Altered: Carter Kids #6

by Chloe Walsh

  Wanting every part of him.

  Consenting wholeheartedly to his touch.

  There wasn’t an ounce of fear in my heart as he plunged himself deep into my body relentless, until we both came hard.

  I had no fear in my body, because I knew he would never hurt me.

  Never force me…

  The memory of that night flashed through my mind then, and I physically flinched beneath him.

  Breathing hard and fast, I closed my eyes and desperately tried to gather my thoughts and reign in my turbulent emotions as they threatened to overwhelm me.

  It wasn’t coming easy to me, though.

  The tears I had been battling so hard to keep at bay broke through and I burst into tears.

  "What's wrong?" Hunter demanded. Pulling out, he shifted away from me as he readjusted himself and zipped up his jeans, giving me some much-needed breathing space.

  Concern was laced in his tone, and even though he was slurring slightly, he was aware enough to know I was in crisis. "Hope?"

  "I can't," I squeezed out, as my body shook violently. "I'm just –"

  I couldn’t tell him.

  How the fuck could I tell him about something that I didn’t understand myself?

  What happened that night?

  It was a horrible, blurred memory that I dared not examine too closely.

  I was afraid of what would happen if I did.

  The disgust and self-loathing I felt because of it, though, had never been more potent than right in this moment.

  "Did I hurt you?" Hunter asked, looking completely horrified. "Was I too rough?"

  "No." I shook my head and blinked away the tears that were threatening to spill. "You didn’t do anything wrong." Scrambling into a sitting position, I quickly covered myself up and fixed my dress into place. "I'm fine."

  "Him?" Hunter demanded then, still shirtless. "Has he hurt you?"

  "No," I strangled out quickly – too quickly.

  A dark shadow cast over Hunter's face.

  "If he hurt you, I'll kill him," he stated in a deathly cold tone of voice. "Is that it? Did that fucking bastard put his hands on you?" His voice rose with his temper, and I watched as he ran a reckless hand through his hair. "I will fucking kill him!"

  "No," I denied, shaking my head, his words only proving to me that I was doing the right thing by not telling him the truth.

  He really would kill Jordan.

  I hated him.

  But I didn’t want him hurt.

  Not when he was doing such a great job of that himself.

  "I need to go," I whispered, needing to get out of here.

  I was two seconds away from falling apart right here in the backseat of my truck.

  Doing that, with the current state of mind Hunter was in, not to mention the sheer amount of alcohol flowing through his veins, would be a fatal mistake.

  ****

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lucky

  I hadn't fucked in a truck since high school.

  Honest to god, at the age of thirty-one, I should have felt stupid as hell. I would have, if it weren't for the fabulous fucking company I was keeping. The sex was mind-blowing – at least, I had thought so.

  The way Hope had reacted told me different.

  One minute, she was coming around my dick, and the next she was crying.

  I had no fucking clue what I'd done wrong, and she wouldn’t fucking tell me.

  "Hope," I continued to say, trying and failing to comfort her. "Tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it, sweetheart."

  She shook her head and started to sob into her hands.

  Jesus Christ.

  I was two fucking seconds away from losing my goddamn mind.

  She needed to start talking, and fast.

  If someone had hurt her – if he hurt her – then she needed to tell me.

  "Fuck this," I snarled, running my hands through my hair in sheer frustration. I slipped my shirt back on and threw open the truck door. "I’m going over there." Climbing out, I stalked back towards the alley. "If you won't tell me what's wrong, then I'll fucking make him tell me."

  "No," she hissed, scrambling out of the truck to chase after me. "You need to stay away from him."

  "Why?" Pain and anger churned inside of me. "Why, Hope?"

  "Because…." She paused and exhaled a shuddering breath. "If you go over there, he'll know I've been with you and go to –" she quickly snapped her mouth closed, eyes wide. "Just… just don’t go over there, okay?"

  "And what?" I shot back heatedly. "He'll throw a tantrum? Pick a fight? Let him. See if I give a fuck."

  "I give a fuck," she strangled out.

  Rushing to step in front of me, Hope pressed her hands against my chest. "I am begging you not to go over there." Tears filled her big, blue eyes as she looked up at me and said, "Hunter, if you care about me at all, you will stay away from Jordan... Please."

  It took everything inside of me to keep my feet on the ground and not move my ass in the direction of the nearest cab.

  Every instinct in my body demanded I do just that.

  Red flags were flying up in my brain right about now, and my automatic reaction was to fix whatever was wrong.

  Protect her.

  "I had a moment," she continued to say. "A flashback. From that night…in the kitchen. Nothing to do with him."

  With the whiskey clouding my brain, it took me a little longer than normal to comprehend what she was telling me, but once I did, a different kind of rage enveloped me.

  One directed solely at David fucking Henderson.

  "I'm taking care of that," I assured her. "He won't ever hurt you again, sweetheart. I fucking promise you that."

  The hands she had pressed against my chest moved to my sides as Hope wrapped her arms around my body in a hug. "I don’t want anything bad to happen to you."

  "It won't."

  "It already has," she sobbed and then pressed her hand to my stomach.

  She was worried about a little nick when the prick who'd caused it was six feet under already.

  "Can I come home with you tonight?" she asked then, looking up at me with the loneliest blue-eyed expression I'd ever seen.

  "Do you plan on staying home with me?" I countered. "Because if the answer's yes, then I'll take you home right fucking now, sweetheart."

  Hope sighed wearily. "Hunter, it's complicated."

  Yeah, I didn’t need to hear about complicated.

  I wanted a goddamn commitment from her.

  Something that told me she was as invested in me as I was in her.

  She would never know just how badly I wanted to take her home with me.

  But I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t fucking go through another night of empty promises, and then having to drop her back off to him tomorrow?

  I couldn’t do that again.

  Last time, it almost killed me.

  "You need to go home to your husband," I forced myself to say as I took a step back from her, breaking all physical contact.

  She flinched, physically flinched at my words like I had just slapped her, when it was me who had been fucking wounded.

  "Hunter –" she began to say, but I cut her off.

  I couldn’t hear it.

  I couldn’t fucking bear it.

  "Get in your car, go back to Denver, and don’t call me until you're done with him…until you're ready to be mine," I instructed, masking the absolute fucking horror and pain I was inflicting on myself by walking away from her. "Because I can't share you."

  I turned around and walked away before she could finish me off with another teardrop.

  One more plea from her and I wouldn’t have the strength to go.

  ****

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Hope

  When I was younger, I always scoffed and rolled my eyes at the idea of a woman not knowing she was pregnant until she was too far along, or giving birth on a toilet bowl.

  I used to be so con
vinced that it couldn’t be physiologically possible.

  My opinion towards the concept did a one-eighty when my own best friend didn’t discover her first pregnancy until she was almost five months along.

  I'd seen her.

  She was skinny.

  There had been no signs.

  Teagan's situation with Einín had made me believe that there were circumstances when a woman truly didn’t know she was pregnant.

  What worried me now, though, was those women who had that gut feeling, who deep down in their heart and soul knew they might be pregnant, but were too afraid to acknowledge it even to themselves.

  I feared I was one of the women that fell into the second category.

  From the age of thirteen, I'd gotten my period every twenty-eight days come hail, rain, or snow. It never mattered how much stress I was under, or whether I gained weight or not.

  My period was always on time.

  Therefore, my first red flag was the late arrival of my period.

  The second red flag was when I came to realize that my period wasn’t just late; it had skipped clean over the month of June.

  Fear of having to face my demons had kept my mind in a constant state of denial.

  Knowing would be much harder than not knowing, so I blocked it out – fooling myself into a false sense of security by telling myself that it would come soon.

  Well, 'soon' had come and gone.

  It was time to face reality.

  Clicking into my period app on my phone, I frantically tried to work out my dates.

  May 4rd had been the date of my last period, which meant I should have had a period on June 1st.

  Today was July 7th.

  My fingertips lost all feeling as I found the calculator app on my phone and worked out the days. I had to use a calculator because my mind was fucking blown. I couldn’t form one single, coherent thought as I used my phone to add up the dates.

  Thirty-six days.

  It had been thirty-six fricking days.

  Well, that was that.

  I was either broken or pregnant.

  Maybe both?

  Peeling my frozen body off the couch that had become my bed, I reached into my laptop bag and retrieved the rectangular box with trembling hands.

  I'd bought it weeks ago when I had made a rare trip to the store to stack up on food supplies.

  But I wasn’t ready to know then.

  I still wasn’t ready to know, but I had to do this.

  Numb to the bone, I tiptoed up the staircase, trying to be as quiet as possible so I didn’t disturb Jordan from whatever self-medicated trance he was in.

  Slipping inside the bathroom, I quietly turned the lock and hurried over to the toilet. Every possible human emotion rocked through me as I removed the stick from the box and peed.

  And it was right there in that drug den of a bathroom, surrounded by dirty needles and the stench of vomit, all alone and terrified, that I watched two small lines appear on the stick.

  Two lines.

  Positive.

  Blowing out a breath, I sank back on the toilet seat, and just stared down at the test as my heart catapulted into my butt.

  I forced myself to breathe through my nose, not trusting my mouth right now.

  All I wanted to do was have a full-blown panic attack, but that wouldn't solve anything.

  I was pregnant and I didn’t know.

  I had only slept with two men in my entire life, and either one could be the father of the child inside of me.

  Disgust filled my body.

  Shame crept through my veins.

  Logically, I knew the chance of this baby being Hunter's was high, and knowing that was the only thing that was keeping me sane.

  But I had the worst feeling inside of my heart; like a rising swell of dread and panic.

  It only took one time to get pregnant.

  And what Jordan did to me that night?

  What he held me down and forced me to do?

  My womb wouldn’t care that I hadn't wanted it – that I hadn't consented.

  Standing up, I shoved the test into the back pocket of my jeans and then quickly cleaned up, before hurrying back downstairs to the living room – my living quarters since May.

  Reeling, I paced the floor, desperately trying to figure out my next move.

  What did I do now?

  Who did I tell?

  How was I going to face this?

  There were so many questions that I had no answers to, but only one answer that didn’t need to be questioned.

  I couldn’t stay here.

  I needed to get out.

  ****

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Hope

  I decided to sleep on it before making any decisions about my future, potential fathers, or the baby growing inside of me. Surprisingly, I actually managed to get a full night's sleep last night, and when I woke up this morning, it was with a fresh perspective and bulletproof resolve.

  I knew what I had to do now.

  For me, and my baby.

  For two long months, I had allowed myself to be completely isolated from the world and I refused to continue living like this.

  I was too strong a woman to roll over and take this shit.

  I was getting my baby as far away from this cesspool of poison as possible.

  All bets were off now.

  I was leaving.

  And he wasn’t stopping me.

  And if he tried?

  If he pushed me to the point of no return?

  Then I was going to tell Hunter everything.

  All he'd done to keep me safe, all of the sorrow and pain and sacrifices.

  He humbled me.

  I was on my own until Hunter.

  He came into my life and all of a sudden, I had a partner, a true equal who was willing to go down in flames with me.

  Someone to pull me to safety.

  Someone on my side regardless of whether I was right or wrong.

  He made me believe that my happy ever after was still out there – that it was possible.

  Just as long as I was brave enough to fight for it.

  Fight for him.

  ****

  When I had both of my duffel bags packed to the brim with everything I owned in this house, I carried them out to my truck, bracing myself against the torrential downpour of rain in a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts.

  Of course, the day I finally decide to make a break for it, and it had to be during a fricking Summer storm.

  I tossed my bags into the truck, then lovingly placed my laptop on top of them before heading back inside to do one final check through.

  I knew once I drove away from this house today, I was never coming back.

  Rummaging around in the living room, I sorted through the stack of mail on the coffee table, sifting out anything addressed to me before tucking them into my purse.

  When I was done, I mulled over whether or not I should go upstairs and tell Jordan I was leaving before deciding against it.

  Walking back into the hallway, I opened the front door, and just as I was about to walk outside, the most horrific banging noise came from above my head.

  Frozen in the doorway, I debated just running, but I couldn’t.

  Stifling down a growl, I turned for the staircase and hurried up the steps. When I rounded the door of Jordan's bedroom and took in the sight before me, disgust churned inside my gut.

  His black curls were overgrown and limp, his face was covered in a thick, unruly beard of black hair, and he smelled like alcohol and vomit and urine. The clothes he had on were the same he'd worn all week.

  He was sprawled out on the floor with his back pressed to the foot of the bed, clearly having pulled himself into a makeshift sitting position after falling off the bed.

  It wasn’t his appearance that caused my stomach to wrench.

  No, it was the spoon filled with clear liquid that he was slowly sucking up with an syringe that turned my heart to stone
.

  "You selfish, stupid, son of a bitch," I hissed, glaring at him. "Look at yourself. Look at what you're doing to yourself!"

  Jordan didn’t even look in my direction when he said, "Don’t wanna see? Close the fucking door."

  "Close the door?" I repeated, appalled.

  He kept his focus on the needle in his hand, like it was the holy grail, as he filled it with the poison he'd been flushing through his veins for months.

  Frozen to the spot, I watched in horror as he readjusted the clasp he had clamped around his arm before aiming the prick of the needle to his skin.

  Suddenly everything burst to the surface, and the pain I had been drowning in these past two months exploded out of me.

  I was done.

  So fucking done.

  "Don’t you even think about putting that shit into your body in front of me!" I screamed as I rushed over to where he was slumped and literally kicked the needle out of his hand with the toe of my sneaker.

  Jordan's head snapped up, and I honest to god had never seen fury in a man's eyes like I did in that moment. "You stupid fucking bitch!"

  Too angry to care about the names he was calling me, I lunged to where the syringe was laying on the carpet.

  "Hope, stop!" Jordan roared as he scrambled to his feet. "Don’t you fucking do it –"

  "Too late," I snarled as I reached down and grabbed the plastic end of the syringe.

  His hands came around my throat as my back hit the wall with a thud. "Give it back," he demanded, glaring at me with eyes black as coal. "Now."

  "Or what?" I shot back, holding the syringe as far away from our bodies as I could stretch. "You'll hit me? Choke me?" I squirted every drop of poison onto the floor and screamed, "Rape me?" Tears filled my eyes as I finally confronted him with my pain. "It wouldn’t be anything you haven't done to me already!"

  "Liar!" Jordan choked out before shoving me roughly away. "I would never do that to you!"

  "How would you know?" I screamed. "When you're drunk and high twenty-four goddamn seven!" I tossed the needle on the floor and glared up at the stranger in front of me. "I told you no," I told him, trembling from head to toe. "I begged you to stop!" He flinched from my words, but just like him that night, I didn’t stop. "You forced yourself inside my body without my permission that night and you took away my choice!"