Chapter Two #2
As the lock released and she pushed the door wide, she was greeted by a square room with an oatmeal-colored couch and love seat, an armchair that was taupe and a beanbag that registered somewhere between fawn and dark caramel.
The carpet was a deeper cream, the walls were white, and the TV over the electric fireplace was sporting a screensaver pattern of flying toast. Farther in, there was a kitchen done in neutrals and new appliances—not the professional kind, not like in the communal space, but the sort that would go in a regular apartment.
There was also a small IKEA table with two chairs, and she already knew that the cupboards were filled with a set of plain dishes, the drawers under the counter had silverware and utensils, and the space under the gas cooktop had pots, pans, and big bowls.
After a long loiter, she had to make herself take a step forward. But that was okay.
Wasn’t it…okay?
Pulling a half pivot, she faced off at the hall that extended to the rear of the residence.
That was going to be the true litmus test, and before she went down there, she checked out in the corridor.
L.W. had wandered all the way down to the next door.
Which was Tohr and Autumn’s. If he’d gone in the other direction, it would have been where Vishous and Jane were going to live.
“Hey, buddy,” she called out. “We’re in here.”
L.W. glanced back at her and then stayed where he was, his eyes regarding her like she was a bug under glass.
“Come here.” Crouching down, she slapped her thighs like he was a dog, and she had a pocket full of Milk-Bones. “Come’re, L.W.”
He didn’t budge, so she let out an exhausted curse and strode down to him. As she scooped him up, she recognized he was getting heavier and had to wonder how the recall thing was going to go when he got so big she couldn’t pick him up and carry him to where she needed him to be.
Back in the living area, she set him on his feet, shut the door, and locked things. At least he wasn’t showing much interest in figuring out dead bolts. Yet.
Now about the hallway. There weren’t any lights on down there, and as she entered the darkness, she knew the layout like the back of her hand, even though it was hardly complicated: First door was the full bath that served the front part of the quarters as well as the smaller of the two bedrooms, which came next.
Past that was the primary suite with its bathroom.
When she got to that doorway, she stopped and looked back toward the light. L.W. was standing at the head of the hall, and she was glad he was fully illuminated. Otherwise, he’d have been something out of the Conjuring universe, a shadow doll come to life—a little boy, this time.
“You want to come down and see where we’ll sleep?”
At the safe house they’d been staying in, she’d kept the child’s bed he’d graduated to in her room still, and it was going to be the same here. And she wasn’t going to even think about when it was time to transition him to his own space.
“Okay, well…I’ll just go in here.” She motioned over her shoulder. “You can come if you want to?”
Of course he didn’t.
Reaching around the jamb, she flicked the switch, even though she could have willed things on.
A twin bed. Which she’d chosen.
She went over and sat down on the soft mattress.
The bedding was simple, just a duvet and a couple of pillows, everything white and taupe like the rest of what she’d picked out.
She’d wanted the place to be anonymous…as if she were in a hotel.
No ties to her past, just a scrubbed-clean present that was going to break the memory-cycling that had always swallowed her whole back at the mansion.
Taking a breath, she glanced to the closet which was nothing you walked in, just a pair of louvered doors and a rod to hang things on. Then she looked back to the door and the hallway beyond.
And the sitting area that was out in front.
And the exit.
After that? She waited. And waited some more.
Like the relief she’d been so ready for was a houseguest about to walk in.
When there was no easing, no peace, no calming exhale…her horrible disappointment ushered in a reality she hadn’t anticipated. She’d been so busy trying to get away from the ghosts of her past in the mansion that she hadn’t considered the flip side to this place.
Her “new home” was one Wrath would never walk through the door of.
Or have a meal in. Or take a shower or laugh in or talk and get real with her in…
or tell her he loved her, curse when he knocked a shin into something, or call out her name, even though he always knew where she was in any place they were in.
He was never going to sleep beside her here during the day, his big body a furnace against her back, his scent like a tangible blanket, his long, black hair all over her pillow.
He wouldn’t even have fit on the stupid twin bed. Which had been the idea.
She’d been so determined to close him out, wall off the grief, and limp along until…well, she hadn’t gotten that far into her future. She’d only focused on what she was leaving, not where she was headed, other than some fantasized here.
And life was about so much more than location.
Reaching over her shoulder, she pulled her long ponytail forward. It had taken her three years to grow her hair out after that horrible bob she’d given herself just months after he died.
“I can’t stay here…”
The same words she’d spoken back then. Only now, she uttered them because the oppressive, prevailing absence of her mate made her miss Wrath like she’d just found out he was dead.
“Happy Anniversary,” she whispered.
Rubbing her eyes as they stung, she told herself to get going.
George was being groomed back at the house, and he preferred her to be there when he got his nails clipped—he didn’t like even the most gentle of doggen to handle his feet.
So, she needed to start getting the suitcases and bags out of the car now—
“This was a mistake.”
Try epic failure.
This compound was an epic goddamn, motherfucking failure. Obscene amounts of time and money wasted, whole families about to be relocated, and for what. She didn’t feel any lighter. She wasn’t going to sleep any better. She hadn’t managed to outrun the grief.
Tears made everything go wavy, and as her body sagged, she felt as though she’d DNF’d the most important track meet of her post-Wrath life: Racing, racing, racing, busy, busy, busy, animated by the expectation that something would be different.
Only to hit the wall again, her emotions swamping her as she confronted all the inescapability.
What was the saying…hope floats? Yeah, well, grief was a dead weight that took you to the center of the Earth.
But come on, she’d broken her own rule. She’d made the decision well before the first year of mourning was up. This had been a doomed distraction from day one.
Abruptly, a black hole of sadness expanded inside her chest until it wasn’t just her heart that ached, it was the whole of her, head to toe, soul to sole—
“Mahmen.”
Her head whipped up. L.W. had wandered down the hall and was standing in the doorway of the room.
“What did you say?” she asked breathlessly.
Even though she’d heard the word. The beautiful, unexpected word she didn’t hear very often.
She wanted him to repeat it. He didn’t. But he did come forward with his arms outstretched toward her.
As soon as he got in range, she scooped him up and held him close. “Hey there…Blocks.”
The nickname came from his favorite pastime of stacking wooden blocks, and she could remember Wrath sitting with her in the playroom at the mansion and watching him build tower after tower of the colorful squares.
It was a nice memory, it really was…because Wrath had smiled a lot when they’d stolen those rare, private moments alone as a family.
Thanks to the war, he’d always been so grim, but when they’d been together just the three of them, he’d been able to let his responsibilities go for a little bit.
And now, as she held their son, and L.W. put his arms around her, she was reminded that a piece of Wrath was still here—and that gave her the shot of strength she needed.
Fine, the relocation was a letdown that sucked. Lesson learned: Everywhere she went, there she was.
However, this was the home she had, so this was the home she would make for her and L.W.
Somehow, she was going to make it work.