Recap:
“I think I’m going to go for a run before I go to bed,” Said Andrew, stretching his arm across his chest. “Wanna join me?”
“No thanks,” I said. “There’s something I want to take care of. Do you know where Kyle’s bags are?”
“Yeah, they’re in my room.”
“Ok good. And can you look something up for me when you get back?” I pulled a pen out of my pocket and wrote Ronald and Sarah Loder on his arm. “I mean there’s a computer somewhere around here right?”
“Yeah, I’ll take care of it. But I don’t understand, what’s going on?” He looked down at the names on his arm quizzically.
“There are some things I need to figure out. Some promises I need to keep. I’ll explain later, I gotta go,” I ran up the stairs and into Andrew’s room.
*** *** *** ***
“You guys should have this too,” I said, pulling the picture of Sophie, Kyle, and Anna out of my pocket. I handed it to Sophie. Her chin twitched as she traced Kyle’s face with the tip of her finger.
She wrapped an arm tighter around Anna. “Thank you…” she whispered.
“Look Mommy! It’s you and Daddy!” Anna said, pointing at the picture in her mother’s hand.
“Yes sweetheart, and that’s you,” Sophie pointed to Anna in the picture. Anna squinted at it, then smiled and giggled. “Now go wash up Anna, I’m going to make dinner soon”
Anna looked over at me expectantly. “Can Maggie stay Mommy? I like her.”
“I really should be going actually,” I said standing up.
“But you’ll come visit me, right Auntie Maggie?” She looked up at me so adoringly. I smiled at her calling me ‘Auntie’. I looked over at Sophie. She nodded and I took that to mean I should say yes.
“Yeah, I’ll come visit you Anna.”
“Yay!” She jumped up and down, clapping her hands. She ran past us and clomped up the stairs, her hands still clapping away and her laughter filling the air like the chiming of silver bells.
The old woman led me to the door. “You can call me Louise, by the way.” She said. “I hope you do come visit. I know my daughter would love to talk with you about Kyle. And Anna has really taken to you.”
“I will,” I promised.
Chapter 36
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going or not?” Asked Davo. He sat in the passenger side of the Jeep Connor lent to me again, arms crossed in frustration.
“If I haven’t already, do you really think I’m going to?” It had been almost a month, so my arm was fully healed, as was Davo. He had announced his decision to leave a week or two ago, and Connor let him know there was always a place for him at the pack, and that he was part of our family wherever he went. But Connor had insisted he stay for a while more, until they were sure his injuries were all healed, and he could get him some provisions for his trip, wherever he decided to go. So Davo decided to stay until everything was in order and our injuries were reduced to scars of a past dark age. I had only found the right address a few days before that anyway, so his decision to wait had helped. I had to call several homes before I found the right one. The final loose ends were being tied together, the last stories finally having a conclusion.
The GPS in the Jeep beeped in its monotone voice, “Your destination is on the right.”
Davo looked out the window and his eyes widened in shock. “That’s…that’s my house…” He looked back at me. “What are we doing at my old house?”
I pulled the article that Andrew had found out of my pocket. There was a picture of Davo there in black and white, his smiling face set up against the stereotypical school-picture background. I handed it to Davo. He looked at it, dumbfounded. “When you disappeared,” I explained. “Your father quit his job and found one locally, so that they could stay here. It’s all there, in the article. They wanted to stay in case one day you found your way home. When the case went cold and the police stopped searching, they started to look for themselves, putting posters up, raising awareness, that sort of thing.” He looked back and forth from the article to the house to me and back again. “They never gave up hope that their son would come home.”
“But…but I…” He looked to me and locked eyes. “You mean they’re in there? My…my mum and dad are in there right now?”
“Well they should be. It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday morning, don’t know where else they would be except home.”
“Home…” He whispered. He looked over at the house. It was a stout little brick house, a small garden flourished with hundreds of flowers right under a window framed with blue shutters. The door matched the shutters and had a brown ‘welcome’ matt lain out in front of it. There was a small porch with a rocking chair faced out toward the street.
I pulled the keys out of the ignition and opened my door. Davo still sat there, still as stone. I opened his door for him and held out my hand. “Come on Davo, it’ll be ok. Trust me.” He looked at me apprehensively, but took my hand and stepped out of the Jeep. He walked behind me all the way to the door.
The tension was almost unbearable as I pushed the doorbell. I could hear Davo take a quick breath and hold it as the sound of someone walking down the steps came from behind the door. The door slowly creaked open.
A woman in a robe and slippers stood behind the door. She was petite; her small frame looked like a delicate porcelain doll. Her bright red hair was pinned up in a messy bun on the top of her head.
“Sarah Loder?” I asked.
“Yes, who are you?” she squinted at me, obviously missing her glasses.
“My name is Maggie, and I’ve brought someone who has really missed you.” I grabbed a stupefied Davo and pulled him into her line of sight. When she saw him, her eyes went wide and she gasped, throwing her hands over her mouth in shock. She squinted, as if unsure if she was seeing what she hoped, but even without her glasses, she still recognized her son.
She walked forward slowly and reached out her shaking hand. She went to touch him, as if she were unsure if he were only a dream. She placed her hand on his chest and, when she realized he was real, clasped her hands on the sides of his face. “Davo?” She muttered.
He was silent for a moment. He slowly put his hand on top of hers as she caressed his face. “Yeah…” he said, his eyes growing red with forced-back tears. “Yeah it’s me, mum.”
She burst into tears, throwing her arms around his waist. Davo enveloped her small body in his arms. “Sarah? Sarah who is it?” A voice called from inside the house.
“Oh Ron! Ron, come look!” She called through her tears. She let go of Davo but kept a firm hold on his hand as if she were afraid that if she let go, he would disappear again. A man came from around the door. He was in his pajamas too, and carried a coffee mug in his hand.
“What is it Sarah? What’s so–” When he saw his son, he dropped his mug, the coffee spilling out of the shattered ceramic. He looked unsure and looked to his wife. She nodded to his as if to say ‘Yes, it’s real. Yes, he’s back.’ “Son…?” He staggered over to his family and threw his arms around both of them. They fell to the ground, embracing each other and crying in joy. I could hear faint whispers of ‘I missed you’ and ‘I love you’. They slowly got up, still keeping some form of contact with each other.
“Where have you been? Are you alright?” Davo’s mother began grabbing Davo’s arms and looking him over for any sort of injury. Of course, she found the array of scars he had acquired in his time with Danny, as well as the ones from the battle. “Oh my god, what happened to you?”
“I’ll explain everything later mum. I promise. For right now I’m just glad to be home…” Then, his parents turned to me. They looked from me to Davo quizzically. “Mum, dad, this is Maggie. She’s helped me a lot over the time I’ve been gone. She brought me home.”
His mom ran over and hugged me. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for bringing my baby home.”
“My pleasure,” I said.
She backed away and wiped her eyes. “I was just making some late breakfast, won’t you come in and join us?”
“I would if I could, but I can’t. I have to take care of some other things. But thank you anyway.”
“Can I speak to Maggie alone for just a moment?” His parents looked apprehensive. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I just want to say goodbye.”
His father nodded, but his mother clung to his arm tighter, unwilling to let her son out of her sight. “Come on Sarah, let the boy say his goodbyes,” His mother looked unsure but followed her husband into the house.
Davo wrapped his arms around me. “Thank you Pix. Thank you so much…”
“I owed you this at least Davo,” He smiled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Davo's mother poke her head through the curtains on the window, just to make sure Davo was still there.
“Go, be with your family. And remember, no matter where you are, you are always family. If you need us, you know how to find us,” I tapped my temple and winked at him. With the acceptance of the pack, and the time since then, we had formed the mind-connection that the rest of the pack had. If Davo ever needed us, he simply had to find us with his thoughts.
“I know,” he leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Goodbye Pix. I’ll miss ya.”
“Good bye Davo,” He turned and walked to his door. He paused for a moment, staring at the doorknob for a moment before taking a breath and opening the door. He stepped in and closed it behind him.
I couldn’t help but smile as I walked back to the Jeep. I was happy that I could help give Davo’s family back to him. He deserved to have them back. He deserved to be happy. By the time I got back to the house, the moon was climbing in the sky. I found Connor up in the library, staring at his papers as usual. “Hey Connor.”
“Hey Maggie,” he said without turning. “There have been people showing up all day, people that were forced into Danny’s pack and have no life to return to.”
“Are you going to let them stay?”
“For now, yes. After further review, we will do our best to make sure none of them are a threat. But from the looks of it, anyone still loyal to Danny has scattered, probably regrouped somewhere. But they aren’t a threat. They have no backing, no financials, no power…”
“So we hope anyway…” I added.
“Yes…so we hope. But for now, we are safe,” He stacked some papers up and stood, facing me. His eyes were blood-shot and were shadowed by dark purple rings. “I feel like this isn’t over Maggie. I feel like there’s something I missed, some loose end I forgot to tie up…”
“Connor,” I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be alright. Look, it’s late, go to bed. You look tired.”
“Yeah, I think I will. Goodnight Maggie.” After he put some papers away, we both walked out of the library. He went one way to his room and I went the other to mine. When I opened the door, I immediately realized that something was different. The two small beds were replaced with one large one. There was a dresser with two unpacked bags in front of it. In one corner was a small desk with a closed laptop and a rolling computer chair.
“Hey,” I turned to see Andrew standing behind me. He smiled down at me, putting his hand on my hip. “You like it?”
“It’s perfect Andrew,” I got up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his.
“I know,” he said, kissing me again. “Of course we’re going to get our own place eventually. My family has money, I just need to reconnect with them. Though I doubt they’ve really noticed I’ve been gone. But either way, we’ll be just fine. We can even go back to school if we want. Everything’s going to work out great.”
There was one final thing to resolve. One final secret to get out into the open.
“Andrew there’s something we need to talk about…” I led him into the room and closed the door behind us.
“Is everything alright?” He asked, a concerned look on his face. I could feel him trying to get into my mind, but I kept it shielded. I wanted to do this my way. I sat him down on the bed and took his hand in mine. I kissed it, then pressed it to my stomach.
“Andrew…you’re going to be a father,” I smiled nervously. “We’re going to be parents.”
His eyes went wide for a moment as he looked rapidly from where our hands lay on my stomach, to my face and back again. “But…I mean…are you sure?”
“Here,” I said. I opened my mind to him, and let him see what I knew. My shield was always inside me, but it was only effective when I let it expand out of my body. When another life was under the shield, I could feel it, like a spark in my vision. With the shield inside me, however, I could feel the life growing inside of me. “Can you feel it, Andrew?”
“Oh my god…” He whispered. “It's beautiful…” He looked up at me, his eyes glowing. “We’re going to have a baby!” He threw his arms around me and squeezed me tight. He pressed his forehead to mine. “I love you…” he whispered.
“I know. I love you too…”
He kissed me, soft and loving. “What will we name it?”
“I don’t know, it’s only a month along…But what about Amelia? If it’s a girl of course.”
He looked off into space for a moment, trying out the name in his mind. “Amelia…I like it. Our little Amelia…” He smiled at me, his eyes glowing with love and pride. He held me in his arms and laid us down on our bed. His arms held me like armor, protecting me from any bad memory I ever had. I felt safe, the only place I had ever felt safe in my life. Every muscle in my body relaxed and I felt as if I could breathe again. As soon as he held me to his body, my eyes closed in bliss. I felt at home there, like I belonged. I nuzzled my face into his neck and pressed myself as close to him as humanly possible. He tightened his grip around my waist and intertwined his legs with mine. Everything was all right. For once, and from now on, everything was all right.
THE END
I can't believe it’s over. I hope you all enjoyed this story, I know I have enjoyed writing it. To all those who read I am truly and dearly sorry that I took such long gaps between chapters. I've had a lot going on the past two years, and I just didn't have the time or opportunity. I am truly sorry, and I want to thank each and every one of you who read this book and gave me feedback and support. I appreciate it more than you know. For right now, I need to focus on my school and my job, so I'm not going to work on stories, but I will be putting up poems and short stories/blurbs from time to time. Also, I was to, sometime in the near future, re-write Werewolf Forest and try to maybe get it published. I don’t want to get my hopes up about it, but I'm going to try anyway. Also, many people have told me I should make a sequel, which I will consider, and I will keep you all updated on any developments I may have. Thank you all for reading and tha-tha-tha-tha-thats all folks!