Chapter 17
17
APRIL
ONE WEEK LATER
“We should at least go back and get some of the dresses they bought you.”
“No.”
“What about the makeup?”
“No.”
“ April… ” Devyn whines as she paints my nails. “Why not? That’s the least they can do for you. They owe you, after all that.”
I haven’t talked to any of them since…the incident. Donovan locked me in the bedroom, and the only reason I was let out was because Hunter and Liam heard my screaming.
I had accidentally left my phone downstairs, and I had no way of reaching anyone.
It was horrible.
The chipped nails that Devyn is attempting to paint over prove it. I scratched at the door, literally trying to claw my way out.
“I’m not going back there, Devyn. I can’t.”
I’m perched on my bathroom toilet seat while Devyn sits on the sink counter. She cradles my hand and inspects my nails, frowning.
“Skylar said that the asshole locked you in the bedroom.”
I nod. “He did.”
She pauses her inspection to meet my eyes. “ Why ?”
I sigh. “I don’t know why. Probably because I brought up his dead mother, and he wanted the conversation to stop. Maybe he thought I would run after him and try to continue it.”
Devyn scrunches her face. “What a freak.”
I shake my head. “That’s…one way to describe Donovan.”
“I prefer emotionally stunted, sociopathic, and a pile of dogshit.” Skylar bursts into the bathroom, her eyes full of fury. “I still want to kill him, April. I mean it. I’ll kill all of them. River wants to, too. Vincent and Landon will look the other way.”
Devyn’s eyes light up and her curls bounce as she nods her head. “Ben will help, too!”
I groan. “We’re not killing anyone.”
Skylar makes a face at me. “What the hell? Are you defending them?” She waves her arms frantically. “Do they not know what happened to you? What made them think it was okay to lock you up like that?”
“It was just Donovan, not Hunter and Liam,” I mutter. “And I don’t know.”
I’m tired of the conversation. I’ve been going back and forth with my friends all week since I showed up back home, my eyes red from crying and my cheeks tear stained.
“Donovan had to know it was a trigger for you,” Skylar continues. “Right?”
“I doubt he knew,” I say honestly. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all done.”
“Wait. You’re not even going to the ex’s wedding?” Devyn asks, pausing her painting of my nails. “What about the island?”
I chuckle humorlessly. “Absolutely not. All of that is over with.”
As far as I’m concerned, the contract is null and void.
I’ve put up with more than enough from them, and I doubt even Donovan would pursue legal action against me.
They’ve been radio silent since I left Stone County, and I like to think it’s because they have an iota of shame.
I remember hearing them shout from the bedroom after Hunter found me rocking back and forth. I remember them kicking Donovan out after seeing what he’d done.
I won’t be with a fractured pack.
Liam, Hunter, and Donovan are a package deal.
“How could you not go?” Devyn continues, her eyes practically bulging out of her head. “A private island ? Oh my god, imagine all the food, all the outfits?—”
“Because they didn’t treat her the way she deserves, Devyn,” Skylar says evenly. “And she doesn’t owe them shit now.”
Devyn lets out hrmph and resumes painting my nails.
“Enough about me,” I say. “Let’s talk about something else, for once. Please ?”
Devyn bites her lip, and I can tell she wants to say something, but Skylar interrupts.
“How are you and Ben, Devyn?”
I thought it was an innocent enough question until Devyn suddenly bursts into tears.
It startles me so much that I forget about my own problems and focus entirely on the Omega that’s broken down in front of me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, looking at Skylar with a confused face as Devyn practically throws herself into my arms, the bottle of open nail polish still in her hand. Skylar plucks it from her and places it on the bathroom counter as I awkwardly pat Devyn’s head.
Skylar looks horrified as Devyn openly weeps in my hold. We balance on the toilet seat together, and for one comical moment, I imagine it collapsing under our weight.
What a shitty week it’s been.
“I...w-want…a…p-pack,” she sobs, and Skylar mouths a ‘ what the fuck’ at me.
“Okay,” Skylar says slowly. “Well, have we talked to Ben about this?”
Devyn continues to cry and shakes her head, little hiccups escaping her. “He s-said he was open to it, but I never asked again. W-what if he says n-no?”
“Why would he say no, crazy girl?” I ask her gently. Devyn grips me tighter, and soon, I’m rocking us both on the toilet seat with Skylar watching in horror.
She muffles something intelligible into my shirt.
“Devyn, you have to speak up,” Skylar says, and Devyn lifts her head.
“B-Ben is my only family,” she hiccups. “Besides you guys, and…I don’t want to risk it!”
I frown. I sometimes forget that sweet Devyn grew up in the foster system. She just burst into our café one day, bright and full of sunshine, and she rarely shares her struggles with us.
It’s disconcerting to see her cry.
Skylar leans back against my bathroom counter and sighs. “That’s hard,” she admits quietly. “Family is everything to me, too.”
I swallow and look between the three of us. My mom has basically adopted Skylar, and Devyn is slowly becoming her third child.
But they’re not the only people I think of now when it comes to family.
Pack Axton fills my mind.
No. Don’t go down that road.
Devyn continues to cry while Skylar and I do our best to soothe her.
“Can I tell you something?” I ask her after a few minutes of her gentle sobs. “Something I learned from everything I’ve been through with my— the pack I was dating?”
She sniffles and nods.
“Things would have been different if we had just talked about what we wanted from the beginning,” I admit. “I think we had a lot of opportunities to do that, but we never did. And look what happened.”
Skylar shoots me a sympathetic look, one that I hate.
But it doesn’t make what I said any less true.
If we had all been honest from the beginning, maybe the outcome would have been different.
Devyn pulls her face from my shirt, which is now covered in her tears and snot. Her eyes are red and puffy as she looks at me, her expression serious. “I don’t want Ben to lock me up in my room,” she says, her voice low.
I sigh, and Skylar turns her head and stifles a laugh, covering it with a cough.
It’s really not funny, but I can either laugh at Devyn’s ridiculous sentiment, or cry.
And I choose to laugh.
“So, you go back to work tomorrow?” my mom asks me as I hand her a cup of tea.
“Yup.” I sit down with a mug of my own, joining her on the couch. She has a baking reality competition show on the television in the background, the sound muted with subtitles on.
“And it’s really over between the three of you?” she sounds skeptical. “I thought there was a wedding you were attending.”
I scoff into my tea. “That’s done,” I mutter.
“And no one is going to show up at our door this time?”
I meet her disbelieving expression. “They better not.”
“April.”
I sip my tea, savoring the rich cinnamon notes. “What?”
“Are you going to tell me what happened? Or do we need to do the guessing game again?”
I stare into my tea. “Mom, please, I don’t want to do this.”
“What did they do, April?”
I shake my head. “Its…complicated.”
“The whole situation has been complicated, honey. Nothing you say will surprise me anymore.”
I scoff. “You just need to know it’s over, and that’s it.”
But I can feel her staring at me, and I roll my eyes. “Mom, please ,” I groan. “Let’s just watch the show.”
“You know your friend Devyn has a big mouth, right? I’m sure she’ll tell me what happened if you don’t.”
I gape at my mother. “Are you seriously going to pull the Devyn Card?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Kiddo, I’m dying for just a scrap of knowledge about your life. I’m ready to do anything I can for it.”
My heart clenches at her words and guilt pierces me.
My mother loves me, and for the thousandth time, I feel like I don’t deserve her.
The least I can do is open up to her a little.
“Donovan locked me in my room at the packhouse.” I don’t look at her as I say it. I stare in my mug of tea, weary of her response.
“Oh my god, that’s horrible,” she murmurs. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Especially with your panic attacks around doors…oh, that’s awful.”
I pause and turn to her. “Wait. You know about my panic attacks?”
She raises an eyebrow. “I’m your mother. Of course I do.”
I tilt my head curiously. “But I’ve never talked to you about them,” I say slowly.
“You think I don’t notice that you never lock doors or shut them all the way in the house? I’ve watched you double check doorknobs at least a hundred times since you came back,” my mother says gently. “Even the sound of a lock makes you jump, April. And for him to do that to you…” she shakes her head. “Does Donovan even know the damage that’s done to you?”
I frown. “I don’t think so. Only Hunter and Liam knew about the attacks.”
“Good riddance to him,” my mother mutters. “To all of them, really, for not understanding you.”
My chest aches. “That’s the thing though,” I murmur. “I thought they did understand me. I was able to be myself around them, even Donovan. And we had more in common than I thought. It’s just so frustrating.” Tears spring to my eyes, but I refuse to cry over them again.
There’s no going back from what Donovan has done. He’s Liam’s and Hunter’s pack leader, and that’s never going to change.
“For what it’s worth,” my mother adds. “It was nice to see you happy. I hope I get to see more of it sooner rather than later.”
“Me too,” I mutter.
But I have a feeling I won’t be happy for a very long time.