45. Forty-Five Cam
Forty-Five: Cam
I leaned back in my chair, a smirk playing on my lips as I watched Lakey demolish her third helping of chicken. The girl could eat, I'll give her that.
"Slow down, babe. You're gonna choke," I teased, reaching over to wipe a smear of sauce from her chin.
Lakey's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Aw, you worried about little old me, Cam? How sweet."
I snorted. "Nah, just don't want to deal with your corpse. Too much work."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "You two are disgusting, you know that?"
"That's our charm," I winked at her, earning a groan from Kyle.
The banter flowed easily, a strange sense of normalcy settling over us despite the shit storm brewing outside. It was almost nice, if you ignored the whole 'running from a secret organization' thing.
Suddenly, a dull thud echoed through the room, cutting off Rose mid-sentence. We all froze, eyes darting to the door.
"What the hell was that?" Rose whispered, tension radiating off her in waves.
I felt my muscles coil, ready to spring into action. "Dunno, but I'm not liking the sound of it."
Lakey's hand found mine under the table, her grip tight. To anyone else, she looked perfectly calm, but I could feel the slight tremor in her fingers. She was itching to kill someone.
"Should we... check it out?" Sarah's voice wavered as she grabbed a knife off the table. I resisted the urge to scoff. The fuck is a butter knife gonna do?
"I'll go," Kyle announced, pushing back from the table. "You all stay put."
I followed him to the door wondering how the fuck we got made. Everyone’s eyes were on my back as Kyle approached the door. My heart pounded in my ears, adrenaline coursing through my veins. Whatever was waiting on the other side, I had a feeling our little dinner party was about to get a whole lot more interesting.
"See anything?" I said, breaking the suffocating silence.
Kyle's eye pressed against the peephole. "Nothing. No one’s there."
I felt Lakey shift beside me, her fingertips grazing my arm. I hadn’t even heard her come up behind me. Her fingers dug into my skin. She was ready to pounce at a moment's notice.
"Well, don't keep us in suspense, big guy," I goaded Kyle. "Open it up."
He hesitated, hand hovering over the doorknob as he looked back at Sarah. I rolled my eyes. "Christ, I'll do it myself if you're worried."
That did it. Kyle's jaw clenched, and he yanked the door open in one swift motion. We all leaned forward, expectant, only to be met with... nothing.
Then I saw it. A small dart, embedded in the wood, pinning a folded piece of paper.
"Well, fuck me sideways," I muttered, pushing past Kyle to get a better look.
As I reached for the note, a chill ran down my spine. I plucked the dart from the door, careful not to prick myself. The note came away easily, and as I unfolded it, a photo fluttered to the ground. Lakey snatched it up before I could even blink.
"We're watching you," I read aloud with a chuckle. "Well, ain't that cute."
I glanced at Lakey, expecting to see her usual deadpan smirk. Instead, her face had gone white as a sheet, those baby blues wide with... was that fear? Fuck me, I'd never seen Lakey truly and utterly afraid before.
"Cam," she whispered, her voice uncharacteristically small. She held out the photo, and I felt my world tilt on its axis.
It was the girl. Blonde hair. Lakey's eyes. The kid was tied to a chair, looking scared shitless but very much alive.
"Holy shit," I breathed. "Is that...?"
Before I could finish the thought, Sarah's voice cut through the tension like a knife. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded, her tone sharp enough to draw our attention away from the photo. "Kyle? Lakey? Someone better start talking, right fucking now. Cam?"
I couldn't tear my eyes away from the photo. Lakey’s daughter. So, whoever shot that dart, knew we were here, and knew what we were trying to do.
Lakey's voice cut through my spinning thoughts, suddenly cool as a cucumber despite the bombshell. "Oh, Sarah, darling. Did you really think I was just some run-of-the-mill psycho?" She let out a laugh that sent chills down my spine. "Surprise! I'm a mommy too. Cam is the daddy, so don’t go worrying about some ex with a death wish.”
I watched Sarah and Rose's jaws practically hit the floor. Rose's eyes darted between Lakey and me. Sarah looked like she might hurl.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered, running a hand through my hair. "She’s mine? Our kid? Fuck me up the ass, Lakey. How did that happen? When were you planning on dropping that little tidbit?"
Lakey just shrugged, a hint of her usual smirk playing at her lips. "Later tonight when we were alone. But here we are."
I couldn't help but bark out a laugh. It was fucked, but I guess it tracked. We never had the normal conversations that other couples had. Certainly never had the opportunity to have private ones of this magnitude. "Still doesn’t explain how. I would have remembered if we had a kid."
“Yeah, about that. We had our memories wiped. It all came out during hypnosis.”
The room fell into a stunned silence. I could practically hear the gears grinding in everyone's heads. Sarah looked like she was trying to solve a Rubik's cube with her eyes closed. Rose was doing a great impression of a statue. Kyle was twitching his lip as he stood in the living room, just staring at us.
My mind was racing a mile a minute. My daughter. We had a fucking daughter together. She hadn’t been raped. She hadn’t been forced. That little girl was part of me. And now she was in the hands of those Chimera bastards. The demons stirred in my gut, a violent urge I usually welcomed. This time, though, it was mixed with concern. And fear.
"So," I said, breaking the silence. "Who's up for a little family rescue mission?"
Kyle's jaw clenched as he slammed his fist against the wall, the sound echoing through our stunned silence. His movements were slow, deliberate, like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. When he turned back to face us, his eyes were hard, his voice low and urgent.
"We need to move. Now. This place isn't safe anymore."
I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "No shit, Sherlock. Got any other brilliant observations?"
But before Kyle could bite back, Lakey's voice cut through the tension. Her tone was sharp, demanding, with that hint of playful malice.
"How exactly did Chimera find our little hideaway, Kyle?" She cocked her head, blue eyes glinting dangerously. "Seems awfully convenient, doesn't it? Almost like someone might have let something slip."
I watched Kyle's face, waiting for him to crack under Lakey's accusation. But the bastard held firm, his jaw set in that annoyingly heroic way of his.
"I don't know," he growled. "But right now, that's not our biggest problem."
I snorted. "Yeah, our biggest problem is apparently our big bundle of joy being held hostage by a bunch of nuts. No offense, babe," I added, winking at Lakey.
She blew me a kiss. "None taken, darling."
The room crackled with emotion. Sarah, ever the voice of reason, piped up, "Wait, we can't just rush in blindly. Kyle is right. It’s not safe here anymore. When the fuck were you going to tell us, Lakey? We should have known this ages ago. Was this your plan all along? String us along so you could go on a solo mission?"
I rolled my eyes, but Lakey spoke first. "Yeah, actually. Something a lot like that."
Her hand found mine, her fingers intertwining with mine. To anyone else, it might've looked like a gesture of comfort. But it was a silent promise of mayhem to come.
“That’s fucked, Lakey.” Rose said quietly. “I thought we were family.”
For a moment, Lakey’s face fell, but then it was gone just as quick as it came. “Yeah. We are. But this is my daughter, Rose. There’s nothing that will stand in my way. I was going to say something, eventually. But I didn’t trust our hosts. I’m still not sure if I do, considering Chimera fucking found us here.”
Kyle cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. "We need to focus. They are watching us, which means we're compromised. We need to move, and fast."
I leaned back in my chair, studying Kyle's tense posture. "Alright, Boy Scout. What's your grand plan?"
As Kyle started outlining a midnight move to another cabin that he had somewhere north, my mind drifted. What had started out as a birthday present had morphed into a mountain. We had a kid. I don’t know how to explain the shift that happened when Lakey said she was mine. Before… before now, I’d wanted to get the girl to soothe Lakes, but now… that was MY child. My girl. And finally, I understood why she couldn’t let it go like I had for weeks, because the same feeling had finally settled over me. A quiet rage, building, swirling and changing into a mass that was teetering on eruption.
I’d have moved mountains to get her daughter back, but now… now I’d scorch the earth because no one fucks with what’s mine.
Sarah's voice cut through my thoughts, sharp and accusing. "How can you two be so calm? This is a secret child we're talking about! You know anything else, Lakey? Did the hypnosis tell you anything else that you could tell us that could be of any use here? I feel like I’m losing my Goddamn mind."
I felt a flicker of annoyance. "Calm? Sweetheart, I'm about as calm as a cat in a room full of cat nip. But losing our shit isn't gonna help anyone, least of all the kid."
Lakey squeezed my hand, her touch grounding me. "He's right," she said with a shrug. "Panic is a luxury we can't afford. Not when there's so much fun to be had."
Kyle slammed his fist on the table, making everyone jump. "This isn't a game! We need a plan, now."
I couldn't help but chuckle. "Plans are overrated. What we need is chaos. And lucky for you, that's our specialty."
As Kyle and Sarah started to argue, I pulled Lakey into my chest, crushing her in a hug before pressing a kiss into her head. We knew what we had to do, there was a shared hunger for what was to come, and that old bloodlust was rising.
The room erupted in a screaming fit of voices talking over each other, but I tuned them out, focusing on my girl. She was my everything, the only one who truly understood the fire burning in my veins. The only one who would ride or die with me.
"We'll get her back," I mouthed into her ear, my words were meant for her ears alone.
Lakey's eyes hardened into icy blue flames as she tilted her head up and stared at me, and I shivered with anticipation. "I know," she whispered back. "No one hurts our family."
And with those words, the die was cast.
We were bred for violence, molded through it. We danced in the flames of destruction and fucked on top of the graves of those who dared eye us the wrong way.
For that, I was grateful. They’d made us into something unstoppable. Something explosive. Something that would bleed darkness and turn the wounds into shadows that reach into their beating hearts to pull them from their chests.
They made us who we were, and there would be no stopping the storm. One of my trainers had once called me an animal, right after I’d lopped the head off some poor sod who hadn’t been strong enough to take me out.
And we were going to show them just how deadly an animal could be when cornered.