Chapter 58 Alone in the Dark
ADRIANA
I swallowed the thick knot that formed in my throat. “Lisa.”
She smiled at me and under the moonlight, she looked more evil than I’d ever seen her. The silvery light cast shadows across her face, making her features look sharp and cruel.
“How the hell did you get in here?”
She laughed, a sound that sent chills down my spine.
“Don’t you think you have bigger problems to face?”
How the hell did she get in here? What was she doing here? The questions raced through my mind but I needed answers.
“What are you doing here? And how did you get in here?”
She went to sit on the chair I had been sitting on earlier and crossed her legs casually, like she owned the place. I could still see movement in the trees behind her, shadows shifting and moving closer.
“You didn’t come alone. What exactly is your plan?”
I could see them coming out of the trees now, figures emerging from the darkness. Men. Several of them. My heart started racing, pounding so hard I thought it might burst from my chest.
“What exactly are you doing here? Haven’t you done enough?!”
Some men came running out of the trees and they began running toward the house. Toward where the children were. They couldn’t go in there. I wouldn’t let them.
“What are they doing? Wait, stop! The kids are in there!”
She raised her hand lazily and they halted immediately, like trained dogs obeying their master. The fact that they listened to her so quickly told me this had been planned, rehearsed.
“What is it?! Haven’t you done enough? The pain, the torture, the torment! Are they not enough?!”
My voice was rising, all the years of abuse and mistreatment pouring out in my words. Everything she’d done to me, everything she’d taken from me.
She laughed maniacally and rose from the chair, her movements deliberate and dramatic.
“I came here to make you pay for what you did to me. For how you ruined my life!”
“I ruined your life? Can you hear yourself?! How dare you say something like that?! It’s you and that little toad that destroyed my life and you stand here talking about your life?!”
She was definitely delusional because if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be talking about me betraying her. She made my life hell and I still wasn’t over it, and she had the audacity to talk about betrayal.
“Don’t you dare call my boyfriend a toad!”
“He was my boyfriend first, you witch! Don’t act like you weren’t jealous. I could see the way you always looked at him when he came around. I knew you wanted him but that’s okay. You finally got him.”
She moved closer to me, her eyes glinting with malice.
“Yes, I have him now and he’s mine. You on the other hand have now become the bitter one. I can see the way you lust after him like there’s no tomorrow but just know that he can never love you.”
It was my turn to laugh, the sound bitter and harsh.
“So it’s you he’s going to love? Don’t be ridiculous. He’s just with you because he thinks Dad loves you more and you’re going to get the Alpha post. I want to believe you’re smarter than that but then again, you might not be.”
She kicked the table hard and it toppled over, sending the cups and clothes flying everywhere. Water spilled across the ground, soaking into the dirt.
“Is that the worst you can do?”
“When you were in my life, you made it miserable. You took Mom away from me and you thought you had won. Thankfully, she died and Dad hated you. And then you left and things became even worse for me!”
Thankfully, Mom died? What kind of beast was this? What kind of person said something like that about their own mother?
“What have I done this time? I left that pack for you guys because I knew I wasn’t wanted, so what exactly do you want from me now?”
“It’s all your fault that Landon doesn’t love me anymore! He doesn’t touch me and he doesn’t look at me like he used to. All because of you! It’s your fault! And then Elijah came to make it worse by coming to the pack and talking to Dad!”
Hazel had been the one to tell me that Elijah had gone over there the other day. He wouldn’t have told me himself because he knew how I would react.
“That is not my fault. Landon never loved you as I told you before. He only got with you because he was a greedy son of a bitch who saw an equally greedy person and decided she was stupid enough for him to manipulate.”
She raised her hand to slap me but I caught it mid-air. I noticed I’d been faster with my reflexes recently, my body reacting before my mind could even process the threat.
“Don’t even think about it. You will regret it.”
She looked at something behind me and her eyes lit up with a cruel idea. I turned to see Leo running toward me, his little legs pumping as fast as they could.
“Leo, go back inside!”
He didn’t listen. He kept running toward me and I could see the way her eyes tracked him like a predator watching prey. If anything happened to him, I would hate myself forever.
Lisa left me and ran toward him, moving faster than I expected.
“Leo! Run!”
I ran back toward him, my own legs moving as fast as they could. I hoped I would get to him before she would.
Please, please let me get to him first. I prayed.
I luckily got to him before she did and I ran into him, throwing both of us to the ground. I shielded his body with mine, covering him completely. But she went for somewhere that was exposed, somewhere I couldn’t protect.
And before I knew it, something glinted in the moonlight. Before I could react, it disappeared.
The blade sank into his small body and I heard him gasp, a horrible sound that would haunt me forever. His blood immediately began to flow, warm and sticky, soaking through his shirt and onto my hands.
“No!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat. “No, no, no!”
Lisa stepped back, looking almost surprised at what she’d done, like she hadn’t really meant to go that far. But it was too late. The damage was done.
“Leo, stay with me. Stay with me, baby. Open your eyes!”
His eyes were already starting to close, his small face going pale. There was so much blood.
“Somebody help! Help me!”
But there was no one. The guards were dead or overwhelmed. It was just me and the children and these monsters.
I pressed my hands around the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but it kept coming. The knife was still in him and I knew from some distant memory of a first aid class that I shouldn’t pull it out. That it might be the only thing keeping him from bleeding out completely.
“Please, please, somebody help us!”
Lisa and her men were backing away now, disappearing into the trees as quickly as they’d come. They’d done what they came to do.
I held Leo close, my tears falling onto his face as I begged him to stay with me.
“Don’t leave me, Leo. Please don’t leave me. Your dad is coming back. He’ll be here soon. Just hold on. Please hold on.”
But his eyes kept closing and his breathing kept getting shallower and I didn’t know if help would come in time.