FRACTURED (23 page)

“I believe you are correct, Ruby. If you are all set, I'll be on my way.”

I nodded quickly, and, without a word, he was out the door.

For a moment, I had trouble wrapping my head around what had just happened. I knew that Sean and Cooper meant business with the new guys, but to see that business in action was sobering to say the least. Had I not been able to maneuver things the way I did, Beckett would have been dead at my feet and the PC working their clean-up magic to remove any trace of his existence. It made me wonder if the others would have been executed as a precautionary measure. Luckily, that wasn't a reality I had to face, but I worried that it wasn't far off in the future. We needed to get a handle on the Tobias situation in a hot hurry.

Shaking off the remnants of the near fatal clusterfuck, I headed for the paperwork pile of doom on my desk that awaited my attention. I still had time before the shop opened to put a small dent in it, and even with a growing headache that seemed to be affecting my visual acuity, I planned to take advantage of it. To my surprise, it was smaller than I expected it to be. Peyta truly had been running a tight ship in my absence.

I plopped down and started sorting through the bills while I fired up the computer. I had a solid hour before it was time to open the doors to the public, and I planned to use it to my advantage. Fortunately for me, it only took a few minutes to get back into the swing of Quickbooks, and before I knew it, three quarters of the stack was filed away.

Delighted with myself, I made my way out front to prep for opening. Peyta walked through the doors at that very moment, greeting me with a smug smile.

“Fancy meeting you here at this hour. I thought you left opening to your minion.”

“Normally, yes, but today I'm feeling generous. Merry Christmas,” I mocked with a condescending curtsy from behind the counter.

“If that's my Christmas present, it sucks,” she replied, jabbing me playfully in the side while she went to put her things in the back. “Wow,”

she called from the workroom, “you have been busy, young lady.”

“You're welcome.”

She reappeared, an aura of snarkiness accompanying her.

“Oh, yes...
thank you
for doing your job.”

I swept my arms wide before taking a far more dramatic bow to irritate her further. She rolled her eyes as only teenagers could and made her way to the display cases, wiping everything down to a high shine.

“So,” I started cautiously, “how are things with your mom?”

Her arm froze in mid-swipe.

“Okay.” Her voice was cold and distant―unaffected.

“
Okay
how?” I probed, wanting to know more, but I was nervous to push her too hard.

“We're working on it,” she said, a somber note tarnishing her tone.

“Mom is a bit preoccupied these days, but she always makes time for me.

I try to talk to her about my therapy, but I can see that it's hard for her to hear, so I keep it to brief descriptions about my progress.
”
Her words were biting; a flash of memory assaulted me with pictures of her bleeding in the bathroom. Knowing where her life was likely headed, drama was only going to increase. She needed to learn how to compartmentalize her emotions in a way that didn't lead to her slicing herself for an outlet. One day those cuts would run too deep. That was a consequence I was unwilling to accept.

“Well, that's a great start, P,” I said encouragingly, hesitating slightly before continuing. “I'm proud of you.”

She finally turned to face me with a tight and mournful smile.

“Sometimes I'm not sure why.”

“Peyta,” I said calmly, as if speaking to a wounded animal, “please don't be so hard on yourself. I'm not exactly the poster child for healthy reactions to the curveballs life sends my way.”

A flash of electricity shot through my body when I allowed myself to think of what had happened in Utah. Apparently, I jumped when I did.

“What are you getting at, Ruby?” she asked, her face full of concern.

“I'm just saying that I don't always deal with trauma in the healthiest fashion either. Denial, avoidance, and a sheer unwillingness to acknowledge the truth are gifts that I possess in abundance. I use them frequently to keep the memories at bay.”

“Is this about what happened to you when you met Cooper?”

“Yes.”

“The thing you said you didn't want to ever tell me about?”

“Yes.”

“Ruby, I've seen a lot of what you've been through. None of it was good. How much worse could what happened there be?”

“Beyond unimaginable, Peyta.”

It was plain to see that she was desperate to know what had had occurred when I was held captive. Not because she was being nosy, but in an effort to truly understand both me and how I could relate to her personal demons as well as I claimed to. After a moment of thought, I decided to tell her briefly. I had never said the word out loud to myself, or anyone else for that matter. Labeling what had happened to me in Utah always seemed like it would give that terror power over me. In retrospect, it did exactly the opposite.

“I was raped, Peyta. Not just once...”

I watched as her eyes slowly filled with tears that spilled over freely.

“Ruby...”

“That's the first time I've ever really admitted that―using
that
word―to anyone.”

“And how does that make you feel?” she asked, uncertain as to what to do.

I couldn't help but chuckle at her choice of response. The therapeutic process seemed to be rubbing off on her; a mini-psychologist in the making was the direct result. Regardless of the off-color humor I found in her words, I contemplated them heavily. How did it feel to declare that I had been a victim of unspeakable crimes? I had always talked around it before, a series of implications that were never fully explained. That day, I put the truth out there for both her ears and mine. I was immediately assaulted by emotions that I wasn't fully ready to process or deal with, but the one that bubbled up to the forefront was a strange sense of empowerment. Was I still traumatized? Yes. Was there damage that needed repairing still? Clearly. Was I going to choose to let that define me and control my life? No. No, I wasn't.

Victimization was just another cage.

“It feels good, Peyta. It hurts, but it feels right, you know?”

“I do, Ruby,” she replied, coming over to hug me. “I really do.”

We held each other silently for a moment, both shedding tears for various reasons, driven by various mitigating factors. But what mattered most in that moment was that we knew we were not alone, that we were there for one another no matter what. Only family could know your darkest secrets and still love you regardless, and that was exactly what we were. Family.

As much as I enjoyed our moment together, I was starting to feel slightly overwhelmed by it all the same. I needed to put a lid back on my emotions, if only temporarily, which were escaping their secured and locked location. I didn't need to try and make up for lost time as far as healing was concerned.

I looked at the clock on the wall, which indicated it was time to open the shop. With a tiny squeeze, I released Peyta, leaving a quick kiss atop her head as I did. She smiled in response, wiping the tears from her face. I did the same.

“Well, now that we're all set with the caring and sharing portion of the morning, let's get this show on the road, shall we?”

She laughed and nodded, walking toward the counter to put the glass cleaner away.

“Hey, speaking of the road, where's your car? I didn't see it when I came in. You're not actually letting Cooper drive it, are you? I mean, he drove it while you were gone, but...that was different.”

“Ha!” I scoffed. “Not exactly. Cooper apparently got into an accident last night, so the TT is in the shop. I'm trying to ignore the whole thing and pretend she's on vacation.”

She chuckled nervously.

“Guess he's glad Scarlet is gone. I think she loved that car as much as you do. She would have beaten his ass.”

I could only laugh in response. She was spot-on, as usual.

“I'm going to go work on the rest of that paperwork, if you're good out here,” I told her as a customer came in.

Peyta greeted her warmly before replying.

“Yep, I've got this. Go do your thing.”

I took my leave and headed to my desk to complete my mission.

Twenty minutes later, I was victorious; the desk was clean. I sat back and admired my work for a moment, all but patting myself on the back for my efforts. As I moved to get up, Peyta stuck her head in to tell me that there was someone on the phone for me. Intrigued, I made my way out front.

“Hello?”

“Ruby...I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm in need of your apartment for a moment,” Janner said reluctantly.

“Okay, that's fine. Just go on in.”

“It appears that you've locked it.”

“Oh, shit! Sorry. I'll have to come up and let you in. I'll be right up.”

“Thank you.” The line went dead.

I looked at Peyta, whose expression read curiosity.

“I have to go upstairs for a sec. I'll be right back.”

“Who was that?”

“How much did Cooper tell you the other night about the other guys who were there?”

“Not much,” she said with the faintest of pouts. “He just said that they weren't going to be around for long and that I need to stay away from them. Why? Who are they?”

“Guests of sorts. They're in from out of town. Cooper's not a fan, but he's right about staying away from them,” I explained. “Janner needs something from my place. I'm just going to go let him in. I'll be back in five.”

“Should I be concerned if you don't return immediately?” she asked as her mental wheels spun. She was a smart kid. She was already planning for the “what if” scenarios.

“If I'm not back in five, I want you to lock up and leave, do you understand me?”

She nodded once.

Before she could say anything else, I fled the shop and unlocked the adjacent exterior door. Running up the stairs, I heard the door on the third floor creak as it slowly opened.

“You can come down,” I called out, striding across the landing to unlock the apartment door.

Without a word, Janner's long frame lithely climbed down the stairs to meet me, stopping a few steps shy. He looked conflicted, as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it. I don't know what Cooper had said to them, but judging by his severely tense energy, it couldn't have been especially warm and fuzzy.

“Something wrong?” I asked softly, encouraging him to share his concerns.

“Beckett was not trying to get you into any trouble today, Ruby,” he replied soberly. “Nor were we trying to the other night. It was just so nice to watch a little football. It felt so
normal
. We meant no harm by it, especially not to you.”

“I'm sorry about yesterday too,” I sighed, feeling incredibly guilty about the entire showdown. “Cooper is, well, you see, it's just that he's...,”

I rambled, trying to find an acceptable way to say that he was insanely protective because of my human status for the time being.

“He is your alpha,” Janner said matter of factly. “It is his job to watch out for you. This is understandable. It's also very honorable―something we are not accustomed to seeing in a leader.” His eyes were filled with pain and sadness. Whatever they had left behind in London was not a family. “It is surprising though,” he continued, daring to inch his way closer to me. “He acts as though you are incapable of protecting yourself. I find this so strange given your reputation.”

I squirmed under his observation. He was right. Cooper's overly enthusiastic methods of keeping me safe were ironically more likely to expose me than anything else.

“He's a man with the values of an era past,” I said in jest, hoping to sell my performance. “Cooper's had a rough go of things. When I took him in, I think he felt that he was my protector. It's been him and me ever since.” I tried to keep all intensity out of my voice, but it inevitably leaked in with my last sentiment. “He would
never
let anything happen to me, regardless of my legendarily lethal werewolf reputation.”

Janner's face softened slightly as he took his final step to close the distance between us.

“Completely understandable,” he said with a light smile. “After your hospitality and kindness, I wouldn't want to see anything happen to you either.”

There was an awkward pause, which I was desperate to break.

Lingering silence made my skin crawl and my body itch to escape.

Something about his energy was only heightening my response. The guarded nature from his arrival was leaking back into the air around him, and I just couldn't figure it out. It was too neutral, unreadable―
mechanical
.

“Okay, well, if that's all you need,” I said, stepping toward the stairs.

“Yes, thank you,” he replied, pushing the door ajar. “Oh, wait, Ruby. There is one more thing. The boys have been wondering when we might be able to go
out
.”

“We can go out whenever. Where do you want to go?”

He laughed to himself slightly before clarifying.

“I'm sorry. I should have been more clear,” he explained. “They want to know when they can go out to
Change
. They're not accustomed to being so penned in all day. They want to run free for a while. Maybe hunt.”

“And what exactly would they like to hunt?” I asked as my concern rose.

“Anything really. Deer. Rabbits. Coyotes. Whatever is available.”

I breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“Yeah, that shouldn't be an issue. Ask Cooper about it. I'm sure he can arrange something.”

Janner's eyes narrowed ever so slightly at me.

“Will you be joining us? We would love to see a Rouge et Blanc in all her glory―
hunting
. It must be a magnificent sight to behold.”

I started down the stairs in a not-so-subtle attempt to flee my growing anxiety and hide my lack of game face.

“You've already seen me run through the woods in my were-human form. I doubt being furry would be all that different, except for the four-legged part. Besides, I'm really not that impressive, Janner,” I called over my shoulder to him. “You shouldn't always believe the hype.”