Chapter 42 #2
I shake my head and hug him tighter. “You have nothing to apologize for. It wasn’t your fault. The fault is with whoever started the fire.”
He hugs me tighter at that, and after a few minutes, I pull away, wiping my cheeks.
Reaper stands and places a kiss at my temple. “The guys and I are going to have Church. Take all the time you need.”
I look around and notice the only ones close by are Nathan and Drake who are both stocking the bar and wiping it down.
I can see Mama Astrid in the kitchen preparing lunch through the pass through.
As if feeling my eyes on her, she turns and smiles.
Relief flows through me. She doesn’t judge or blame me for Erik’s hearing loss either.
Nathan comes over and gives us each a beer before taking my empty bottle and throwing it in the recycling bin. Fuck, I hadn’t even realized I’d finished it off.
We sit on the couch and I gnaw on my lip before sighing.
“I’m sorry. I know I said everything is the arsonist’s fault, but I still feel like I need to apologize, too.
If we hadn’t been home, you wouldn’t have been in the house.
You wouldn’t have lost most of your hearing and you’d still be a firefighter. ”
He gives me an understanding smile. “I feel the same way and I’m sorry, too. If I would have just moved faster, we wouldn’t have fallen down the stairs.” Then his face hardens. “Lark, what all did Chief tell you about the fire?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Someone messed with our security feed. They hacked it and stopped it from recording for two days, both at the house and the supper club.” I take a deep breath, blowing it out slowly.
“Chief Riggs said the windows were tampered with, that they were nailed shut from the outside. The wires for the alarms were cut. Multiple areas were found surrounding the house and the supper club where they think there were piles of rags soaked in accelerant. He also said that because of how the building burned, they suspected the arsonist also sprayed accelerant on the walls of the buildings as well.”
Somehow, Erik’s face hardens even more. “That wasn’t all.”
I sit up straighter at that as worry curls in my gut. “What do you mean?”
“The doors were tampered with, too. Emma and Lottie couldn’t get out. We had to bust down the doors with an axe. There wasn’t much of the stairs that survived the fire, but there was enough to show evidence of the supports being cut into both sets of stairs to weaken them.”
I stare at Erik in shock.
Oh my God…
Whoever did this wanted to kill us.
My stomach turns and I cover my mouth as I jump to my feet, running down the hallway toward the bathroom. I hear someone following me, but I don’t look back. Pushing open the bathroom door, I rush to one of the stalls just in time to empty the contents of my stomach.
Hands brush my hair from my face and hold it back for me as I continue to throw up and then dry heave.
A few moments later, I grab some tissue and blow my nose before flushing the toilet. Straightening, I turn, not surprised that it was Mama Astrid that helped me. Erik’s right behind her in the open door and passes me a cold cloth. I check the mirror and wipe my face as it burns with embarrassment.
“I’m—”
Mama Astrid cuts me off with a look. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry, Sweetheart.
Both Emma and Lottie wanted to withhold that information from you initially because they were worried it would push you over the edge while you were healing.
Then, I figure they didn’t know how to broach the subject after that. ”
Erik gives me a sheepish look as we all step out of the bathroom and walk down the hallway.
“I’m sorry, Lark. I didn’t realize you didn’t know.
I should have phrased that all that better.
I always get pissed off when I think about everything that asshole did, not just at your house and supper club, but everywhere else.
Assuming it’s the same person, that is. That’s part of why I joined the team as their arson investigator. ”
I stop and blink up at him in shock. “What Reaper said earlier makes more sense now.”
Mama Astrid pauses in the doorway of the kitchen. “I’ll whip up some soup real quick for you, Lark, to help ease your stomach.” She gives my shoulder a squeeze as she walks into the kitchen and Erik and I continue into the main room and sit down on the couch again.
Erik frowns. “What did Reaper say?”
“At first when I told him I wanted to find out who you were, I said I wanted to wait until Reaper got back so that he’d be here. He told me that he’d rather I find out today before he left because of these fires that started popping.”
Erik gives me a grim look. “Yeah, I’m investigating them. I can’t really speak on them, but if you ever need someone and can’t get a hold of any of the club members, you call me, you hear?”
I give him a small smile and nod. “I hear you, and I will,” I tell him right as the door to Church opens up.
Reaper spots us and makes a beeline for us. I chuckle when he picks me up, sits down, and sets me on his lap. His silent, questioning gaze asks me if I’m okay and I nod, letting him know that I am.
We sit and chat for a while, and when Mama Astrid brings me a big mug of soup, I gratefully take it. My stomach is still churning at the fact that we could have all been killed in the fire, but then another thought creeps in.
Something I’ve never thought of before, and it’s probably only because of my stalker that I’m thinking about it now.
What if someone didn’t realize we would be home and wanted to erase everything in my past? So that they could swoop in and ‘rescue’ me after everything burned down?
A chill runs down my spine.
Could the arsonist really be my stalker?
Fuck, if he’s behind the fires, did he do that so he could try to ‘dictate’ or ‘control’ my future?
Instantly my mind goes to Zac, Khloe’s ex-boyfriend, and then to that asshole therapist, Dr. Ashcroft. Another chill races down my spine.
Khloe and Zac had broken up not too long after Reaper and I officially got together back in October.
From what she’d told me, he’d become even more demanding and more controlling toward her than he had been and she had finally had enough.
She packed everything of his that he’d left at her house and had it sitting by the driveway for him to pick up once he was done with his shift.
Since then, I’ve heard rumors of Zac going off the deep end.
He even got suspended for a while at the fire station because of some shit he tried to pull on a female coworker.
Then there’s all that stuff Dr. Ashcroft had said. That someone might be punishing me for something. Or a ‘perceived’ something.
Try as I might, I can’t fully shake off those thoughts. Sighing, I finish my soup before putting the mug on the table and leaning back against Reaper’s chest. As I try and refocus back on the conversation, I realize they’re talking about the idea I proposed.
Reaper faces me. “Darlin’, we’ll be heading out after lunch. Odin, Mama Astrid, Razor, Punisher, Beast and Python will be going with me. Beast and Python will stay the full two weeks. When we switch next week, then Devil, Loki, Smithy, Cannon, Atlas, and Doc will head out.”
I nod, though I still can’t shake off my thoughts.
“Did everything go okay with Erik?” he whispers in my ear.
“Yes, talking with him really helped. You were right. We were avoiding each other because we both thought the other would hate us because we’d been hurt.”
His face softens as he kisses my temple. Then he quirks an eyebrow at me. “But?”
I nibble on my lip. “He told me some more things about the fires that I didn’t know about. Apparently, Ma and Granny withheld some information from me, and I get why they did that at first, but it kind of stings that I found out from Erik rather than them.”
His brow wrinkles in confusion. Guess it wasn’t just me that didn’t know about that.
“He said that all the doors and windows were tampered with. They had to use an axe to break down our door to get to us. Then they found evidence that the supports for both sets of stairs were tampered with too.”
Reaper’s face hardens. “I’d seen the door hacked up, but I didn’t realize it had been tampered with.”
I hesitate and he nudges my hip.
“But I don’t think that’s what’s really bothering you. What is it, Darlin’?”
I chew on the corner of my nail as I try to put all my thoughts in order.
“Well, it’s just that when Erik told me about that bit of news, my mind immediately went to three people.”
“Who?” Devil asks and it’s then that I realize the other guys sitting around us had clued in on our conversation.
“My stalker, Zac, and Dr. Ashcroft. Khloe doesn’t know this but a few months before Aiden and I got together, Zac had been trying to get me to go out with him.
Each time, I told him no. After a few weeks of that, I finally had had enough.
I told him that he was a nice guy, but that I wasn’t interested in him that way.
A few months after Aiden and I started dating, Zac and Khloe got together.
Whenever he was around me, even if Khloe was there, I could feel him watching me.
Periodically he’d make some comments towards me like, I shouldn’t eat takeout and that I should eat something healthier.
Or he’d say I shouldn’t do something because it was dangerous or that what I was doing wasn’t something I should focus on. ”
I huff and shake my head, remembering once when I really went off on him.
“He hated that I did things that he thought were meant for men and not women. To name a few, he hated that I like to hunt, both with both a gun and a bow, that I like to build things, do wood carving, and make beer. Both Khloe and I lit into him big time for that conversation, and I avoided him for a long time after that. After the fire, he got worse, and I think part of it is because he was the one that carried me out of the fire after Erik got hurt. Khloe thinks it’s because he felt responsible for me, but I knew it wasn’t that.
However, I didn’t know how to tell her without hurting her.
“Then when you went radio silent on me for a while, I think Zac thought he might have another chance, because he started that same bullshit up again.
After that argument in the bar the night we officially got together, that seemed to be a trigger for him.
From what Khloe told me, he got even more demanding, controlling, and manipulative.
Not too long after that, she dumped him.
“As you know, I’d always kind of thought Zac could possibly be my stalker, but it wasn’t until Erik told me the rest of the details of the fire that I think he really could be my stalker.
The only other person I can think of that might also be my stalker is Dr. Ashcroft, and well, I’m sure you remember my panic attack and what I told you afterward. ”
I pause as a shiver runs through me as I think back to that therapy session, but I try and push those memories away. Licking my lips, I continue.
“What if someone was intent on erasing my past so that they could dictate or try and control my future? To try and shape me into how they wanted me to be shaped? If they did mean for me to be trapped as well as erasing my past, what if they set the fires and tampered with all the windows, stairs, and doors in the hopes that they could be the one to ‘rescue’ me? To be the one to help me ‘become whole’ again?”
Reaper’s arms tighten around me as he breathes heavily. Fuck. Maybe I shouldn’t have dumped all of this on him before he was about to leave.