His mistaken Identity

Chapter 4

There was a saying Jane once heard. She couldn’t even remember where she had heard it, or its origin. But the words came to her as each hour passed.

‘The clock never stops running. Time will not wait for you. Grab every opportunity, make the most of your present time. For tomorrow is a mystery, but it still depends on today.’

Jane recited the words in her head over and over again like a mantra to keep her going. She needed to find an opportunity and take it. And by the looks of things, she had to find one soon, or create one before she ran out of time.

The men that held her captive were getting angrier by the hour. Every time the man she assumed was in charge made a phone call and got yet another report that Enock’s look alike had not returned to his house, the masked man cursed and threw something across the room.

Jane looked around the room. There were broken pieces of almost everything from a beer bottle to furniture littering the floor. Someone was in clear need of anger management classes, she mused.

The clearly pissed off masked man was quickly running out of things to throw, and Jane had a gut instinct that would not go well when he realized it. She looked out the only window in the room. It was already mid-afternoon; she could tell from the position of the sun outside.

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand, goosebumps broke out over her skin. If night fell and the supposed Enock was not back in his house, Jane was sure the men wouldn’t think twice about fulfilling their threat. A threat that centered on ending her son’s precious life.

Her son chose that very moment to squirm in her arms and open his eyes. A smile touched her lips even though her mind was running a mile a minute, trying to come up with a plan that would get both her and her son out of there safe and sound.

Tony, that was the name she had given her little boy. It had been the most fitting and it always brought a smile to her lips when she whispered it. “Tony, my priceless one.” And that was what he was, her son was priceless to her. She had made enough mistakes in her life, but where Tony was concerned she hoped to always make the right decision.

The very moment she realized she was pregnant, she had vowed to herself to be a better mother than her own mother ever was. The second she had held her boy in her arms, she had known she would do anything for him to keep him safe, healthy and happy.

So far, she had been doing fine, that was until they had gotten abducted. Jane almost wished she had never met Enock in her life. But no Enock meant no Tony, hence why she almost wished, but fought the thought with all her might. She would never regret having her son.

The best thing she could focus on was on finding a way to escape the men that were holding her and her son against their will. Then she would go in search of the man in the picture she had been shown. If indeed it was Enock, her dead boyfriend and father of her son, then the man will wish he had truly died in that car accident four months ago.

Jane startled when the head honcho kidnapper once again threw something across the room. Her eyes fell on the now broken glass beer bottle, another one. Tony had also been startled by the noise and began to cry.

“Shut that thing up!” the man bellowed.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell the animal that her son was not a ‘thing’ and he was to blame for upsetting the baby, but she held her words back and swallowed them. Confronting and upsetting the agitated man with a gun further would not do her any good. There was wisdom in picking your battles and all that.

So, she concentrated instead on her son. She tried to calm Tony, but he was having none of it. Jane suspected he was also picking on her anxiety. It was like trying to assure him everything was okay and they were not drowning when he could feel the cold water all around him. Tony may be just a baby, but he wasn’t stupid.

“I said, shut it up!”

Jane flinched and held her son tightly against her chest. Suddenly an idea occurred to her. Like a light bulb in a dark room and she jumped on it. “Let me take him into the bathroom.” The man looked ready to refuse and she continued quickly. “He needs to be cleaned up. He is cranky and dirty.”

Right on cue, Tony shrilled on top of his lungs. The ear piercing wail could have competed with a Banshee’s scream. Jane actually didn’t know what had upset him so much. She only hoped it was nothing serious. But she needed to get into the bathroom. She recalled seeing a window in there when she had been allowed to use the bathroom earlier.

She could only see the man’s eyes and lips but she could tell he was frowning and contemplating what she had said. Meanwhile, the room continued to fill with Tony’s crying. And he was really exercising his lungs.

As much as she was concerned with her child’s apparent discomfort, which he was making sure every person in the room heard, Jane almost smiled with relief when the head honcho told his friend to untie her legs and take her to the bathroom.

Tony dutifully continued to cry like he understood exactly what was going on and was determined to play his part.

Legs free, Jane quickly carried her son to the bathroom. To her disappointment, one of the men also followed her into the bathroom and closed the door when the head honcho bellowed again that he wanted silence.

Jane schooled her features and hoped her disappointment did not show on her face. She busied herself getting the water running in the tub as though she actually intended to give her son a bath.

If the masked man had the tiniest idea about baby care he would have known she was making a show for nothing. There was no bathing soap or towel in the bathroom. The room was cold and the water didn’t qualify to be called warm. No, there was absolutely nothing that could make bathing a one month old baby possible. And that was before she took into consideration the state of the tub hygiene wise.

Tony let out another heart bleeding shrill. It made her shudder and she rocked him in her arms as she continued to monitor the water. She actually began to worry something was very wrong with her son. Tony cried like every normal baby, but she had never seen him let it out like this.

Thankfully, the man finally couldn’t take it. Listening to a baby cry in a large room was very different to listening to that baby cry in a small bathroom. The noise was amplified and scraped against every nerve.

The man cursed, stood and exited the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Jane could hear him argue with the other two men in the room. She held her breath, wondering if one of the other two men would enter to keep an eye on her.

She rocked Tony in her arms gently as she waited. Her son still cried, and it was getting to the point she knew he would tire himself out and fall asleep soon. She just hoped she would have a solid plan before he did.

After a few minutes, Jane was sure none of the men were courageous enough to enter the bathroom with a crying baby. The only thing she heard was the key being turned in the door. She was locked in the bathroom with her son. That suited her just fine.

It was now or never. Jane maneuvered Tony in her arms until she could breastfeed him but still walk around. She walked over to the window and checked it. It was small but Jane wasn’t a large girl, so that was not a worry.

The window thankfully lacked any security metal bars like was usually found on most windows. She held Tony tight and tried to look out the window and gauge what exactly would be waiting for her if she managed to get out. The last thing she needed was a terrible surprise like one of the men catching her the moment she made it out.

They were on the ground level, so there was no threat of falling to their death. From what she could see, there wasn’t much happening outside. She could see no armed men walking outside or a wall fence. The most she saw was a welded wire grid fence.

She looked down at the boy. He had fallen asleep and was no longer feeding. She tacked her breast back into her bra one handed and set her son down on the floor for a minute as she gave the window a further thorough investigation.

Jane managed to lift her body up onto the window and looked out properly. She confirmed again that no one was there. The window was big enough for her to pass through. That wasn’t a shock considering how much weight she had lost in the last months.

Gently she lowered herself back on the tiled floor of the bathroom. She looked at her sleeping son then the window. That was the hard part, how was she going to get herself and her son through the window at the same time?