A/N: NOT EDITED. So, so far we know what Devotees and Unseen are... what do you guys think the others are? Random: it's freezing! BUT - I just read the best news!! The release date for Mumford & Sons new album... a bit disappointing that it's not this month, but just knowing that May 4th 2015 is when it drops puts a smile on my face lol.
Chapter 39.5 – Wolf POV
Our kind, you only got one mate, one true person that you were with, that had been matched to you on levels you wouldn’t understand until you truly had them. A person that ensured survival within each family, a way to ensure that good genes were continued, that love was treasured, and I had missed mine.
I had lost that part of how I was, my Laura Christi Colt, my other half. I had searched high and low for her, never finding her until twenty-five years ago, and I had lost her before I even truly had her for very long.
‘This isn’t you Harrison,’ her voice coaxed me, chastising me, the one woman I had ever let call me by my given name. Before her I had been Wolf, to everyone and anyone, but she was different, beautiful and calm to my ugly and harsh. I blinked, unsure and well aware that this was impossible, ‘they’re going to need you, you’ll have to help them,’ she continued speaking above me, her blue eyes shining, watery and full of love I hadn’t seen in so long. I was never angry that she was taken from me, because I had left her first.
‘Your brothers and you are special son,’ my father told once. I wanted to apologize Laura, I had too, I abandoned her, years and years gone by and I knew that it was the truth, I had failed her beyond belief and my heart clenched tightly when I thought about it. I didn’t understand though, nearly twenty-three years she hadn’t come to me, I prayed for her, wanted a sign, something, anything.
‘He’s seen that our kind will need help if we are going to persevere,’ my father told me.Laura believed in those sorts of things, when she was alive she believed in arriving late because it wasn’t meant to happen on time. She believed in the wind blowing on a particularly hard day that it was her parents urging her on. She trusted that on her best days, the slightest drop of rain were her parents crying in relief of her good fortune and health. If anyone – anyone at all – would be able to send a sign to someone else, it would’ve been her, my mate. Where had she been all these years? I’ve done horrible things in my life, but Rainy, she deserves more than you for a father!’ The words Logan said play in my mind, a broken record stuck on a bad track.
I try to ask her, and I’m in the type of dream where no matter how loud you want to shout and scream, no matter how much you want to run, skip, jump around, you can’t. I gaze at her, listen confused as she tells me to help them, that they’ll need my help, I nod because in this dream place, I can do that, when I can do nothing else. Images begin to change, and her soft ethereal like voice is further and further away, “Boss,” I’m shaken and it all vanishes, a worried crew member to my side, gazing down at me as I blink and struggle to lift my head. Falling back with a thud, I bring and welcome more pain, squinting to see Hunter. My second in command, the vice president of my crew, he doesn’t question me. Hunter is disciplined, the man I should have left behind when I went on my run, the man that would have protected my mate, that would have known she was pregn – I’ve done horrible things in my life, but Rainy, she deserves more than you for a father!’
I shoot to sit up when the thought hits me again, my Laura, pregnant. Children. Logan. Rainy. Gone. Nothing was the way it should have been, and in anger I bolted up to my feet unsteadily, his lips a grim line Hunter reached out to help, but I just shrugged him off as mu vision blurred and the room spun. Reeking of alcohol, I stumbled around my chair, falling into it a messy heap, my hand slammed onto the table. The tips of my fingers bringing that picture closer to my face and in my spinning head I see all the pieces.
“You okay Boss?” Hunter asks, he hasn’t seen me this way I’m sure since Laura, I don’t answer him though, instead I go for the picture of my Laura and place it flat next to the other picture, pushing it towards him. His thick eyebrows and dark eyes focus on me, before slowly moving to the pictures, and when his eyes widen before he can control his face, I nod to myself. It’s not in my head, my Laura had sent me a sign, five years ago when I met Logan for the first time, when he showed me that picture, that was my wind, my rain, my rainbow, my arriving late. My eyes shut, the last piece of myself that hadn’t broken with my loss, splintered and separated, the pieces all clashing, falling, breaking – I’ve done horrible things in my life, but Rainy, she deserves more than you for a father!’
“Is – where did this come from?” Hunter asked sitting in the chair behind my desk, his elbows on his knees, “I mean is this photo retouched?” he’s focused on the picture of Rainy. I can’t refer to her as who she is – was. “Logan – that’s his sister, I can – I can’t believe it, but it all makes so much more sense now. Rian said she smelt different, that her scent was different; I always wondered what would do that… I thought – I believed that Laura had been trying to hide her scent, alter it so she couldn’t be tracked. She had ignored me for those months, then we couldn’t find her, and I never felt her going into labor, I – I was – I” rough and fast, my head is being pulled and pushed from under water, nothing holding still so I can get my focus back. Gone before he even had a chance to get to know her, Hunter thinks, my eyes dart up to his. ‘Oh… and Rainy is a silver wolf.’ Is a silver wolf… not, was a silver wolf?
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Chelsea POV
I used to watch movies, and there would be these scenes where two people fighting would make the whole room uncomfortable because whatever they were discussing was something that they should deal with privately without an audience. The actors did so well with their craft that I’d feel like I should change the channel myself because I was intruding on something reserved, a conversation that was meant to be kept tightlipped. For a moment I’d feel a pang of sadness because I’d probably never experience something like that, I’d never be one of those people that looked around the room for an escape, and I’d certainly never be one of those people that were having the silent awkward conversation with an audience.
Fast forward a few years, “Did you know me before you approached me? Was I some sort of mark for you?” Judy accused her mate, and I was one of those people. I turned and noted I have several ways to get the hell out of this conversation, the front door, the back door, the windows, hell I could just teleport myself out. With wide sad eyes, Philip shook my head, “I – you weren’t Judy I swear to you-”
“You swear to me?” she shrieked, “Like I can believe anything you’re saying, how do we even know if you are who you say you are? Is your name even Philip?” was our love even real? She didn’t finish that thought a loud but the majority of what I’m getting from Judy is utter distrust and hurt. I’m pretty sure she’d trust Gabriel more now, and he just shot her in the foot.
“You don’t understand,” Philip muttered.
“I didn’t – it wasn’t-”
“You didn’t kill people for the Elders? You didn’t listen and follow the Elders rule?” Judy shouted standing, her hands shaking at her sides. No more than ten seconds had even passed by but these two seemed to forget the guns pointed, or that aside from their relationship, Gabriel and I were what they should be afraid of. “I can tell you everything I know now…” Philip said to Gabriel, instead of bothering to answer Judy, “I’m sure they had to change a lot of their protocol and passwords, and things that could be done differently but there are some practices that I know that they can’t change,” Philip finished.
“Why would we keep you alive, you’ve already given us that book, and floppy disks?” Gabriel pointed out, Philip sagged, “I did a lot that was wrong, but I’m not – I just – Judy, I swear to you, I didn’t even think I had a mate, I thought that the Elders – the life that I was living was all I would have – I did this for the greater good, for us-” his eyes begged, “I knew I would have to come clean about who I really was, but then I realized that I wasn’t anyone before you. That imposter wasn’t-”
“Logan take him back to your warehouse,” Gabriel interrupted, and as quickly as Logan appeared he disappeared, Philip in toe, Jade, Meadow and Taryn crying trying to console their mother. Logan, ask him about the ‘Betray No Elder.’
“Gabriel you should look at this,” Nonno said distracted, taking my hand Gabriel led us over to Nonno, taking the book, and the notes we found in that first book, computer printed were a set of names, addresses as well as phone numbers. In between the printed and some scratched numbers there were penned numbers and addresses, connotations. New addresses, numbers, details about each person, who got married, had children, all things I’m sure helped keep track of those people. “Are these people like him?” I asked when I turned the book over in my hands, searching for a title that said something like if these people were what he referred to as Devotees or Unseen.
We were at a point that was unbelievable and it could either help us or have us walking face first into a trap that had taken nearly seventeen years to come to fruition, were we in danger here? “Has his behavior ever been odd at all?” I asked Marlon sifting everything I found, questions answered. Marlon glanced at Judy and the girls, wondering if they were part of this plot as well. Are they innocent in all this Luna? He questioned outright when his mind went into circles of moments that were either piled in the guilty or innocent category in his mind. Not answering his question, neither a loud nor silently, I turned to Judy and the girls, “We haven’t come to a decision about the end of your mate in terms of this situation. Taryn, the order to not shift remains, when something has been decided we will come to your. Do not pester us, any signs that you are attempting to over throw our authority; you will be removed from the island and given directly to the Elders. I have the ability to remove memories; I would face no difficulty in removing all of yours and handing you over to them, let them decide your fate. Is that clear?” I addressed them bluntly.
With widened eyes mother and daughters nodded, inside their minds was overwhelmed trying to place Philip into the mold that is created for those working with – or for – the Elders. The doting husband and loving father just couldn’t be someone that fit the mold; the parameters were unfitting of the man that cared for them when they were sick, that loved his daughters and adored his mate. However to Gabriel, Philip Pascal was no better or worse than George Gavino, he thought after a side-glance at the women, was Judy innocent in all this? He thought on the fence on that front as was I, if she isn’t… this is surely an Oscar winning performance on her part… again, I thought the same, but it was her thoughts, something that would in her own mind be kept private and unreachable that would truly be the deciding factor in her innocence.
Yet what I couldn’t decide or even begin to understand was something that had always bothered me to some extent, if you were on the Elders radar, and they could read minds, how did they ever lose these people that were on the island?
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Oakley POV
I wanted to do something for Chelsea and Gabriel, they had done so much from Ben and I, making us feel comfortable. They brought uncle Grant and aunt Julia along, and despite my busted leg, they had made settling in such an easy transition but now, letting Kieran stay here was just so much more.
I hobbled my way along with Kieran, a big smile on my face, my head down, thinking of how he treated his mom and dad, “Why do you call your mom and dad, Carla and Tony?” I ask as we walk in to the library, when I lift my head I see Kieran shrug, “That’s their names,” he says and I open my mouth to say that it’s different, that they are his parents, but then I factor in the coldness in his tone, and I’m faced with the truth in my own behavior.
I’m in not place to question him, “What?” he asks startling me a bit, his bluish gray eyes focuses on my face, my eyes, “I used to call Sarah, Sarah as well,” I say tightening the hold I have on my tote bag.
He remains silent, waiting for something more, sighing, I answer. “Well remember how I told you my dad met Sarah, she came in a changed everything?” he nods once, “Well she wanted to adopt Ben and I, but I didn’t want her too, so since she’s been with my dad I’ve always called her Sarah. I don’t want to call her something she isn’t and everyone back in Middleburg thought it was disrespectful, but I didn’t think so. I mean what else was I supposed to call her?” I defend myself getting angry when I think about back home.
“Did she hurt you?” Kieran questions, again the intensity of his stare surprises me, “No,” I mumbled a bit dazed, and then the thought next brings me back. “Did Carla and Tony hurt you?” he shakes his head, and mumbles something like, “no they just never looked for me.”
Deciding to leave it along for now, Kieran opens the large door, and a cool breeze nips at my bare legs, entering the library however captures my full attention, my jaw dropping in awe, “No way!” I say in a daze, at the sheer size of this room. In fact, it’s not a room, but what baffles me is that the space inside doesn’t match with what is on the outside.
We enter on what is overlooking a room with tables below, a wrap around area of the books on this floor, twirling stairs heading to the bottom below to the left of me; I follow Kieran robotically, my eyes sweeping over old books, the covers faded and aged. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, journals, more books than my elementary, high school, community college and Middleburg public libraries put together all in this – in this hall.
“This is – wow – I wonder how long it took Chelsea’s dad to get all of these,” I say in total awe, “How come it only looks like a room from the outside?” my face is whipping around in different directions, the measurements do not match up here, the dimensions are wrong. “From the outside this library should be no bigger than your bedroom,” I turn each way, gazing below me, then lifting my head up, “I mean down there shouldn’t be there,” I’m pointing and when I finally turn to Kieran he isn’t as concerned about the room we are in as I am I notice.
My whole face goes red and I smile looking away, down the steps and then over to the sofa pulling out my ipad, as Kieran takes the seat the furthest distance away from me on the same sofa. But that doesn’t bother me, he followed me down here and that has to count for something.
I do as I have since I’ve been around Kieran, I read, out loud for what seems like five hours but I’m sure was only two or three, my skin turning more and more red as I notice that he’s watching me. While sometimes he would rest his head back and just listen, there were moments when he would sit up, and focus on me, I could feel the burn of his eyes on my hand, or my face. He never interrupted my reading, “You are a very fine person Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all! ‘Thank goodness!’ Said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco jar.” I sighed after reading the last lines.
When I looked up from the ipad, I was caught again in the intense gaze Kieran was giving me, his eye brows pushed together, he opened his mouth twice shutting them each time, “You confuse me,” he finally says but the troubled look doesn’t leave his face.
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I wasn't feeling well the last two days so I haven't gotten much typing in, but... thoughts? If you can't remember who Wolf is or his crew? Hunter? North? go read chapter 25 and 50-55 of unconditional... Or someone here will tell you :)
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