Chapter 304

Chapter 33 – Rainy POV This was supposed to be a safe place, ‘I’m going to be away for a while sis, but I want you and the kids to go with someone. She’s going into hiding with her mate – Gabriel.’ Logan had said to Chris and I. ‘You want us to leave? Because we’re causing trouble?’ I asked immediately but he had assured me that wasn’t why. ‘It’ll be safer than living with me gone Rainy,’ I had nodded. I didn’t want to constantly move my children around when what they needed was stability but they needed to be safe. If Logan thought it would have been safer somewhere else when he wasn’t going to be home, then I would go. After hearing the details it didn’t seem so bad, especially when all our doctors and therapists would be coming with us, the kids would have everything they needed and be safe. We hadn’t really met Chelsea, but Logan told me how we were related, who she was and what was going on, keeping no secrets. We had just gotten Quinn and Fiona back with us, have as many good moments as bad but still going one day at a time. This – this monster wasn’t supposed to be here, he didn’t deserve safety after all the horrible things he had done to me, to my children. He couldn’t be here – but when Chelsea wanted to kill him, I couldn’t let her. I don’t think anyone understood, I wanted him away from anyone he could ever think of hurting… but I wanted him to tell his family who he truly was. When I was hidden away I felt so small, useless and numb, I couldn’t be that way on the outside. Killing him, without him admitting who he was, and what he did when we were in the shadows I felt like I would be the one walking with his demons. I wanted his darkness paraded for all his loved ones to see, it wasn’t fair for me to be the one walking around with all the guilt and shame I felt inside. It just wasn’t fair. He didn’t get to leave this earth with respect or adoration. My throat was dry, and while I’m sure others were speaking around me, all I could hear was the blood rushing in my head, my feet concrete blocks. My hands shook, and with a ball of unease in the pit of my stomach I squeezed Chris hand, the young woman in front of me shook her head in denial, “You don’t remember that phone call?” I asked bitterly the refusal to accept a slap to the face, “How about you,” I switched my gaze to the woman who before now I had only heard her voice, “you called your husband when your son went out on his first date with a girl named Heather, you said that her family didn’t come from a good pedigree,” burning and turning inside, I didn’t let it show. “I had lost track of how old I was by then, I had other things to worry about then… when you said pedigree I thought you meant he was a werewolf too…” Like her daughter, she just stared me down, nothing, stilling crying, weeping for her ‘good’ man, I turned back to Hope, then I gazed at her daughter and the man holding her, he eyed me still fighting to hold his daughter, “I don’t know when you got married, but by that time I had a daughter Kayla, two days before your wedding, you called him, told him not to forget to bring the Brazilian chocolate – they were Hopes favorite, he – he said ‘Andre oh that totally slipped my mind and I’m just about to board-” Mother and daughter didn’t believe me, but this man, I could see it in his eyes. “He’s been coming to see me since I was eleven, and when I was seventeen, too old, he moved on to my baby,” I said gritting my teeth, swallowing, panting as my vision blurred, “You’re lying,” the uninjured son barked, but I kept my eyes on the one man whose eyes were pained. “I – I was kidnapped and locked in a basement – he visited often. When my daughter was five – a baby,” I spit out, looking at the little girl in his arms, “he would pick her. No amount of begging made him pick me – do – do you want to know what he liked to do with her?” The man took a step back holding his child against him, his arms flexing, “He liked when other sick – pervert men like him, beat her bloody so he could come in and bathe her,” I broke eye contact with him, saying the words made my stomach turn, memories, “and – and when he did that- he hummed to her-” I closed my eyes cutting my self off, humming the same tune “Oh god,” Andre whispered, my eyes flew open. I felt Chris wrap an arm around my shaking form, pulling my against him, “Andy – Andy – no-” Hope shook her head furiously from side to side as her husband took a step back, “Daddy – Andy – he – he isn’t like that,” she turned to me angrily, with Chris behind me, I didn’t flinch, I had faced more than she could ever know, that sneer wasn’t the worst I had suffered. “He wouldn’t – Daddy-” “He stopped coming when my girls – when – when they had grown front teeth. If he wasn’t hurting my babies – if he’s been here on the island – men like him don’t change,” I shook my head, “They – they find new victims,” I whispered sadly, hoping I was wrong. The truth was I wasn’t wishing Brians’ badness on anyone, especially not a child. You were a child too Rainy, I heard from Chris. Nodding woodenly I let him know that I heard him, and that I wasn’t blaming myself. “Andre – she’s lying…” one of the sons said, “Dad isn’t – I mean he’s never even so much as spanked us – he’d never hurt Jenny,” he finished shaking exasperatingly, his sneer so much like his father, I bit my lip to keep the whimper threatening to fall from my lips. Still shaking I began rocking against Chris. I looked at Andre, fusing to look away from his eyes, taking courage from Chris – no one could hurt me here – steeling myself, he gazed at me and as if in slow motion he shook his head from side to side, placing one arm right up to his daughters upper back, “No – I – I called him,” he nodded, “I had told him to bring the chocolates for you, called him to make sure Hope… no – no one was home just me – how- how would she – oh god – and that – that tune he-” the sun was just going under, but what little light was left reflected in his eyes, the glassy gaze, his face losing all it’s color as he took two more steps back, this time looking away from me and then checking his daughter. His eyes flying over her face, her tiny body held against his, searching for injuries his eyes flickering to me again and back to his daughter. When he was nearly seven or eight feet away from everyone, he shook his head at Hope, turning around and leaving with his child, the little girl crying for her mother. I couldn’t – this was all – I pushed myself against Chris wanting to put distance between Brian and me as he started to come around, the groaning, panting and whimper, cutting me deeply. Reminding me of a time when other things made him make those sounds, closing my eyes, shaking my head, I couldn’t – “No – no – stop,” my body seems to shut down, my muscles go rigid, my stomach rolls and clenches painfully, and my mind goes. . . Chelsea POV