Chapter 11
CODY - NOW
Keeping a hand on Alice’s shoulder, I meet Landon’s eyes. She fainted, and her upper body is propped against my chest and legs. We can’t rouse her. If she doesn’t snap out of it soon, we’ll have to take her to a hospital.
When I look at her like this, a brick in the wall around my heart crumbles. She’s defenseless, her forehead pinched as if she’s in pain. I’ll do whatever it takes to soothe that pain, to help her feel better. Where are her demons? I will fight them.
“Alice, baby, wake up.” I shake her shoulder. “You’re safe, okay?”
Landon holds her hand, stroking the top of it. “We’re here with you. We’re both here with you.”
Her eyes flutter open. In the shade from the pines, her irises look bluer than usual. “Oh, no.”
“Oh no?” Landon sounds amused. “Are you okay, Wonderland?”
“Yeah. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened.”
“You fainted,” I say bluntly. She’s half in my lap, so I start to move her to a sitting position. We can’t stay like this forever, and I don’t want to keep shoving aside thoughts of how good she feels against my body.
Landon gives me a dirty look, but he helps her sit up. He moves her against him instead. Good call. He obviously feels much closer to her than I do, so he should be the one to hold her.
At my frown, he grins, his eyes wordlessly asking me if I’m jealous. An old game, and one we haven’t played with Alice. One we will never play with Alice.
“What triggered this?” I turn my attention back to her, trying to sound as gentle as possible when all I want to do is race into the forest, find her kidnapper, and introduce him to my fists.
Alice glances around.
“She could just be tired, right, Wonderland?” Landon’s voice is falsely chipper, like hey, this could happen to anybody.
But no, it couldn’t happen to anybody. And even if it did, nobody else matters. This is Alice we’re talking about.
“I think—this sounds crazy.” She closes her eyes.
“Crazy or not, we want to hear it,” Landon says.
Her voice is so soft, I almost can’t hear her. “I think it was the chickens.”
“The chickens?” I ask.
She covers her face with her hands. “I know how it sounds, but he had chickens. Abe had chickens. And I heard them at the house over there, and it made me think I was back in Abe’s cabin.”
“Who the fuck is Abe?” I demand, even as Landon is shaking his head in warning.
“My kidnapper.” Alice lets out a shaky breath. “I called him Abe. It wasn’t his real name, but I needed to call him something.”
I can’t imagine living in close quarters with someone for thirteen fucking months without knowing their name. Of course she had to make one up for him.
“Abe had chickens,” I repeat. “Is that something the police know?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think I told them that. Does it matter?”
“They’ll be the next to tell you, after us,” I say, “that every detail matters.”
She reaches out to hold my hand. I let her do it, but as soon as she lets go, I pull away.
ALICE - NOW
Two days after our failed trip to the foothills, I wake up with the sun.
Faint light streams through the tasteful, gray curtains covering my bedroom windows.
Although I’m embarrassed about fainting the other day, the guys haven’t made me feel weird about it.
If anything, Landon has been more attentive.
Cody’s been more aloof. I don’t know how to ask him what went wrong. Maybe our friendship was more in my head than it was in reality. Or maybe, when I cut off that friendship at Brayden’s urging, I severed it irreparably with Cody.
I check the time on my phone and see another text notification from Brayden. It’s time to put on my big girl pants and call him back.
“Alice.” His exhale is so loud, I have to pull the phone away from my ear. “Finally. What has gotten into you? Where are you staying?”
We’ve texted several times, where I’ve explained I’m staying with friends, and I was safe, and I didn’t want to get into it with him. Every time he’s called, I’ve ignored it.
“I already told you,” I say. “I’m in San Esteban with friends.”
“What friends?”
It’s a valid question, because I stopped having friends outside the church after I married Brayden. There were never many, just Landon and Cody, and a couple of people I used to hang out with from Carol’s Closet.
I ignore the question, though, and plow ahead. “I still need space. You need to stop calling and texting me.”
“You’re my wife,” he snarls. “And I need to pick you up so you don’t miss your therapy appointment. Elder Wattle will be beside himself with worry.”
Oh, boo hoo. Is he going to have to find someone else to judge from behind his big-ass beard?
I adopt a grateful tone. “Please tell him that I’m all right, and I appreciate his concern, but I have plans to see another therapist.”
“Another therapist?” Brayden sounds this-close to losing his temper.
As if he has the same realization, he takes a deep breath and lowers his voice.
“Alice, Elder Wattle is accredited with the Seven Blessed Days to administer counseling and therapy for our church members. You won’t find a better therapist than him. ”
“His methods don’t work for me.” I try to sound casual, but arguing with my husband feels wrong. I’m breaking all the rules, and my brain feels like it’s full of swarming bees. “After my sessions with him, I felt worse, not better.”
“It’s just the beginning. You have to give him time to work.”
“No. I found someone else.” Did I just tell my husband ‘no?’
“And how are you going to pay for this?”
“We have money, Brayden. There’s everything my parents left me, too.”
He sputters. “You want to let some therapist siphon it away? When Elder Wattle, in all his experience and levels and wisdom, could offer the same services, free of charge? What about all that we’re working towards?”
Guilt spears me. We were doing so well, Before, saving our money to start a family. He’s making a good point, but, “I thought you’d want me to feel better, to get the help I need.”
“Obviously I do, which is why you need to come back to the church and our Community. Stop living a worldly life, Alice. You belong with us. Your levels will slip if you insist on ignoring our teachings! And then how will we be approved for starting a family?”
A sudden, horrifying thought overtakes my brain. “Did you and Jericha get approval for her pregnancy?”
He’s silent for so long, I think he’s hung up on me.
It’s all the answer I need.
They were trying for a baby. Her pregnancy was no accident.
I slide my thumb over the screen, ending the call, and then I turn off my phone.
I bury my face in my pillow and let myself cry.
CODY - NOW
Her pain is my pain. Does she know that? I can’t tell her, and I never will.
Listening to her cry on the other side of the wall is pure torture. She’s trying to be quiet about it. Her sobs are muffled like she’s under the blankets. Is her body curled up, folding in on itself while she tries to fight the pain?
I stride to my bedroom door and start to open it, intending to go to her.
No. It isn’t my place.
I return to my bed and sit on the edge, grabbing my phone to check the news. I unseeingly skim the headlines. Bad news, bad news, more bad news.
Meanwhile, Alice is still crying. Where the fuck is Landon? Why doesn’t he comfort her?
I send him a text. Where are you?
He responds immediately. In line at V’s. Do you want a bagel?
Fuck. I text back a quick no thanks and stand to stare at the wall dividing my room from Alice’s.
Her sobs have faded, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t crying.
My sister would flay me if she knew I was listening to a woman cry without comforting her. Shit. I know the right thing to do here. It’s the only thing that will make me feel better, too.
Resolved, I open my door, take two steps down the hall, and knock on Alice’s. “Hey, it’s Cody. Can I come in?”
“Um, now’s not a good time.” Her voice is high and tense. She’s trying to hide the fact she’s upset.
“I really need to,” I say. “Please?”
No response.
I deepen my voice without thinking, the Dom coming out. “Let me in, baby.”
A sniffle. The rustling of blankets. “Fine.”
Opening her door, I step inside. I’m ready to slay dragons, offer tea, bring her snacks.
But when I see her hunched under her blankets, the only thing I can possibly do is go to her and hug her.
I sit on the edge of the bed closest to the lump she makes under the comforter. I can’t hold her when I’m sitting, so with a quiet sigh, I ease down to lie next to her and wrap my arm around her. “Hey, Wonderland.”
“Hey.” She remains under her comforter.
“You have to be getting pretty warm under there,” I say.
“I’m fine.”
Doubtful. “How about you come out of there and talk about it?”
“No, thanks.”
I want to make her come out and talk. I could, easily. But that isn’t our dynamic. I pushed too far already by commanding her to let me in.
Still, I have to ask, “Who were you talking to?”
“Brayden.”
He’s a dead man. He made her cry, he took her from us, he isolated her. And then the loser fucking lost her.
To my surprise, Alice elaborates. “He—he got my friend pregnant when I was gone. On purpose. They were”—her voice breaks—”they were trying for a baby.”
He’s a dead man twice over. What kind of monster would do that? Someone who never even loved his wife. And how could he—how could anyone—know Alice, and not love her?
When I hear Landon come home, I quickly get up. My heart protests, but it has to be done. This isn’t my role. “I’ll send Landon in.”
He brought Alice here. She’s his problem. Not mine.