13. Giselle #4
But at the same time, how was I supposed to know? Forget about shapeshifters; the story that Ben was telling me was so far beyond anything I could have ever imagined. It was horror incarnate. So many people’s worst nightmares all compiled into one truly monstrous nightmare.
No wonder he’d had a panic attack in the car. Not only did he probably have a lot of trust issues, but his best friend had murdered his wife.
Fuck… what was I going to do?
There wasn’t really anything I could do, but it went against every fiber of my being to ignore someone in crisis. And Ben had every reason in the world to be in crisis.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, kneeling where I was. Far enough not to broach the barrier of his extended palm, but hopefully close enough to be a comfort. “You don’t have to keep going.”
“No…” he said raggedly, tears dripping off the end of his nose as he vibrated with… with what? Anger? Agony? Rage? Betrayal? Probably all of them. “It doesn’t feel good to say this aloud, but… I don’t know, it feels almost right?”
“Grounding?” I supplied.
“Yeah,” he answered more resolutely. “ Grounding. ” He took another long, steady breath, and I realized he was using my counting method.
“The guy who took you smelled exactly like Charles. Even looked like Charles’s wolf.
So, for a moment, I thought he’d somehow come back from the dead to kill someone else who was close to me. ”
My ego fluttered at the thought of Ben saying I was someone close to him, which was absolutely ridiculous considering there were way more important things going on. “He said something about his little brother.”
Ben gave me a sharp look. “Pardon?”
“He said he needed to avenge his baby brother. Something about his body not having a grave to rest in.”
Ben swallowed several times, and I watched a long procession of emotions walk across his face. “Charles didn’t have a brother.”
I shrugged. “He was pretty insistent. Is burial an important part of your culture?”
“It can be. It varies from pack to pack. I… after I killed him, I burned him and all the others who had attacked us. I made sure there was nothing left. That was why smelling him again was so, uh, so…”
“Triggering?” I suggested. I hated how assholes had turned being triggered into mocking slang for being angry.
Triggering was a useful term for many people with PTSD or traumas to express themselves.
And considering a large demographic for those with PTSD were veterans and people recovering from CSA, one would think that people would want them to have as many tools as they possibly could have.
“Yeah. That. I guess.”
Ben had just blatantly admitted to murder right in front of me. Didn’t even so much as blink. And not just one man, but likely around twenty. Slaughtered them with his own two hands.
I tried to picture it, and even with what I liked to think was a rather capable imagination, I could barely envision it.
And to be frank, I didn’t condemn him for it.
Call it conditional morality, but while I couldn’t really see him being that violent, I could picture the razing of his pack.
His pain was so palpable that it had illustrated the scene within my own mind.
So many innocent lives lost. And for what?
Money? Honestly, if I was in Ben’s boots, I think I’d have gone mad.
Completely off my rocker, possibly speaking gibberish and rocking in a corner, possibly becoming a mindless killer.
Hell, if I was a shifter, I might have just become an animal and let go of any crumbs of humanity I had left.
Could they do that?
Another question to ask. Except I wasn’t a complete moron.
Now wasn’t the time. Ben had just revealed all his trauma to me, and I was feeling more than a bit sheepish that I’d come into the conversation feeling righteously entitled to his story.
Yes, I had been kidnapped. Yes, I’d kinda fought against a wolf shifter, but that was nothing compared to what I’d just heard.
“Do you want comfort right now?” I asked softly. “Or would you prefer some solitude?”
What I really wanted to do was throw my arms around his shoulders and hold him until both our hearts weren’t aching anymore.
My chest no longer only hurt from the arrhythmia; it hurt for Ben, too.
What he’d survived… God, there were no real words for it.
It would have destroyed many others, but he had pushed through and was now an amazing father to an amazing little boy.
“I, uh…” He trailed off again, but I didn’t blame him.
We’d had a rollercoaster of a night, and that was putting it mildly.
Never in a million years would I ever have expected even one of the things that had happened, but we’d gone for a combo of chaos.
“You’re all right with all of this? I just told you that werewolves were real. ”
“I’m likely in a bit of shock right now. The beta blockers block the effects of adrenaline and noradrenaline, so that’s certainly having an effect on me. I’m tired. I’m very sore. And my heart is still slowing down.
“Maybe tomorrow morning, I’ll have a different reaction, but for now, I am digesting.”
He stared at me again—he was doing a lot of that, but I wasn’t going to sweat over it. At least he wasn’t sobbing anymore, because God, watching his heart break like that was torture. And I wasn’t even the one with the heartbreak.
“I think I need to be with my kids right now.”
“All right then, how about I order an Uber, then you lock up the house behind me and go be with your kids. Maybe hug them extra tight tonight?”
“I’m having a hard time believing you’re okay with all of this.”
“I think ‘okay with all of this’ is a far too simplistic way to summarize the situation. Currently, I’m recovering from my thyroid going crazy with adrenaline, I’m medicated, I was kidnapped, and I grievously injured a person for the first time in my life. That is a lot to process.
“Truth be told, I’m incredibly grateful that you trusted me enough to share your story. I wish I hadn’t demanded it, and that it had come about more organically, but I am still so very grateful.
“Do I know how I will feel in the morning, after I take my sleep medication and get a full night’s rest?
No, I don’t, but that’s okay. Right now, the two of us know we’re safe.
I’m not kidnapped, you have your car, and you have your family resting right above your head.
I think it’s okay for the two of us to be satisfied with that right now.
” Everything was so intense, so I aimed for the slightest bit of levity to break up the weight of it all.
“Besides, I’m a teacher. We’re kind of trained for stuff like this. ”
“Carjackings due to targeted vendettas, massacres, and revenge?”
“Mostly teaching kids how to tie shoes and dealing with their parents, but that’s almost the same, right?”
There was that infinitesimal flicker of a smile. I didn’t expect to fully turn the situation around, but it was good to know that I could give him a break from the awful.
God, I was so lost in the sauce. Instead of running from him and the violent world that had butted up against my own, I wanted to cocoon him in soft things, put him to bed, and give him Sleepytime tea so he could settle.
It was neither the right time nor the right place, and I wasn’t close enough to offer him that kind of comfort.
“At least it’s not potty training.”
“You got me there.” Picking myself up off the floor even though my body was aching to lean against his, I went back to my seat and pulled my phone out of my purse. “I’m ordering my ride now, it should only be a few minutes.”
“No, no, I can drive you.”
“Do you really think that’s a good idea right now? Given the night we’ve both had?”
It looked like he wanted to argue, then he sighed again. “No, you’re right. It feels wrong making you go home all alone after everything you’ve been through. It’s not like your night has exactly been easy.”
“That’s an understatement if there ever was one, but I’ll be okay. I promise.”
And I would be. Perhaps without the beta blockers I would have been in trouble, but they were working a right treat.
I didn’t think I could get worked up even if I tried.
I was a little nervous about how I’d feel once the medication wore off, but that nervousness fizzled out pretty quickly—probably because of the beta blockers.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I said as I finished ordering the Uber.
Normally, I always picked the wait option, because I loved saving money where I could, but this time I chose the expedient one that was three minutes away.
Ben was enough of a gentleman that he wouldn’t object to me hanging around for another fifteen minutes, but he needed to be with his children.
Although I had absolutely zero desire to ever have any kids of my own, nor did I have the ability to be pregnant, I understood how important they were, especially to a good parent like Ben. “But would you walk me to the door?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
Ben straightened, then took my leftovers from the fridge.
I felt a bit silly for insisting on bringing them inside, but my phone showed me that almost an hour had passed.
How was that even possible? I had thought my pounding heart was making time move slower, but I could have sworn we’d only walked into the door about ten minutes ago. Wild.
He carried the bag to the front door, and we stood there, waiting for my ride.
It was a little awkward, but I wasn’t all that bothered.
Again, medicated, but also, I was becoming more and more exhausted with every passing second.
I only had enough energy to get home, rip off my wig, take off my heels, then collapse into bed still dressed.
Would it be comfy? Absolutely not. But I had a limited supply of spoons and honey.
It was like I was back on the cereal diet I’d had in college, because I was out of all of my metaphorical utensils.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, and the weight of that simple phrase was so intense it was almost tangible. “For everything.”
The levity I’d used to lighten the mood was gone, but maybe that was okay. Sure, sometimes the right thing to do was to lighten someone’s burden, but other times, the right thing to do was acknowledge their burden without trying to fix it. At the moment, Ben was in the second category.
“Thank you,” I said, taking my leftovers as my ride pulled up. I got a few steps across the cobblestone before I stopped and looked at him over my shoulder. “Hopefully our second date isn’t as adventurous.”
The shocked look on Ben’s expression would have been amusing in any other situation. I hurried to my Uber. I hadn’t expected those words to come out of my mouth, nor had I really thought about it, yet the sentiment rang true within me.
I didn’t want our story to be over yet.