Chapter 16 #2
Already she’d lost half of her life. It had flitted through her fingers while she was kept locked up, a toy to be used by rich, powerful, dangerous men.
If she didn't want to waste the rest of her life, she had to make the decision that she wanted to live, and make it happen. Maybe she couldn’t have stopped the last thirteen years, she hadn't been in control of herself and her life then, but she was now, and she’d have no one but herself to blame if she wasted the next thirteen years and beyond.
So she had to do this whether she was ready or not.
“How about we go and set up in the study?” Thunder offered. “It’s quiet in there, and you can do a video call.”
“A video call?” It wasn't that she didn't understand what that was, it was just that the idea of seeing her parents and brothers, seeing how much older they were, and realizing her brothers, who had been twelve and sixteen when she was abducted were now fully grown adults, was daunting.
It was proof of how much had changed.
For them too. Because they weren't going to see the carefree, brave, bold, sassy teenager they remembered. Now they were going to meet the damaged woman she’d grown into.
The fear of them rejecting this version of herself was strong.
This was the only Maya that Thunder had ever known, and she still feared his rejection, but her parents were in for a horrible shock, and she didn't know how they would respond.
Still, she’d made up her mind, and she wasn't backing down no matter how scared she was.
“Yeah, okay,” she agreed.
“We’re all here for you,” Cassandra promised as Maya pushed away from the table.
Nine earnest faces nodded their agreement, and Thunder was still right there. Taking her hand, he guided her through the corridors to the study. Once there, he set up the laptop and clicked on a link that had obviously been prearranged with her family for when she was ready to contact them.
“Do you want me to stay or go?” he asked once everything was ready.
“Stay,” she replied without hesitation. “If that’s okay, if it won't be too awkward,” Maya added, aware that Thunder might prefer not to be there for this no doubt highly emotionally charged reunion.
“Don’t care how awkward it is, babydoll, I always want to be by your side.”
“You always say the sweetest things,” she said, melting into his embrace when he wrapped his arms around her. Too bad it wasn't possible to stay there permanently.
“I always say what I mean, babydoll,” he corrected.
“I don’t mind if you call me Maya,” she reminded him. It would have been awkward to try to ask everyone not to use her name, even if it felt weird hearing it. But she could hardly have them calling her nothing, and terms of endearment from them also would have been awkward.
“Prefer babydoll, but if you want me to call you Maya, then I will.”
“Babydoll,” she quickly replied. The nickname was all Thunder, and she liked hearing it coming from those delectable lips of his.
“Ready to do this, babydoll?”
“No, but … yes.”
After clicking on the link, Thunder took the seat beside her, cradling one of her hands between both of his, and she clung to it. The only thing in the world anchoring her right now was him.
Did he know that? Did he get how important he’d become to her in such a very short space of time?
Making a mental note to ensure that he did once they were alone later, Maya curled the fingers of her free hand into a fist, digging her short nails into her palm, and used the slight sting of pain to ground herself as she waited for the call to be answered.
Then the next second it was.
The screen before her flickered to life, and four people appeared on it.
Her family.
The same and yet so very different from what she remembered. Thirteen years was a long time. Her parents looked old now, no longer middle-aged but in their mid-fifties. Her brothers were no longer kids, they were men now.
Tears blurred her vision, and she found that her newfound voice had disappeared again.
“You want to stop, you say the word, babydoll. If you're not ready for this, that is okay. You are in charge here,” Thunder murmured in her ear, his hands tight around hers. Still there, still grounding her, still keeping her sane when the urge to disappear inside her head was strong.
But she couldn’t do that.
Because for the first time in a decade, hiding inside that special little place she’d created for herself meant leaving someone she cared about behind.
Thunder couldn’t enter that place, so she had to make a choice.
Either she stayed with him, or she disappeared for good, and she couldn’t do that to him.
It seemed she wasn't the only one at a loss for words because no one had spoken yet, except Thunder quietly to her. Although Maya could hear her mom weeping softly, she lifted her free hand to brush away her tears, clearing them enough that she could study her family.
While it was hard not to focus on all the differences, she did her best to look past them, to focus on what remained the same.
Her dad still had the same pair of bright blue glasses that she remembered, and her mom was wearing the same gold chain around her neck with the snowflake pendant that Maya remembered choosing with her brothers the Christmas she was seven.
There was still that protective glint in her big brother’s eyes, even if she wasn't sure she could have picked him out of a line up, and her little brother, who had always been making jokes and playing pranks, was the only one offering her a smile, and it was the same dimpled one she remembered.
Realizing she was going to have to be the one to break this stalemate, after all, she was the one who had insisted that she wasn't ready for contact until now, Maya lifted her free hand, uncurled her fingers, and held out her palm as though she could reach through time and space and touch her mother. “Mommy,” she whispered.
Like the spell had been broken, everyone started talking at once.
Her dad started apologizing as if he were personally responsible for her being taken.
Her big brother was full of questions about her safety.
Her little brother made silly jokes in an attempt to get her to smile.
And her mom kept asking over and over if she was okay.
It was overwhelming, but not in the horrible way she’d been thinking.
Her family seemed to know not to ask questions yet about what she’d been through, and they didn't seem to be angry with her for delaying contact when the last thirteen years must have been excruciating for them, too.
It was definitely overwhelming in a good way, like a tidal wave of love and comfort had just washed over her.
“I'm okay, Mommy,” she answered her mom’s question first. “As okay as I can be.” The amendment was more accurate because Maya was aware that she would never truly be okay again, but she could find a new version of all right.
“And it’s not your fault, Daddy. You couldn’t be with me every second of the day.
I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I'm in the safest place in the world, Jim, I promise you that I am. And it might have been thirteen years, but, Fraiser, you are still not a funny guy.”
Her younger brother burst into laughter, and her big brother and parents looked momentarily reassured that she was holding it together as best as she could, given the circumstances, and that she was in no immediate danger.
No immediate danger.
But the danger was still there.
Just like when she’d fallen asleep in the treehouse, Maya was so very aware that Dr. Gardner was still out there.
The man wanted Thunder and his team back because he considered them investments, assets that belonged to him.
Indigo was another of his successful experiments, so he wanted her back, and Whitney was the one who had created the drug in the first place, so he thought he owned her as well.
Then the scientist’s connections to Rose and to her were both more personal, but he was likely every bit as invested in getting his sister and his slave back under his thumb as well.
This new little family she was slowly accepting would never be safe while that lunatic was still out there, and she was beginning to form a plan on how they might be able to get to him, erase him from the equation.
Erase him from the world.
Before she discussed it with Thunder, she had half a lifetime’s worth of catching up with her family to do.