Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Freedom
Shay
“They love me. They’re sorry. But why didn’t they message Dee as well? They hurt him worse. Don’t they also love him?” I mutter, unable to still my thoughts.
I hunch my shoulders against the drizzling rain, pushing my hands deep into the pockets of my leather jacket.
I am pacing up and down the stretch of deserted beach, which fits the address from the text.
In the distance, I can see the hazy outline of the bridge.
The slate sky is low over the crashing waves of the ocean. I scrunch my nose at the salty breeze, which is also scented with wet wood. I glance at the curve of the gray road, where I parked my Harley.
Earlier, I drove here too fast, but I needed to clear my head.
It didn’t help.
I have been in a daze since I received the text last night.
We r sorry. We regretted losing u all our lives. We love u
Love…?
What does that mean to people like the Webbs? To parents who can treat their kids like they did Eden and me?
Who can sell their own blood?
I clench my jaw.
Why am I even here, waiting for them? Why are nerves surging through me?
The cry of a gull behind me startles me.
I glance over my shoulder.
Is someone there?
I scan the road.
No one.
I’d been shocked and shaken to see the text. It meant that the Webbs were in America, right?
I should have been creeped out. What if the Webbs were the reason that I’d felt like someone was watching me?
What if they’d been stalking me?
What if…?
My pulse races.
What if they intend to kidnap and sell me again? I’m worth a hell of a lot more than I must have been as a kid.
I know nothing about Nicole or Craig. What if they have debts?
I could be nothing more than a meal ticket to them. Well, drug ticket. They saw Eden and me as property when we were kids.
My mind shies away from the thought that they knew exactly the type of people the couple were who they sold us to.
They knew the hell that they were trapping us in.
Sometimes, when I’d been adopted, I would lie in bed unable to sleep, and I would dream up different identities for Man and Woman.
I’d dream that they had thought the couple were simply desperate to adopt kids to love, wanting to give them a good home.
In my heart, however, I knew that it was a lie. I wasn’t ready to face it then. But it comforted me.
Maybe I just need to look Nicole and Craig in the eye and find out either way.
I don’t know if that’s healthy or not. But who gives a fuck? It’s my bloody trauma.
Am I ready to face the truth now?
Robyn and the rest of the subs worked out a way last night to, as Garcia put it, mitigate the risk.
Garcia also offered me a gun.
“I’m English.” I laughed, shaking my head. “I’ve never even held a prop gun. If I picked up a real one, it would increase the risk. I’d probably shoot off my own balls.”
Robyn appeared horrified. “Then you’re definitely not doing that. I love your balls.”
I puffed up my chest. “Good because they’re yours, love.”
“What do English people fight with?” Garcia gave me a level look. “I could offer you a switchblade? Zombie knife?”
“No weapons,” Robyn said, firmly. “I’ll arrange a security team. You have one hour tomorrow morning, before I’m telling D’Angelo everything.”
“I thought that we didn’t like snitches,” I complained.
Now, I glance anxiously at my watch.
It’s 9:58.
My heart hurts.
Has Robyn already told D’Angelo?
It’s been nearly two hours.
Why is it destroying me that the Webbs are late?
It is an away game this evening, and although my American geography is as shit as I guess D’Angelo’s English geography would be, I’m guessing that it will take around six hours on the bus to drive to Pittsburgh.
I can’t wait around much longer. I can’t risk being late. I won’t let my team down.
They’re my family too.
And D’Angelo…? He’s everything.
I wasn’t too worried when the Webbs were half an hour and then an hour late. But now that I have been left stranded on this remote, bleak beach for nearly two hours, despairing thoughts are tearing me apart.
What if the Webbs don’t turn up? What if they reject and abandon me all over again?
How unlovable would that make me?
Furious with myself, I wipe the back of my hand over my eyes.
Robyn doesn’t think that I should have agreed to come here this morning. But she told me that she supported my right to make up my own mind. She said that I wouldn’t be keeping a secret and breaking the rule because she knew where I was going and would monitor the situation for me.
Last night, the other subs told me that we should tell our dom.
Everett in particular was frightened for me. He insisted that D’Angelo would want to protect me.
He’s right.
My kind Sir, however, already does too bloody much for me. He is the one who needs a break. I want to take care of him, rather than constantly relying on him.
I can be independent as well, not only my twin.
Still, D’Angelo would probably be furious that I had come out here by myself with the risks and dangers going on right now.
I know that Eden would.
For once, however, this is about facing demons that I have run from my entire life.
I have tried to experience as many sensations as possible, from food to sex, attempting to feel as alive as I can because I never knew whether I would die.
These Webbs did that to me.
I shouldn’t want their love. They don’t deserve to say sorry to me.
I shouldn’t forgive them.
I don’t.
But I don’t want to live in fear all the time. I am doing this for myself.
I have been shivering in the light rain for two hours, however, clinging onto a fading hope that I matter even a tiny amount to the people who birthed me.
And they haven’t turned up.
Was this only a trick?
I push my wet hair out of my eyes with a shaky hand.
When my phone vibrates in the pocket of my jeans, I panic. I rush to drag it out.
Is it Nicole and Craig? Were they held up for some reason? Are they almost here?
Have they turned up yet? Why r they so late?
My face falls.
It’s just another worried text from Robyn. I can imagine her curled up in the lounge with her phone on her knee. I bet that she has been there snuggled with a book for the last two hours, sending me increasingly nervous texts.
She’s not great at hiding things from D’Angelo or my brother. She ate the last blueberry muffin yesterday, and it only took a raised eyebrow from D’Angelo, before she was rambling out a confession.
D’Angelo should be a cop, although I don’t know how many cops dance in cages in BDSM clubs or have photographs of them being fucked while wearing tutus.
Maybe more than you’d think.
I read through Robyn’s last messages. My expression tightens.
R they there?
This could be a trap
Security r just up the road. U r safe
What if this was set up by whoever was behind the article? They could be taking photos of u right now
I scan the horizon.
Nothing.
I can hear the engines of an occasional car along the road. Someone could be using a long lens to take photographs of me standing like an idiot out here on the beach.
Do the press want to print something about me being stood up by the Webbs? Is this another way to mind fuck me before the next game?
Is it another manipulative tactic by the Penguins? By Wilder?
I clutch the phone tighter.
I won’t let it work.
I hiss out a breath, spinning in a circle and scanning the empty beach. My eyes hurt because I have been searching so hard for my parents to walk out of the hazy mist like I’m in some type of crappy Hallmark movie.
Has Robyn told D’Angelo where I am by now?
I shove the phone back into my pocket.
I’m not wiping tears out of my eyes. It’s only the stinging rain, right?
Why did I think Nicole and Craig — I refuse to think of them as Mum and Dad — would turn up?
Why did I let myself have hope?
The phone vibrates again, and another text comes through from Robyn.
Come home. Pls
I am suddenly homesick. I can imagine being curled on that couch with my arms around Robyn, kissing the top of her warm head, rather than being lashed by the freezing rain.
What the fuck am I doing out here beside the churning ocean, waiting for ghosts from my past?
But what does it mean that my ghosts don’t want me?
I can’t help the bone deep hurt, which makes me want to slap, pinch, and claw at my own skin. I need the pain to stave off the creeping numbness.
I need to feel.
I have a rule, however, that I mustn’t hurt myself. I made a promise to D’Angelo that I wouldn’t. I take a shuddering breath, counting to ten in my head.
Suddenly, that boundary feels like all I have to hold onto with the abyss of hurt and darkness just in front of me that I could take one step forward and fall into.
I understand Everett’s rules from Kay better now. They may bind him harshly, but they also hold him together, keeping him safe.
I should have told D’Angelo about this.
I bloody wish that he was with me.
I don’t want to be alone.
Man and Woman aren’t here. They never will be.
The truth hits me. I can’t look away from accepting it at long last.
“They’re not sorry.” The realization hurts like I’m the one who has been shot. “They don’t love me.”
I drop my phone onto the wet sand, dropping to my knees next to it.
My chest is rising and falling.
I sink my hands into the gritty sand, clawing at it like I wish I could my skin.
Seeing red, I scream. “I bloody hate them. I hate them…I hate…”
Myself.
Losing control, I rip at the sand, imagining that I am tearing myself apart.
I scatter the wet sand into the air around me, not caring that I am covering my clothes, hair, and skin.
Robyn will be bloody furious. I am a press disaster. If anyone is taking photographs, then they will have the payday of their life: The Bay Rebels’ star player freaks out.
I have anger management issues. I’m a disappointment to everyone.
Is that why my biological parents haven’t turned up? Have abandoned me again?
My eyes sting with the sand, which I desperately blink out of their edges. Is that why my cheeks are wet?