Page 32

Chapter 31

Tongue lashing

Maddie

I toss the dishcloth onto the break room counter for the umpteenth time to check my phone.

Again.

Holding my cell in a death grip, I rub my thumb vigorously along the side of the phone case. I stare at the screen with unseeing eyes, waiting for a call or a text. Something to tell me he’s all right.

And more importantly, that he’s coming home to me.

As the hours pass by, my hope for that outcome dwindles exponentially.

I return my cell to my pocket, pick up the towel, and resume wiping the same two-foot square area of countertop I’ve been scrubbing for a half hour. It doesn’t need cleaning, but I need something to do.

If he doesn’t get back soon, I’ll resort to stress baking.

Alan has been off the grid for more than three hours now.

By the time this night is over, I will have no more fingernails. However, if we don’t find Alan, the state of my fingernails won’t matter. If I lose him, part of me will die.

Overdramatic? Yes.

But that doesn’t make it untrue.

This moment and the fear it evokes are part of the reason why I was so afraid to love him. It wasn’t a conscious fear, but it was there all the same. I see it now so vividly.

I know the pain of losing someone you love firsthand. And I also know how strong I am. Or should I say, how weak I am. A lifetime in this body has taught me a lot about what I could stand or what would break me.

A life without Alan, after loving him so completely and openly, would land me somewhere between the two options.

While my body would continue living without Alan, darkness would once again reside inside me.

With three grandchildren on the way, I have so much to look forward to. Memories to make and love to give.

So yes, I’d survive and live on. I’d even find joy again.

But it would irrevocably change me.

You can’t love and lose a man like Alan and expect to be the same as before you knew what it was like to be cherished.

When Sammy died, or so we thought, a gaping hole opened under my ribs. Unimaginable pain was all I felt for such a long time. And that agony expanded until it filled the hole. Yet it didn’t stop there. It spread like a virus inside me, bringing with it a blanket of darkness that I couldn’t see through. It nearly snuffed out my life.

I wanted to die.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve considered such a thing. When I was nineteen, I almost took my life. Hiding in the bathroom with a kitchen knife in my hand, I looked in the mirror and thought I was seeing myself for the last time. The mere idea of fighting tooth and nail for the right to live inside a mind and body filled with nothing but horrific memories was too much to take. Why go on when I thought my future would be more of the same?

However, like the coward I am, I chickened out.

If I hadn’t become pregnant with Leo when I did, I can’t say for certain if I would still be here. He became my reason for surviving. Drew and Sammy further fueled my desire to persevere.

I wish the same love I had for them would have fortified my resolve to escape from their father long before I did.

As time marched on, I learned that the strength required to escape from the cycle of abuse must come from within. External love is not the path to salvation. In the same way Alan couldn’t love me out of Travis’s hold, my love for my children couldn’t push me to leave him either.

It was only when I began to see myself as worth loving that I was able to set myself free.

Heavy footsteps pound down the hallway.

“Mom, are you down here?” my daughter calls out.

I force calmness into my reply. “Yes, dear. I’m in the break room cleaning up.”

When Sammy strides into the doorway, her cheeks are rosy, and her nose is puffy. As soon as her pretty blue eyes find me, she releases an anguished sigh. She spreads her arms wide, beckoning me into an embrace.

As I shuffle into her arms, my mind rapidly sorts my thoughts into two distinct categories. My optimistic side wants to believe she’s here simply to comfort and surround me with love, allowing me to do the same for her. My other thoughts are far darker.

Why is she crying? Could something have happened to Sawyer or Leo while they were out searching for Alan? Did they find him?

And if so, was it too late?

I fold myself around my daughter, hugging her as tightly as I can despite her pregnant belly impeding our connection. Since she’s slightly taller than me, she presses my cheek against her shoulder and lovingly caresses the side of my head.

Her prolonged silence is terrifying. The acerbic taste of crippling fear floods my mouth.

I bet you didn’t know that fear had a flavor, did you?

Take it from me, it does.

It’s bitter and rancid. A cross between spoiled milk and rotten vegetables. It coats your tongue like a paste. You can try to rinse it down with water—or, as in my case, a bottle of wine—but it still lingers.

Once I find the courage to pull out of Sammy’s embrace, I study her expression for clues to whatever must have happened to send her looking for me in a tizzy. Moving of their own accord, my hands rise to cup her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she rasps, shrugging gingerly out of my hold and wiping the tears from her face.

“Sorry for what?” I force the words out, my voice sounding foreign to my ears.

Her face blanches, and her eyes shoot wide with shock or fear. “Oh no, that isn’t what I meant.”

Wait . What?

Sammy’s typical humor returns with her next breath. She presses the inside of her palm against her forehead twice as if she’s smacking some sense into herself. “I’m sorry for crying and not telling you why I’m here, making you think I was delivering bad news.”

My face crumples in confusion, but a spark of hope flutters in my chest.

She extends her hands out in front of her. “To be clear, I am not doing that. It’s the opposite. Good news. But when I saw how sad and scared you looked, I got choked up again. Damn hormones.”

My lips part, allowing a tiny gasp to escape. That spark of hope begins to ignite.

“What is it? What’s the good news?”

As soon as the question leaves my lips, her face lights up with impish delight. The joke is coming in three, two, one.

Her eyes dance. “The good news, Mother, is Jesus died for our sins, and?—”

I press my index finger against her mouth to shush her. “I was going to let you finish, but I suspect it’ll be highly blasphemous.”

She winks and talks around my finger. “Oh, it totally would’ve been.”

I’m unable to hold my grin, especially now that it’s clear no one is hurt. Although my daughter loves to joke about inappropriate things, she wouldn’t go for a cheap laugh in the midst of something severe.

“In my defense, I only knew just enough about that good news thing to get myself in trouble. I admit I wasn’t a great student in Sunday school.” She shrugs. “So it was probably for the best that you stopped me when you did.”

I send my eyes for a roll around my head and huff. “Enough, Samantha. Please tell me what the latest is with Alan and the boys. Did they find him? Are they all right?”

“Everyone is safe, Mom.”

Air whooshes out of me so quickly it leaves me a little dizzy. “They are?”

Sammy nods eagerly. “Yes. Big Al turned his comms back on as soon as he returned to his car. He was fine the whole time. I was in the lair waiting, which is how I found out so fast.”

“Where was he all this time?”

“Talking to the chief. He said he’ll explain everything when he gets back.”

My foot wants to stomp, but I resist the full tantrum and settle for whining. “When will that be?”

To counteract my pathetic outer tone, my inner voice rages: And why the hell hasn’t he called me yet?

As if my thoughts were telegraphed through the city to Alan, my phone lights up with an incoming call.

Giddiness and relief pulse through me in equal measure. “It’s him. It’s him .”

I smash the answer button before the second ring. “Alan? Are you okay? Where were you? I was worried sick.” My concern quickly morphs into outrage, making my volume spike. “How dare you leave all your trackers behind and give up your weapon. Are you insane? What if something had happened to you? How would they have found you? What if you needed help?”

Sammy creeps out of the room, her shoulders raised by her ears and hands extended at an angle in front of her. “Okay, I’ll just let you yell at him in private.”

Oops.

Alan’s barely restrained laughter wraps me in a hug almost as warm as Sammy’s. “I’m fine, Maddie. I’m sorry I scared you. I had to go dark, but I was careful. And it’s all fine now. I’ll tell you more when I get there. I got us lots of good intel tonight.”

My pulse gradually returns to normal, but my mouth hasn’t gotten the message to turn it down a notch. “Fine, Alan Cornelius Egbert Janice Guthrie Lancaster. I’ll wait until you return to hear all about it. Until then, just know this—I’m seriously TO’d at you. And when you get here, right after I kiss your stubborn face, I’m gonna bite your head off. And you’re gonna listen to everything I have to say like a good boy. Or sooo help me.”

He doesn’t bother to quash the amusement from his tone. “TO’d?”

“Ticked. Off.”

“Understood. Fortunately for me, I’m experienced in handling you when you’re TO’d. Also PO’d and many other letters. In fact, I’ve handled you through the entire alphabet.”

“You haven’t seen me this angry.”

“Maddie, please try to calm down before you shape-shift into the Hulkess. I can’t have you smashing up Redleg HQ. Do some deep breathing until I get there, and then you can take all your fury out on me.”

Some of my ire fizzles. “Don’t mock my anger, Alan.”

“All the more reason for you to chastise me when I return.”

“Oh, I will.”

“I don’t want you to hold back either. Lay into me with all you have. Just destroy me. Annihilate me where I stand.”

I nod repeatedly despite nobody being here to see me. “Yep. That’s the plan.”

“Excellent. I look forward to it. In fact, I’m getting excited just fantasizing about this epic tongue-lashing you’re gonna give me. And how flush your neck is gonna be and how your chest will heave as you struggle for air because you’re so relentlessly taking all your frustration out on my body. Again and again. Until we’re both spent.”

By the time he finishes his little rant, I’m short of breath. “Alan, we’re not talking about arguing anymore, are we?”

“I never was.”

Cheeky son of a gun.

My breasts are already heaving like the vivid imagery he painted. And he isn’t even in the room with me yet. “Okay. Hurry back safely, please.”

I disconnect the call and lower myself slowly onto a chair.

For some reason, a scene from the vampire book pops into my mind. The female main character was having an anxiety attack, and her vampire mate calmed her down by stoking her sexual desire. He used their bond to implant lustful feelings in her.

In an odd way, Alan just did the same thing to me. However, instead of some mystical bond, he used the cell towers and this hunk of plastic and metal in my hand to accomplish it.

Ingenuity at its finest.