Chapter 40

He sighed. “We found where the Annihilists were staying. We went to take care of them and Eve took off with Jarret. At the time I thought it was because he could protect her. He’d proven himself capable of that. It was stupid of me to let them head off like that. They got ambushed and Jarret was hit over the head. Eve continued to fight to the best of her ability. She got out of there and left Jarret behind. That’s not incredibly terrible, if she had been coming for help.

“But she hadn’t been. She didn’t tell a single person where he was or that he was on his own. It wasn’t until after the battle that I realized she was back and he was gone. Billy tracked him and rushed right to him. It was a miracle he wasn’t dead. He was barely alive, but it was enough. It took him almost three months to recover.” He paused and then said, “No one else in the Family knows that except for Jarret. He didn’t hold a grudge and he didn’t tell anyone because he really does care about us, as much as he’s capable.”

“I won’t bring it up,” I promised. “Even to Billy.”

“Thanks. Your turn.”

Where to pick up?

“The last two years we spent with Grandfather were the worst,” I said. “Tendon kept…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, so I just moved on. “Grandfather was furious that we were still fighting him. We weren’t the perfect little weapons that he wanted. But he also learned the one thing that could bring all of us to our knees.

“Each other. We could take pain and abuse like champs, but watching the others go through it? It was the worst. He found out because he got really angry one day because Billy and I were being especially difficult. His anger grew and grew until he needed to burn through it somehow. Regory had gotten home from work just as Grandfather was leaving. So he mowed him down with his car.”

Loki winced.

“Billy screamed bloody murder and I did the only thing I could. Defended them against the man. That usually required taking a beating meant for someone else, but I would have done it a thousand times to keep them safe. It was all the information he needed to have.”

My eyes burned, but I refused to let the tears in. “He started a new game. At this point, we were seeing him nearly every day. Tendon came by randomly and attacked me. I was sleeping between Billy and Regory just so I’d be safe at night. This new game? It was the one that could have broken us.

“He’d bring people to the ranch. Random people that he grabbed off the street. Men, women, teenagers. Never children, because he knew we’d never budge on that. He’d take them into the barn because the horses never went in there. There was a table set up for my bloodlettings and it worked just as well with these prisoners.

“Once they were strapped down, he’d call the three of us in. Regory was immediately restrained every time because he would fall when Billy did, so everyone but me thinks. I think they’re stronger than they do.

“Funny,” Loki said. “Billy’s said the same thing about you before.”

I smiled because of course she did. I was sure Regory thought the same thing. “He’d choose one of us, me or Billy. The other was taken into the corner and surrounded by family members. He’d tell us to kill the person or he’d do something bad to the other. Usually beatings and threats of death.

“Those never worked. We were used to getting beaten and we knew he’d never kill us to make a point. He’d put in too much effort to let us go, in any fashion. But sometimes… sometimes the beatings were really bad and it hurt us to watch the other getting so badly hurt. We’d stay strong because we knew the other could take it.

“Except those times we couldn’t. It was never the threat of death or injury that made us move. It was when he threatened to make Billy watch Tendon hurt me. She couldn’t do it and so someone would die. Or when he’d threaten to unleash Tendon on Billy. Someone would die.” Faces moved through my mind. All those that shouldn’t have suffered but did. The guilt that I had to deal with. It never really went away, but when you kill so many people and you know you never would have done something different? You learned to live with it.

“It was two for me and one for Billy,” I said. “All the others died as well, by my Grandfather’s hand when he couldn’t move ours.” I rubbed my arms to get rid of the chill that had crept through my body. My secrets were almost out and I wondered how many more Loki had to tell.

“Your turn,” I said.

“Eve never tried to get rid of Jarret again. I think she was surprised by how angry I’d been. I yelled at her. For a long time. I remember nothing that I said, but I remember the look on her face. Shock and hurt. She was so hurt that I’d lash out at her like that. I felt guilty for days afterward.

“A year passed without incident. Jarret was all better and he never let himself be alone with Eve. I was the only one who noticed that. Eve acted like nothing had happened and we put it all behind us. Then you were Orphaned. I had been in the room with Billy when she got that call. Did you know that?”

“No,” I said. At that time, I hadn’t owned a phone. Billy and I kept in contact strictly through email because I could use a computer for free at the library. It wasn’t until a month after being Orphaned that I got a phone. Reggie gave it to me. I immediately got Billy’s number.

Loki nodded. “She had been trying to change Eve’s mind for the last year and a half, since she finished detoxing. My mate just wouldn’t budge. When she got that call from your aunt? It was through my city number and I had stayed in the office with her. She kept her cool through the conversation, but the second she hung up she lost it. In a frightening way. She was so sad and so angry.

“I think she would have been fine it if weren’t for the clause that she couldn’t see you. She started sobbing and there was nothing I could do. She went out into the living room, looked Eve in the eye and told her that she would never forgive her for doing that to you. That was the last time that Billy spoke to Eve, I think.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

He smiled sadly. “Billy loves you. You and Regory are the most important people in her life. The fact that she didn’t actually attack my mate? She had to have been using every ounce of self-control she possesses. As I’ve learned from you the past few days, that’s a lot more than I would have guessed.”

I smiled sickly. Yes… We could control ourselves.

“Another year went by and everything was okay. Billy wouldn’t talk to Eve still and Jarret wouldn’t be in the same room with her alone, but everything felt okay. Eve and I were good. The Family was strong. My company was doing as well as it ever did. Then some more Annihilists showed up.

“They attacked without hesitation or restraint. Not like these that we’re dealing with now. They wanted the city and the best way to do that was no mercy. We fought back hard and the battle turned to our favor. It was in my front yard and there were only three or four left. And they panicked.

“Their Hail Mary almost worked. They attacked Eve.”

My stomached dropped when I realized what story this was.

“Threw her on the ground and stabbed her in the ribs. I listened to her lung deflate. One of them kicked her in the stomach and other kicked her in the head. I got to her and tossed them all away. My Family took care of them. They must have cleaned up the bodies and blood, taken care of the house and gone looking for any stragglers, but I don’t remember a thing about that.

“Everything had been about my mate.” He closed his eyes. “We took her into the house. She was coughing up blood and gasping for air. The hole in her side leaked everywhere. We bandaged her up, moving as fast as we could, but we didn’t move fast enough. Billy had tried plugging the hole. I watched her struggle to stop the bleeding. She had been trying so hard. For days.

“Then Eve died. Our hands had been clasped. I had been staring into her eyes and telling her it would be okay when she died. I collapsed onto the floor when my mate bond was ripped out of me, torn through my very soul. The last thing I remember was praying that I wouldn’t wake up again.

“But, of course, I did. When I awoke she was nowhere to be found. They had taken care of her body because it was the kindest thing they could have done for me. The only thing they could have done for me.

“Billy was the one to come talk to me,” he said. “She just happened to be on suicide watch when I woke up. She told me that I would survive. Then she begged me to keep living. Said she wasn’t sure they could survive without me. I barely heard her words. My head wasn’t in the right place. But I promised her I wouldn’t leave. She had cried at that point and said something I hadn’t expected to hear. She said she was so sorry, not just for Eve, but for the baby.”

My heart stopped beating. I stared at him. All the pain in the world was in his eyes and his face was lined with sorrow. It made him look a decade older than he’d ever look. He had lost a mate and a child. The fact that he wasn’t dead right now? That was a fucking miracle.

He nodded his head, as if he understood what was going through my head. “She had been three months into the pregnancy,” he explained. “Five more and I would have had a baby girl. Billy knew because she could sense it. We hadn’t told anyone else because we wanted to get to the halfway mark. Another month and we would have been able to tell everyone that there was going to be an infant soon. When the Annihilists killed Eve, they killed our child too.

“I’m not sure the baby would have survived even if Eve did. I doubt it. But I still would have had my mate. I still would have had… something. If it weren’t for my Family? I would have died. No doubt about it.”

When he stopped talking, I thought he was going to tell me that it was my turn. Instead, he said. “Eve wanted to name her Eva. I didn’t care what her name was so I was fine with it. I hadn’t even told my little sister about the pregnancy. None of them know, to this day, no one but Billy and probably Regory know.”

The ‘and now you’ didn’t need to be said.

“Your turn.”

I rubbed my hands together. It wasn’t hard to keep talking.

“With all the things that Grandfather was doing to us…he wasn’t wrong, you know. With everything he was doing, he was going to break us. When you destroy a person though, you better be sure you know exactly how the break is going to happen.

“I was fourteen. Billy fifteen. Regory sixteen. He was still working so that he could get us food. Billy was still addicted to drugs. I was still being attacked by Tendon. Nothing had changed. The last two years of our lives had been utter Hell and misery. Billy and I couldn’t take it much longer and Regory? He was barely a person at that point. Watching the only people he loved slowly degrade? It wore on him.

“One day I went out to give the horses some water. Billy was in the house flushing all her drugs down the toilet. It was the only way she could keep from taking them. Regory was at work.

“Tendon showed up. We fought in the stables. Most of it is a blur, but I remember grabbing a hoof knife and stabbing it through his thigh because it infuriated him. He got the upper hand because he was a teleport. He disappeared from in front of me and then something hit me in the back of the head. I went down. Hard.

“When I came to, there was the smell of hot metal. I struggled to wake up and when I finally peeled my eyes open, he was coming toward me. I had been wearing a pair of shorts and that was my big mistake that morning, other than waking up. As he came toward me, I realized he was carrying a branding iron that hadn’t been used for decades. Its design was simple. A T with a circle around it. Before I realized what was happening, he pressed it into my leg. Right here.”

I set my hand on the side of my left leg. Right where my only scar was located. The only indication that not everything in my life was peachy. I glanced at Loki and I saw comprehension on his face. With us sharing this room, I knew he had seen it at some point. Behind the comprehension? Fury.

Hopefully that would make the end of my story bearable.