ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5)

by Glenna Sinclair

  That moment came when Carl decided he wanted to leave my mother at the hospital during her treatment to come back to the house to get a little treatment from me for himself. It was slimy of him to do it, but good for me — I wouldn’t have to worry about my mother hearing what I was prepared to do.

  “Touch yourself, Meagan.” It was his general command, the one that I’d grown distressingly accustomed to. And even as my twisted mind urged me to oblige him, I ignored it, springing forward and punching him directly in the face.

  “You can’t control us anymore,” I shouted, grateful that my mother was away from this, desperate to convince myself that I was doing the right thing.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” Carl gasped, blood spurting from his nose. I liked to see it. I liked the shade of red it was. I wanted to see more, so I lunged again, catching him on his ear as he flinched away.

  “I know exactly what I’m doing,” I said, even though I’d never been in a fistfight before in my life. I aimed a hard kick at his shin and was rewarded by him going down on one knee, howling in pain.

  “You won’t be able to come back from this,” he forced out between his gritted teeth.

  “Neither will you.” I kicked him squarely in the groin, reveling in the way it squished upon impact, at the way Carl’s breath whooshed out of his lungs. I had power like I hadn’t had in a long time. It was exhilarating and intoxicating.

  His mouth worked, and he tried to tell me something, but he was in too much pain for words. I decided to say them for him.

  “You’ll be gone by the time I get home with my mother,” I said. “I don’t care where you go, but you won’t be here anymore. You’re done here. She won’t love you after I tell her everything. You’ll be locked away where you can’t hurt anyone ever again.”

  I left him there, curled into a ball on the floor, taking the other car to go get my mother.

  My mistake was assuming that he’d listen, hoping that he’d heed my warning.

  Leaving him there still breathing.

  My mother was surprised to see me there at the hospital, a little concerned about Carl’s sudden errand that had taken him away from her side, and gutted from the procedure. I hated the toll the treatments took on her health, but every doctor we’d spoken to had told us that they were necessary to save her life — even if they robbed her of her comfort.

  I waited on her hand and foot as soon as we got home, fixing a broth I thought she’d be able to stomach, watching TV with her until she was too sick to remain on the couch and asked me to help her to her bed.

  “I wish Carl would get here,” she remarked weakly as I tucked her in.

  “I’m not sure that he’ll even be back tonight,” I said, trying to hide my glee. “He mentioned that his errand was something really important that only he could do.”

  And the only thing he could do for himself was to fuck right off and out of my family. Matt would be able to come home again, and we’d be able to support my mother until she was well again.

  “That’s all right,” my mother said, smiling gently. “At least I have you, right? You take such good care of me, Meagan.”

  She slipped into slumber — a good thing, considering how sick she was — and I immediately realized just how exhausted I was. I’d banished Carl from my life, saving myself and my mother. She was too sick to be told about just how much of a monster he was, but she’d figure it out, in time. I could let the police know tomorrow to be on the lookout for Carl, give them proof that he needed to be put away. I was sure I could turn up some of those awful videotapes, and as badly as it pained me to let anyone else see them, it would be worth it to add one more nail to Carl’s coffin.

  Sleep was a blessing, and it was mercifully free from the nightmares that usually plagued it. Perhaps my mind was finally giving me rest in recognition of the achievement I’d managed today.

  How wrong it was.

  I awoke the next morning with a strange feeling — the feeling that something was different, both better and worse. My stomach clenched as I remembered what had happened the night before. I’d resisted. I’d used physical force to deny Carl the thing he wanted the most. It was both empowering and terrifying. I’d finally stood up to my stepfather.

  But why was I so terrified?

  I slipped out of bed and cocked my head, listening — just a part of my complicated morning routine. I’d awoken before to Carl’s presence in my room, so I knew that his abuse wasn’t just limited to the waking hours, but I still preferred to remain undetected for as long as possible in the mornings, when I got up. Sometimes, I could glean whole hours to myself without Carl leering at me or making demands.

  The house was quiet — the kind of silence that roared in my ears. I tried to remember whether my mother had a treatment session this morning, but I couldn’t be sure. That would be ideal, even as sick as it made her. She’d want Carl at the hospital with her, and I could take a shower without feeling his eyes on me — whether they were actually there or not. The atmosphere was always lighter whenever Carl was off the premises. It was easier for me to breathe.

  I tiptoed through my bedroom, careful to avoid the areas of the flooring that creaked, and eased my door open. Listening for the telltale signs of someone in the house — the TV on, silverware rattling in the kitchen downstairs, breathing — I held my own breath and crept down the stairs. Would it be possible for me to eat breakfast in peace? My chances were looking better and better.

  Lifting the curtain in the front room, I let out a long sigh. Carl’s car was gone, which meant he’d taken my mother to a treatment session, or was sent out by her on an errand. It didn’t matter which it was. He wasn’t here, and I could relax.

  Maybe, just maybe, I’d driven him out by refusing to do what he’d wanted me to do last night.

  I practically traipsed into the kitchen to fix something for my breakfast, not caring how much noise I made with the ceramic dishes in the cabinets, when a stray piece of paper caught my eye. I set my bowl down on the table, reaching blindly for a spoon in the drawer, studying it.

  “I’ll come back for you,” it read, the lettering nearly making it unrecognizable. Who’d written this? Carl? My mother? What was it supposed to mean? My first thought was that my mother had gotten sick overnight and had been taken to the hospital. Maybe Carl was making sure she was comfortable before coming back to get me and take me to the hospital to be with her.

  I wondered if I should call Matt and let him know what was going on.

  But then I wasn’t so sure. I would’ve woken up if there had been some emergency overnight. I was a light sleeper — or at least I’d become one, under Carl’s reign of terror.

  I swallowed hard. “Mom?”

  “I’ll come back for you” was sounding more and more like a threat.

  I left the silverware drawer ajar and retraced my steps through the house. I’d been so sure that I was alone, but maybe that’s what I’d been made to feel — a false sense of security. I needed to double-check that I was by myself.

  And that’s how I found her, silent, still ensconced in the quilts and blankets I’d piled on the bed to help her get warm again when she got chilled. I might’ve tucked her in last night, but I wasn’t the last person to touch her.

  My mother looked, for all the world, like she was only sleeping deeply, finally able to rest after her long struggle against her illness, but I knew better. I knew to look for the rise and fall of her chest, the way her breath sometimes whistled through her nose, even the manner in which she sometimes struggled to breathe, coughing into the night.

  That dire cough would’ve been preferable to the silence that emanated from her right now.

  This was Carl’s work, and I knew it. My mother was dead because of what I’d done, because I’d decided to stand up to him instead of staying strong enough to endure what needed to be endured for her sake. My weakness was what had killed my mother. Carl had come back to do as he’d promised.

&nbs
p; I called the police, afraid to touch my mother, afraid to examine the damage I’d done. Then, I started looking for the evidence I’d need to show them Carl’s monstrosity. But as the sirens got louder and louder, approaching the house, I couldn’t find a single videotape that he’d taken of me. It was as if they never existed. As if it had never happened.

  “My mother was murdered,” I finally sobbed out when the emergency responders gathered around her in the bed.

  “Your mother was very sick,” one of them said. It was a small town. Everyone professed to know everyone else’s business, but why had my own personal horrors escaped attention?

  “She was sick, but she was murdered,” I told them. “My stepfather, Carl Prentice, did it.”

  The room was too silent for as many people who were in it.

  “She’s in shock,” someone muttered.

  “Your stepfather called us,” the first one said. “He apologized for running out when he found your mother had died in her sleep. He just couldn’t stand the thought of you knowing she was dead, about how torn up about it you’d be. He didn’t want you to find out like this, to panic like this, and it was a moment of weakness. He’s grieving. Taking it pretty hard.”

  “Why would he leave me this note?” I demanded, shoving the slip of paper at him, the only evidence I had of Carl’s sins.

  The cop examined it briefly before handing it back. “Your stepfather said that he’d be back for you,” he said. “After the funeral. He wants to mourn in private. Says he can’t handle it. But he’ll be back for you because he doesn't want you to be alone. He said he’ll always be in your life, no matter what.”

  He didn't understand how sinister those words were, coming from Carl. He couldn’t. But my despair was total. In spite of standing up to him and thinking I could save myself and my family from Carl, I destroyed everything.

  Carl was a monster. There could be no question about that. But I was every bit as big as a monster as he was. And no one would ever believe me.

  Chapter 16

  I took a deep breath, and looked Levi in the eyes for what seemed like the first time in hours. The passage of time felt abstract against the magnitude of what I’d just told him, what I’d just admitted. I don’t know what I thought would happen once I told this truth to someone, to Levi. I guess I expected my world to fall to pieces around me. For the ground to open up beneath my feet and swallow me whole.

  For me to feel better about everything, magically, somehow.

  But nothing happened. The clocks went on ticking, my heart kept on beating, and Levi sat in front of me, not moving from the spot he’d been in when I’d long ago gotten up to pace through the steps of my long and terrible history.

  Everything was exactly the same, except now he knew everything. Every little ugliness inside of me. Every secret I’d tried so hard to hold inside of me, to keep away from prying eyes. Away from everything and everyone.

  I felt naked — more than naked. My truth was exposed, and now it was in Levi’s court. He was the one who needed to react, now.

  “Say something,” I whispered, unable to wait any longer.

  He didn’t, and my heart sunk. But then, slowly, he spread his arms apart, opened them to me, and I practically fell into them, relieved he hadn’t pushed me away instead. Certain that if he could love me through this, we’d never stop loving each other.

  “You are so brave,” he murmured against my hair. Just the smell of his cologne, the feel of his chest against my forehead was a comfort.

  “I don’t think I’m brave.” That was the truth. I didn’t. If I’d been brave, I would’ve saved my mother. I would’ve saved myself from ever going through any of what had happened, if I had been brave.

  Everything would’ve been different if I’d been brave.

  “You are brave,” Levi corrected. “You’re a survivor, Meagan. You got through this. And you continue to move forward. If you weren’t brave, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “The only reason I’m here is because of you,” I told him, my face still pressed against his torso. “I was stuck in that horrible house, where it happened. I couldn’t move forward. I was waiting on my brother to save me, and when he couldn’t, it was you.”

  “You wanted to move forward,” he said. “I know that you did. If you hadn’t wanted it, you wouldn’t have come to New York City.”

  “I wanted to leave everything behind, and I haven’t.”

  “Why is he following you?”

  I let out a long breath, sitting up straight, immediately bereft of Levi’s warmth. “He said he would come back for me. He left a note, in the house, and I found it right before I found her body. I don’t know. I thought he’d gotten everything that he could get from me. What else could he want?”

  “You’re still alive.”

  Levi’s words chilled me to the bone, but I shrugged all the same. “He’s already taken the most precious thing from me. My life isn’t the most important thing I could lose.”

  “That’s not true. I don’t want to lose you,” he said. “Your life is very important. And he knows that.”

  I was hearing Levi’s words, but it was still hard to believe him. I didn’t feel very important. I was damaged and broken, the target of twisted torture and abuse. To me, my life wasn’t that important anymore. My innocence had been taken from me. The parts that made me the person I was had been warped and wiped away. I had reached a point of compliance with Carl — compliance, that is, until the point I hadn’t been compliant. The point when I’d assured my mother’s death.

  “I don’t understand one thing,” I said, then laughed weakly. “Well, I don’t understand a lot of things.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “You said that your police contacts think there’s a good chance that whoever’s behind the threat — my stepfather — likely is the person who killed my brother.”

  “They have said that, yes.” Levi’s blue eyes were soulful, sorry.

  “That’s what I don’t understand,” I said. “Carl never had anything against Matt, to my knowledge. Why would he want to kill him? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I don’t think that anything Carl’s done has made sense,” Levi said. “He’s obviously unbalanced — criminally insane. Don’t think too hard about it.”

  But that was impossible. Of course I wanted to think hard about it. It consumed my entire mind, the thought that Carl was out there, stalking, on the prowl. The realization that he knew just where I was, who I was with, and could come for me at any moment. It wasn’t something I could just shake off. Levi had to understand that.

  “I wanted this to be over so badly,” I said. “I wanted to move on with my life instead of being stuck thinking about it over and over again. I wanted to be normal.”

  “You will be,” he vowed. “We’ll make it through this, Meagan.”

  I shook my head. “No. I can’t ask you to do this with me. I won’t.” I’d told him everything — every last, gory detail — to drive him away from me. To save him. I wouldn’t drag him along this journey with me. I didn’t even want to go on it, but it was looking like I wasn’t going to have any sort of choice in the matter.

  “There’s nothing you could do or say to convince me not to see this thing through to the end with you,” Levi said. “I’m sorry. But I refuse to let you do this alone. You did it alone for so long. There’s no reason for you to be alone, now.”

  “Levi, you’ve already done so much for me … too much.”

  “Stop.” His voice was gentle, but irresistible. I lapsed into silence, part of me shamefully eager to allow Levi to take the wheel on this one. I had been alone for a very long time. Part of me — the portion of my soul that was so damaged that it assumed I needed to be ashamed of the torture I endured — squirmed away from this attention, telling me that this was my experience that I had to deal with. But the rest of me knew that I needed this. I needed this support, and if Levi was offering it, then there wasn’t a singl
e reason why I should deny myself.

  “I don’t know what to do anymore,” I whispered, and he put his arm around me and pulled me against him again.

  “Then let me help.”

  Why was it so hard to let go and let Levi in? He knew everything, and he was doing the very opposite of pushing me away, which is what I’d wanted him to do. He stroked my hair back from my temple and kissed me softly there, his lips lingering. I closed my eyes and leaned up into it, still so certain that it was only pity that motivated him. That was fine. I supposed I preferred pity over disgust.

  Levi took my by the chin and tilted my face upward.

  “You don’t have to let this ruin you,” he said. “What happens now is up to you.”

  I shook my head. It was never up to me. It was all Carl, all the time. I never had control of my life, not even after he’d left. I was plunged into despair, into self-harm, into one wretched tryst after another, trying to find something to plug the ugly maw Carl had left inside of me.

  The worst part was the realization that Carl was the only thing that filled that hole. His departure was the reason it yawned open. Did I want to see him again? No. Did I want him back in my life? Absolutely not. But I knew I’d be whole again if he were back. It was a disgusting truth.

  “What I’m saying, Meagan, is that now you have the resources to do whatever you need.” Levi took my hand, turning my palm upward and kissing it. “Whatever you need. Whatever you want.”

  “What if all I want is to disappear?” I whispered.

  He smiled at me. “All you’d have to do is point at a map and I’d take you there. I know plenty of places to disappear to.”

  But something held me in place to New York City. Most of it was the blind belief that things would be better here, that my problems would be solved. It was the myth I’d told myself to keep going, that as long as I made it to the big city, I’d be able to be okay. To slip into the multitudes of people with no one the wiser to my tragedies.