Chapter 41 The Twist
Kristen's POV
The indoor pool party for the youngsters is going on but I'm not even feeling it. Everyone else here looks excited except me. There's music, games, food, and my friends are dancing with boys outside the pool, while I'm just in here, swaying my legs in the pool and recalling what just happened two hours ago.
I have a band-aid on my forehead and lied to my friends that I had a huge fall in the bathroom to cover it up. Who would tell their friends they got into a fight with their mom over a man in the restroom? It's not like I even wanted to fight Mom, my wolf wanted to protect me from her. She laid hands on me, submerged my head in a sink full of water to torture me, slammed my face into a wall, on the sink counter until I bled, and then whipped me with a mopping stick. That wasn't all, her wolf attacked mine, attempted to bite and claw my wolf's body.
I never thought about our relationship being a toxic one because I yearned for things to work out, so I let not-so-common things slide; like when she would rain my cheeks with slaps and then cry with me when she saw me in tears. How she left me out in the cold when she had bad days.
I knew she wouldn't take it likely if she learned about me and her husband, but now, I'm not even afraid of her anymore. She just proved to be this remorseless, indeed toxic mother. I'm partly at fault here about this whole thing, but aside from that, Mom is not a good person.
When Bruce took me away to have my bruises cleaned up and treated, he knew she lied. Knew she hit me. It was the second time he saw her and me like that, except this one was more brutal.
"Is everything okay?"
My head shoots up to see Ben standing with a towel on his shoulders, he just got out of the pool and his brows are arched in worry.
"Yeah."
"You don't look good, more like the buzz killer or something."
"Sorry, I'll just get away from here," I mumble, pulling my legs away from the water.
"No, wait. I didn't mean to piss you off. I said that to hear your response, everyone else is having fun while you're just here, alone, detached from everything and everyone," Ben explains, scratching the back of his head. A die-hard habit of his.
Nodding, I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
"Do you maybe want to get away from here?" Ben offers.
Avoiding the gazes of my friends, I let him lead me out.
We walk around for a while, talking about everything and nothing. I must admit being around someone like Ben who's absolutely free-spirited, is quite refreshing.
"Do you want one of those?" Ben points at the ice cream machine.
"Yeah, sure."
"Then I'll get it for you."
"No," I shake my head, "let me go myself. You don't have to do everything for me," my face is free enough to smile at him.
I leave Ben and make my way toward the ice cream machine, and as I am grabbing the plastic cups, I spot two waiters throwing a heavy log of wood into the sea.
"Do you think no one saw us?" The short one asks his colleague.
"No," the other replies, "now we have to go for Ben since we already killed his mother and threw his younger brother into the
sea.
A horrified gasp erupts from my mouth as my heart drops in my stomach.
"And the poisoned wine?"
"On its way to the Alphas table. I hope Alpha Calhoun drinks out of it too, not only Alpha Gregory deserves to die. They're all stupid rich assholes who think they have the world at their feet."
"Kristen! Wait up, what's going on!?" Ben is already following me, upon seeing the way I sped past him.
I am panicking, with not a single idea of where I'm off to. Ben's mom has been killed or this is some sort of prank? His younger brother is thrown into the sea and a poisoned wine is being taken to the Alphas table!?
Cold runs deep through me, and my heart is already threatening to tear right out of my throat.
"What the fuck, Kristen! Slow down!" An upset-looking Ben stops me with his hand on my shoulder.
"Where is your mom, Ben? And your younger brother?" My body is already trembling violently when I ask him this.
"My mom?" He seems confused, "Last time I saw her she was on her way to the female's restroom."
"Wait up!" Ben yells after me because I barely let him conclude before I sprint to the restroom.
"Layla!?" I call out to her, running through the open restrooms until I get to the last which seems locked.
"You need to tell me why you're acting up, Kristen, because it's starting to give me the wrong impression about you," Ben looks upset. He's here.
"I overheard some waiters talking..." I pause, bang loudly on the door, "They said they killed your mom."
"What!?" Ben's eyes are huge in their sockets.
I am trying to open the door, twisting the door handle and jamming my body into it.
"Is this some sort of joke or something?" Ben asks me.
"Open the fucking door, Ben!" I roar at him.
Fear rises in Ben's eyes and he quickly obliges.
He goes for the first time but it doesn't open.
He tries again for the second time, still the same.
However, his fourth attempt breaks the door, and we rush in, only to see Layla, with her eyes plucked right out from their sockets, and her limbs missing.
"Mom!" Ben's ear-splitting shriek echoes on the walls.
Something hits me hard as if the back of my head was slammed with a baseball bat, and vomit rises to my throat at the same time.
Layla is truly dead. Her limbs were severed from her body like an animal.
The sight is so gut-wrenching, but I gulp down my vomit when the realization slams through me that those waiters are the killers and everything they said is true.
And Ben, he's still standing at his full height, shivering like he's near convulsion. The spit dripping from his mouth is enough to fill up a gas gallon.
When I remember what the waiters said about a poisoned wine heading to the Alphas' table, the first person who comes to my mind is Calhoun.
As I run out, I see Alpha Gregory already holding a wine bottle in his hands, pouring first into Calhoun's glass cup.
"No!" I below at the top of my lungs.
Everyone at the table pauses to look at me running in their direction, including Mom.
"What's happening?"
"She doesn't look okay,"
They're already talking about me, looking utterly confused.
Calhoun settles the glass of wine on the table and attempts to stand up, but Alpha Gregory stops him and asks him to drink up since the wine was worth a million dollars.
Calhoun is still looking at me with a worried expression and picks up the poisoned wine once more.
While running, I let my wolf out because I can't run as much as she does.
The glass of wine is already an inch away from Calhoun's mouth when my wolf takes a leap so high and knocks the wine glass off his hand.
It falls on the table, cracks make a squishing sound as it burns through half of the tablecloth like acid.
Jaws dropped to the floor and gasps flew out of everyone's mouth.
"What the fuck!" Alpha Gregory flinches as he pushes the wine bottle away from it.
"It's poisoned!" I am already out of breath as I shift back and tell them this.
"What!?" Almost everyone asks at once.
"Alpha Gregory, your wife has been killed by some waiters. Ben is with her corpse in the female's restroom," it takes everything within me to break this bad news to them.
For a moment, everyone pales, mostly Ben's father.
"What did you say?" Alpha Gregory nears my side, after letting a few seconds pass.
"She was killed and they sent a poisoned wine to kill everyone on this table, mostly you and Alpha Calhoun."
Horrified gasps flow through the table for the second time and it only takes a matter of a few seconds for them to abandon their
seats.
Alpha Gregory, his beta, and some men are already running toward the restroom area.
I am still letting out heavy breaths when something catches my eyes from afar. It's a log of wood floating in the sea.
At this, my mind drifts back to what I heard from the waiters.
Narrowing my eyes to get a proper view, I see a child, told to the log of wood with ropes. He's unconscious like he was drugged.
Oh my god!
It's truly Ben's little brother.