Spencer has played it smart over the last nine days and has stayed away, only seeing Tully at school knowing that Rivers won’t be attending anymore and I have to say, it’s actually kind of strange. While we have our old pack together once again, too much has changed and it simply doesn’t feel right anymore. It’s almost like we’re blocking out our new friends because of the old and that doesn’t quite sit well with me.
Apart from that, we’ve had a lot of things to fill Rivers in on. After our discussion, he paid a visit to his father. He hasn’t shared the details of that yet and everyone has been too hesitant to ask. It’s just one of those things where we have to be ok with not knowing the answers. Rivers is too set in his ways of not sharing details of his personal life, but he should know that it’s ok now. We all know how dark it is and we’ve been doing our best to draw him out of it, but I guess it’s up to him when he’s ready to leave it all behind…if he’s ever ready.
We’ve squished every possible thing into the past nine days. We’ve gone to the races, gone to parties, he even put some time aside to spend with Aria who I guess is now his half-sister’s half-sister. This shit is getting too confusing.
As I said, it’s bittersweet knowing he’s going tomorrow. I feel like we just need a few extra days. I’m not ready for a goodbye.
I turn to Tully and let out a sigh. “How long is he going to be gone this time?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugs, looking away and refusing to meet my eyes. “He has nine more weeks training and then I’m not really sure. I don’t think he gets to come back after that. It might be a while before we see him again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” she says. “He didn’t want to give me too many details as he didn’t want to upset me, but I’ve been googling it. After this training, he has to report to his station unit and it will be a while before he works up enough leave to make coming home worth it, that’s if he even wants to come home.”
“What are the chances he gets deployed?”
“Not sure, but I guess once he’s completed his training, anything can happen. I mean, it’s bound to happen sooner or later.”
“How long could he be deployed for?”
She shrugs her shoulders again. “Google told me it could be twelve months but it varies, depending on the mission. Sometimes it could be only a few months, and others he could be gone for nearly two years.”
My eyes bulge out of my head. “Are you serious?” I gasp. “He can’t be gone for that long.”
“He wouldn’t have a choice. If that’s the mission he’s been assigned, then that’s what he has to do.”
“But-”
The house plunges into darkness.
“What the hell?” Tully mutters, feeling around the bed for her phone, hopefully to turn on her flashlight app. “Did the power just go out?”
Tully gets her phone under control and a dim light finally spreads through my bedroom. I hop off my bed and make my way to the light switch before flicking it up and down at least five times just to make sure. “It must have,” I say, looking around my room at all my electronics to check if they’ve lost power too, only there’s still a red flashing light on my TV. “We didn’t lose power,” I say slowly, narrowing my eyes on the TV. “Someone must have cut the lights.”
“Wait…what?” she panics, and then urgently flies up off the bed to come to join me.
“The TV still has power and I can hear the hum from the fridge. We haven’t lost power.”
“Then why the fuck are the lights out?” she seethes in a whisper yell, her eyes flicking all around the room as terror starts to grip us both.
I shake my head as she clutches my hand in hers. “Maybe we should call the boys.”
“Maybe we should get the fuck out of here.”
“My keys are out by the front door and I don’t know about you, but I’m not particularly interested in leaving my room right now.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” she groans. “I was not supposed to die like this.”
“We’re not going to die,” I tell her. “Just get your ass to the window so we can get out of here. If there’s some fucker creeping around my house, then I’d prefer to be out of it.”
With that, I flick the lock on my bedroom door and the two of us scramble across my room to the window as quietly as we can.
I pull the curtains back as Tully fiddles with the lock on the window. Together we push it open and the second it’s wide enough for a body to squeeze through, Tully practically barges me out of the way and dives through it, more than happy to save herself first.
Tully gets out of the way and spins around to grab hold of me, making my escape that much quicker. “Hurry up,” she urges as we both tumble down to the ground.
We scramble up to our feet and get two steps away before a hand is slapped over my mouth and my body caged in a strong grip. My hand clamps down on Tully’s but it doesn’t take me long to realize that someone has her too.
My eyes are wide and frantic as I fight against the hold on my body. I try squealing through the hand on my mouth but it’s useless. Our captors begin dragging us away and step into the light from the lamppost outside my house. They’re both in black with ski masks and both clearly men from their sheer size and strength.
We’re fucked.
Tears pour down Tully’s cheeks and it only makes me fight harder. I slam my elbow as hard as I can back into the guy’s stomach and bite down on the hand covering my mouth, hopefully doing some kind of damage.
The hold loosens on me as a sharp curse cuts through the night. “Fuck, that hurt,” says a familiar voice followed by another familiar chuckle.
With the hold on my body loosened, I spin around as fast as I can and slam my hands into the guy’s chest, sending him back a few steps. “I fucking hate you,” I seethe.
Noah laughs as he peels off the black ski mask. “We’re kidnapping you.”
“No shit,” I yell. “We kind of figured that out, but did you seriously think that was a good idea after the shit Rocko pulled the other week?”
Noah’s eyes bulge from his head, clearly not having thought this through before he cringes. I glance across at Tully to realize the arms around her body are no longer taut and restricting, but are wrapped around her like more of a caress; though that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still struggling to get out of her captor’s hold. “Get the fuck off me, Rivers,” she demands.
Rivers’ chuckle comes tearing out of him and he instantly lets her go before pulling off his own mask. “Come on, babe. We’re just playing.”
“I’m not your ‘babe’ and that’s not fucking ‘playing’. That’s scaring the shit out of two unsuspecting girls. Fuck you, both.”
“Come on, Tullz,” Noah says, but she’s not hearing it and storms past them, back towards my house.
“Tully, please,” Rivers says urgently, catching her wrist before she can get too far. “Tonight’s my last night. Let’s not end it like this. I’m sorry, ok. We were just having a little fun and maybe we took it a little too far, but consider it payback from the time you shaved off my hair while I was sleeping and put wax strips on my legs.”
“If you wanted payback for that, you could have put hair dye in my shampoo or something like that, not let us think we were getting abducted,” she says, finally getting around to wiping the tears off her face.
“Please,” Rivers murmurs. “Just…be angry at me tomorrow. Not tonight.”
“I’m more than angry at you, Rivers. I’m fucking livid.”
Rivers searches her eyes and his heart comes out to rest upon his sleeve. “I thought we could all go down to the beach and eat dinner together. Just the four of us. I’ll be gone before you all wake up in the morning, so I wanted to do this one last thing together as a pack.”
“Wait…” Tully says, stepping closer to Rivers and looking up into his eyes, clutching onto his hand. “What do you mean you’ll be gone before we wake up? I thought we h
ad all day tomorrow.”
My back straightens at her question and Noah’s hand slips into mine. I hold onto it tightly, dreading Rivers’ response, despite how much I’m hating on him right now.
“No, I have to leave around three in the morning to make sure I get there on time. I’ll be screwed if I show up to training late.”
“So,” I question, looking to my brother as my eyes begin to fill with tears of my own. “Tonight’s really the last time we’ll see you for a while?”
Rivers presses his lips into a tight line and slowly nods his head. Tully falls into him, throwing her arms around him and holding on tightly as her heart breaks.
Noah steps closer into my back and wraps me in his warm embrace as we watch the scene unfold before us. “Come on,” he murmurs in my ear. “Let’s go down to the beach and get something to eat.”
With that, we all start walking down to the beach and I don’t doubt that none of us will be getting any sleep tonight.
By three o’clock in the morning, we sit outside of Noah and Tully’s home while their parents sleep soundly inside. Rivers is dressed and ready to go and for the first time since he’s been home, I see the regret in his eyes about having to leave us once again.
Going the first time couldn’t have been easy, but leaving again knowing what kind of pain and devastation he’s going to leave behind will probably be one of the hardest things he’ll ever do.
A taxi pulls up on the curb and Tully sucks in a breath, realizing our time with him is through. Rivers stands and Tully and I fly right up behind him while Noah watches on with a hard expression.
Rivers comes to me first, giving me a tight smile before pulling me in for a hug. “Be good little sister,” he tells me. “I’m counting on you to keep these idiots in line.”
“You know I will,” I tell him. “But you know it’s not going to be easy without you.”
“You’re strong, Henley. You don’t need me to hold you up. Just promise me you’ll steer clear of Gina from now on. I know she’s your mom too, but she’s bad news. Visit her if you have to, but don’t get tangled up in her lies.”
“Ok,” I tell him, pulling back. “I promise.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead before letting out a deep sigh and turning to Noah. “I guess this is it, huh?” Rivers murmurs, giving Noah a strained smile.
“I guess so,” Noah responds as they step into each other and clap the other on the back in a rare show of affection for one another. “Just don’t be a stranger this time.”
“I won’t, man.”
They release one another and Rivers gives him a nod, a silent message begging for Noah to keep his girl safe while he’s gone, despite the fact that she isn’t his girl. I guess as long as his heart belongs to her, that’s the way he’s always going to see it.
Last but not least, Rivers turns to Tully who has tears pooling from her eyes. She stands back, too afraid to get too close. “Don’t go,” she begs her voice breaking as she refuses to wipe the tears away.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, looking just as devastated. “I love you so fucking much.”
He grabs her and hauls her into his chest, holding her tight as she squishes her face into him, instantly soaking his shirt with her tears. “Please,” she begs. “I need you to stay.”
“You know I can’t,” he says. “I should never have come back. I’m only making this harder for you.”
Tully scrunches her fists into the material of his shirt, desperately trying to keep him close before looking up into his haunted eyes “I fucked up your car.”
A wide grin spreads across Rivers’ face. “I know, baby. I was watching the whole thing.”
She searches his eyes. “What?” she gasps. “And you just let me do it?”
“Of course, I did,” he tells her. “It’s what you needed.”
Tully shakes her head, the emotion becoming too much for her to handle. “I’m going to miss you,” she whispers into the night. “Just come back as soon as you can.”
“I promise,” he tells her, moments before he crushes his lips down on hers, kissing her deeply and expressing everything he’s too afraid to say with words.
Rivers tears himself away from her and turns away, leaving Tully gasping for breath as he walks away. He grabs his bag and all too soon, the taxi is loaded, and Rivers is disappearing over the hill, leaving us all feeling completely and utterly deflated.
Chapter 16
We didn’t sleep a wink.
After Rivers left, Noah and I sat curled up on the couch, both staring into the distance and wishing things could have been different while Tully locked herself in her bedroom and cried until the sun came up.
We sat around the table with breakfast before us, not one of us with an appetite to eat and not one of us daring to say a word.
He’s gone and there’s nothing we can do about it except wait for him to come back home. Who the hell knows when that’s going to be? Hell, the next time we see him could be after deployment over a year from now.
How could we let this happen?
I try to remind myself that this is what he wanted, that getting away from Haven Falls and the pressure being put on him by his parents is a good thing. Also, that giving Tully the space she needs to move on is in her best interest, but I can’t because deep down I know that when he comes back in a year, maybe two, he’s going to be a whole new person and that person is still going to be madly in love with my best friend.
She’ll never move on from that intense kind of love. All he’s doing is depriving her of feeling and acting on something so strongly within her. If she’s lucky enough to find someone new, she’s never going to be able to love him completely because her heart has already been given away. She’s forever going to compare the men in her life to Samuel Rivers and it’s going to kill her each and every time she does it.
Me though? I feel as though I only just found my brother and he’s already left me, just like everyone else in my life. The woman I thought was my mom, Gina Rivers, then Kaylah and Jackson, and now my very own brother is gone.
I’m so damn lucky to have Dad, Ari, Noah, and Tully in my life. They make me stronger and without them, I’d be a shell of the woman I’ve grown into. Without them, I’d be that girl that I used to be, the one who would tear down bitches in the cafeteria, the one who didn’t believe she was worthy of being loved. I hated that girl.
Violet chats away at the table, trying her hardest to help us all see that this is a blessing in disguise, but none of us are there yet and I have no doubt that once we’re gone, she’ll probably break down herself.
We get cleaned up after breakfast and get on our way to school. Dad took Aria, knowing that I wouldn’t be in any mood to do anything today. He had called me earlier to check in and was pleased to hear that we still had plans to go to school.
So here we are, all sitting in Noah’s Camaro, staring up at the school that none of us feel like walking inside of. "Come on,” Noah finally says, being the first out of the three of us to utter a word since watching that taxi disappear over the hill. “Let’s get this over and done with.”
Tully sighs from behind me and leans forward into the front and checks her reflection in Noah’s rearview mirror, patting down under her eyes and taking in how swollen and puffy they appear due to the past few hours of constant crying. “Just keep your head down,” I murmur. “No one’s going to know.”
“I know,” she grumbles, taking her bag and stepping out of the Camaro.
Noah and I follow suit, and he takes my hand as we head up to the school, dreading today like never before.
Who would have thought that watching him leave would have hurt so much? It didn’t feel like this before but that probably has something to do with the fact that we thought he’d betrayed us, betrayed me. But that’s simply not the case.
We make our way into the school and head down to my locker. Noah stays right by my side, but Tully continues, not in the mood for small talk. She st
ops by her locker and makes herself busy, finding her books and the things she’ll need for her first class, despite the bell not having sounded yet.
I put in the combination for my locker and open it up before jamming everything inside. “Hey, I thought you guys would be chilling out with Rivers today,” Aiden says way too cheerfully from behind me. “Isn’t it his last day or something like that?”
Aiden leans into the locker beside me and I turn to face him, realizing that Spencer is here too. “Nah,” I say quietly. “He, ah…took off again early this morning.”
My words are Noah’s undoing and a second later, I hear the sound of his heavy fist slamming into a locker before he takes off down the hallway and straight out the doors we had just come through.
Spencer cringes watching him leave but it’s Aiden who speaks up. “Shouldn’t you go after him?”
I shake my head. “He just needs a little space. He’ll be alright after he’s calmed down.” I look between their two massive shoulders and peer at Tully by her locker. “It’s her I’m worried about.”
At that, both Spencer and Aiden turn to take her in and when Aiden goes to make a move, Spencer places a hand on his shoulder. “Let me,” he tells his cousin.
Aiden nods and we both watch as Spencer takes off down the hallway. He falls in beside her and not a second later, Tully falls into his arms as sobs tear from her throat. Spencer leads her into an empty classroom, closing the door behind them and proving to me once and for all that despite the way she feels about Rivers, she still shares some special kind of bond with Spencer.
It makes me wonder how Spencer feels about all this. From the way he’s been looking at her lately and the way he’s always the first to run to her aid, it’s clear his feeling for her are growing, but it must suck knowing that she’s devastatingly in love with another man. Hell, she might not even like the guy at all, but is just finding comfort in his presence. All I know is that it couldn’t be an easy position for Spencer to be in right now.
The bell sounds and Aiden walks with me to our homeroom, chatting away about the prom that’s coming up, desperate to keep my attention on anything else but Rivers. But it doesn’t stop the other students’ whispers from sounding all around me.
Undeniable: Haven Falls (Book 5) Page 16