14. Kara
14
KARA
I woke to bright sun streaming through the gauzy curtains. It spilled across the pretty guest room, lighting up the pale walls and white ceiling. I blinked a few times, trying to clear the grogginess from my eyes, and took in the slightly wilted plant in the corner. A set of wood-stained drawers designed for holding clothes sat beside it.
I twisted to my side, reaching a hand toward Hayley Jade.
Panic flooded my system. I sat up so quickly my head spun, and a scream of terror lodged itself in my throat.
I scrambled out of bed, yanking the door open and sprinting down the hallway. “Hayley Jade!” My voice came out croaky, with sleep or panic I wasn’t sure which. I ran, frantically searching every side table, every corner, looking for the little girl’s blond hair and pale skin. “Hayley Jade!”
“In here,” Rebel called from the sitting room we’d talked in the night before. “Sorry! We didn’t go far because I knew you’d be worried, but the kids all get up so early…”
I stopped in the doorway I’d stood in just last night and stared at my sister in the middle of the room, surrounded by children. Including Hayley Jade, who sat quietly in a corner, playing with a Barbie doll.
My heart beat too fast. It took my brain too long to comprehend she was still here. Safe.
Playing.
Oh my God, she was playing!
I twisted to my sister who gave me a small smile and a shrug. “She heard me with the other kids and came out here on her own. I know it probably scared you but—”
I shook my head, slowly taking the seat next to Rebel. “Is she okay?” I whispered.
Rebel made a noncommittal noise and lowered her voice so the kids wouldn’t hear. “She hasn’t said anything. I asked her if she wanted to color or if she wanted to use the bathroom, and she didn’t answer. But she picked out that Barbie doll, so that’s something.”
I breathed out heavily. “Other than to scream, I haven’t heard her make a noise since we left Shari’s place. Shari is her…” I couldn’t even say it. There was so much shame in it. Here was Rebel, surrounded by her children, and yet I hadn’t even been able to hold on to the single one I’d had.
I didn’t need to dump all of my baggage on Rebel though. I did a quick head count of the children in the room and widened my eyes at my sister. “Are they all yours?”
She let out a laugh. “You act like I birthed a football team. ”
“Rebel, you have four kids under five.”
She grinned, rubbing her tiny belly. “And one on the way.”
My heart panged with both love and excitement for her. And pain for myself.
Other women all seemed to find it so easy to get pregnant.
I wrapped my arms around myself and rubbed my arms.
Rebel watched me for a second then cleared her throat. “Want to meet your nieces and nephews? Hayley Jade already met them all.”
I very much did.
Rebel had a sleepy toddler on her lap, her daughter’s eyes big as she stared at me silently, a pacifier in her mouth. Rebel stroked a hand over her daughter’s hair. “This sleepyhead is Lavender. She’s our youngest, or at least she will be for the next few months. Don’t take her silence right now to mean anything. She’s a tiny terror when she’s awake properly, but she’s like her mama and not one for mornings.”
I smiled. “I remember Kian trying to get you out the door for runs when I stayed with you.”
Rebel stifled a yawn. “That still happens a few times a week. Though with getting up to kids in the middle of the night, our 5:00 a.m. runs are often more like seven now. Sleep is precious around here. You’d think with four of us on nighttime duties, we’d all manage to get more sleep than the average set of parents…”
“But you went and had more kids than most people do. ”
Rebel grinned. “And in the shortest time frame possible.”
I smiled at her. “Probably a known hazard of having as many partners as you do.”
Rebel shifted on the couch, cuddling her daughter. “You’d think we’d learn to be a bit more careful, wouldn’t you? But can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
Rebel leaned in conspiratorially over the top of Lavender’s head. “I love being a mom more than anything else. I even love being pregnant.” She laughed. “And I think they love knocking me up.”
A blush crept up my cheeks at the idea of all the sex my sister had to be having.
But she looked so happy, despite clearly being a bit on the tired side.
A surge of jealousy hit me hard, and I silently admonished myself for it.
This was exactly why the Lord would never let me have another child. I coveted the happiness other women had. Jealousy kept my body inhospitable to creating new life.
A dark-haired boy of maybe three rammed a truck against my foot and then grinned up at me mischievously. “Beep-beep!”
“You’re a bit late on the horn there, you crazy driver. You already ran your aunty Kara over,” Rebel said to him. “Say hello, Wolf.”
He sat back on his heels and cocked his head to one side, his little brow furrowed in confusion, like he was trying to work out where he’d suddenly acquired a new relative from .
He was so much like Vaughn it was shocking. I glanced at my sister, my eyes wide.
She chuckled quietly. “There’s no doubting who created him, huh? He looks just like Vaughn when he does that thing with his head. Weirds me out too.” She lowered her chin onto the top of Lavender’s hair. “She does it as well.”
“They’re both his?” I asked, though it was obvious how alike the two children were, and Wolf was the spitting image of his biological father.
Rebel nodded. “Remi is Fang’s though,” she explained, pointing to her fair-haired older daughter. “Though only the hair color gives it away. She definitely didn’t get any of his height, poor kid. She’s a short-ass like I am. And Madden is Kian’s. I think I might have told you that in a letter before we got cut off, though…”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “I remember being so shocked that twins could have different fathers.”
“You and me both!” She gazed over at her twins fondly. “Wouldn’t change them for the world. The guys are such good dads.”
“Do the kids call all of them Dad? Or just their biological parent?” I knew I was being nosy, but I couldn’t help it. The dynamic of Rebel’s family was so different from the household I’d left behind, even though both were polyamorous.
“They’re all dad to each of them. But they call Vaughn Dad. Fang is Daddy. Kian has Irish roots and wanted to be called Da. Really, though, any of them yells Dad and all three guys come running. These kids have those big men wrapped around their little fingers, don’t you?” She picked up Lavender’s hand and pressed a kiss to her chubby baby fingers. “Your dads are big suckers for all four of you.”
I glanced at Hayley Jade, my heart squeezing with love. She wasn’t lucky enough to have one father, let alone three who doted on her. Hayley Jade’s father was a monster, and I was glad he was dead.
Maybe that was the real reason I couldn’t conceive.
Because every day, I was silently glad Caleb was six feet under and could never hurt anyone ever again.
But that didn’t change the way I felt about the daughter he’d left me with.
She was everything that was good and right. His evil couldn’t touch her.
But Josiah’s could.
I bit my lip.
Like Rebel could read my mind, she reached out and took my hand. “Please. You don’t have to go. We’ll keep you safe. We have the MC, and…”
I squeezed her hand back and stood, because there was no point having this conversation again, even if she meant well. “Can I get Hayley Jade something to eat? As soon as she’s eaten, we need to get on the road.”
Rebel’s face fell, but she nodded and reached over to a side table and picked up a small plastic card. “Here. I didn’t know if you had a bank account to transfer money into, but I suspected you didn’t…”
“I don’t. Josiah doesn’t allow women to have money of their own.”
Rebel’s mouth pulled a thin line, but she didn’t comment. “I figured as much. This is the card for an account we don’t use. We should have closed it ages ago, but it’s one of those annoying things where they make you go into the branch to close it, and who has the time or energy to do that? Do you know how quickly four kids can tear apart a bank if they have to wait in line for longer than five minutes?”
“I’m sure your children are very well behaved.”
Rebel laughed. “They’re terrors, but aren’t all kids at this age? They’re loud and full of energy and they talk nonstop…”
Her voice trailed away at the comparison between her healthy, confident kids who felt secure enough to be typical children, and Hayley Jade, who hadn’t said a word since we’d been here.
Rebel put the card into my hand. It had her name on it. “We put ten thousand dollars in there last night. And we’ll put more if you need it. Fang is going to run out this morning and get you a burner phone so you can stay in contact with us.”
I stared down at the small plastic card and then up at my older sister in shock. “Ten thousand…I can’t accept that.” I pushed the card back at her.
But Rebel’s gaze was firm. “You will take it, Kara.” Her gaze slid to Hayley Jade. “You’ll take it for her and give her a better life. I want you to stay, but even if you don’t, you need to have your own money.” She swallowed hard. “Women do desperate things when they don’t have enough of it. I won’t have that life for you.”
A look of understanding passed between us. Shari had said much the same thing. I tucked the card into the pocket of the skirt I’d slept in, remembering I didn’t even have any clothes to get changed into. “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
Rebel’s bottom lip trembled for a second, but she drew in a deep breath. “Enough of being sappy. If you’re sure you have to leave, then let’s get you on the road. Hayley Jade, do you want to come have some breakfast with us? We have all sorts of yummy foods, and you can choose anything you want. I know your cousins are going to choose chocolate Pop-Tarts.” She glanced at me. “Which is my bad influence on their diet, but I think today is a chocolate for breakfast sort of day.”
I held my breath when Hayley Jade glanced up from her dolls and then watched her cousins cheering and running for the kitchen in their sweet onesie pajamas. Slowly, she stood and followed them.
I breathed out a sigh of relief.
Rebel stood, shifting Lavender to her hip. “I’ll handle the food. You go get Alice and Kyle up and organized. They’ll probably want to have showers and breakfast before you leave too.”
“Good idea. From memory, Alice is just like her eldest sister.” I grinned at Rebel. “Not a morning person.”
I felt bad for making them get up after only a few hours of rest, but we just couldn’t afford to linger.
I headed up the stairs to the room I knew was Rebel’s from when I’d stayed with her years ago. I knocked quietly on the closed door. “Alice? It’s getting late. Time to get up.”
There was no sound from the bedroom beyond.
I tried again. “Rebel is making Pop-Tarts for breakfast. I don’t know if you remember those from back before…” Before Josiah had come into our lives and changed everything. I remembered Pop-Tarts from when I was a kid, but Alice was younger than I was. Not even twenty-one ye t. Would she even remember the foods we’d had back then?
I twisted the door handle and pushed it open.
Rumpled sheets were twisted on the bed, but there was no dark-haired sister curled up beneath them.
I frowned and moved farther into the room, knocking on the door to the adjoining bathroom carefully because I knew it connected to Kian’s room on the other side also.
Nobody answered, and I took a chance, sliding open the pocket door.
The sink top was littered with Rebel and Kian’s toiletries—deodorant, toothbrushes and paste, an electric razor.
But no younger sister.
“Alice!” I called out loud as I hurried back out of the room and down the hallway to the stairs. “Alice!” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice so I didn’t scare the kids eating in the kitchen.
Fang stuck his head out of the door of his room. He had a phone pressed to his ear, but he murmured, “Hang on a second, Hawk,” into the phone.
I was too busy stressing about my sister’s disappearing act to crinkle my nose at the mention of Fang’s MC friend. I’d met that man before and I didn’t care to repeat the process.
“You okay?” Fang asked me.
“Alice isn’t up here.”
But Rebel poked her head out of the kitchen on the ground floor and stared up at me on the second-floor landing. “Did you try the bathroom?”
I nodded, picking up the pace and running down the stairs with Fang behind me. “She must be out in the pool house with Kyle. I’m going to kill her.”
Rebel caught my arm as I ran past. “Hey. She’s young and stupid. If you find her naked in his bed—”
I stared at her with huge, horrified eyes.
Rebel’s mouth opened into an O-shape. “Oh, I mean, I’m sure they’re not. I’m sure she just went down there early for coffee…”
Fang rubbed a hand over his face and grimaced.
He still had the phone pressed to his ear, so I wasn’t sure if the face was about whatever Hawk was saying on the other end, or if it was about Rebel assuming my sister and Kyle were having sex the moment we got away from the commune.
But hadn’t that been exactly what I’d done when I’d left?
It had ended so badly that was the last thing I wanted for Alice.
I rushed out the back doors and skirted the sparkling blue pool. The small cottage-style house beyond it had the shades all pulled down, everything quiet on the inside.
I didn’t bother knocking. I was too intent on stopping my sister from ruining her life by sleeping with some man she barely knew.
“Alice!”
But another empty room met me.
Rebel jogged in a second later and took in the same empty room. “They’re not here,” she said, stating the obvious.
I spun around and stared at her, the idea of my sister having sex with some guy suddenly the least of my worries. I almost wished I had walked in and found them naked, him pumping into her body while she moaned.
At least I would have known she was safe.
“Where are they?” I asked Rebel.
“I don’t know.” Her gaze landed on the bed, and she leaned over, picking up a piece of paper half hidden by the duvet. Her eyes moved right to left as she read whatever was written on it, and then she cringed. “Actually, I do. Here.”
I snatched the note from her fingers.
Kara,
Sorry for sneaking out, but I knew you’d say no. We’ll be back before night falls and then we can get going. I’m sorry. I know you want to go and hide away, but I don’t. Just let me have this one day to explore and then we can move on. I’ve got Kyle with me so I’ll be safe, and you can spend the day with Rebel. I know you’ve missed her, and Hayley Jade should get to know her cousins.
We’re free, Kara! Enjoy it!
Love, Alice.
I stared at my sister’s handwriting, and then up at Rebel. “What are we going to do?”
Rebel sighed. “I can get Vaughn and Kian to go look for her. Fang has to go bail Hawk’s ass out of jail, otherwise he’d go too.”
I blinked. “Hawk is in jail? What did he do?”
“Who knows,” Rebel shrugged. “It’s not like it’s never happened before.”
I hugged my arms around myself, regrets fighting their way in to battle with my common sense. “I shouldn’t have left,” I mumbled. “I should have just stayed. This is the sort of men who are out here. Men who are put in jail. What if Alice runs into someone like Hawk?”
Rebel caught my hand. “Hawk is an asshole, but he’s not all bad. From what Alice told me last night, Josiah and some of his friends should be behind bars too. Were you really any safer with him?”
I knew she was right.
I wasn’t safe anywhere. Neither was Hayley Jade. Neither was Alice.
“They’re going to find me,” I mumbled.
Rebel’s expression took on a determined firmness. “Over my dead body. Alice is going to be fine. I’m going to send Vaughn and Kian out to search all the most popular hangouts in the city, all the places they don’t check ID so she’d be able to get in.”
“I should go with them.”
Rebel shook her head. “The last thing we need is you out there too. If Josiah and his guys really are tracking you, keeping you safe and hidden is our number one task.”
Fang appeared in the doorway behind her, catching the end of the conversation. “Sorry to interrupt. I just came to kiss you goodbye. But I caught the end of that. You aren’t staying here alone. Neither of you.”
Rebel wrapped her arms around his thick waist and stared up at him. “You think those five probably chocolate-covered kids up in the main house won’t protect us?” She was clearly trying to lighten the mood.
I didn’t find it funny.
Neither did Fang, clearly.
He rubbed his hand along the side of her cheek, cupping her face. “It’s family day at the clubhouse. There’ll be food, and we’ll get the swing sets and trampolines out. I’ll drop you all off on my way to the police station, and then I’ll meet you back there.”
Rebel looked at me. “What do you think? He’s right. As much as it kills the independent woman in me, I don’t want the kids in any danger.”
I didn’t want to go there. It was where I’d been taken after Rebel had saved me. The clubhouse held memories of pain and sadness. It was full of sinful men who did unspeakable things that weren’t just illegal but immoral. I didn’t want to go back.
But what choice did I have? I had Rebel’s money burning a hole in my pocket, promising a better life for me and Hayley Jade and Alice. But none of that could start until she came home.
The house was full of children, and if we were here alone and Josiah found us…
I couldn’t even bear the thought.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll go.”
There were demon figures on the gates of the clubhouse, but what did it matter if I passed through them again? I was already in Hell.