Chapter 343 Then Who

Chapter 343 Then Who
Rebecca woke up with a deep, heavy groan the next morning. For a few seconds after waking up, she did not move nor tried to open her eyes. Her head was hurting badly, and she could feel a dull pain around her temples. Her mind was also still foggy, and her body felt heavy and tired. Slowly, she stretched her right hand across the other side of the bed, the side where Derek normally slept, but her hand met only the softness of the bed and the coldness. The side that was supposed to be occupied by Derek was cold, almost as if no one had slept on it, and that immediately woke whatever sleep or dizziness she was still feeling.

As soon as she opened her eyes, the bright morning light coming through a large window across the room shone directly onto her face. She groaned again and quickly raised her hand to cover her eyes. Turning away from the window, she slowly opened her eyes, and the room she was in looked unfamiliar compared to hers and Derek's room. Forgetting her pain for a second, she sat up abruptly on the bed, but the sudden movement sent the entire room spinning wildly around her. Letting out a sharp gasp, she squeezed her eyes shut as a wave of intense dizziness washed over her.

She waited a moment, letting her heart slow down, before opening her eyes again. She leaned her back against the tall, cushioned headboard, and slowly, her vision settled as she looked around the room carefully, trying to understand where she was.

The bed she was sitting on was big, almost the size of a queen-sized bed, with clean sheets and a thick duvet covering it. There was a small wooden table a few feet away, with a chair beside it, and on the other side of the room was a large wooden door. The moment her brain registered the door, she quickly pushed the duvet away, placed her feet on the floor, and stood up. Her legs were still weak, and her head was still hurting, but she ignored it and hurried toward the door.

When she reached it, she grabbed the handle and pulled, but nothing happened, a clear indication that the door was locked from the outside, and that made her even more scared. With fear rushing through her, she pulled the handle again, this time harder, but it still did not open. She shook it several times, hoping it would somehow give way, but the door remained firmly locked.

"Hello?" she shouted, her voice shaking with fear as she brought her fist down against the heavy wood again. "Is anyone out there? Open the door. Please, let me out."

She pounded on the door repeatedly, the loud thumps echoing through the quiet space, but no one answered. At some point, she even pressed her ear flat against the cold surface of the wood, holding her breath to listen for any footsteps, any voices, or any signs of life outside. But there was nothing. The house on the other side of the door was dead silent.

She kept knocking, pounding, and screaming for someone to help her. It wasn't until after ten minutes of futile effort that she noticed her knuckles had turned bright red and her energy had completely run out. Her shoulders slumped as she dropped down against the door. She leaned her head against the door, and that was when the memory of the day before hit her.

She had left the house with Derek for Mr. Benjamin's wife's party, and on their way there, they had been ambushed. She remembered Derek instructing her not to leave the car before he had left the car to fight off the men, and she also vividly remembered the hit, the one that had weakened him and eventually knocked him out. She remembered the men, the ones who had drugged her before they brought her here, to wherever this place was.

The thought of Derek brought fresh tears to her eyes. She hoped he was okay. She couldn't imagine a world where he wasn't in it, fussing over her and their child. At the thought of their child, she placed a hand on her stomach.

"I'm going to protect you, baby. Mama is going to fight for you, and we will come out of this place alive," she whispered to their child.

That was a promise, one she vowed to keep. She wouldn't allow what happened the last time to happen again. She would fight for both her child and Derek. She would make sure this child saw its father. She would not allow the past mistakes to resurface again, not this time. She vowed silently.

Her thoughts went back to Derek. She hoped someone had found him. She hoped the location setting he had set up was able to help him. At the thought of the location setting, she immediately stood up from the ground where she was sitting and hurriedly walked back to the bed. Derek had set the same location tracking on her phone, so that meant if her phone was here, they would know where she was and rescue her.

She checked around the bed, under the duvet, and even searched the small table, but she could not find it.

And that was when another thing clicked in her brain. She looked down at herself for the very first time since waking up. She was not wearing the gown she had worn yesterday. Instead, someone had taken all of her original clothes off while she was completely unconscious, and they had dressed her in a long, soft, oversized white nightgown that reached all the way down to her ankles.

A sickening wave of disgust, shock, and pure horror washed over her whole body, making her skin crawl. The terrible realization that a stranger had undressed her body while she was passed out made her stomach turn in knots. She frantically searched under the heavy duvet, tore off the pillows, and checked the surface of the bed, but her phone was nowhere to be found.

Whoever had kidnapped her had either taken her phone then, or the person who had changed her clothes had taken it.

Fresh, bitter tears poured down her face as that horrible reality settled into her mind. Without her phone, the GPS tracking device was completely useless. The signal was also gone. How was Derek ever going to track her location now? How was Ryan or anyone else going to find her and rescue her from this place?

She sat on the bed, buried her face in her hands, and cried harder than before, feeling completely isolated, cut off from the entire world, and utterly trapped.

After about ten minutes of weeping into her hands, she slowly began to quiet down. She wiped her wet cheeks with the sleeve of the soft nightgown and took a deep, shaky breath, forcing her panicked mind to slow down and observe her surroundings properly.

Unlike the terrible experience of the last time she had been kidnapped and locked inside a cold, dark, filthy abandoned warehouse with concrete floors, this time around, she was sitting in a clean, quiet, and beautifully furnished bedroom. There were no chains, no dark corners, and no foul smells.

She stared at the warm morning light filling the room, at the soft queen-sized bed, at the clean clothes she was wearing, and at the gentle atmosphere of the entire place. That was when a quiet, horrifying realization suddenly hit her.

Whoever took her this time was not treating her like a beaten prisoner they wanted to torture. They were treating her with care, keeping her warm, clean, and comfortable.

Rebecca narrowed her tear-stained eyes as the truth clicked inside her head. It was not Michael who kidnapped her this time. This was not his style at all.

A cold shiver ran straight down her spine as she whispered into the empty room, "If it wasn't Michael... then who was it?"