Chapter Thirty-Two: Sisters?

‘Freya,’ Demetri said again through mindlink.

‘Was I kidnapped as a baby?’

‘That’s the important thing I wanted to talk to you about.’

I looked at Rose and the tears in her eyes made me realize I had some coming too. If she was my blood sister I couldn’t let her stay locked up in here.

The sound of footsteps echoed throughout the prison. I turned around and it was Demetri walking in our direction. “Come on you shouldn’t be down here,” he said gently and held his hand out. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and for him to hold me. I pushed the urge away as best I could.

“Let her out first,” I said, wiping my tears away.

Demetri looked between me and her a few times, conflicted. “I can’t just let her go, we need to talk about this first Frey.”

I crossed my arms and took a step back, closer to the cell. Rose stuck her hand out between the bars and grabbed my arm. Her hand was shaking in fear. “Look at her, she’s not a threat,” I said. “She's a child.”

Demetri looked at her but didn’t budge.

“Please, Trey?” I asked and that was all it took.

Demetri reached into his pocket and took out his keys. He picked out the one for her cell and unlocked it. Rose shoved past Demetri and hugged me. “Thank you,” she whispered.

I looked at Demetri and shrugged. ‘She says she’s my sister,’ I mindlinked him.

Demetri didn’t look convinced, if anything he was more suspicious of her now. My mind was only on my adoption and whether it was actually kidnapping or not.

We left lockup and Rose was clinging to me the entire time. We all stopped when we got to the front of the packhouse near the entrance. “I don’t have to leave do I?” she asked. “Can I stay with you?”

“Absolutely not,” Demetri denied her request and grabbed me by my side, pulling me against him.

I blushed and cleared my throat as I created a bit of space. ‘Can’t she stay for a little while? I’ll be completely responsible for her. What if she’s telling the truth?’

Demetri sighed. “You can stay to get a DNA test,” he answered. “If you’re telling the truth about being Freya’s sister then we’ll figure something out.”

Rose straightened herself up and nodded.

“We can go get the lab done at the infirmary,” I said and grabbed her hand.

Demetri walked beside me, refusing to leave me alone with her.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Fourteen,” Rose said. “But my birthday is in a few days.”

“Great,” Demetri said sarcastically. “She’s a minor, we’re housing a runaway.”

“You didn’t have a problem housing a kidnapped victim,” she muttered and Demetri was mildly annoyed.

Kidnapped victim…

We stopped and I told Rose to go into the infirmary and wait for me. I looked up and Demetri and said, “We have a little time… what do you know and how long have you known?”

“I just found out during my meeting with Alpha Cornell,” Demetri said. “I found the files backing up the claim that you were taken as a baby from The Cold Lightning Pack. I confronted your Mom about it and she admitted it.” So it was true… and Mom lied to me. “Your Dad doesn’t know about it.” He was the only innocent one in this if that was true.

“I want to see the files, Demetri,” I said.

“You’re making an awful amount of requests, Freya.”

“This one is reasonable!” I exclaimed in my defense. “It’s all about me, I need to know the details.”

“Of course, I’ll show you but I’m not just talking about seeing the files,” Demetri said, looking through the window of the infirmary at Rose. “I know she’s young but she could have been sent as an attempt to influence you.”

“It’s up to me to make that decision,” I said.

Demetri looked down at me. “Sure but I care about you Freya and I’m not going to stop. If I can stop you from feeling any more emotional pain, I will.” His words had too much of an effect on me. That’s why I wanted to keep my distance before. When we were together he managed to tear down a little bit more of my walls each time.

Flustered, I shuffled past him to open the door and walk into the infirmary. I sat down next to Rose and told Adam about the situation. He told his other nurse to draw the blood for the lab.

We’d have to wait until tomorrow for the results.

When we left Demetri was still waiting outside with his back against the wall. “She can stay in a guest room for now,” he said.

Demetri showed us to the guest room and even though he was hesitant to leave he had to get back to work. His protectiveness was annoying but kind of sweet.

Rose was hungry since she was too afraid to eat the food when she was a prisoner. We went to the dining hall and ate lunch together. I wanted to pick up Gabriel but he was with Mom and I wasn’t ready to talk to her about my “adoption” yet.

Looked across the table at Rose. I always wanted a sister and she looked like she could have been. “Is it okay for me to ask why you were running away?” I questioned.

Rose rested her head on her hand and pressed her elbow into the table. “Our Dad is Beta of the pack.” Our dad… “When we found you Dad started obsessing over bringing you back,” she started and I felt like I was hearing about someone else's life, not mine. “I tried to tell him that we needed to go a less aggressive route. I thought talking to you would be enough but nope, they wanted to attack a small almost defenseless pack. I couldn’t be a part of that.” Maybe my birth parents weren’t the best but that didn’t justify any of this.

“What about your mom?” I asked.

“She died a few years ago,” she said, her eyes sad. “There’s so much she would have wanted to say to you.” I had no idea how to reply to that. I had my mom, despite how upset I was with her about lying she was still the woman who raised me. At least, I think that’s how I felt. “She died not knowing you were okay and that’s the saddest part for me.”

“Where are you going after this?”

Rose shrugged. “I didn’t have a place in mind, I just wanted to go far away.” She perked up and smiled. “But we’re sisters so maybe we could stick together.”

I feigned a smile, not feeling the instant connection she did. Family was important to me though and like I said I always wanted a sister. So if the test revealed that she was my blood sister I’d try.

After lunch, Rose went to rest in her bed.

I asked Demetri to go to my mother’s room and pick Gabriel up for me. So far Demetri was going out of his way for me from little things to more serious requests. He had to want to be more than friends… right?

Before I went to get Gabriel from Demetri I I went to Caroline’s room and knocked on her door. She didn’t answer at first so I waited a while between knocks, waiting as long as I had to.

When Caroline finally answered the door she had a blanket wrapped around herself. Under her eyes were puffy and red. She let me in and we sat on her bed. “I’m really sorry you’re going through this but who knows if they’ll even stay together.”

Caroline shook her head before laying it on my lap. “Freya it’s over I need to move on,” she said. “I can’t wait for Brandon to say I told you so.” Her was tone full of sarcasm.

I sat with her for a while, just to be a friend to lean on and a pair of ears to listen.

When she was done talking about Alpha Cornell she asked, “Are you going to help me convince Demetri to let Rose out?”

“Already done,” I said.

Caroline smiled through her tears. “You’re seriously amazing Freya.”

The next day I worked. It felt pretty normal except I was ignoring my mother’s calls. Adam even asked her to come back later when she came by to see Dad. I didn’t want to take that from her but I couldn’t see her yet. I still hadn’t figured out if I was angry with her or just felt betrayed by her, the woman who was supposed to be my mother.

“The results of your lab are ready,” Adam said to me when he walked into his office.

“Oh… and?”

As he opened his mouth to answer my heart began to race.