Evermore (24 page)

I opened my eyes again, shaking uncontrollably, hoping that the events that just happened had all been a terrible dream. Finding the spot between my legs incredibly sore and still wet confirmed I’d given birth. I strained to listen, but there was no baby’s cry. Tears slid down my cheeks. I didn’t think I could take any more abuse, especially not from Alaster.

He had everything, including my son’s life.

I just had to get out of there.

“Fin,” I whispered between chapped lips. “Please. Find me. Save our son.”

Colin shifted uneasily as I pulled up to the building and parked.

“Is this it?” Jacob glanced warily at the darkened interior.

“Doesn’t look open.” Colin glared at me. “And I don’t think you should bust into this building, too.”

“Maybe the reason it showed him here was because he left his phone at his desk,” Jacob suggested.

Though the guy didn’t seem like a white-collar cube mongrel to me, I wasn’t going to leave without at least checking the building first.

“Dude, why don’t we just call the number and find out?” Jax stretched his hand out for my phone.

I’d thought of that earlier, but I didn’t want to tip him off. At this point, I’d try anything. “Yeah, sure.”

He dialed the number, then put the phone on speaker. It rang several times.

“See? He’s not here.” Colin lunged for the phone. “Let’s go back.”

Jax pulled his hand away. “Hold up.”

Someone picked up on the last ring.

“Yeah?” the guy asked.

“Yo, where you at?” Jax asked, deepening his voice.

“Who is this?”

“I’m here with dat pizza you ordered.” Jax waggled his eyebrows.

“Pizza?” There was a pause. “I didn’t order a pizza.”

“Well, it’s paid for and I’m standin’ outside yo building on…”

“24333 North Carson Street,” I whispered.”

“24333 North Carson and no one’s answerin’ the door,” Jax finished without skipping a beat. “It’s gettin’ cold.”

The phone muffled. “Anyone here order a pizza and put my name and number on it?” A couple people answered “no,” in the background. “I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Well, it’s paid for, so,” Jax added. “I guess I’ll eat it. See ya.”

“No, I’ll come out,” the guy said quickly.

“Great.” Jax hung up the phone and shot us a big goofy grin. “Now that’s how it’s done boys.”

“Good job.” I jumped out of the Jeep along with Jax and Jacob.

Colin remained in his seat and blew out an annoyed breath. “This is stupid. What’s he going to know? Ash isn’t here.”

“Stay in the Jeep then.” I pressed him with a sideways glare before jogging over to the doors. We leaned against the wall and waited. Within a few minutes the doors opened, and the same guy with dark hair stepped out.

Jax grabbed him and put him in a chokehold.

“Where’s Ash,” he sang before I had a chance to.

His eyes glazed over instantaneously. “In the building.”

My legs weakened as Jax yanked the guy inside and forced him forward. I grabbed the guy’s collar and lifted. “Where?”

He shakily pointed to the hall. “Down there.”

The creak of the passenger door sounded behind me, meaning Colin had finally gotten out of the Jeep.

About time.

My mind raced as we marched across the linoleum floor of what looked like a hospital. Stark white walls with abstract pastel designs hung in cheap frames. Chairs covered in vinyl lined the small waiting area wall. What was Ash doing here?

“Did you take her?” I sang.

“Yeah,” he said apathetically.

My hands balled into fists. After I mojoed him and everything, he still took her. I should have killed him. “When?”

“Before the wedding.”

My heart pounded and it took everything inside me not to grab him and break his puny neck on the spot. “Take me to her,” I sang.

We rounded the corner and stopped before a set of locked double doors marked, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT. The guy swiped his card against the reader and the doors opened magically.

A woman walked out into the hall, wearing a mask and a white coat, quickly glanced at us, then yelped in surprise.

“What are you doing in here?”

“Don’t move,” I sang to her, then smashed the kidnapper into the wall. “Where is she?”

He whimpered. “I don’t know.”

I turned to the woman in white. “Where’s Ash?”

She shrugged, too.

“A redhead with green eyes!”

She tilted her head. “Do you mean Candy?”

“No! Son of a—!” I grunted in frustration, then turned to Jax and Jacob. “Split up. Sing to anyone you see and don’t let them leave.” Colin leaned against the double doors as if he was terrified to be there. Figures. “Colin, just stay here and keep an eye on these two. I’ll be right back.”

He nodded.

I bolted forward, scanning the opened doorways as I moved as quickly as I could. I continued singing, freezing whomever I met, asking if they had seen a redheaded girl. Their answers were conflicting and they kept mentioning Candy. After about five minutes, I’d checked every room without success.

“Fin! Over here!” Jax called.

I tore around the corner and entered a room at the end of the hall. Ash lay strapped to a table still wearing her wedding gown, torn and shredded around her waist. Blood covered the sheets and her dress.

“Ash!” I ran to her and touched her face.

“She’s breathing, but unconscious.” Jax unbuckled the wrist restraints.

I glared at the IV’s attached to her, and then at the necklace radiating orange light. “What is all of this?”

Jax shrugged. “I have no clue.”

A dark-haired woman entered, then shrieked and ran out.

“Stop!” I sang, and she froze. “Get this stuff off of her!”

She robotically walked over and started unhooking the wires and tubes. The machines next to us beeped with alarms, but she didn’t silence them.

“Why isn’t she awake?” I asked.

“I gave her something to sleep,” the woman said.

“Why?”

“Because,” she turned to me, eyes sad, “she lost her baby.”

The world swayed, and I had to grab onto the gurney. Our child had died? How? When? My hands then lashed out and grabbed on to the woman’s shoulders, squeezing tight. “How did this happen?”

She flinched, her face pained. “We didn’t know she was pregnant. She didn’t look pregnant.”

“Why is she here?” I grunted.

“Her blood. It has a special protein. We were to collect it. It didn’t hurt her. Just… the stress must have thrown her into labor.”

“Must have?” I raised my hand to hit her.

She turned her head downward, flinching.

“No,” Jax restrained my hand. “She’s not to blame, and you have to focus on getting Ash out of here. She needs a healer.”

“Not to blame?” I yelled. “What kind of place is this?”

“We’re a research facility for cancer,” the woman said, voice quivering.

“And you just take people and steal their blood?”

“She’d volunteered. She just…” the woman stopped talking.

“Restraints aren’t needed when one volunteers,” I grated.

“I don’t know…” She swallowed, then shook her head as if to clear away the song. “I just did what I was told.”

“When will she wake up?” Jax asked as he wrapped Ash in a blanket.

“Soon.” Her eyes panned across Ash’s frail body, sorrowful. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I went along with this.”

“Money, I’m sure,” I seethed.

Her eyes flashed to mine. “I didn’t know she was pregnant. Honest.”

I carefully lifted Ash’s unconscious body into my arms. If I didn’t get her out of there, I’d commit bloodshed on this pathetic existence of a person.

“You’ll forget we were here,” I sang to her. “You’ll destroy any samples of her blood. Any tests. Any records. Any evidence she was here. And if you can’t do so, you will call me,” I sang her my number. “And then you’ll quit, you miserable excuse for a human!”

The woman’s head lowered, but I couldn’t watch her grovel now. Ash needed to get home.

Jax followed me into the hallway. “Dude, I’ll stay and clean up.”

“No, you can’t. Just sing to the crowd, and tell them to get out of here. Once I get Ash home, we’re coming back and torching this place.”

“This mess is too big to leave,” he insisted as we approached the people. “And if we burn it down, we’ll destroy any leads to where Ash’s blood or research went.”

I sucked in a measured breath. “How will you get back? We’re too far from the lake.”

“I’ll persuade someone to drive us, but don’t worry. Just take Ash home.”

“We need to stay together,” I said.

“I’ll be fine.” Jax put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Let us handle this.”

Jacob called out from down the hall. “I found more of them.”

We ran to him. Three girls in high heels and dresses that barely covered their bodies stood off to the side with their hands on their hips.

“You can’t keep us here,” the redhead said.

“I don’t know what’s up with these three. They don’t have promising tattoos, yet they won’t answer me,” Jacob said.

“Answer you?” I asked, not having enough brainpower to unravel the mystery.

“Yeah.” Jacob scowled. “Could you be too dumb to be persuaded?”

“I heard that,” the redhead said.

“I don’t know. I gotta go.” The guilt of failing Ash, of losing my son because I let the basswipe go, started to unravel me. “You two handle it.”

“Where’s Colin?” Jax asked.

My gaze swung to the doors.

Jacob shrugged. “He was there a minute ago.”

I gritted my teeth. “Find him, fix this, and get back before sunset. I’ll meet you at the house.”

Jax saluted me before I walked out of the research lab with Ash in my arms. I’d failed her. I’d failed everyone.

At the sounds of a horn honking, my eyes pulled open. Wind beat against my face as the bright sunlight pelted down on my skin. I gripped onto the armrest and shrieked.

“Ash, It’s okay. It’s me. Fin.” He reached over and held onto my knee. “You’re safe.”

I tensed at his touch and yanked away.

He withdrew, confused. “It’s okay. We’re going home.”

“Home?” Beyond the words “congrats” scrawled in paint on the windshield, the green of the pines covering the mountains, and the white shale sand on either side of the road blurred past. I couldn’t process what had happened. He’d found me? How?

“Where are we?” I croaked out, trying to clear my head of the lingering grogginess.

“We’re on Highway 50.”

After everything, I didn’t trust my eyes. Glancing down at the blanket, I saw the blood, then remembered what had happened, of what I’d lost. Tears started to fall again. How would I ever tell Fin? How did this get so out of control?

Once we knew we were expecting and even when I was taken the first time, I should have never let my selfish wedding fantasies get in the way of our family’s safety. For what? To pretend to a mother and sister that I’m human when they despised me? To matter to a father and to a grandmother who weren’t my blood relatives?

My head drifted to rest against the cold windowpane, my legs curled up underneath me, my insides numb. I had naïvely thought that once I was freed of that hellhole, it would be over. But I knew differently now. I’d been branded forever and wherever I went, it would follow, eating me alive. If I told Fin that Alaster was alive and behind it all, he’d go crazy and never let it go.

Within twenty-five minutes, we pulled down our street and up to the cottage. A moving van stood parked on the dying grass of the lot, where movers loaded in tables and chairs. Leftover wedding decorations blew in the wind like funeral pyres, and I turned my head from it, all of it raw and a reminder of my stupidity.

Fin parked and walked around to my side, opening my door.

“Come on, my Ginger Girl.” He slid his arm around my waist. “Let’s get you inside.”

His warm touch felt wrong, and I recoiled.

“Congratulations!” one of the movers called while waving.

Fin turned, and waved back, embarrassed. “Thanks.”

I used the opportunity to pivot my hips and slide out of the Jeep. The sharp rocks met the soles of my feet upon impact.

“I’ve got you.” He tried to grab onto me again.

“Stop!” I yanked up the blanket. “I’m fine!”

He lifted his hands and stumbled backward.

Hugging the blanket tightly to myself, I walked on weakened legs toward the cottage complete with a picket fence, the white-trimmed windows and the red heart at the peak of the roof — the epitome of cuteness. I hated it.

“I want to carry you—”

I pushed him away. “No.”

“Ash.”

“Just let me deal with this, Fin!”

He clenched his jaw and stood stiffly. “I know you want to. You’re not alone in your pain.”

I turned to him, eyes hard. “How could you say that? It wasn’t you that was taken. It wasn’t you that…”
watched our child die.
A sob lodged in my throat. Maybe sleeping through the pain was the answer.

“The nurse told me.”

I swallowed down the lump threatening to choke me. “Told you what?”

“About our son.”

My nails bit into my arms, piercing the skin, while I poised my legs to run. I’d hoped the pain would distract the ache inside my heart. It didn’t work. My body only grew tired from the strain of standing.

Fin steadied me. “Come on inside.”

This time, I didn’t fight him as he led me over the threshold and into a house that rivaled magazines, but I wanted nothing of it. It all reminded me of Joey, and I’d give it all back just to have our son in my arms.

Fin quickly took down WELCOME HOME signs and helped me down the hall. The closest door was cracked open. Fin reached over to pull it shut, but not before I spotted a crib.

“The bathroom is down here.” He led me inside and started the water. My eyed drifted to my reflection. Stringing hair matted with pearls and gems hung haphazard around sunken eyes and gaunt skin, illuminated by the necklace Alaster had put on me. Death warmed over.

Fin worked to undo the buttons on the back of my gown, one by dreaded one. I’d dreamed of a moment when his fingers would help remove this dress before he made love to me, not like this, not when I wanted to burn it.

“What’s this?” he asked as he tried to remove the necklace.

I reached up and grabbed a hold of the metal. “Leave it.”

He didn’t fight me, only lifted the remains of the dress over my head. Then he helped me into the shower to the stone seat.

The hot water pelted my skin as the blood swirled down the drain. He lovingly removed the pins from my hair, then lathered it with shampoo, then conditioner. I didn’t have the strength to fight him.

Though I would have loved to have just stayed in there, crying, until the water ran cold, he turned it off, wrapped me in a towel, and led me to our bed.

“Are you hungry?” he asked as he tugged a T-shirt over my head.

Fin’s scent enveloped me, and I wanted it off. I didn’t deserve his love, or attention. In fact, I never wanted to move, let alone eat again. “No.”

“I’ll be back. Just rest.” He kissed my cheek, and I heard the door softly shut along with the door to my heart.

I slid to the floor, then curled up in the corner, rocking my body back and forth. I’d never allow anyone in again — this hurt way too much.