Ch. 48

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT:

~Drake:

I slumped in the chair, frustration etched on my face. "Damn it, I need to find Avery," I muttered, my voice tinged with desperation. I glanced at Alec, pleading for answers. "I can't let her suffer like this, Alec. We have to find a way."

Alec's gaze turned thoughtful, his brow furrowing in deep thought. "I hear you, pup. Let's give it another shot. You’re her mate. There’s got to be a different way to reach her, to take over what she’s seeing - so she sees you. I’m not sure if she’ll still be there now but it’s worth a shot."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, focusing on Avery's presence in my mind as Alec took us back in. We walked the same way, through the darkness and gray, to the place we found her last time. This time when we arrived it was just after the death I walked in on. I kept an eye out to see another me there, one full of awe at the goddess before him, but it cut ahead. 

With a surge of determination, I reached out to her, trying to get her attention again, hoping to break through the barriers of her nightmares.

She just looked right through me. As much as I tried, she didn’t hear or feel me. After about two full rounds of these nightmare-memories, I saw Alec walk up to me. 

“Let’s go back and reset. Try again tomorrow,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I glared at him.

He raised a brow at me.

“Would you do that if this was Beth?” I asked him, gesturing to her as she reacted to seeing the little girl learn of her mother’s death again.

Alec just let out a breath.

If only I could get through.

I kept following her. We went to where she instructed the guy at the bar to follow her. Again, I wished she could see me.

I watched as she made him confess and walked up to her.

“Avery, love, this is just about when I finally had the nerve to follow you, to come out here. The moment our eyes met, I knew nothing would be the same,” I mumbled to her, trying to brush a hand through her hair.

She sucked in a breath.

The change in this routine caught my attention and I looked at her. She wasn’t seeing me.

“Holy gods, it’s working,” Alec said in awe.

I turned to glare at him but my eyes caught on something - on me. I stood there across the distance of a few trees and stared at her. It changed. It changed!

We watched carefully as Avery lied to me in this memory about her name. Watched as she walked towards the bar. It cut there. Moved to the next death. But not without a long lull in between.

I stood there, victorious smile on my face. Warmth in my chest from the memory and the ability to have seen it all just like how I remembered.

“You need to do that again!” Alec encouraged, smiling.

The fangs unsettled me a bit but I couldn’t help but chuckle some. I never thought I would be cheered on like this by a vampire, let alone this know-it-all vamp. But here he was, encouraging me - like he was proud of me. So weird.

“I don’t know what I did differently this time. I’ve been talking to her, been trying to touch her all before - I don’t get why now it was different…” I thought aloud, looking at my palms, looking for something weird or obvious but nothing was there.

“Just do it again!” he said again, pushing me towards her.

We were at the lake this time. She was on the dock, starting to scream in frustration, in pain. 

I stayed glued to her and tried my best to hug her. “I’m here, I’m right here,” I said.

Nothing changed.

I thought for a second as the scene changed.

“I’m right there, right over the hill, I’m coming, remember? I never left. I’m right there, just hold on, look,” I coaxed her.

She stiffened and looked through me to see me, well past me, and her relief was palpable. It surged something in me. My hope was that I could reach her, that I could find her. 

I stood back a bit while our past selves embraced. I saw her face then, something I couldn’t have seen before. I know she’s my mate, I know I’m devoted to her, but she - she in that moment - it looked like real love on her face then.

I got warm all over at that thought. The weight of her trust in me. The trust of this fierce woman who had been betrayed by everyone she trusted - it hit me and weighed me down. But the weight wasn’t unwelcome. I would gladly carry this a thousand times over for her.

The pull in my chest felt like a lightning bolt. My eyes flew wide open at the shock of it. And then I saw it. Avery, my real-time Avery, she was looking at me.

Her arms went right through the memory-me and she started to buckle. I moved quickly, catching her at the very last moment. This time I didn’t go right through her. I was holding her - my Avery.

“Dr- Drake?” she stuttered, eyes watering over as I brushed her hair out of her face, trying to drink all of her in, cradling her face like the precious gift she is.

I smiled at her, “Freckles, there you are.” My eyes glossed in tears that refused to fall. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“You came,” she said breathlessly.

“You know I always will,” I said, a repeat of the promise I mean with every word.

I leaned in to kiss her forehead but she phased out a bit.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, voice hollow. “You need to get someplace safe. The people who took me - they - they called your Alpha, told him where you were when they took me. They’re going to find you. You need to get far away. You need to forget me and go.”

“I’ll do whatever you want after I get you out of there. Tell me where you are. Do you know anything about where they’re keeping you?” I asked her desperately as my hand phased through part of her. I was losing her.

“I’m not good Drake, I deserve this. I’ve hurt so many people. And when I lose my emotions - I can’t be controlled. I can’t - I can’t risk taking more people away from their loved ones. I’m a monster. You deserve better,” she said, hiccuping a sob.

“Love, no. Stop talking like that, that’s not true. I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but they have you all mixed up. You are amazing, and I am so lucky to have you in my life,” I tried to brush her tear away but my hand went straight through.

Everything phased away then and moved right back into a memory - murdering those guys we thought were Lycaon in the forest surrounding the cabin.

I was stunned. She shut me right out.

‘Do it again! Stronger! She will see!’ Dane voiced in my head.

“Show her,” Alec said from a few feet away. “Show her your dark memories. You’ve seen hers. Now show her yours.”

Not a bad idea. But how?

I caught up to her again, at the moment she exploded in the treeline by the motel where we’d had a breakthrough. She’d exploded in light when she thought I had been fatally wounded, although from this skewed view you wouldn’t know. So I had to help her remember.

“I know how you really feel Freckles, I felt it out here when you saw me taken out. That’s why you exploded like you did,” I murmured in her ear. 

I watched her eyes flicker to where my past self lie in the dirt.

“I know you care about me - love me - like I love you. I have had a dark past myself. I’ve seen all of this, all of these memories that haunt you, and I still love you. Maybe even more than I used to. Because you and me - we’re the same,” I explained.

And then I took over.

As our minds connected, I poured my heart out to her, sharing my own darkest memories and the pain I had inflicted due to my bloodlust. "Avery, see what I've done. The lives I've taken... It's because of this damn hunger I’ve always had..."

Somehow I knew what to do. I took her along with me. From my first shift and its following rampage, to all the fights I went looking for. I watched her face intently, only glancing at Alec once to make sure he was giving us our space.

She saw how I fought for the little guy sometimes, but how more often I was just going out, getting drunk, and picking fights just to feel something.

Avery's form flickered before me, her past self and her current self flicking until her eyes widening with understanding. She nearly fell into me and I held her tenderly.

"It’s really you, isn’t it?" She settled then. 

“Yes, Freckles, I’m here. And now you know - I’m no high pedestal guy, love. I’m just me. And you are just you. Amazing, fierce, and beautiful to boot, you’ve got to see that,” I implored her.

She looked at me for a deep, long pause, analyzing all of me.

“I can’t lose you to your past. I won’t. And you’re not alone anymore - you don’t have to carry all of this. I will carry it with you. But I can’t agree with you - you don’t deserve this, you don’t deserve staying in here or anything else that's happening to you out there,” I added.

Something crossed her vision I couldn’t name before she breathed out and sunk further into my embrace. 

“Not to ruin this moment but we really need to get information before you wake up,” Alec said from a distance.

Avery flinched and turned out to see him. “Beth’s guy?”

“He helped me get here. Your usual dream sharing wasn’t working,” I filled her in as I squeezed her hand.

“You know, I quite like that, ‘Beth’s guy,’” he said, his sly smile coming back.

“Ugh,” I brushed him off then turned Avery back to me. “Ignore him - vampires can be full of themselves and this one’s probably the most full of himself I’ve ever run across.”

“Well werewolves can be small-minded and-” he started.

Avery flickered. “I think I’m waking up.”

Not when I just reached her, no.

Her face focused and she started speaking quickly, “I don’t know too much about where they took me. I was knocked out and I’m kept in a dark room so I don’t know how much time has passed. I did get out probably like 3 days ago but they found me in the forest. Oh and it’s -” she scrunched her forehead like she was looking for the right word, “my first foster family - the O’Dell’s, they were awful - and it’s him, the guy who took me. Their oldest son. I think after they died Tyler was sent to his brother or something and he told his brother about me. It’s him who runs this thing. Oh we’re in this huge hospital, like an old abandoned one, surrounded by forest, mountains on nearly all sides. When I got out I went East and ran for hours and still didn’t make it out, so it’s a big forest. He said he called your Alpha - told him where he grabbed me. He wants to hurt you - in front of me.”

I squeezed her hand and nodded along with everything, trying to commit it all to memory.

“The boy from the basement?” I asked her.

She looked worried but nodded. She was fading fast now.

“Freckles I -” I started to say, but she was gone and we were back.

I shot straight up from the chair.

“Goddess, da**it!” I yelled, slamming my fist at the wall behind me.

“Wolfie, watch the digs,” Alec said, cool as a cucumber.

I glared at him. 

“Hey, we made it through. We have way more information than when we started. And hopefully she’ll stay clearer. Maybe you can reach her like normal now,” he said, exasperating in his voice like I was some big annoyance.

And maybe I was.

“Let’s go back into the meeting center, I can pull a few people to start researching possibilities. Big empty hospitals in that much forest is something to start with. You can try reaching her in a bit once you think she’s gone back to sleep. Maybe she’ll be able to add more then, but we shouldn't waste any time,” he said, getting up and walking out of this fancy room.

‘He’s right. We can’t lose more time,’ Dane grumbled.

I growled. I knew that too, but I didn’t need to be happy about it.

On the way back down the hill I felt Archer’s link but it came out garbled like he was too far away.

‘Drake, can you hear me?’ Archer finally came through.

Dane perked up, ready for a threat at his tone of voice.

‘I’m here,’ I responded.

‘Rafael, I think he knows where you are. And I’ve been caught. I’m on my way out. I can’t head straight to you or I’ll lead them right to you for sure. You need to get out,’ Archer sent before going out of range again.

“We have a problem!” I shouted ahead to where Alec had moved on ahead.

‘Great. Another one,’ Dane grumbled.