33. Resa

Chapter 33

Resa

Y ou disappeared, Resa. What did you think would happen?

The kitchen I just walked out of is silent. I stop at the foot of the stairs, and my eyes burn as I rest my hand on my belly. It feels like someone just punched me. Like I can't breathe no matter how much air I drag in.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

I was supposed to get out, make all the alphas who hurt me pay, and go home.

Back to my parents.

Back to my fiancé.

Back to the life an alpha stole from me.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," I whisper. A tear slides down the slope of my nose and lands with a cool splash on the top of my right foot.

A chair leg scrapes on the hardwood floor behind me, and the fear of someone finding me crying when I pretended everything was okay gets me moving.

I jog up the stairs, leaving the deathly silent kitchen behind me.

He's getting married. Henry is getting married. Not to a stranger, which wouldn't have been so much of a gut punch. To Emily. I worked with her and liked her. She's a beta and a realtor. It makes sense he would fall for her when they have more in common than he had with me.

I hadn't thought they were anything more than friends, but I guess I was wrong.

The only thing to be grateful for is that the ring she wore isn't identical to the one Henry proposed to me with. The ring I tucked away in the center console of my car before I rushed into the heat clinic, terrified I'd lose it if I kept it on.

Back in my room, I shove the door closed as more tears fall. Lock the door. Double check to make sure.

Tears fill my eyes as I kick the door, cry out, and kick it again. Who cares if I break my toe?

Just when I think I've figured out everything alphas stole from me, there is something else. There is always something else.

And I do what I told myself I wouldn't do until I'd found Dexter Pieter and I was back at home with Mom and Dad. I crawl under my sheets and I stop holding my tears back.

It's been years. Two years I was gone. It's not like Henry didn't have a life.

Stupid to think he would wait for me. He probably thought I was dead all this time. Probably still does.

I'm crying so hard that I nearly miss the soft knock at my door.

I shove my face in the pillow so whoever it is won't hear me.

"Resa?"

Vaughn. I'm glad he's not calling me bloodthirsty omega right now. I don't feel particularly strong or bloodthirsty.

The door creaks slightly, like he's leaning on it. "Just say the word and he'll have a throwing star in his back before he knows what hit him."

My pillow muffles the half-laugh, half-sob that tears from my throat.

Vaughn waits a bit, probably for my response.

I don't want Henry dead. I just want to stop hurting.

"Well, the offer is right there." He's silent for so long that I think he's gone until, "I'm sorry."

The guilt comes next. For not immediately going home when I escaped from Nathaniel Lang. For not calling Henry or missing him as much as I should have. For liking Vaughn when I have a life waiting for me to go back to.

Only, it's not the same life as the one I left.

Why did I think nothing would change? That time would have frozen the moment I left, and it would start back up again when I returned home.

Then I get angry, shoving the sheets off me, glaring through my tears. I search for some photocopier to kick or something to destroy, so I won't cry.

But there's no photocopier to kick the shit out of.

Nothing to release this pain splitting my heart in two.

A tear splashes my cheek. I dash it away.

"He was supposed to wait for me," I breathe.

Another tear slides down my cheek.

Then another.

"I was going to get out and he would be there…" I whisper. I don't know who I'm talking to, don't know why I need to get these words out, but I have to. Maybe they won't keep hurting me if I get them out of my heart.

I stand near the bed, staring out of the window, but I see nothing outside.

I'm in the past, reliving the happiest day of my life.

It was our second anniversary in a restaurant so fancy I had three forks with no idea which one I was supposed to use first. I remember Henry's soft smile, the coolness of the ring he slid onto my finger and the applause that filled the restaurant when I'd said yes. He'd risen from his bent knee and kissed me.

I ruined my makeup. How was I supposed to know when a guy takes you to the best restaurant in town you wear waterproof mascara because it means he's getting ready to propose?

I was a mess.

But I was so, so stinkin' happy I didn't care that I was leaving trails of mascara down my face, on my dress, and in my soup. I didn't care because I was in love and the guy who loved me back wanted to build a life with me.

It was a beautiful ring. Emerald stone with a slim platinum silver band. Too beautiful to risk losing it. I never wore it to the free heat clinic. I would slide it off my finger, tuck it somewhere safe: my desk drawer, the jewelry box at home, a safe place so I couldn't lose it while I was out of my mind in heat.

Except that last day.

Henry was at a work conference. I had been on my way to work that morning when my heat started. I called in. My boss was understandably pissed, but that was nothing new. I was always doing something wrong. There's no way I could go into work when my heat was starting. If any alphas caught my scent, it would cause a riot.

I'd needed to get to an air-controlled room as soon as possible.

My regular heat clinic was full. I drove a little farther away and parked my car, leaving my engagement ring tucked in my center console as I went on a desperate quest for another heat clinic.

Mom and Dad would have looked for me. Maybe they went to the cops like Jerome Walker's parents did. Would the cops have found my car and engagement ring, assumed I'd run off and decided not to bother? Or did they search for me and could never find me?

Maybe Henry thought I was dead for him to have moved on.

My first month, I tried never to think about Mom, Dad, or Henry. When you lose everything you love, thinking about it is hell. It just hurts.

I could never escape the rooms that alphas would lock me into. Could never escape from my heat when it would have me begging my captors for their knots. So I learned to bury my pain and my fear and show them nothing but rage instead.

But I never stopped hurting.

Not once.

I told myself I would escape, make all the alphas who hurt me pay, and I would go home and raise this unexpected child as best I could. I'd go back to my life. But that life isn't mine anymore.

If I went back right now and Henry broke off his engagement to Emily, would he want me when I'm not the same girl he said he wanted to build a life with?

Would that life still even feel like mine if I stepped back into it and everything was exactly the same as I left it?

Would it?

I'm terrified I'd be like one of Garrison's puzzle pieces that someone was struggling to fit into a spot that wasn't the right one.

Is the problem the puzzle or the piece? My old life or me?

It's not safe to call my parents, but right now I just need to hear their voice. Even if it's just once.

Brushing more tears from my cheeks as I walk over to the bedside table, I perch on the side of the bed. I unplug my cell phone from the charger and dial from memory. This is one number I would never forget. Then I press the cool phone against my hot ear and listen to it ring.

Four rings, and then…

"Hello?"

God, Mom's voice. I squeeze my eyes shut, clamp my hand tight around the phone and it takes everything in me not to drop the phone, walk out of this house and just go home .

She's alive, and she's safe. She won't be unless I deal with Nathaniel Lang and O'Brien.

I force my eyes open and will myself to stay strong. "Mom. It's me."

Silence.

" Theresa ," Mom breathes. There's a soft thump, and I picture her sinking into the brown leather couch that I would always have to peel myself off in summer. Leather, hot weather, and bare skin are a painful combination. "Theresa, is that?—"

"I'm okay," I interrupt her. "I'm alive, but something has happened and I have to fix it. Once I've done it, I can come home. I just need you to know that I'm okay, I'm safe, and I'm coming home to you and Dad soon. I promise."

She's speaking when I make myself hang up and turn off the phone, and I hope to hell Nathaniel Lang didn't have O'Brien bug her phone or trace it here.

Then I brush the tears from my cheeks and crawl back under the sheets, using the pillow to muffle my next round of tears.