Chapter 30
Law of Thermodynamics
Teddy
I don’t like this. I don’t like how empty my little devil is right now.
I enjoy how brutal it is, and how her dark and twisty brain works.
I hate to see when she goes all numb and becomes a robot.
It’s like she is hiding from her reality when the numbness takes over.
I’d rather her be just as volatile when she is in the present.
I saw the way her walls went up, and I know it’s because of something Max did.
“Max.” I growl from behind him, when he faces me, I can see his own walls have gone up.
“Not now Teddy.” He sighs as he pours himself a glass of whiskey.
“Yes now. What did you do to my little devil?” My voice raises and I can feel every hair on my body stand on end.
I don’t want to hurt my brother, I love him, and I have always protected him…
But I swear if he did something to hurt her…
I try to pause my mind from following that path because I don’t exactly know what I’ll do.
“Teddy,” Brandon whispers, “Try to breathe. She’s okay, but the note is bothering her, we just need to give her some space to process.”
I spin to turn my attention to him, “No! You saw the switch. The Numb took over after Max spoke to her.” I jab my thumb over my shoulder to point at him. “He did this!” Approaching Max, I stand in his face to go toe to toe with him, “You did something to make her shut down like this!”
Max rakes his fingers through his hair and pulls on the strands at the nape of his neck, “I ordered her to go to bed last night, that’s it.” He mumbles. “I think she wanted me to fuck her, but she was exhausted.”
I snort, “You fucking idiot.”
“Excuse me?” Max gawks with his eyebrows pinched together.
“She didn’t need rest. She needed you, and you failed her.” I bite out, and I see him flinch. The movement is the first sign of emotion I’ve seen out of him today, and I’m fed up. If I don’t start my breathing exercise soon, I might crack, and I don’t want to hurt him.
“She did need to rest! I wasn’t going to drain more out of her like you and B did the night before. She didn’t even remember asking to sleep in Dean’s bed, she sub-dropped and you were the cause.” Max barks back, and I like the anger that is finally pooling in his eyes.
He never lets his emotions get the best of him, but right now it’s just feeding my own fire.
“That’s rich. I remember you getting off on it just like the rest of us, and you heard her, she loved it.” I jab my finger into his chest, pushing him into the counter behind him.
“If you don’t calm down,” Dean warns, “We are going to have to restrain you, Teddy.”
A growl rumbles from my chest, and I can feel my muscles go rigid. Before I can stop, my hands fly out and wrap around Max’s throat.
He did this, he shut down my little devil, he hurt her, he failed her, Max is the root of the problem, so Max needs to be eliminated.
“Teddy.” Hearing her sweet silky voice makes me pause. My hands stay wrapped around Max’s throat, but I loosen my grip. “Can you take me somewhere?” She asks.
I let my eyes sizzle as I stare into Max’s; a warning.
I drop my hands, and I turn to Zoe, “Anything for you, little devil.” I say sickly sweet, willing to do all things to get her back to her normal self.
I can still see the numb clouding over her eyes, but there is something else there.
Worry maybe? Is she worried that I was going to hurt Max, or was she worried that he was going to neglect her needs again.
It’s hard to shake the anger radiating throughout my body, but I roll back my shoulders as I walk in her direction. “Where would you like to go?”
She opens her perfect mouth to answer, but she’s interrupted by Brandon who says, “I’ll need to come with you.”
“Fine.” Is her only response, but I don’t let myself dissect the disappointment in her face. Brandon is right though; I’ll need someone with me in case I snap outside the walls of the manor.
She turns on her heels and Brandon and I follow her to the garage, not sparing another glance at either Dean or Max. The three of us pile into Brandon’s Cadillac, Brandon in the driver seat, Zoe in the passenger, and I let myself take up the space in the back.
“Where are we going?” Brandon asks as he starts the car, and I buckle up.
“My father’s old house. I need to see something.”
Brandon and I exchange glances with each other, but we don’t speak. We only nod and Brandon drives us towards the place that Zoe was tortured in her entire youth.
It doesn’t take us but thirty minutes to arrive. I sent a message to Dean to send out security to scope out the place just to be sure we don’t put ourselves at risk, and more importantly, so we don’t put Zoe at risk.
I’m still mad at Max, but my body isn’t vibrating with fury anymore.
The house could definitely be categorized as a mansion.
It’s a four-story building, built with a bright white brick, and the front is complemented with two large pillars to show off the entryway.
The house has been emptied for about three years now.
Max had a thorough investigation for a year after Kahl’s murder, but then closed it up and had security watch it in case the murderer would ever return… I guess in a way that did happen.
I don’t focus on the many plants and shrubs that line the walkway to the front door, but instead I keep my eyes locked on Zoe.
She seems tense, but not nervous. The Numb is still clouding her irises, and I try not to be bothered by it too much.
I don’t blame her for wanting to dissociate from the building she was hurt so much in.
But I am curious to see what she is looking for.
The brothers and I searched this house brick by brick and never found any form of evidence of Kahl's death, and we had been in the house hundreds of times before— even lived here briefly. And we never saw any signs of what Zoe had described. She said she was kept underground, and it was set up like a science lab. Black top tables, chemicals, instruments, an electric chair, and the worst of all, a blacked-out cage that she’d sleep in.
She had stayed in a small cell that couldn’t see out, but could see in.
Just big enough for her to sit in, or curl up to sleep, but not big enough to stretch her legs.
She never told us how she got out of the lab, or where it was in the home.
“This way.” She calls over her shoulder as she walks across the living room.
And to mine and Brandon’s surprise, she moves the fireplace. Yes, moves. The fireplace was pushed to the left and revealed a bolted shut metal door that had a small window at eye level.
“What the fuck, we’ve never seen this before.” Brandon starts. “Why didn’t you say where it was when we talked about what he did to you?” Zoe doesn’t answer, only shrugs before trying to unlatch the door.
“Can one of you help me?” She asks, and I jump at the opportunity.
It’s a metal latch that slides into a little nook across the opening, effectively locking it from the outside. It seems to have locked up and rusted a bit but with a little extra force, Zoe and I were able to slide it up, and the screeching sound put my skin on edge.
“Wanna see where I grew up?” She asks in a dry tone as she swings the door open. Neither Brandon nor I answered, it didn’t seem like it needed one. The air is tense, and I swallow thickly as I follow her down the stairs.
The stairs are also metal, an obscene contrast to the rest of the picturesque home above us. Zoe is still wearing her heels from earlier this morning, and I have to force myself to not gawk at how they make her ass look and focus on the task at hand.
Once we reach the bottom of the steep dark stairwell, the room opens up to a pitch-black room. I’m not scared of the dark, but everything feels like it’s closing in on me, and we’ve been in here for five puny seconds.
“Lights. Where are the lights?” The panic is clear in my voice, and I hear Zoe skitter through the room quickly, and to my relief some light slick on.
The relief is short lived. The fluorescent white lights buzz and brighten as the bulbs warm up and I immediately feel sick to my stomach. Had it been a torture room for anyone else, it wouldn’t have bothered me. But knowing that my little devil was here all this time makes my stomach flip.
“Fuck.” Brandon hisses, and it’s clear that he’s feeling the same thing.
There are two black top tables, with leather straps hanging from the sides, I’m assuming they’re restraints.
The room is mostly empty, but I still feel like I’m suffocating. Probably under the weight of the things that happened here.
Am I like her father? Is she scared of me?
I squash the panic that was trying to rise within me, and I just focus on the surroundings. Doing the trick that Max taught me when I start to get overwhelmed or edgy.
Five things I can see, four things I can touch, three things I can hear, two things I can smell, and one thing I can hold.
I see the black top tables, a metal desk in the far-left corner with a computer on it, a filing cabinet next to it, a rolling chair, and a big glass window on the far wall— however it’s darkened, and I can’t see through it.
I can touch my jeans, the wall, the leather straps on the table, and the butterfly knife in my holster.
I can hear the clicking of Zoe’s heels, the uneven breaths that are slowly coming from my own nose, the quiet hissing of disapproval from Brandon.
I can smell bleach and it’s mixing with the natural scent of Zoe.
I can hold... I can hold Zoe.
Without thinking better of it, I rush behind Zoe, and I wrap myself around her.
Completely shielding her from the surroundings.
She fights me at first, her natural instinct that is similar to my own, but she quickly sinks into it.
As if being held was the only thing she truly needed, I can feel the moment she lifts the numb.
Her body is no longer tense around me, and slowly, she holds me back.
She lets out a breath so deep and heavy, I would have thought she’d been holding it this whole time.
She lets go and steps out of the embrace, turning to face away from me quickly, but I still catch the tears that have welled up in her eyes before she blinked them away.
“Brandon, can you see if you can get into that computer? I’ll look through this cabinet.” She says her voice is still clipped but a bit softer than it was back at the house. More human than she had sounded all day.
Brandon clicks on the mouse bringing the screen to life as Zoe starts to open the large filing cabinet. “Fuck.” She says, “It’s empty. You know what that means?” She looks back at me with a grim expression on her face.
“Someone that used to work with him took everything, the computer is empty, it’s been completely reset, totally wiped.” Brandon answers before I can. I just keep staring at that dark glass window, wanting to know what lies behind it, but knowing I won't like it.
“Exactly.” She sighs but then follows my line of sight. “That’s the window he’d use to observe me.” She walks over next to it and presses a button on the wall that I hadn’t noticed before. The second she releases the button the window clears, and I can see directly through it.
There is a large black mat in the middle of the space behind the glass, assuming that's the sparring ring he’d put her in. I look at the space, breaking it apart so I can understand the horrifying tiny world she grew up in the best I can.
As my eyes zero in on a little black box in the corner, my vision goes red.
I know in my very soul it was the box he’d lock her in if she didn’t comply-- sometimes making her stay in it for days as punishment or making her sleep there just because he felt like it.
I will find this invisible man that aided Kahl, and I will absolutely destroy him.
This is why I analyze every single detail in this room, I memorize it and store it away in my mind. Because everything that was done to her, will come unto him and more.
“Teddy.” Her voice draws me back to reality, soft and silky as always. My favorite sound, a song I want on replay constantly. I blink away the red from my eyes and I realize what I’ve done.
It felt like I zoned out for just a second, but looking at the state the room is in, it must have been way longer.
One of the black top tables has been thrown into the glass, shattering it to pieces. I have destroyed the computer, dismantled the desk it once sat on, and the filing cabinet looks like it has been shredded to pieces.
“Come back to me.” She whispers as she strokes my heaving chest, it’s only then that I unclench my fists.
I look around further and see that Brandon is standing flat against the wall, not scared, but cautious to be out of the way.
I blink back down at the little devil in front of me and let out a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--.” She puts a finger to my lips, effectively muting me.
“Don’t,” A smirk stretches across her face, “We will find him. And he will suffer.”