENICOLE’S POVNicole races in her cruiser towards the homestead, she is frantic as she has not been able to raise Waverly on the phone. Nicole knew that Waverly and Wynonna were spending the day together, and the thoughts running through her mind started to take Nicole down a path, she didn’t want to go down.

Nicole was pulled out her thoughts as she saw on the side of the road, a man running towards her, waving his arms in the air. Nicole pulled the cruiser off to the side of the road and wound down her window, as the air was a bit chilly. The man raced over towards Nicole and dropped his hands onto his knees, while he took the time to catch his breath.

“Thanks, …. for stopping ….my son and I were out hiking, and we got lost and separated from each other. He’s still out there but I would have been still lost had it not been for the reflection from that old wreck over there.” The man points towards the cliff that is near Nicole’s cruiser.

“Show me the wreck.” Nicole says as she rushes to get out of the cruiser. She rushed after the man and see Wynonna’s truck lying on its roof and over the cliff. Just then Nicole notices the blood on the ground and that it is trailing off further away from the crash site. Nicole begins to feel sick in her stomach, as she takes in the whole scene. There is nowhere to be found any evidence of Wynonna, Waverly, Alice, Nicolas and Alberto anywhere within the area of the wreckage. Nicole rushes back to her cruiser and calls into the station the request for assistance. Nicole then also sends a text message on her phone to Doc, asking him to come to the location, as she knows that he is the best tracker in Purgatory and that he could find a dildo in a nunnery.

While Nicole waited for Doc and another police officer to arrive, she helped the lost hiker by supplying him with much needed water, as it was very hot that day and shelter within her cruiser. Finally, Doc and the other officer came and picked up the hiker and take them back into town. Nicole stood next to the wreckage, as Doc looked over the entire scene. Doc gave the wrecked truck a good once over and came to the conclusion that it was not an accident, but it was purposely caused by spikes being placed across the road, causing the trucks tires to blow.

Dolls arrived in his SUV and assisted Doc with assessing the tracks left on the ground. They found two sets, on set heading North and the other set heading towards the Pine Barrens Forrest. “Which one of our girls is carrying the three children with them, they are headed towards the Pine Barren’s. And the other has been dragged away towards the North.” Doc says as he crotches down and dips his finger and touched the dried pool of blood on the ground. Doc begins to sniff in both directions and says, “Wynonna is heading into the Pine Barren’s with the children. I can pick up her scent, but I can’t pick up Waverly’s.”

“Waverly, Nicolas and Alberto, they’ll be cold.” Replied Nicole as she held onto Waverly’s summer jacket and her son’s blankets. Nicole felt lost and looked to Doc and Dolls for direction as to which track, they should follow first. Nicole was afraid to admit that she to was unable to pick up her mate’s scent.

“We should track down Wynonna, who is carrying the children. They maybe hurt and needed urgent medical attention. When we find them, we will then begin to look for Waverly.” Doc said.

“But Doc Waverly was dragged away hurt and injured, she’ll need to be found just as quickly.” Nicole says.

“Nicole, do you trust Wynonna’s decisions to look out for Waverly and the children? Because we need to find those babies first, because I know that you and I wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves if something happened to them.” Doc replied as he looked directly at Nicole.

Looking down at Waverly’s summer jacket in her hands and her son’s blankets, she knew that Doc was right, so she nodded her head and they started to head off towards the Pine Barren’s. All the while Doc continued to sniff and pick up Wynonna’s scent, every now and again he would give an update on how far they were ahead of them.

MEANWHILEWYNONNA’S POVWynonna had sat down on a fallen log after she had walked for a fair distance. She had not realised as to how heavy three sleeping children could be to carry, while she trod through a forest. Wynonna was thankful that all three children had remained asleep as she rested her feet, under the shade of a Pine tree. As much as she tried to protect Waverly’s sons from the rays of the sun, because of their fine skin, Wynonna noticed that their little faces were now a shade of red. She hoped that now that they were walking under the trees, they would not get any further sunburn. Nicole would kill her if anything happened to them, so Wynonna decided to stick to walking under the shade of the trees, which would mean that it was going to take them longer to find any kind of civilisation.

After resting for a while, Wynonna started again to tread through the Pine trees. She had not been walking for long before she started to hear voices behind her. The voices were a distance away, but it was clear that they were heading towards her.

“Wynonna! Waverly!” Wynonna heard.

“Doc.” Wynonna called back as she knew in an instant the owner of that voice. “See Alice, I told you that Daddy would come and rescue us. And Nicolas and Alberto your Haught Mama is here to save the day.” Wynonna said feeling relieved to be found and not having to walk all the way into town.

“Wynonna, darling, your hurt. Here come and let me see how bad it is.” Doc says as he rushes over towards Wynonna and the children, who have started to waken from their nap. Doc looks Wynonna and the children over to make sure that their injuries are not life threatening, and once he has deemed them to be alright to move back towards the SUV’s and Nicole’s cruiser.

Nicole takes her sons into her arms and hugs them so tight that she thought that she might break them, but instead they squeal at being hugged by their Mum. Nicole plants butterfly kisses to the tops of their little red heads and nuzzles her face against their chubby cheeks. Even though it is late Summer, Nicole knows that her sons take after Waverly and don’t like being cold, so she wraps her Police jacket around them to provide them with warmth.

“Where’s Waverly?” Wynonna asks as she leans into Doc’s side, who is holding in his arms Alice.

“It looks as if she has been dragged off further into the woods and she is hurt. I picked up your scent and you were closer, so we came after you. Now that you and the children have been found, Dolls and I will start looking for Waverly, while you and Nicole head into the hospital, to have your head wound checked and to make sure that the children are all ok.” Doc says as he kisses Alice on the forehead and then passionately kisses Wynonna.

“But I’ve got to come with you. Waverly’s my wife and mate. I can’t not help you to look for her.” Nicole protested.

“Nicole, your sons need you right now. You can help look when they have been all checked out and deemed to be medically fine, but until then you are not helping and that is final. I need you to take Wynonna into the hospital.” Doc says with a sense of authority.

The small group start to head out of the Pine Barren’s just far enough so that Dolls could collect his SUV and drive to the small group. Nicole took the keys off Dolls and strapped her sons in the car seats in the back, while Doc placed Alice in her seat. Dolls had installed the car seats only a week prior, in case of emergencies such as this. Nicole checked for a fourth time that her sons were all tucked in and safe. Nicholas and Alberto had started to become grizzly and fussed in their seats. Nicole put this down to the fact that it has been over four hours since their last feed. After making sure that Doc and Doll’s mobiles were fully charged and that they would call if they find Waverly, Doc gave Alice a peck on the cheek before kissing Wynonna on the lips. Nicole and Wynonna headed off towards town and the hospital, while Nicole looked in the rear-view mirror, she saw Doc and Dolls heading off deeper into the Pine Barren’s.

As Nicole drove closer to town, she sent thoughts out to Waverly, hoping that she would answer and let her know that she was safe. But all Nicole got back was radio silence, which caused Nicole to become more tense as she gripped the steering wheel of the SUV, so much so that her knuckles turned white. Wynonna noticed and said, “Nicole, everything will be alright. Doc and Dolls will find Waverly.”

“It’s just that I should be out there looking for her. I should be ….” Nicole stopped as she felt the tears beginning to well up.

“I know, I feel the same.” Wynonna replied as she touched her best friends’ shoulder, as a way of showing empathy and understanding for Nicole’s feelings.

Nicole looked at Wynonna and gave a half smile. They soon pulled into the hospital carpark, as the two boys started to scream at the top of their lungs. Nicole assumed that it was that they were hungry and sensed the tense in the car. Nicole and Wynonna climbed out of the SUV and unbuckled the children from their seats. As Nicole rubbed her hand over Nicolas and Alberto’s hair, the boys started to cry even more louder, causing Nicole to become very concerned that they have sustained a head injury.

Once inside the hospital, it was not long before Nicole and her pups were taken to see a Doctor, who checked the little pups over and suggested that they have a scan of their skull. Nicole could go in with her pups, and after she was dressed in a lead apron, she held each of her son’s little hands while the X-Ray technician took the images. Nicole nervously waited for the results, she paced up and down in the little cubicle that they were assigned to. Nicholas and Alberto had been placed on a drip as the Doctor was concerned that they might be dehydrated. All Nicole could do was wait, wait for the Doctor, wait for a call from Doc and Dolls and wait for Waverly to be in her arms again.

Nicole was interrupted from her thoughts as the curtain to their cubicle was pulled back and the sound of a person clearing their throat. Nicole turned around and saw the Doctor, with the X-Ray images, which he placed onto the screen to show Nicole. The results showed that both Nicholas and Alberto had a small fracture to their skull, which required them to be kept in the hospital for observations. The Doctor explained that because their skulls are still developing, the fracture will heal and there will be no damage to their brains. Nicole felt her legs become like jelly, she reached out for a chair and sat down, before she fell. While the Doctor took the babies observations, Nicole stuck her head into her hands and began to sob. The Doctor knew that Nicole had come in with her sister-in-law, and he asked the nurse to find her and have her come and see to Nicole.

Later that night, after the nurses had shown Nicole how to change the boy’s clothes without moving their heads to much. Nicole stood next to the hospital window and looked out at the night, her thoughts were torn between focusing on her sleeping son’s in their hospital cots and worrying about Waverly. Nicole could no longer maintain the facade of keeping it together and being in control, it was at this moment that she placed her face into her hands and began to uncontrollably sob.

Wynonna had taken Alice to stay with Jeremy, so that she could keep Nicole company at the hospital. Wynonna came into the hospital room with take out food and two large cups of coffee in her hands. Nicole didn’t hear Wynonna enter the room and was startled when she turned around to find a takeaway cup of coffee being passed to her.

“Thank you, Wynonna. You really should be staying tonight with Alice and not here with me.” Nicole said as she tried to pull herself together. Nicole reached over and took the coffee off Wynonna.

“Listen here Haught pants, Alice is safe and asleep. I know that the food here is crap, so I got us some real food, none of that Vegan stuff, my baby sister forces you to eat.” Wynonna says before taking a bite from a greasy hamburger.

“Waverly doesn’t force me to do anything. I like what she cooks, thank you.” Nicole replies.

“What’s on your mind, Haughty.” Wynonna askes as she hands Nicole the food she had brought with her.

“I’m such a lousy mate and parent. I couldn’t keep Waverly safe when Willa took her in the truck, Waves spent months in the hospital because I let her down. I couldn’t keep my pups safe; they were kidnapped when they were only a day old. And I couldn’t keep Waverly and the boys safe today. I’ve let Waverly, (sniff), Nicolas …. (sniff) and Alberto down.” Nicole says just before she starts to sob and fall into Wynonna’s open arms.

Wynonna just held her best friend and let her cry on her shoulder. After a while Wynonna spoke up and said, “Nicole, you listen to me, you have not let anyone down. IF anything, you have given Waverly everything she has ever wanted, someone to love her unconditionally, a family and home. Everyone else in her life has either hurt her or left her, but you haven’t. Today’s events were not your fault, Doc said that it was staged to look like an accident. We will get our baby girl back and Haught Daddy, I expect more pups from you and Waverly.” Wynonna says as she wiggles her eyebrows at Nicole.

“Only if there are more cousins for them to play and grow up with, Wynonna.” Nicole says with a grin on her face.

“Alright, it’s a deal.” Wynonna says. The two friends settle down in the parent chairs in the room for the night. Nicole tries to get some sleep, but she can’t, as the sounds of the monitors continually remind her of her son’s injuries. Nicholas and Alberto wake a couple of times throughout the night to be feed and changed, which Nicole took full responsibility for doing, as Wynonna was still recovering from a dislocated shoulder and Nicole didn’t want anything else to happen to her sons.

MEANWHILEDOC’s POV

Doc and Dolls have been tracking the trail of Waverly’s blood, until it disappeared just inside the Pine Barren’s. Doc and Dolls being Alpha’s found that Waverly’s scent was rather faint, and they knew that it would only linger for a little while longer. It was becoming darker and Doc and Dolls knew that they needed to camp out in the woods overnight. Doc made a call to Wynonna to get an update on the children and Wynonna, so when he found out that the twins had a small fracture to their skull, he was glad that they had headed after them first. Now all he had to do was find Waverly safe and bring her home in one piece.

Doc had made a fire and Dolls had started to cook them some beans over the fire, as they didn’t think that they would be out so long, Dolls had thrown a couple of food items together, just in case. After their meal, the two men settled down around the fire for the night. They would start a fresh in the morning.

MEANWHILEWAVERLY’s POV

Waverly woke with a throbbing headache and her arms felt like they were being pulled out of their sockets. As she came to, Waverly took in her surroundings and found that her hands were dangling from a meat hook, which was attached to the ceiling of the log cabin. Waverly blinked a couple of times, trying to focus her sight, as it was slightly blurry, once her sight became clear, she was able to assess the situation, she was in. And the situation was SHIT.

Waverly started to call out, “HELP, I’M TRAPPED. HELP ME SOMEONE!”

Waverly heard a young male voice calling out to her, “Hold on, I’m coming to help.”

The door to the cabin flung open and a young man, who looked as thou he had been out hiking, stood in the doorway. As he walked into the cabin, a wire came out of nowhere and slit his throat. The young man fell down dead on the floor and Waverly screamed, as all she could do was watch the blood ooze out of the young man’s throat and onto the filthy wooden floor. Tears streamed down Waverly’s face as she cried not just for the young man, but also for being stuck in the cabin, away from Nicole and her boys. The thought of her boys laying in their car seats crying for her and she couldn’t do anything about it.

Just then the man who had kidnapped her came into the cabin. He jumped across the floor towards in a zig zag pattern. “You don’t think that I would leave you, without having the security of knowing that you will be here when I came back?” The man said.

“Now I think my pretty bird needs a pretty cage to rest in. This one looks about your size don’t you think.” The man said as he walked over to Waverly and lowered her down and pulled her towards a large metal cage, which rested upon some creates next to the far wall of the cabin. Waverly tried to wrestle with the man, but as she had lost some blood and had not eaten since the morning, she realised that she needed to save whatever strength she had left.

After placing Waverly inside the cage and locked the door, the man placed water into a cup and handed it to Waverly through the bars. Later he gave Waverly some bread and cooked meat to eat, which Waverly only ate the bread, because she was not sure if the meat was human or animal.

The man sat down on a chair and looked at Waverly and started to sniff the air, as if he could sense someone approaching the cabin. “Mmmmm, you’re in heat. Nice your mate, the survivor will come looking for you. You don’t have to worry; I’m not interested in breeding with you. I just want your mate to come, so then I can give her over to Bulshar.” The man said as he started to eat the meal that sat in front of him on the table.

“Who’s Bulshar? What do you mean the survivor? And what do they want with Nicole? You know that there will be people looking for me? If you let me go, I won’t tell them about you or this cabin.” Wavery tried to persuade her captor.

“But you see when Bulshar finds out that I have the mate of the survivor, He is going to let me live here in peace. All I know is that your mate survived a massacre here in the Ghost River Triangle over 20 years ago and He has been looking for her ever since.” The man replied.

Waverly sat on the base of the cage and looked at the man opposite her and wondered as to who and what this Bulshar was, and why they wanted Nicole. She was determined to find out as well try to escape her small cramped prison. She knew that it was going to take some time to work out a plan, but that was all she had time.