Love Her Wilde

Free: Asher

I let out a grunt as Mason collapsed on top of me. The knife he'd had in his hand as he charged at me skidded across the gravel.  As I struggled to get out from under him, three uniformed officers pulled him up, blood seeping through his shirt from where the bullet has struck his shoulder. My eyes were wide, my whole body vibrating with nerves. I didn't remember the police arriving. I didn't know where that shot had come from. I just knew without it, this afternoon would've ended very differently.

As the cops hauled a cuffed Mason toward one of the three waiting cars blocking the entrance to the alley. I struggled to sit up. I struggled to pull myself out of the chaos of the last few minutes. When I could, I turned to see Wallace behind me, gun still trained in Mason's direction.

My savior was the one man convinced of my guilt. If that wasn't fate playing jokes, I didn't know what was.

Wallace gave me a single firm nod as he holstered his weapon. Somehow, that single nod felt like more of an apology. An admittance that he had been wrong. I returned it with a tight smile, my chest heaving with rapid breaths and adrenaline.

Suddenly my brain told me I needed to find Dylan, and my eyes started searching in a panic. I spotted her, curled up on the gravel behind Lita's car. I'm not sure anyone else had even seen her yet, but I scrambled to my feet, only skidding to a stop to drop at her side.

"Baby, baby, we're okay..." I soothed, trying to pull her into my arms.

I think she was too far into panic mode to even realize it was me as she just folded more around herself and rattled off "No, no, no, no, no."

"Shh, shhh, shhh," I hummed, finally corralling her against my chest. "It's me, baby. It's me. You're okay. We're okay."

Her breathing was quick and shallow as she practically melted into me, still rocking slightly, sobbing and shaking. "Is he gone?" she whispered. "Just tell me he's gone."

"He's gone, baby. He's gone. It's over. It's all over."

Slowly, her arms unwound from her body and instead tightened around my neck. "I thought... I thought..."

"No, baby. I'm okay. We're okay. It's over. It's over, baby."

I closed my eyes and held her against me, clinging to her with some odd mixture of relief and pent-up fear. The chaos around us faded to a dull murmur as I said a million never-ending prayers, both whispered at Dylan and in silence. She was safe. I was safe. It was over. For the first time in our five-month long relationship, we were free.

Finally. Fucking. Free.

It was nearly eight that night before Dylan and I got back to the penthouse. After the police arrested Mason, we were both taken to give a statement, along with Lita and Ryder. Man, seeing Ryder's face when he realized his own family was responsible was heartbreaking. The second I realized Mason was the guilty party, any past we had ceased to exist. It didn't matter that we'd grown up together. It didn't matter that he'd been a part of my childhood all the way until now. He instantly became a stranger, monster, and I was grateful that he was gone, but I knew not everyone would be able to cut it off that easily.

Shayne and Stefan were waiting at my place for us. Shayne was a fucking mess. I think he was angrier at himself than he was Mason. He repeated how he should've known infinite times no matter what I or Dylan tried to tell him. Of course, his sister had spent the last few hours saying much of the same.  The blame was strong in the Harper family.

After he finished at the station, Ace came over and gave everyone the lowdown on what he had found, all the things he'd already told me about. Mason had more than one membership on Dylan's page, all anonymous, all sending her a constant barrage of messages, ranging between how in love with her he was, to how horrible of a human being she was for ignoring him. He went from using pet names to a slew of derogatory terms with only minutes between messages. One of Ace's contacts had been able to trace them all to the same IP address, the one connected to Mason's laptop.