Chapter Five (Rainella POV)
“Logan never gave up Rainella. He still did not believe that you had lied and ran away. He stayed living with the pack for 3 years until he was 14 and was given his inheritance from your grandparents. He left no stone unturned when it came to looking for you. With money from the inheritance Logan invested in a couple of stocks and used a portion to create us.”
“Us?”
“Well… we work for him. All of us here.”
“You all w-work for my 21 year old twin brother?” I asked proudly and voice filled with awe at my brothers’ life while I was held captive. I know others would be angry but I was happy for him, even though I hadn’t had much of a life he did and that was good.
“Yes we do work for him, we are all Guardians. He was determined to find you and enlisted our help. There are a total of 30 of us, werewolves, vampires, Fae’s, pure humans and witches; our goal is to help those who go missing, are kidnapped or looking for those who commit crimes against others and go into hiding. We also help with Hunters because while wolves are immortal Hunters have started using wolf’s bane to weaken wolves and kill their humans. We all have our reasons for joining his team; what we do is really important. With every person or group of people we have helped we know that we solved a problem or handled the situation better, efficiently with minimal problems. See how well we handled Seth Stevens?”
Seth Stevens.
At hearing his name my stomach clenched in pain and bile rose up my throat quicker than I ever thought possible, Mason threw an opened barf bag towards me as I wretched, and then dry heaved. I had tears rolling down my cheeks
“Come on there’s a bathroom on here.”
I stood on weak, wobbly legs, walking after him.
I entered the bathroom and washed my face, rinsed out my mouth took a deep breathe, headed out and returned to my seat.
“Better? Sorry I didn’t mean it like that, I meant-”
I raised my hand to stop him from even finishing that sentence.
“Not even close, but continue.” I replied.
“Mason… one more question… why did you pretend that you did not know my name back there?” I asked.
He looked thoughtful for a moment before he spoke and what he said gave me much to think about on the rest of this flight.
“Well… I’m an older brother my self not a twin but I have a little sister and I can only hope that if she disappeared like you did, that I would have one-eighth of the strength, determination, pure love and effort that Logan had when it came to finding you. Over these years I’ve learned many things about the person that you were, we knew that when we found you that based on videos and leads that you might not be in good condition. I was excited to see you but shocked when you declined help Rainella. As a Guardian I’ve never experienced that also I was not expecting to find more than 3 or 4 children down there with you.”
“I was afraid to speak to you by your name. You are in pretty bad shape, thought it would be better to start new with you; I was afraid that because you declined help that he had brainwashed you, convinced you that the situation you were in was okay.”
“Rainella… it was not until you asked me to get any type of documentation or videos so that the people who hurt your children and yourself, would be punished that I realized you had not bonded or became empathic towards him.” He finished and remained quiet as the others on the jet.
Empathic? Towards my kidnapper and abuser? No… the mind games… There was one reason and one reason alone in which I felt “bad,” for him, his daughter.
I rested my head back and as I looked at nothing in particular but thought of everything possible I realized what was happening. It was hitting me hard; Logan never gave up on me, he was bringing me home and at that moment I felt like I was 11 years old waiting for someone to find me in that basement. Wishing for comforting hugs, someone to hold me, just hold me. Nothing anyone said would or could change the past 10 years of my life. It all happened. It happened to me. It happened to my children. And in my heart and my head I knew now that it happened to Logan too.
Looking at my sleeping children I knew that we had all survived hell, but it was not over and I knew that.
I knew that I had to continue being strong but maybe now it wouldn’t be so hard, I would have help hopefully. I know things have certainly changed in the world but I know that Logan wouldn’t just throw me to the wolves.
As I felt the plane finally land I settled on an emotion or three.
The first, relief.
The second longing.
Third, hope....