Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Five
Is this how painless death fell like?
Regret. That was the first emotion I felt, and then I forced my eyes open.
I stare at the gun in my hands.
I wasn’t dead.
It hadn’t been Thane sweeping in to save me this time, the gun was out of bullets.
I tossed the gun away with shaky hands. What the hell was wrong with me?I had wanted to give up, just like that, I could have died. If that gun did contain silver bullets, those bullets. would have gone through my skull, and then that would be the end.
1 had given up.
Ryker had put me through hell and back, never once did I stop fighting, but with Thane I had given up, all for what?
For a man that didn’t see my worth?
Something changed in me that instant. I rose from the bare ground and resumed packing. I had once thought about how expensive the jewelry Thane bought for me would be. I would find out soon because I was going to take each and everyone of them. I wiped my tears before walking out of my room. Thane waited outside, leaning against the wall. He inhaled deeply at the sight of me. Yeah, I looked like a complete wreck, but how I looked was the least of my
concerns now.
“You are right,” I said to him, still avoiding his eyes, afraid that the resolve I had built would shatter the moment I stared into those eyes. “I did a job well done and deserve my pay,” I said, snatching the cheque from his hands. I stared at the amount. That was a lot.
A whole damn lot.
I walked down the pack halls; members waited, watching.
I should be embarrassed, but I wasn’t. I spotted Beatrix; she was being held by two soldiers, yet she struggled out of their grip to walk up to me.
“You don’t need to be bothered,” she whispered to me. “I won’t be having him either, at least not in the dungeons where I would be spending a long time” she said with a chuckle that was filled with anger, but this time it wasn’t directed at me. I stared at the soldiers who awaited her.
Thane was sending her to the dungeons, but what use was it? He wasn’t locking Beatrix up for my safety, maybe this was just another show of power after all this is what Thane was good
- at.
—
“I am not sorry for you,” I say truthfully to Beatrix, “But I never intended for this to happen.”
I know. This is a change of event, one even I didn’t see coming” she says before letting the soldiers drag her away.
I didn’t recognize many of my ‘watchers‘; they must have remained here after the party.
I had the feeling even from the beginning; I knew something would go wrong, and I guess this
was it.
I was shocked to realize some members, with tears flowing down their eyes, they couldn’t. possibly be sorrowful over my departure. This had been what they wanted, right? They should be happy.
I tuned them all out.
“Riley,” a woman called out, pushing through the crowd; it was my… mother. The tears felt harder to hold back now, but I wouldn’t cry.
I knew what was coming next; she was going to remind me how much of a fool I had been; she was going to remind me of her warnings and how she always knew this from the start, and, oh God, she would be so damn right. Every single thing she said, every time she tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen because I thought I knew better, now I could finally see that she was right; she was always trying to protect me from this; she was trying to protect my most delicate part, and that was my heart. I made her look like a sicko, I distanced her, and yet… after everything she had said had finally come to pass, it was only her I could run back to.
I didn’t mind listening to anything she had to say now; I deserved it all. I expected a look of disappointment on her face, but what I saw in those eyes wasn’t disappointment but pain. She felt my pain, and only she could know better.
She hadn’t said any of what I expected to hear; instead, she hugged me for a very long while. This reminded me once more that I was not alone; she was there; she was one of the reasons I had to fight for myself. I finally noticed her bags; she was also packed.
many
“Do you really think I would let you go without me?” She questioned, and a small smile formed on my lips.
“Of course not.“.
