“Yeah, I’d like that.”
“Do you want to shower first?” She asked.
I frowned. I knew I was mess but I didn’t see how I would have the strength to shower. “I can’t. I’m too tired.”
“I can help you.”
What eighteen year old girl wants her mother to help her shower? Wait… “I’m not eighteen,” I whispered. “I missed my own birthday.”
“Oh, Sophie,” my mom took me into her arms.
I wasn’t crying, but I was in shock. That was something else Travis had taken away from me. I didn’t even care that I had missed my birthday, I had way too many other things to be upset about, but it was the point of it.
I pushed her away, not wanting her comfort. “I can’t believe I didn’t remember my own birthday.”
“Soph, you were with a sociopath. It’s a miracle you’re alive,” she exclaimed.
“You don’t understand,” I whispered, staring off into space. “He keeps taking everything from me. Pretty soon, there will be nothing left.”
I turned to face her and she swallowed thickly. “You have your life, Sophie. As long as you have that, you do have everything.”
I shook my head. “I want that shower now.”
She tilted her head to study me. She knew I was avoiding the conversation—that I didn’t want to hear what she had to say.
“Alright,” she pushed herself off the bed and into a standing position. She came around to me and helped me out of the bed.
It took me what felt like forever to make it to the bathroom and into the shower. My mom had to stand half in the shower to hold me up. I was so off balance that I kept teetering precariously. She helped me soap and rinse my hair. I tried my best to scrub my body, watching with a tortured expression as my dried blood and dirt descended down the drain.
Once I was clean, she helped me out of the shower and dried off my body. I’d long ago gotten over the embarrassment of my mother seeing me naked. I wasn’t saying it wasn’t awkward, but I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about a lot of things.
“Will you be okay to stand here while I get you some pajamas?” She asked.
I nodded, leaning against the wall for support.
She didn’t take long. She returned with an old pair of pajamas and a loose t-shirt that belonged to Caeden. I winced as I lifted my arms above my head and she lowered the shirt down my body. I felt like I’d been kicked around by a bull. Without…without Beau, my body would heal faster, but after everything I’d been through it would still take some time.
She helped me back into bed and my dad was sitting in one of the chairs in the corner of the bedroom. I burrowed under the covers and my hand darted out to grab the glass of orange juice. I slurped at it greedily. The acidic juice burned my empty stomach, but it was still the best thing I had tasted in months. Travis had kept me fed, but everything had been basic and bland.
I finished off the orange juice and placed the empty glass on the table. My parents watched me with curious gazes. I think they kept waiting for the moment when I’d crack and completely splinter apart. I was trying my hardest to hold myself together. For now, Beau wasn’t completely lost, so I was trying to do what my dad said and believe I’d hold my son in my arms.
“Do you still want me to braid your hair?” My mom asked.
I nodded, my head peeking out from the covers.
“You’re going to have to sit up then,” she laughed.
I reluctantly forced my body into a sitting position and turned so my back was to her. She already had a brush and hair ties. She sprayed detangler into my hair and began to brush out the tangled knots. I winced when she hit a particularly knotted spot.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” I muttered, playing with a loose piece of thread on the blanket covering my legs.
Once my hair was tangle free, she braided it, draping the end over my shoulder.
“All done,” she patted my back in a motherly gesture. I guessed no matter how old your children got, you couldn’t stop yourself from still treating them like a child—not necessarily in a bad way.
“Thank you,” I whispered, tucking myself back into my nest of blankets. “I-I want to go to sleep, but I still don’t want you to leave. I-I need someone to be here, if I wake up.” No way in hell did I want to experience another panic attack, if that meant I had to beg my parents to stay with me like I was still five years old and scared of the dark then so be it.
“We’re not going anywhere,” my mom assured me. “We won’t leave until Caeden comes back.”
“Thank you.” By the time the two words left my mouth I was already asleep and I gladly let exhaustion consume me.
Twenty Two.
Sophie
I forced my tired and battered body out of the bed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Caeden jumped out of the bed and came running to my side. “Sophie, let me help you.”
I swatted his reaching hand away. “I don’t need your help,” I grumbled. “I’m perfectly capable of walking to the bathroom by myself.”
“Sophie—”
“Leave me alone.” I shuffled past him at a turtles pace, but he let me. I’d been home for three days and he barely let me do anything on my own. This was me asserting that I was okay. I was independent by nature and I was sick of having to ask people for help. I needed to prove to myself and to Caeden that I was okay. I was getting better, and soon I’d be ready to hunt down Travis. When I got my hands on him…well, it wouldn’t be pretty.
I finished in the bathroom and made my way back into the bedroom. Caeden shadowed me, like he was waiting for me to fall over.
“I’m fine,” I snapped with an angry bite to my tone.
“Sophie,” he said my name sternly, “accepting help doesn’t make you weak, it makes you smart.”
“I’m sick of your help,” I spat, heading for the door, not the bed. He jumped in front of me and used his body to block the door. My nostrils flared in anger. “Caeden, move. I refuse to sit in this room for one more second. In order to get better, I need to get up and move around. Lying here doing nothing isn’t helping me. It’s making me worse. Can’t you see that?” I spread my arms wide in exasperation.
He rubbed his jaw and moved aside. He swung the door open and motioned me out. “Fine, but I’m helping you down the stairs. Don’t even think about arguing with me.”
“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes. His overprotectiveness was grading on my last nerve. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the man with all my heart, but it was getting to be a bit much.
I stepped into the hallway outside our bedroom. A ladder sitting outside one of the guest bedrooms caught my eye. I headed that way out of curiosity. What was he up to?
“Sophie, no—”
His warning was too late though. I’d already opened the door.
I dropped to my knees as an indescribable pain ripped through my body. It was like I was being torn apart from the inside.
The room…it was a nursery. Beau’s room. A room he might never come home to. The room was perfect in every way. It looked like something straight out of a magazine but it was missing something very important—a baby.
I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten this was his room. It was like I was purposely torturing myself.
“Sophie—” Caeden reached for me, but I shrugged off his touch.
“No.” The word left my mouth sharply. “I need to see this.”
I slowly came to my feet and stepped forward into the room.
While I’d been gone, Caeden had been preparing for our return. Little did he know that I’d come home without our baby. I guess he had needed to hope though and I couldn’t blame him for that.
The walls were a pale brown color—not the typical blue, green, or yellow you saw in a baby’s room—and it was the color I had picked out and was having painted the day I was taken. The furniture was a dark wood. The bed things were blue. A pretty white chair, large enough for two people
to sit in, was near the bed with a little stuffed animal dog sitting on it. A fluffy white rug covered the wood floors. It would have been the perfect place to sit with the baby.
“It’s perfect,” I whispered, reaching up to wipe away tears from beneath my eyes.
“I didn’t mean for you to see this.” Caeden said from somewhere behind me.
I shrugged. “I’m glad I did.” My breath was shaky as I fought a breakdown, but I wasn’t lying. I was glad I saw this. Beau might not ever come home, but I could imagine what could have been.
I closed my eyes, envisioning a squirming baby in my arms.
Caeden came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. His chin rested on my shoulder and he held me tightly, like he believed his strength alone would hold me together.
“I’m okay,” I assured him. “Really.”
“Beau’s going to come home to us, baby. He’s going to sleep in this room and grow up in this house. He’s going to play games and call us mom and dad. And one day, when you’re ready, we’ll give him a little brother or sister. We’re going to have it all, Sophie.”
My tongue flicked out to wet my lips. “I hope you’re right.”
“I am.” His lips brushed softly against my neck. It wasn’t really a kiss, more of a caress.
I extracted myself from his arms and turned around to face him. “I can’t believe you managed to do all this with everything that was going on and the way you must have been feeling.”
“It was awful,” he swallowed thickly, “but I know what I felt was nowhere near close to what you were feeling.”
I reached up, placing my hand against his stubbled cheek. “We’ve both been through a lot. Our experiences may have been different, but that doesn’t make them any less painful.”
“You’re so right.” He smoothed a finger down my cheek. The simple touch sent a shiver down my spine. Our time together, from the moment we’d met, had been full of good and bad things. But I wouldn’t trade those bad things for anything. Everything we’d been through had made us stronger people and therefore a stronger couple.
I looked behind me at the baby’s room once more. “Let’s go.”
* * *
I was ready.
Caeden didn’t believe I was ready. But I was. My injuries had healed and I felt normal again. Well, as normal as I could feel. I was still emotionally drained from losing Beau, but physically I was great. I wasn’t going to sit around anymore. I was better and I was going to find my son so I could end this. If Caeden didn’t want to come with me, then he could stay behind here with his tail tucked between his legs. I didn’t need him to do this. I knew I was strong enough to take on Travis. Now, add in the elders and mutants, and I’d probably get myself killed, but it was a risk I was willing to take. I was a mama wolf now without her cub, and I was going to get my baby back. It didn’t matter what I had to do. Travis had messed with me one too many times and this would be the last.
“I’m going to get our baby back,” I stated, standing in the doorway of Caeden’s office. “You can come with me or not, I don’t care, but I’m going to find him.”
The color drained from his face. “Sophie, we have no idea where Travis and the elders are hiding out. You can’t just leave! We need a plan!” He looked at me like I’d lost my mind, which was quite possible.
“Plans have done nothing but get us in trouble. I’m sick of strategizing only to have it blow up in our faces. Our plans never work out, so why bother?” I questioned, crossing my arms over my chest. I knew I was being a bitch, but I didn’t care. It was true. Our plans had been no good. We always ended up going in blind anyway.
He smacked his hand roughly against the wooden top of his desk. The sound caused me to jump. “I understand that, and it makes sense, but we still don’t know where Travis is!”
“I can find him,” I stepped into the room, determination ringing in my voice. “He has our son, Caeden. It’s called a mother’s instinct. I’ll be able to find my baby.” I placed my hand against my heart, where a significant portion was missing where my love for Beau had been cut out.
He shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes.
Before he could speak I continued. “I don’t care what you have to say, Caeden. I really don’t. I’m going. So either you’re with me or you’re not. I’m ending this.”
“God, Sophie,” he scrubbed his hands over his face and letting out an animal like growl, “you know I’m with you. We’re stronger together. But we’re so unprepared.”
I so wanted to punch him in the face right now. “Plans and preparedness have never helped us before, so why would now be any different?”
He sighed. “Alright. Let’s do this. I’ll call the pack.”
* * *
We were back at the elders headquarters where I’d been held. We were all in our wolf forms. I smelled around, looking for a trail. I know no one had found anything before, but I was convinced I could find something.
I sniffed around, following the lingering scent that I knew belonged to Travis. The other wolves trailed behind me and Caeden was close by my side.
I headed deeper and deeper into the woods, and like they’d described to Caeden the scent stopped suddenly. It literally just ended and didn’t continue in any direction. I pawed the ground, a whine escaping me.
My act of pawing the ground disturbed the leaves and debris, revealing a trapped door in the ground. I barked in elation. Caeden switched to his human form and lifted the latch. It opened into what looked like a wine cellar. I descended into the depths behind Caeden who had already switched back to wolf form. I looked around at the bottles lining the walls. My guess was that this place had held illegal alcohol in the prohibition era. Only where the cellar wall had once ended, the cement blocks had been broken down, littering the ground and a hallway had been hollowed out.
My heart was racing. This was it. This would lead us to Beau. I knew it. He was close.
The hallway was narrow so Caeden and I couldn’t walk side by side, we all had to fall into a single file line. I didn’t like that fact one bit. If something attacked from in front of Caeden, he was completely alone and none of us would be able to help him. The makeshift hallway dipped down, leading further beneath the surface of the earth.
My sides brushed the walls and dirt coated my fur. Insects crawled along the dirt floor and if I’d been in my human form I would have been grossed out, but as a wolf I didn’t care.
The hallway continued on and on. I knew we’d walked at least two miles and there was no sign of anyone or that we were reaching the end of the tunnel. I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, and feared this had been a trap and that we’d be stuck down here until we ran out of oxygen and perished. Morbid thoughts, but with someone like Travis, it was a completely realistic assumption. I filled my mind with thoughts of Beau so that I didn’t freak out, and it did help.
The tunnel made a sharp right turn and we began to ascend. I saw light from somewhere up ahead and I began to panic. If we were coming to the end of the tunnel, then Travis wasn’t here, and I had no idea what would greet us once we reached the surface. Travis could still be there, wherever there was, but chances were he was long gone and my child with him. How would I manage to go on knowing my child was alive and well, but trapped with a sociopath like Travis?
I see light ahead. Caeden said. We need to be prepared in case they’re waiting for us.
His words made my heart race a mile a minute in my chest. Adrenaline was already coursing through my veins. I was ready for whatever greeted us. My jaw snapped together and my lips pulled back to show off my sharp teeth. This mama wolf was ready to kill whoever stood in the way of her and her child.
Before we reached the opening, Caeden stopped. Brace yourselves.
He surged forward, running as fast as his legs would carry him. I was quick to follow, close enough to him that if I wanted I could bite into his legs. Bentley, who was behind me, was on my heels as well.
Our p
ack shot out of the tunnel opening like bullets out of a gun. We were nothing but streaks of fur.
And we weren’t alone.
There were mutants everywhere, and they were surrounding a house.
I didn’t wait for orders. I jumped forward, smacking into the nearest mutant and pushing her to the ground. She wrapped her hands around my arms and squeezed, but I felt nothing. The adrenaline had made me numb. I lowered my mouth and bit into her throat. Blood spurted everywhere, into my mouth, onto my fur, and all over the ground. The light left her eyes and her hands fell slack at her sides.
I didn’t wait around. I struck out at the next closest mutant, jumping onto his back and like with the girl, I bit into his throat. My teeth cut right through the muscle and his severed head fell to the ground. I gagged on the sickly tasting blood, trying to spit it out.
Everyone was fighting and bodies were littering the ground. Luckily, every body my eyes landed on was that of a mutant.
We were tearing them apart so quickly that their numbers had dwindled substantially. I had been right to say we didn’t need a plan. Attacking without though, allowed us to act on instinct alone.
I caught sight of one mutant trying to sneak away towards to the house. I sprinted after him, jumping on his back and knocking him to the ground. My claws dug into his back, ripping and tearing. He screamed and the sound filled me with a sick joy. I shouldn’t have been enjoying myself—the mutants couldn’t help what they were. Travis had turned them into these monsters and they’d once been human. But they were helping him and I was so blinded by rage that I didn’t care.
I moved on from that mutant to another, and then another. I quickly lost count of how many I’d killed. More kept appearing and we continued to kill them.
No more than two minutes had passed till they were all dead and nothing stood in our way of the house.
Avenger (Outsider Series) Page 17
