h4Chapter 416: Trial/h4

Where was she?

Marianne paced the length of her room for what felt like the hundredth time, her mind racing in circles. She wanted to make the next move, to finally get answers, but she had nothing—no clue where Melody was or what had happened to her. The uncertainty gnawed at her, each passing second making her more restless.

Then, out of nowhere, her phone buzzed. The screen lit up with a call from an unknown number. Marianne froze, her brow furrowing. She never received calls from anyone outside her small, trusted circle. Her instinct bristled immediately. Who on earth could it be?

Hesitating only for a second, she swiped to answer, the frown still etched on her face. "Hello?" she said cautiously, her voice tight with suspicion.

But before she could say anything else, a piercing scream exploded through the speaker. The sound was so raw, so shrill, that she jerked the phone away from her ear with a startled gasp. The screaming didn’t stop right away, it went on and on, jagged and desperate, the kind of sound that made her heart m against her ribs.

Then, just as suddenly, the scream cut off. What followed was worse. Melody’s voice came through the line in broken, panicked fragments, high-pitched and trembling.

"Mama! Mama! SAVE ME! They’ve taken me! They’re—" her words tumbled over one another, almost incoherent. "They’re torturing me!"

Marianne stood frozen, her mind struggling to catch up with what she had just heard. Wasn’t Melody with Adam. Then why was she calling here like this? She felt her pulse pounding in her ears, but when she finally spoke, her voice came out calm, steady, even as her fingers clenched around the phone.

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"Melody," she said firmly, forcing the words out slowly, like speaking to a child in the middle of a nightmare. "Who? Who is torturing you? Where are you, Melody? Tell me. Tell Mama so Mama can save you."

For a moment, there was only the sound of uneven breathing on the other end, ragged and choked. Then Melody’s voice came again, but it was shaking so badly Marianne could barely make sense of it.

"Adam," she gasped. "Bring Adam to rescue me, Mama... tell him... tell him to let me go... I’ll leave him... he wants to kill me! Mama, Mama! I was wrong to fall for him! Tell him to let me go!"

Before Marianne could ask more or before she could even form her next question, the line suddenly went dead.

She stood there, staring at the phone screen, her hands clenched! What the hell was this about! How did Melody call in that state if she was on her ’holiday’?

Hurriedly, she called back. The phone rang twice before someone picked up.

"Hello?" A man’s voice, rough and unfamiliar, came through the line.

Marianne gripped the phone tighter. "I just had a call from this number," she said quickly, struggling to keep her voice even. "A girl, she was screaming. Where is she? What’s going on?"

There was a pause. A long one. She could hear faint movement in the background, like muffled voices or the scrape of a chair. Then the man spoke again in a guarded tone.

"No one called from here," he said tly. "You’ve got the wrong number."

Marianne’s stomach dropped. "What do you mean wrong number? She called me! She was terrified—crying for help. Are you telling me you didn’t hear her?"

Another pause. This time, the man’s voice came back lower, colder.

"Lady, I told you. No one called you. Don’t call here again."

And before she could say another word, the line went dead for the second time.

Marianne narrowed her eyes. She had to find out about this. How could someone reduce Melody to that level that she would scream so hysterically?

Hurriedly, she called back again, but this time the phone didn’t even connect. The call dropped before a single ring could go through.

She let out a long breath, frustration tightening in her chest.

No point. Whoever had let the call through the first time clearly wasn’t going to do it again. There would be no more answersing from that number.

Instead of wasting time calling, she copied the details and sent them to her brother with a single, curt instruction: "Find out everything about this number. Now."

Minutes crawled by, each one stretching her nerves thinner. Then his reply came through, and Marianne felt the ground shift beneath her feet.

The call hade from the grounds of an old mental asylum. One that had been shut down years ago. ording to the records, the ce was abandoned, locked up, left to decay.

She stared at the message, her pulse thudding dully in her ears. An asylum? What on earth was Melody doing calling from there?

Grabbing her coat, she spoke aloud to no one in particr, her voice sharp with decision.

"I’m going there. I want to see this ce for myself."

However, she had not checked the details of the address or even the name. It was only as she reached there that she felt her heart in her throat. How could it be this ce of all the ces in this world?

Slowly, Marianne walked out of the car and towards the abandoned building. Not for a moment did she feel scared or have to even look around to know where she was going. She had spent the first ten years of her life, here. In this ce. It was so long ago.. More than four decades. And yet... she remembered the ce like the back of her hand.

Inside the building, there were only crumbling walls and broken windows. This perplexed her even more. But as she walked deeper into the building, the ringing of a phone startled her. She followed the direction of the sound and came to a stop. There, lying in the middle of the room was an old style phone, connected to a wall... and some discarded cups. Somone had been here recently. And that someone were the people who kidnapped Melody. She knew it now. But why keep Melody here?

There was only one way to find out... Adam Collins

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