by Celeste Raye
Isabo was expecting them to look at her with hate and to feel uncomfortable and awkward, but that wasn't the case. Or at least it wasn't entirely the case. She did feel uncomfortable and awkward, but it wasn't because they were giving her mean looks. It was because Fred was looking at her like some dim-witted man in love, and she didn't understand it at all. What had she missed?
The trial was set up in a large room, though there weren't many spectators. While most clans were pretty transparent about punishments and how they treated each other, it was not the case when it came to the consortium. They were far more worried about making it quick and getting it done. They had taken time to get all of their information together, so Isabo figured they thought they had a pretty good idea of what was going on.
She took a seat in front of four of the ancients and tried her best not to look at Fred. It was pretty hard, considering how he was looking back at her. She tried to ignore it, though, because it wasn’t going to do her any good. She was the one that had gone that far, and now she couldn't back out of it. Isabo had said too much, and she would be held accountable if she did not testify like she’d said she would.
“Can you tell us why you're here, Isabo?”
Isabo cleared her throat and tried to tell herself that she wasn't betraying anyone. Jake and all of them that had promised her that her cousins would be okay were the liars. That's why she was there now, to speak her truth.
“I'm here to testify to an incident involving the defendants.”
“It is the incident that you told me about, correct?”
Isabo agreed and waited for the real questioning to begin. She knew that this was just the beginning. She was going to have to say it in front of all of them, and since Isabo knew what it was going to do to them, it was hard for her to even imagine saying it.
“Why don't you tell the rest of us about the incident you came to me about.”
Isabo went into a quick description of how they had found Fred and how she was supposed to lure him back for revenge. How her cousins had taken her and then Fred. How she’d gotten released and then tried to save Fred by getting him switched out with Jake.
“There is a lot of wrong done between the clans. I'm not really interested in that. Tell them what you told me about what happened afterward.”
Isabo cleared her throat, and she took a quick look at Fred. He wasn't smiling like he was before, but he wasn't mad either. Isabo figured that he would have a hatred look on his face, like quite a few of the other people in the room did. Maybe she should have been a little more careful about how she explained everything.
“Well, they wanted me to help get their leader back because he was most likely being tortured. My cousins, as you can imagine, have a long-standing hatred towards the Rebel Bears for what they did to our clan over the years. The Bennigans used to be a proud family, and now we are reduced to what you see in front of you. I am the last one and the only one.”
“Go on, please, Isabo. We are all listening intently.”
“Well, I helped them, and they promised that they would spare my cousins’ lives. Jasper was shot in the neck with a tranquilizer and unconscious on the ground when Jake came out. Brick was not able to be tranquilized, so he ran back in. I imagined that he would be killed, and he was.”
There was silence for a moment, and Isabo needed a minute to get it all together. She was still feeling the pain of watching Jasper be murdered right in front of her. It wasn't like he could fight or do anything. He had been unconscious, and Jake had ended his life without another thought.
“Then Jake came out, and everybody was relieved to see him. He said something about how Jasper could not be left living and shot him in the head. My cousin was unconscious and on the ground. The Rebel Bears promised me that no harm would come to them if they were tranquilized. I did my part; I lured them out for them and went against my own family, and then they ended my bloodline.”
Isabo wasn't the first person to have to testify, but she was the one that nobody disagreed with. Everything she said had been true, and no embellishments had been added, so there was nothing to say. She had explained it perfectly.
“Was there anything else you wanted to add?”
Isabo turned to Fred and agreed that she did have something else to add. “If I would have known that the Rebel Bears would not hold to their word, I never would have helped them. I would never have gotten involved at all. Maybe I would have left the youngest one there. It would have saved my family from being wiped out completely.”
That got a little bit of a negative reaction, and Isabo wasn't too upset about it. The sense of betrayal was suffocating her now. Fred was no longer smiling; he was no longer doing much of anything. He was just staring at her now, like most of the people in the room were. She had just sat in a room full of Rebel Bears and said that she would have rather them die than her family.
She walked out and didn't look back. Isabo knew that she was probably never going to see Fred again, and there was a moment, a second, really, that she hesitated. Even now, she still wanted him. What was wrong with her?
Chapter Nineteen
Fred listened to it all. At first, he had been happy to see Isabo. Of course, he was. She was the one woman that made him rethink everything. Now, though, how could they ever get past it? She was going to be the reason his family was killed. He was the reason that hers was.
Something must have been wrong with him because even with all of that knowledge, he still cursed out loud and started out after her. She had to know that he didn't know that would happen. It wasn't his intention, and he was sorry for it. He wouldn't have promised something if he didn't think he could keep it. But how was he to know that Jake would act so quickly and grab the gun and shoot him?
Fred looked to Jake like he would somehow have an answer. Everything was so messed up that he didn't know what he was supposed to do next. All Fred knew for sure was that he didn't want to let her go. She was going to disappear again, and he would never find her. Fred didn’t want to go another day without her in his life.
Jake nudged him and told him to go.
“It's not going to happen today, brother. They still have way more evidence against us to show. Go after her.”
Fred wanted to say more, but they were in the middle of the proceedings, and they were already getting dirty looks for the few words that they had whispered between themselves. The ancient rapped the gavel and told them to shut up.
“If you can't keep yourselves together, then you're going to be asked to leave.”
He didn't say anything. Instead, he just stood up and walked out of the room as quickly as he could without running. Fred was desperate to find her and get back with her. He wanted to explain things, and somehow, he needed to get her to forgive him.
When he got outside, she was already gone, and immediately, his heart started beating faster in his chest. He knew that if he didn't catch up to her soon, she would be gone for good, and he wouldn't be able to keep up. He would lose her again.
Turning into his bear form, he immediately picked up her scent and followed it. She was already in her wolf and moving quickly away from him. If he wouldn't have left in the middle of the proceedings, he would never have found her.
The only benefit that he had at that point was that he was faster than her wolf. He also had a lot more endurance, or that's what he hoped anyway. She was moving fast, and he didn't even know where she was going. Where would she go now that she had no family and no clan?
The more Fred thought about it, the more he realized that he had really screwed up, and maybe it was just too much between them. How could he expect her to forgive him for everything? He had destroyed her whole life, took her virginity, went back on his word. How could she ever forgive him for that?
Fred tried to push those thoughts and feelings out of his head because it wasn't helping his mental space. All it did was make it feel even more hopeless, and he certainly didn't need that. Fred wanted to believe that
they were so good together, fated even, that it would work out. He had to keep that as the only option or he wouldn’t be able to get through it.
He got to a clearing and finally recognized where he was. He had been so worked up, trying to keep up the pace, that he hadn't even looked around at his surroundings. He had been moving so fast, everything had turned into a blur. Now that he had stopped for just a moment, he could see that he wasn't far from where it all went down. The basement that he had been taken to and tortured. The lawn where her cousin had been killed. It was the spot of so many things recently. It was hard to look at the house that had been so instrumental in his downfall.
What Fred couldn't figure out was why in the world she wanted to go there. Of all the places in all the world, why would she go to such a haunting spot? Was that the only place she had to live? It looked like it had been stolen from humans because he had found a semi rotted-body after they had killed Jasper that couldn't have been more than a couple of weeks old. They had been looking for clues and making sure that there weren't any more Bennigans alive to come after them.
When he got closer, he could see that she was, indeed, in the house. He could feel her there, and there were a couple of lights on that beamed out into the darkness around him. How badly did he want to go forward, knocking on the door and pulling her into his arms?
Was it even possible, or was he dreaming? She was never going to forgive him. Why was he chasing her?
Before he could make a decision one way or another, he heard the cock of a gun, and that pulled his attention towards the sound that was coming from the house that he was now turned away from.
“I don't know who the hell you are, but if you don't leave now, I'm going to shoot you first and find out who you are later.”
The hairs on the back of his neck went up, and it wasn't because he was afraid; it was just the sound of her voice. He didn’t know if she was going to shoot him or not. Once she knew it was him, Isabo very well might shoot him after all.
“Don't shoot, Isabo. It's me.”
“Fred?”
“Yeah, it's Fred.”
He finally was able to turn around, and their eyes met. She did not look as happy to see him as he felt to see her. That was to be expected, though. Fred knew that it was going to be an uphill battle, trying to convince her that they were meant to be together.
“What are you doing here?”
“I want to see you.”
“I bet you do after the testimony you heard. Are you here to take out the last Bennigan Fred? I have to tell you; I’m not going to make it easy on you.”
She put the gun back up like she was going to shoot him.
“I just wanted to see if you were okay. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“Excuse me if I don't believe you. You have made promises before that you weren't able to keep. Don't make any more to me, Fred. I won’t believe them.”
“You know that I didn't want that to happen. I couldn't stop it. Then you took off and didn’t give me a chance to say anything. What was I supposed to do when you left? I thought that we were somewhere else, Isabo, but then you were gone.”
“None of that matters, Fred. You didn’t stop Jake. I think you wanted Jasper to die just as badly as your brother did.”
While he wanted to immediately disagree, Jake had done exactly what he’d wanted to do.
“I can't say whether I did or not. Your cousin Jasper did quite a number on me, and it was hard to even think about letting it go. I would have because of you, but I can understand the need to want to do that. When someone hurts you, you want to hurt them back. Isn't that what you did today?”
She looked guilty for a moment and then looked away. “I was just taking care of my family and myself. People need to know what you guys did.”
“Do you think that my brother needs to die for it?”
“What they decide to do with him is their business.”
She was quite determined, and the laugh and smile and innocence of the girl that he had met at the bar not but a couple of months before was gone. He wanted her back so badly.
“I am sorry that your cousin was killed, both of them. I can't really say that I'm too distraught about it. If you knew what he had done to me, maybe you would not even ask me.”
“I'm not saying he was perfect. I am just saying that you guys made a promise to me. You made a promise to me.”
“Jake didn't know about the promise. I know that it would have been hard for him, but I’d like to believe that he would have held to it if only he would have known. It all happened so fast that no one had time to say anything to him. You saw it. You were there.”
Isabo shrugged like it didn't matter one way or another. It wasn't like it was going to be changed, and Fred knew that.
“There's nothing I can do about it now. They're all gone, so does it really matter?”
“I really am sorry, Isabo.”
“Is there anything else that you wanted, or was that it?”
She had gotten a weird sound to her voice, and from the looks of it, she didn't feel very good. He asked her if she was all right and she said she was fine. He did not believe her, though.
He started to move towards her, and she put the gun back up that had slipped lower in her hand. “Put the gun down, Isabo; you're not going to shoot me.”
“You don't know me, Fred.”
“I know you better than anybody else.”
She started to say something else, but something happened, and she had this weird look on her face just before she started swaying. Before he knew it, she was falling into his arms, and he was trying to figure out what had happened. He said her name several times, trying to bring her back with it, but she was just unmoving in his arms.
Fred started to worry that something bad was happening. He moved into the house and tried to fight off the ill feelings that came over him almost immediately from going in. The last place he wanted to be was in that house.
When he got her into the bedroom, he laid her down, and although she was breathing just fine, he still was worried about her. Shifters don’t just pass out.
Fred moved the hair from her face and tried to stop the clenching in his heart. He had to get back, but he couldn’t leave her. How could he walk away from her again?
Unsure what to do, he called Donovan and got the number for the witch that he knew. She was nearby, and he was hopeful that Evelyn would know what was wrong with her. All he had to do was get her there.
Chapter Twenty
Isabo was groggy when she woke up, like she had been drinking. Trying to sit up, it was dark, and her head was throbbing. Her eyes took a minute to adjust, and still, she had no idea where the heck she was. The last thing she remembered…
Her eyes flew around the room even though it hurt her head. She didn’t know what was going on, but she was looking for Fred. He’d done something to her. Isabo had been ready to shoot him. Where had he taken her? Was it her turn to die now?
A million thoughts were going through her head, and she tried to speak, but her throat was so dry that nothing came out. When she was finally able to croak, Fred came forward and gave her a drink of something. It was bitter in taste, but she drank it down anyway.
“Where am I?”
“I took you to see a friend. You passed out, and I was worried about you.”
She scoffed and tried to sit up. Isabo didn’t believe him. How was he supposed to worry about her when all of her problems had arisen from him and his family? Without the Rebel Bears, she would still have friends, family, a place to go.
“I want to leave.”
“You can, child, but we need to talk about why you passed out and what’s going on. You’re pregnant, and some mothers have more trouble than others. Since you’re already spotting so soon in the pregnancy, you’re going to have to take it easy.”
“A witch? You brought me to a witch?”
Isabo’s eyes flared, and she was trying to get back up. She wa
nted to get as far away from the ancient woman as she possibly could. A witch could do bad things and Isabo wanted to have nothing to do with one. She wanted to stay as far away from witches as possible.
“She was close. This is Celeste’s aunt. We need her help for the ancients anyway.”
Isabo wasn’t sure how to feel about it all. He made it seem like it all made sense, and maybe it did, but Isabo wanted to leave. Then, it hit her about the baby. Was she really pregnant?
“Are you sure I am pregnant, witch? I’ve only had sex once.”
“That is all it takes, child. Your blood and his are not very compatible. You’re going to have to stay in bed for this pregnancy, or I don’t think the baby will make it.”
Isabo didn’t even know there was a baby a moment ago, yet now she was supposed to make decisions like there was one. Was this another lie?
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I know. The tea you’re drinking should help with the contractions, but bed rest is the only thing that will keep you from losing the baby. If you want to keep it, you need to calm down and go home, to bed. You will need someone to take care of you…”
Isabo stopped her and got to a sitting position.
“I don’t have anyone. This guy’s clan, and your niece, killed all of my family. I have no one left.”
The witch pressed her lips together and then looked to Fred.
“He will stay with you and care for you.”
Fred agreed readily, but Isabo refused. “I will not stay with you, Fred.”
“You don’t have a choice. That’s my baby, and I won’t have you endangering it.”
