Chapter 19 #2
He refuses to let her look around him as he points to a cart full of weapons. There’s a hammer, mallet, bat, wrench, golf clubs, and more in front of her. When Nova hefts a golf club with a wide sole in her hand, my head tilts to the side.
“Any reason why that particular item, Nova?” I ask as Caleb steps out of her way.
“Woah,” she rasps, seeing everything that’s set up. “Ah, John liked to play golf with Mr. Domino. Thinking back, it was probably a safe place for them to talk.”
“Smash away,” I murmur, watching her choose her method of attack.
There are carts with ugly porcelain cups, gravy boats, and an arrangement of cow figurines that looked worthy for the cause at the thrift store.
They were all twenty five cents each, so it worked.
Caleb and I also strung up lanterns just above her head to break, as well as some broken electronics we found at the store too.
They sell them to people who want to fix them up or for kids to pull apart and put back together to learn how things work. One person’s trash is another’s treasure, and I’ll always stand by that. We happened to find a lot of it to offer up as tribute to Nova.
Taking a deep breath, she stalks over to a glass vase, and swings the club at it. The tinkle of it breaking is nice, but I think she can go bigger.
“Warm her up,” I call out, getting Caleb’s attention as he turns toward me. He nods as he sees what I’m doing, and watches as she breaks everything on a cart we set up for her.
“There’s a broken television calling your name,” Caleb says, tracking Nova’s gaze as she finds it. She beats the fuck out of the television before the club gets stuck and she huffs in frustration. “Take the bat, Nova.”
He walks over and hands it to her handle first before putting his foot on the base of the television to yank the golf club out.
“The floor is yours,” he teases, moving out of the way quickly as she lifts the bat and begins to beat the fuck out of it.
I can feel the frenzy building as she screams and smashes more shit, wincing as I see some glass get into her hair. Fuck, looks like I’ll be picking that out later. It’s not enough to cut her, so I’ll let her continue.
…But not without grabbing a hard hat and putting it on her head. Safety first.
“Keep going, I don’t want you getting any more glass in your hair,” I murmur when she stiffens without turning.
Nova swings at the ugly porcelain cups and they explode with the power of her swing. Thankfully, I turned so it hit my jacket and nothing vital. Damn, she’s got some power to her swings.
She loses herself to destruction before she screams, “Why?!”
“Fuck,” Caleb murmurs.
He’s not wrong. Beating the shit out of things lets out the anger, but the sadness has a tendency to come out too. Nova throws the bat to the side before she grabs the heavy mallet, and things explode as she slams it down on the crystal, plates, and figurines.
“Why what, Nova?” I ask, swallowing hard. This is the part where I have to be careful. Playing a therapist with heavy emotions can be dicey.
Hollis almost broke my kneecap when she was a teenager and her parents tried to marry her off to a pack when we had our first rage set up for her. It swelled really badly, and I told people that I got into a bar fight. Thankfully, my image was a little edgier than it is now and people believed it.
“Why did my life have to be like this?” she growls, the tinkle and crash of glass following her words. “Why couldn’t I be fucking ugly so he’d keep his hands to himself?! Why did he have to write about it?”
Caleb’s hands are clenched into fists as he listens to her, his jaw working as he listens.
“Did he?” I ask, my voice hoarse with emotion.
“Kane found the notebook,” she says, throwing the mallet with strength she shouldn’t have. The lanterns furthest from her explode with perfect precision, and I am suddenly very glad that she’s not trained to kill people.
I want to ask her more, but I can’t. It feels like I’m frozen as she picks up a crowbar and begins to wield that at the cute little cow family.
“He read it,” Nova bites out. “Kane found every single room that I was hurt in and put explosives in it before he video called me this morning. He had me choose a number and that’s the room he blew up.”
Fuck me. Kane is an evil genius. I think he’s definitely underestimated too. He and Nova seem to have a special bond, which means there’s nothing he won’t do for her.
“What happened then?” I ask.
“He blew up the garage last, and it was full of the security guards that patrol the property. People who kept me inside, and pretended they didn’t hear my screams or tears,” she mutters. “He has a list of people to kill.”
“Sounds like a great friend.”
“He is,” Nova breathes.
She stands there with her back turned to us, and I watch as her strings of anger are finally cut.
Her knees begin to buckle as I rush toward her, catching her before she falls to the ground.
Caleb walks over and gently pulls the crowbar from her numb fingers and removes her protective gear once she’s firmly cuddled in my arms.
“You have people now,” he murmurs. “We’ll burn the world down for you, baby. You’re not alone.”
Her eyes are full of tears as she nods, her hands clenched as they spill over.
“Want to tell us anything else?” I ask. “Totally safe space, baby. No one will judge you.”
There’s silence for a second, and I can see this yawning pool of sorrow in her gaze that’s so deep it physically hurts to look at it. Yet, I refuse to break eye contact because I’m promising to be her rock, even when I worry that I’m not strong enough for the shit she’s been through.
This time has to be different if we’re going to build anything together.
“In the van…” she hiccups, shuddering.
“When you were in heat?” Caleb asks, finding his voice. “What about it?”
He threads his fingers through hers and we start there, holding space for her as I hold her. I’m glad that Caleb warned Hollis we were doing this, because it would be very easy to pop the bubble of tenuous trust that we have going for us right now.
“I…was in so much pain that I thought of just ending things,” she whispers.
“It’s not the first time I’ve tried. The only reason I’m here today is because Louise found me bleeding out and the cuts weren’t deep enough to do the job.
I promised myself that I would respect life more than that. It just hurt so much.”
My heart races as I stare at this beautiful omega who had a really fucked up history, and my eyes heat as the full reality of her words washes over me.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” I rasp, letting her see how I’m feeling. I spend too much time hiding it because of my own history.
Feelings get you killed, even though I’ve been out of that life for a few years, it’s no less prevalent in my thoughts. I’m a few years older than Nova and Hollis, and my dad groomed me from an early age to take on an enforcer role.
The only person I was allowed to be soft for were my best friends. That was my father’s line in the sand.
“Your promise to yourself kept you safe?” Caleb whispers.
Snow begins to fall around us, and everything feels quiet and still in the aftermath of Hurricane Nova.
“Yes,” she says, heaving in a breath as tears flow faster down her cheeks. “I stayed in the closet and… bashed my head against the wall to keep myself from leaving. If I passed out then maybe the pain would stop.”
“Nova,” Caleb growls. “You will never have a heat like that again. Not ever. I don’t think I ever apologized for fucking up so epically at the hospital. I didn’t even try to understand what you were trying to tell me.”
“It sounded crazy,” she grumbles.
“It doesn’t. Not really,” he insists. “You and Hollis have always been meant to find each other. The universe is just doing it in a really odd way.”
“It would be great if it chilled the fuck out,” I sniff.
“Right?” she giggles. There’s a lot of hysterical emotion in that laughter, but I’ll take it. “I just wanted you to know. I still don’t know what direction I’m going in, and I’m feeling fragile after my heat.”
Nova presses her lips together as if she’s said too much and I growl at her.
“Don’t do that. Tell us what you need.”
“I need more than you’ve been giving,” she blurts out. “Everything you’ve done today is amazing. I don’t want that to disappear. I can’t do the yo-yoing of emotions back and forth. I have whiplash, I’m raw from everything happening, and I need…”
“Stability,” Caleb finishes.
“Yes. I can’t do this anymore. It makes me do stupid shit in an effort to be able to control anything in my fucking life,” she explains.
That makes so much sense it’s hard to believe that I didn’t figure it out before.
“You got it,” I purr, rubbing my nose against her. “You’re ours for a reason, the learning curve has been steeper than it should be. We need to talk to each other, baby.”
“I hate the nickname ‘Princess’,” she complains. “I don’t care when it’s used for other people, but I personally hate it.”
“Won’t use it,” I promise.
I can see by the way that her eyes are fluttering that she’s tired.
“Do you want to go back to bed and nap?” I ask, already heading back inside.
It’s hard to believe we’ve already been out here an hour.
“Are you staying?” she breathes, sounding as if she’s already on her way to sleep.
“We can,” Caleb says. “Do we need to set an alarm for you?”
“I’m not working today,” she mumbles. “I’m off the rest of the weekend, barring any issues.”
The unspoken words speak volumes, because I bet that midwifery is spent at the mercy of babies and their own timeline.
“Then we’re going to take a nap,” I decide. “I’ll come pick this all up afterward.”
I hope it doesn’t snow hard while we’re in bed with her or it’ll be a bitch to find glass later. It’s a good thing it’s not anywhere near where anyone drives. There’s a large, empty field to my right that appears to be someone else’s property. I don’t even see a house anywhere.
Going inside, I put Nova on her feet, and Caleb and I help pull off her layers of clothing. Walking into her bedroom, I watch as she pushes off her pants and pulls off her long sleeved shirt. The tinkle of glass has me lurching toward her and I grab her hands as they push her shirt over her head.
“Close your eyes,” I murmur. “There’s glass that is falling out of your hair. Let me get it.”
Caleb walks over worriedly, and together we shake her hair out into her shirt before I gather the material to remove it from her.
“There,” I sigh, walking out of the room to shake the shirt over the trash can.
By the time I return, she’s wearing Tyde’s sweatshirt and curled up in Caleb’s arms sleeping.
“You were slow,” he teases me, moving over with her to give me space.
Rolling my eyes, I toe off my boots and pull my jeans off to offer myself some relief in my boxers. Sighing, I toss them and my pants into a chair and climb into bed beside Nova. She’s officially sandwiched between us.
Yawning because I had to get up so early, I wrap my arm around her waist. I typically don’t stop moving so I won’t crash on mornings that I bake. Burying my nose in her throat, I start to fall asleep quickly to both her scent and Tyde’s.
“Why does he have to smell so good?” Caleb mutters.
“It sucks, doesn’t it?” I chuckle. “I have a feeling that he wouldn’t mind if we hit on him.”
“Interesting concept,” he says. “Let’s make sure our omega is happy and knows she’s adored before we go adding more to things.”
“Bet,” I grunt, allowing myself to slip off to sleep.