Taken By Choice (Taken Trilogy Book 3)

by Jessica Frances

  My mouth drops open in shock before I quickly pull myself together and step away from her, walking into the kitchen. I turn the kettle on, already hearing Fran grumbling about whatever she’s seeing on the TV. I smell my shirt, realizing I do smell.

  I notice a knocked over chair, and know this must have been part of Fran’s fall. I lean down and pick it up, deciding that I’ll definitely need to stay for a short while. Like Fran said, she has jobs for me, and I need to make sure she’s all right. Maybe I’ll stay for a few weeks, or months, and then I’ll leave. Definitely no longer than a year… or two.

  BLAKE DWELLS

  Chapter 28 – THE CHOICE

  Gillette, Wyoming

  June 4th

  Walking up to my house is a completely surreal experience. I’m shaking and nervous as hell. I’m also so excited. I can’t wait to see my parents, even Nicole. I wasn’t expecting Dad to be home, since he’s always away on business trips, but suddenly luck is on my side and he’s there.

  I don’t know how long I stand at the doorway after Mom opens the door to see me. She cries, she howls and then she hugs me with such enthusiasm that I know I’ll have bruises from it. Her sobbing nearly kills me while to hear her pain and sadness over what has happened makes me angrier. I know I was put through hell, but so was my family.

  When I’m finally let in through the front door we all talk. I’ve never had such a long conversation with Dad before like we have now. I have to tell them everything, right from the incident at school. I leave out the part where future Nicole tried to murder me, but tell them everything else. Well, okay, I left out my involvement at The Core as well. There is no need to freak them out any further.

  Mom cries a lot more, and even Dad seems upset. When they both calm down, and Mom cooks me enough food to feed me and all the guys serving at The Ranch, I finally get to see Nicole. She’s been out with friends; I heard Mom and Dad’s thoughts when I brought her up. They’re proud of her, and excited for me to see her. I have no idea why until she walks through the front door.

  It’s the same Nicole as before except she’s older. She looks normal. No crazy hairstyles, no obscene amounts of skin showing. I have to take two looks to see she’s holding a book in her hands. Not even at school did I ever see Nicole holding a book in her hands.

  “Blake?” As Nicole gasps my name, I see the same shock and fear that I saw on Mom’s face when she first saw me before her tears start also. She doesn’t howl like Mom did, but if possible. she hugs me tighter.

  We’ve never been close, not even when we were little. I’m not sure if we’ve even hugged before.

  “Hi, Nicole,” I mumble into her shoulder, not able to move even an inch to get the words out clearer.

  “What are you—Whyare you—How are you even here?” she finally gets a question out, her grip loosening on me and I take a step back from her.

  “Ask Mom and Dad; I just spent hours telling them about it. I’m going to go see Sophie.” I try to step around Nicole, but she blocks my path, both her and Mom saying no.

  “What do you mean, no?” I ask Nicole, not turning around to face Mom. Confusion washes over her face and I realize she must have thought the word, not spoken it. I’m already out of practice hearing their voices. I used to be able to tell the difference with my eyes closed. “Sorry, I just mean, why are you getting in my way? I’ll be back later, I promise.”

  “She’s not here; she left for college last year,” Nicole says, but I can hear her thoughts easily now.

  “Don’t go over there, not yet.”

  I bite back on my anger over what that means, which I don’t have a clue about.

  “Is there something I should know about Sophie?”

  “It’s just—it’s been over a year…” Nicole looks over my shoulder and I assume she stares at Mom and Dad before her eyes move back to me. “We only just got you back, can’t you stay here a while? We haven’t even caught up yet and I have loads to tell you, like—”

  “Nicole, just stop. We’re not close. In fact, I don’t quite get what you’re doing here. We’re not friends, so get out of my way,” I say harshly. Mom reprimands me, but she only does so quietly. I guess coming back from the dead means I might have a few more liberties for a while. Cool.

  “You’ve been gone for over a year. The last I saw of you was you being taken by strange men and put into a car while being shot at. I’m pretty sure one of the kidnappers who was with you was shot. That kind of changes things, don’t you think?”

  I take a deep breath, trying to see things from her point of view. “Fine, I guess you’re right. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m leaving to go see Sophie.”

  This time I push passed her and she doesn’t stop me. I almost stop to ask Mom permission to go before I remind myself that I’m not a kid. I can do what I want. “I’ll be back soon, I promise,” I call back, aware that Mom is crying again.

  I drive the rental back down the road and head to Sophie’s house. I had been excited to see Sophie before, but now I’m worried. Why didn’t Mom or Nicole want me to see her? What has changed so much that I wouldn’t want to see her? To let her know I’m alive?

  Fifteen minutes later, I pull up outside her house. Well, I assume she lives here still. Our plan had been to go away to NYU and come back here in the summers. We always knew money would be tight, and never did we think we could afford to go anywhere else other than our parents’ place. So unless she or her family won the lottery, I have to assume she’s here.

  I find this walk a lot more daunting. When I finally ring the bell, it feels like it takes forever for anyone to open the door.

  When her dad finally does and sees me standing there, I think his jaw might have fallen onto the ground. His look is almost comical, and perhaps if I hadn’t been so nervous I might have laughed. Instead, I stand before him as frozen in my stance as he is in his. I do, however, recover first.

  “Hi, Mr. Mackenzie. Is Sophie home?” My voice shakes, and while he’s closed his mouth now, he hasn’t said a word.

  “Dad, who is it?” Sophie’s voice filters through the doorway and, as she pokes her head around her dad, her eyes instantly rest on me. Before she sees me she appears light and happy, but now she’s shocked and pale.

  “Hi, Sophie. I’m sorry to just drop in like this, but I had to see you,” I say, my body shaking now.

  She shoves her dad out of the way and jumps at me. I easily catch her in my arms, my nerves disappearing as I wrap my arms tightly around her.

  “I thought you were dead!” she cries into my shoulder, dampening my shirt instantly.

  “I’m sorry. I came here as soon as I could.” I move my hands up her back, resting them behind her neck as I pull back to kiss her. I can tell I catch her off guard, but she quickly kisses me back and I completely forget about our audience before Mr. Mackenzie clears his throat.

  We both blush, but I have to put all my strength into not carrying her into her room and ripping off all her clothes. I instead take her hand and walk her along the patio and down to the swinging chair on the end. We used to sometimes sit here and do our homework, usually whatever reading we had. It was always peaceful between us.

  We sit down and instantly fall into our same position. Sophie rests her head on my shoulder and I wrap my arm around her middle, holding her against me.

  Then we talk. I tell her everything and hope that I won’t have to keep explaining this. Then I hear about her. She tells me how upset she was, how she spent last summer locked up in her room sobbing and then she talks about college. Her dad forced her to go, and she says the change in scenery helped. She’s made new friends and things were starting to feel okay.

  Then we sit in silence, and I wonder why Nicole and Mom haven’t wanted me to see her. Nicole even went as far as lying and saying she wasn’t home. Why?

  “Have you seen much of my family?” I ask her, wondering if maybe Nicole has simply thought she wasn’t staying home for the summer. She might
not have been lying, but just misinformed.

  “I’ve spoken to your mom a bit, but I keep in touch with Nicole.” Sophie sounds hesitant now. “Have you spoken to her?”

  “I saw her before I came here. I went home first and then came straight here. She seems… different,” I admit.

  “What happened, it really changed her. She stopped hanging around with those horrible older guys and she cleaned herself up. She repeated her final year at school. I spoke to her last week; she did really well. She’s applied to a bunch of colleges. It’s really great how much she’s turned her life around.”

  “Wow, that’s really great,” I say in shock. Never in a million years would I have believed Nicole would make it into college, let alone actually want to go.

  “It is. She’s become a really good friend to me.”

  “So she knew you were home now?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “She told me you weren’t,” I admit, wondering if Sophie has this friendship thing all wrong.

  “I can see why she might have said that,” she quietly admits. I can feel her stiffen before she pulls away from me, sitting up.

  “What is it?”

  “Look, I need to tell you something.”

  “Okay…”

  She opens her mouth twice, yet nothing comes out. Just when I’m about to ask her what is wrong, she blurts out what she has struggled to say to me. “I met someone.”

  “You what?”

  “When I was at college. His name is Ji—”

  “I don’t care what his name is. You’re seeing someone?” She has just punched me hard in the guts with her confession.

  “Sort of. I mean, yes. I am. I thought you were dead, and he lost his sister recently and he understood how I felt. I understood how he felt.”

  “So you break up with him, whatever,” I say angrily, barely able to keep in the rage forming inside of me. I thought Sophie was dead, too, and not once did I consider moving on. I focused on getting revenge, but even if I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t have looked at another woman. I know Sophie is the one; she’s the one I’m supposed to marry and get old with. She’s all there is.

  “Blake…” Sophie now scoots away from me and I clench my fists in anger, wanting an outlet, but also not wanting to scare her.

  “What’s the problem? I love you, and you love me. We’re meant to be. This other guy is nothing. Just dump his ass and we can be together.” I try to say it reasonably, but watch Sophie flinch at my words.

  “I’m not sure it’s that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  “I… I love him, too.” She stands up and takes a step back from me.

  “Sophie, please don’t do this. I was taken from my family, from you, told you were all dead and trained to be a soldier. I lost so much. Please don’t say I’ve lost you now,” I beg, swallowing my pride and my anger.

  Sophie is crying now. When I stand up to comfort her, she takes a step away to keep her distance.

  “I’m sorry, but this is just so much to take in. I need time to think,” she says while staring at my shoes. She can’t even look me in the eye.

  “Sophie, I love you…” I call out as she quickly turns on her heel and races back inside.

  I stay on the patio in shock. She’s moved on. She loves someone else. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

  “I’m sorry.” Nicole is standing on the pathway looking up at me with Dad’s car parked behind mine on the street.

  “You knew about this? You wanted us to break up and so you let this happen?” I hiss at her, my anger consuming me once more. Thankfully, Nicole is someone I can unleash that anger out on.

  “It’s not like that. She was heartbroken, and Jimmie was—is good for her. I thought you would have wanted me to take care of her; that you would have wanted me to make sure she was happy. We all thought you were dead,” Nicole argues.

  I push her out of my way as I storm towards my car. “You should have known I was alive; we’re fucking twins, remember?” I unfairly say, having always hated how people assumed we knew things about each other. We have never had that connection, and even with my mind reading ability, I didn’t realize she was alive.

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. Look, you left and we had to pick up the pieces. Sophie was a mess, and now she’s not. I mean, if you came back and found her still in her room, not wanting to see or talk to anyone—having given up on life for the past year—wouldn’t you be angry about that?”

  Nicole’s words stop me short. I pause beside the car, my hand frozen under the handle.

  “She’s in love with him,” I say sadly, not sure how I’m supposed to handle this anymore.

  “I know, and I’m sorry, but things change. I’ve changed since you left. Sophie has changed, too. You’re different as well. I mean, you just walked out of the house without caring what Mom or Dad thought. You would have never done that. I can see the anger inside you, bubbling away, and you never got angry before. You seem more grown up, older than nineteen. And you’re freaking fit. Like what were you, a G.I Joe?” Nicole teases, leaning against my car as she stands next to me.

  “I never stopped missing her. When I knew she was alive, knew there was a chance I could get home, I never imagined things wouldn’t be able to go back to how they were.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s not ever going to happen.”

  We stand in silence as we both look at Sophie’s house.

  “So what do I do now?”

  “You come home, and never, ever leave us again. Mom’s orders.” Nicole smiles at me, knocking her elbow into my arm.

  “Well, I have a wedding to go to in L.A. on Saturday. Think Mom will be over seeing me by then?”

  Nicole snorts and laughs hard. “Yeah, right. Come on, let’s go home.”

  “Nicole,” I place my hand over her arm to stop her moving, my eyes boring into hers, “is this guy good to her? Is she really happy?”

  “How can I tell him that she’s happy without him, that she’s in love and planning to move in with Jimmie in September?”

  “He’s a good guy, and he makes her happy.”

  I nod, letting go of her arm. I don’t know what’s going to happen from here on out with Sophie. Will she decide to try and work things out with us? Or stay with the asshole that stole her from me?

  Maybe I can get her to go to Rose’s wedding with me? Maybe I can change her mind?

  ROSE MONTGOMERY

  Chapter 29 – THE WEDDING

  June 8th, Los Angeles

  It’s past four. I have less than an hour until I’m supposed to walk down the aisle. Anna is next to me, blabbing on about her newest boyfriend. Before, I used to be able to listen to her talk about anything, now I am starting to find it tedious. The one good thing about her is that she asked me hardly any questions about my time away. Everyone else I knew bombarded me with questions, but after Anna asked if I was okay, she asked if I wanted to hit a club she had been saving for us that weekend.

  Our lives didn’t stop when we didn’t see each other and I hadn’t even thought of her at all while I was gone. I don’t think she really thought about me, either. Before I thought that made us the perfect friends; we didn’t cling to each other and we were fine apart. Now, I realize that just makes us shit friends.

  Zoe should be here, she should be my maid of honor and we should be celebrating this together. She saw this day months ago and she never let on that she wouldn’t be here for it, not until that day she made me promise not to ask her any questions. I should have asked her; I should have forced her to tell me. We might have been able to change what happened. We could have saved them. Now, out of the five of us, only Charlie and I are alive. It’s not fair.

  “You look like you’re going to cry, save it for after the wedding. You look stunning and your mom spent a fortune on hiring that makeup artist. Keep it together,” Anna orders, so I snap myself out of my reverie.

  “I want to see Dean.” I look at h
er through the mirror in front of us. Last night was the first night since we left The Mansion that I’ve been without him and I didn’t sleep well.

  “Well, in half an hour you will.” I nod while contemplating how hard it would be to run in my dress. It’s exactly how Zoe described it and it feels perfect.

  I’ve never thought about how my wedding day would look or what dress I would wear, but as soon as I saw this, I knew it was perfect. Dean wanted something outside and I wanted our photos to be taken in a beautiful garden. Since we’re being married so close to sunset, we’ve already taken group photos. The photographer just wanted some of Dean and me while the sun is setting after the wedding.

  Seeing Dean in his tux made my eyes nearly pop out. He looked so good I contemplated ripping him out of his clothes right then and there to make love to him. I know he felt the same, too. I’ve never been so attracted to someone as I am with Dean. We still fight all the time and he knows exactly how to get on my nerves, but I’ve always felt loved when I’m with him. He makes me feel special. I can’t wait to be his wife.

  Dean decided he wanted Charlie to be his best man, and I was relieved to see he decided to come today. After our screaming match a few days earlier, I wasn’t sure if he would. I’ve never really liked Charlie all that much, but I do love him. We went through something together that will link us forever. I hate seeing him hurt over losing Zoe, however I know nothing I say will make it better. Hopefully, with time, his pain will begin to fade.

  He’s smiled through every photo and I even saw him making a few jokes with Dean. I saw the pain in his eyes, but he hid it well for Dean; another reason for me to love him.

  Now I’m sitting in my dressing room, bored, while I wait for the wedding to begin. We rented out a large house that has several rooms for the guests to stay overnight. It’s next to the large tent where the wedding will be held. While Dean and I have our photos taken, it’ll be changed into an area for the reception.