by Leigh Tudor
“I knew about the room.” Trevor shook his head. “But I didn’t even think about it being a possibility--only a handful of people know about it.”
“I didn’t even know about it,” Mercy said, eyeing Nate.
“I might have stumbled over something in Trev-man’s office—”
“Wait. What’s this on your neck? Are these bruises?” Trevor said, his voice rising, gently turning Nate’s head side to side.
Cara answered for him. “A man tried to strangle him.”
“But Cara jabbed him in the neck with a chisel and then sprayed him in the eyes with hornet spray. She saved my life,” he said excitedly.
“That’s not true,” Cara said, coming to his defense. “The chisel wouldn’t have been there if you hadn’t built the catapult.”
“Yeah, I need to rethink my design, though. It missed the back of his head and hit him in the hand instead.”
“Yeah, but the spiked board worked perfectly.”
Mercy and Trevor looked at one another, realizing these two were recovering just fine after living through such a traumatic ordeal. So much for worrying about them suffering post-traumatic shock, hunting down some of those shiny thermal blankets, and going online looking up trauma counselors to helo in on the fly.
These two were doing just fine.
Alec called Loren and held the device above them.
“We found them!” he said into the phone, and they all heard Loren squealing with joy over the line, and then he lowered it again so everyone could talk.
After several minutes of Nate and Cara sharing their ordeal, disturbingly unfiltered, Mercy finally told her sister to remove herself from the closet and eat another lamb shank—for Loren had gone on and on about the meal Jimbo had made that evening—then to go to bed and get some sleep.
Loren thought that was a great idea, but first, she needed to talk to Alec. Mercy smiled to herself as Alec began to make his way back to the front entrance and she heard Loren’s tearful lamenting all the way down the corridor, telling him how much she missed and loved him. And again, how mad she was at him for screening her calls. Mistakenly thinking it was in her medical best interest because, the last time she checked, he wasn’t an OB-GYN…. and then, on a final breath, asking him to bring her a sub when he got home.
“Come on,” Trevor said to Nate and Cara, gathering their blankets around them. “There’s someone else who’s been waiting to see you.”
Mercy called Madame, letting her know they were on their way with Nate and Cara. She also asked discreetly if the human waste had been properly disposed of, to which Madame replied, “Yes, my dear. The excrement has left the building.”
Loren monitored the driveway while her hormones crashed into one another creating quite the cesspool of emotions. One minute she was angry at the danger everyone had put themselves in while she was helpless and bedridden.
The next, she was racked with the ever-present guilt of being responsible for her and her sisters ever having had a connection to Dr. Halstead, Jasper Bancroft, and Dr. Vielle to begin with, not to mention the other less than honorable affiliations to a medical facility that should be detonated with some well-placed rounds of explosives.
She considered hitting up that chemist in Sausalito where she used to get military-grade explosives such as trinitrotoluene with nitro positions at two, four, and six, better known as TNT, and blowing that shit up once and for all.
But then again, she read somewhere that TNT wasn’t good for the environment.
Something about pollution and liver problems for individuals having been overly exposed. Maybe it was time she considered the broader consequences of her actions.
Not to mention her upcoming event, namely, baby Wilder.
It was time she came to grips with the fact that she was going to be a mother soon. And leaning into knee-jerk problem-solving methods trending toward mass destruction should probably be avoided moving forward.
Behaving in a more circumspect manner and being more Mother Earth than Mother of all Evil.
Unless to her opponents, anyway.
The sound of a muscle car revving in her driveway caught her attention, as she watched a souped-up Mustang she didn’t recognize pull into the drive.
Jimbo was in the kitchen creating a smorgasbord in anticipation of everyone returning from the Center. But she was pretty sure these weren’t the anticipated visitors. The driver of the car looked to be a high school age boy, with a girl in the passenger seat.
Her heart lodged in her throat as the passenger jumped out of the car, waving goodbye to the driver as they backed out of the drive.
Loren stepped away from the front door, as if she were about to be set upon by a rabid animal as opposed to a teenage girl who was skipping up the front porch.
She scooted into the kitchen, as fast as her rotund body would allow.
“Jimbo,” she said, sliding on her socks and catching her balance by grabbing on to one of the chairs.
Jimbo went into army sergeant mode, with his arm and finger pointing to the side. “Get back in the sunroom and into your chair. You’re not supposed to be up and about and you know it.”
“Okay, I will. I promise. But first—”
And then the doorbell rang.
“—I’m gonna need you to get that.”
He began to wipe his hands on a towel. “All right, I’ll bring them back to the sunroom…”
“No!” she said frantically shaking her head. “Tell her I’m not feeling well and that I can’t see her. Tell her I went into labor early or that the baby sprouted out of my belly like that movie with the baby alien.”
She squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace as she heard Becky answer the door with an enthusiastic greeting. “Come on in Ally.”
Jimbo glanced over her shoulder at what was causing her to hyperventilate. “Do you have a problem with Miss Ally?” Jimbo whispered.
“No, not at all,” she replied, realizing it was too late to fly under the radar. She would have to face the young girl.
“Look who’s here,” Becky said, as Loren plastered an overly wide smile on her face before turning to welcome their visitor.
“Hey Loren,” Ally said with a curt little side wave. “Alec told me that he was going to stop here first before coming home, so I thought I would just meet him here.”
“Hi, Ally,” Loren said, pushing an errant strand behind her ear and trying not to look too much like a homicidal maniac. “They should be here any minute.”
“Good,” she said, seeming equally nervous. “I was wondering if I could talk to you. Um, privately. You know, before everyone gets here.”
Becky was eavesdropping along with an equally enthralled Jimbo, as they both pretended to be rearranging an already artfully completed charcuterie board.
Loren ignored their avid stares and said, “Let’s go back to my prison accommodations, I mean, sunroom, and talk in private.”
She gave them both a look that inferred she expected total and complete privacy. Without a doubt, something she wasn’t going to get.
Ally followed Loren as she made her way into the back room. Grateful she had taken the time to tidy the area of all the leftover dishes and debris from Jimbo’s never-ending banquet of food.
Loren sat on the overstuffed chair, but instead of curling up and languishing inside the cocoon of softness, she sat on the edge of the seat with her hands shoved between her knees, unsure of what to expect.
Ally sat across from her and smiled. She wore a baseball shirt, with jean shorts hemmed at an appropriate length, and leather tennis shoes. Your all-around, girl next door.
Loren smiled back.
“You have a really nice view of the lake,” Ally commented, looking over Loren’s shoulder and attempting small talk.
Loren glanced out the wide expanse of windows. “It’s what sold me on the place.”
Ally nodded and then gave a head tilt toward Loren’s stomach. “So when are you due?”
“Two and half wee
ks, give or take a millennium,” Loren replied, making Ally laugh.
They both spoke at once.
“Look, Ally…”
“Teach me to fight.”
Loren froze, unsure of what she thought she heard.
“Did you ask me to…”
“Yes, teach me how to fight, please.”
“Oh-kay,” Loren said. “You know you can always take the self-defense classes. I’m sure when Mercy gets back she’ll be restarting them…”
“No,” Ally said, wringing her hands. “I want to learn to fight for real. The way you fought that day behind the hardware store.”
“Oh, Ally,” Loren lamented, “You don’t want to have to learn to fight like that. You don’t have to. You’re perfectly safe here in Wilder, living with Alec.”
Even Loren thought that sentiment felt lame, given what Ally had been through in her short life, having had been abused by Alec’s first wife who was diagnosed with severe mental disorders. Then witnessing Loren fight Jasper’s henchmen and kill a man with her bare hands right in front of her.
“It’s not that I don’t feel safe,” Ally said, as if just coming to terms with her reasoning. “I want to feel… safe, but because of what I’m capable of doing as opposed to the relative safety of my environment or who’s there to protect me.”
“Again,” Loren said, “That’s what the self-defense class is for.”
“Well, then why wasn’t it enough for Mrs. Waterman?” She asked, “Why wasn’t she able to fight her way out of her situation with Mr. Waterman?”
Loren took a deep breath.
Excellent question.
Ally continued, coming to the edge of her seat. “I saw you fight those men. I’ve also seen you and Mercy teach self-defense classes. What you did that day was different than what’s taught in the classes.”
“That’s true…”
“The way you fought that day meant more than life or death for you. It meant life or death for me as well. I’ll never forget it. You were amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. And I want to be able to do that. I want to know that I have that level of skill to not only protect myself, but maybe others if the time ever presented itself.”
“I’m not sure Alec would approve…”
“We’ve already discussed it. He said it was fine with him as long as it was okay with you. But I hadn’t seen you in a while, so I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to ask.”
“I don’t foresee adding any classes to the schedule.”
“Oh, no. I’d like it to be one-on-one.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of cash and held it toward Loren. “I brought money. To get started and to show you how serious I am. Not just learning self-defense moves but actually learning how to fight.”
“Oh my gosh,” Loren said, bringing her palms up in front of her. “Put your money away. Where in the world did you get that?”
Ally shoved it back into her pocket. “It’s the money I’ve earned over the past couple years babysitting.”
“That’s a lot of … babysitting. You must be on a first name basis with the entire toddler population of Wilder.”
“So,” Ally said, her expression beseeching and making Loren uncomfortable. She didn’t think Ally knew what she was asking. Certainly Loren wouldn’t have to go to the training extremes as Number One and Number Two, devoid of souls and borderline predatory. But it would be training on a whole different level than what Ally had seen before.
“I’ll tell you what.” Loren said, buying some time. “Let me recover from birthing the Kraken and then we’ll try a sample sparring session. Afterward, you can tell me if you want to continue or not. But I’d rather you experience what you’d be in for, and then make the decision, rather than having some G.I. Jane impression of what this might be like.”
“By the way,” Ally said with her hand to her mouth, “that movie totally sucked.”
Loren smiled but then thought it might be the right time to address the dead Milo the Silo in the room.
“Ally, I wanted to talk to you about what you saw… that day.”
“At Wilder’s Hardware?” Ally became animated. “I saw you take on a bunch of men who were threatening me. You were like a super ninja fighter.”
“I’m talking about the last one.”
“Oh yeah, the really big one.”
“Yeah, but don’t be impressed by size. The rule of thumb is the bigger they are the harder they fall. And as you had personally witnessed, he had no moves. Just one big mound of inflexible muscle mass.”
Ally chuckled, but Loren wasn’t trying for levity here.
“So, I wanted to let you know, that he… he hurt me when I was much younger and less… adept at sparring. So when he approached me, I kinda lost it for a minute, and I regret…” She cleared her throat and rubbed her middle finger with her thumb.
“Killing him?”
Loren’s looked up, surprised at Ally’s blasé response.
“Yeah, I regret killing him.”
“Why?”
“Because you had already been through a lot that day. And, you had been through a lot in the past.”
“Are you talking about Alec’s ex-wife, Marissa?” she asked, genuinely unsure.
“Yes, it was my understanding that you suffered by her hand and I’m sorry if I dredged up any bad memories or if I made a scary situation even worse.”
Ally nodded, as if not really following but okay.
Loren tried again, “You know, by killing a man.”
Ally’s eyebrows narrowed.
Loren gave it another shot. “Killing a man in cold blood with absolutely zero remorse.”
“Okay,” Ally said, with a slight shrug as if, whatever.
“So, you didn’t suffer, say, any trauma but what I had done?”
“Nope,” she replied and then hesitated.
Here it was.
“Now that I think about it, I did have a really spooky dream about an ax murderer breaking down my bedroom door…. No wait,” she said, touching her fingers to her forehead. “…I had that dream before you killed the big man.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Never mind.”
Loren sat there, astonished. She snickered at the outcome of the conversation. Maybe girls that age were more resilient than she gave them credit for. Maybe, Cara and Mercy were equally as quick to recover, despite having suffering some pretty atypical life situations.
Maybe, she had spent the majority of her life wallowing in guilt and playing the martyr, when she could have been reveling in their new life with her sisters.
What was it that Madame had said? Something about making life-altering decisions for yourselves and others. Sacrificing futures full of love and happiness so that you can stand pious with the back of your hands to your foreheads, much like a modern-day Joan of Arc.
Oh wow, in retrospect, that was a little harsh.
And then she heard the front door open.
And as Loren and Ally made their way to the living room, she couldn’t help but allow those dreadful tears to erupt and cascade down her face.
Alec was the last inside, but his additional height making it easy for her to locate. He made a beeline toward her as she hugged Nate and then Cara, and Alec.
He picked her up and she felt like a silly woman in some Hallmark movie being spun about by her handsome rancher boyfriend who had just discovered he was independently wealthy and in need of a wife.
She grabbed him by both sides of his face as he let her down, and pulled him down for a kiss. To which he obliged, and then wiped the tears from her face.
Regaining her surroundings, she looked about the room. There was Madame, and it looked as if Levi had driven over as well, meeting them at the house if the way he was embracing Madame were any indication.
Oh wow, and there was Haley and Marleigh. They must have shown up with Levi?
She checked the hallway, and saw that the bathroom door was still open.
“Where’s Me
rcy?” she asked, and then added, “and Trevor?”
Alec scratched the scruff on the side of his face. “Couldn’t really tell you. Mercy asked Trevor if he could help her with a situation in Raley and they chatted for a while and then left together. Said to tell everyone they’d be back in a couple days.”
“What about Nate and the girls?”
“They’re staying with Madame until they get back.”
“What would keep Trevor from returning with Nate after what he had been through?”
“Don’t know. But it must have been important.”
Chapter Nineteen
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
— Bob Marley
Cara sat at her beloved piano. Her heart warmed as she remembered the early days when they had arrived in Wilder and when the piano was gifted to her by Loren.
She plucked nostalgically at the keys. Basking in the privacy of being able to play with no set goals or to achieve any level of proficiency. Just for her own pleasure and no one else’s.
And it was nice to be back home.
As expected, when they returned to Wilder, no one was the wiser as to the information regarding the kidnapping and the untimely demise of Amado, Billy Joe, and Dr. Vielle. It was kept under wraps for the sake of other ongoing cases the FBI and other private contractors, like M2M, were still in the midst of solving.
Cara preferred it that way.
Opting for a normal teen experience as opposed to one magnified and sensationalized by stories surrounding their lives growing up in the Center.
Stories she was sure would peg her as a freak.
She wasn’t going to lie. There was still a teeny-tiny part of her that would have loved going back to all of the accolades and fanfare of being the renowned Charlotte Halstead. But seriously, what teenager wouldn’t pine for that kind of attention?
For the most part, Cara preferred their relatively small quiet life in Wilder, where she got to spend time with her sisters, without having to work it into her schedule or put in a request to Jasper Bancroft.
Jasper, effing, Bancroft…
That was one story she chose to keep to herself. Even though she knew his leers and inappropriate touches weren’t her fault in any way, it still made her feel… dirty. She mourned that her first intimate touches were from someone as revolting as Jasper Bancroft. Rather, she chose to erase the memory of his bony, fumbling hands, and begin fresh and new. And maybe, one day, she would be able to talk about it... to someone. But that was way down the proverbial road.