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Raising her had to stop me from speaking. “I know, Gunner, you didn’t have a choice. I know… It doesn’t mean it hurts any less. It doesn’t mean I didn’t suffer because of it. I was so damn reckless back then after… you. I… I knew being in the field wasn’t a good call, but I needed it. I needed the distraction, and I almost lost my children.” She says. Her hands clench at her sides as she stares into my eyes. And all I can do is show her I’m here and love her and am ready to listen, to know, to understand how she became the woman she is now.
“Sometimes, I regret that decision and other times I don’t because it made me and my children what we are because becoming what we are saved our lives more than once. That is something I am grateful for. This world is so fucked up. So much shit…” She shakes her head, looking off with unseeing eyes.
“Tell me.”
“You got most of it. I fucked up, got caught and tortured, I was rescued and they experimented on me using wolf's blood and other witchy shit.” Savvy says, pausing.
I try not to react to hearing my woman say that in real life she was given fucking wolf blood. And fuck me, but I can’t seem to wrap my head around that, and fucking witches exist. Fuck me. I feel I’m in fucking Oz. I feel as if at some point Bellamy, Blaze, and their team will burst into my office and scream, “Gotcha, bitch,” and have a good laugh. With the way my woman is pacing the floor, I know there is no damn gotcha in sight. This shit is real. Like really fucking real.
Fuck me.
Savvy turns away and walks over to the couch, plopping down heavily. Leaning forward, her elbows rest on her knees as she rests her head in her hands. We sit in silence. I want to give her all the time she needs. I get the gist of what she’s been through and as many questions that I have, I won’t push her.
“Once I was well enough, the order reached out to my Pappa, and from there, things were… different. Pappa admitted he had always known about the order, about others. He and the heads of the organization kept our worlds separate until they couldn’t. The order for centuries tried to keep the other’s activities from leaking into our world. Long story short. They couldn’t. The case I had been working on was proof of that. My abduction and the abduction of the young women we were trying to save was proof of that.” She takes a breath and stands from the couch.
Savvy paces the room as she continues.
“There are always those who want more control and power, and both the order and the organization learned from my abduction that maybe if they worked together, we could stop the world from imploding. It was clear then that people… humans had been used and contributed to so many atrocities by the group we were investigating. And we had to stop them. And we did, but like they say, you cut the head off a snake and two more appear. It was a rough few years after that. The organizations and the order opened themselves up to each other in ways they hadn’t before. Forsyth University made changes. They had always been a school for the… elite. But what the human students never knew. What I didn’t know was that it was also a school of and for the supernatural. Over the last twenty years, children like ours and children from families with supernatural origins have been learning, training, and fighting together. And have worked harmoniously with one another, keeping both the supernatural and human world balanced.” She says.
“I know this sounds crazy,” she shakes her head as she stops her pacing in front of me. “I mean, even to me, it’s still unbelievable to hear that the shit we read in fairytales is… real.” She chuckles. “It took a long time for me to come to terms with it and understand it, so you have to be reeling.” She says.
I see worry and concern in her eyes. She’s looking at me as if I am going to flip out at any moment. I’m not. Is it fucking shocking as hell? Yes, but reality is reality, me fighting against or denying it–it won’t make it any less real.
She shakes her head. “Anyway.” She blows out a breath. “I worked, and I pushed all the other shit to the back of my mind, my heartbreak, the abduction, finding out what was really out there. Things were going as well as they could. And then Julia happened.”
Everything about Savvy changes. That anger I saw in her eyes earlier is back in full force. Her eyes blaze as her hands clench at her sides.
“Julia became a part of Charlie team after graduating from Forsyth. That wasn’t the beginning for her. The bitch was good. I’ll give her that. She skated through all the testing and entry exams that are done to assess and ensure they put candidates and students in the right programs and classes. She tested humans, she lived human, but she wasn’t human. And she played her role. She was shy and unassuming, but incredibly intelligent. I didn’t suspect it. No one suspected she was playing a long game. No one suspected that her carefully crafted persona was to become someone worthy of recruiting into the organization. Many operatives, humans and others, are recruited to be a part of the elite teams that fight against threats to our world. So she already had her in, but it wasn’t enough for her and her end goal. And she knew exactly what to do to get what she wanted. Disguising who and what she was, was part of the plan to infiltrate theorganization. The part that we didn’t share with the order. Even after decades of working together, Pappa never really fully trusted them, and rightfully so.”
I nod, encouraging her to keep going as I try to keep up.
“Team Charlie had gotten close to something the faction was into.”
She has mentioned this faction a few times, but not who they are. Seeing the look on my face, she realizes what I’m thinking.
“The faction, unlike the order, is for others. They are a… more radicalized group led by witches. They don’t like our involvement–the organizations. And they’ve made it clear. They are underhanded and will play nice only when it suits them. And Julia was… is a part of that.”
“Pappa suspected that not everyone was on board with the organization’s involvement with the order. The heads of the faction were the main objectors. And with what the order did to save me, many of them started to think. Think about how they can use what was done to me to benefit themselves. And Pappa wanted to stop that, hence, our clandestine operations.” Savvy paces the room. “What she did, what Julia caused, is why things changed. That knowledge put a wedge between us and them. The fact that we lost members of the organization only solidified what we believed to be true…” she trails off, brows furrowing in thought.
My brows furrow at a thought that crosses my mind. “Okay, I get all that. It’s crazy shit, I give you that. But what the hell was that chick’s end goal? Why do all that? I assume she had been with y’all for years. I mean… Sin’s mother and, according to her, her parents both died when she was six. So she was with you for at least seven years. To do what? And why come back and attach herself to these order people? It seems like a lot of shit to do what? Fuck you over? She has to know that your history will have you questioning her intentions, all of their intentions, wanting you back with them. And I’m sure you haven’t told me half of it.” I pause. “And what does any of that shit have to do with why she wants Sin? You said she has awakened? What does that mean, and why does it matter?”
Running my hand over my head. Okay, maybe I can’t keep myself from questioning her, because this shit is fucking nuts and well above my motherfucking pay grade and a lot to take in on a good day. The questions I asked aren’t even half of the shit swirling around my head. There is so much I want to say and get into with her. Am I being a prick thinking about us when there is a world full of shit and some psycho bitch trying to get to my woman and her daughter–our daughter? With what Savvy has said, and the roundabout way, she’s telling me her story. I know she’s holding back. I can feel it. Yeah, she’s used a lot of words, but she’s hopped, skipped, and jumped all over the fucking place with what she’s been telling me. I’ve kept up. As best I could, but something in me is saying there is more, and this woman, Julia. She is definitely up to some sinister shit and I don’t think Sin is the only one she’s after. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling I’m not, because why else do all the shit she has the way she has?
Savvy lets out a breath. Her calculating eyes stare at me, but I don’t think she’s seeing me. And then something clicks for her. Savvy’s eyes narrow and she stops and freezes, pulling her phone out of her pocket and looking down at it, her breathing stall.
“Well, shit.”
And then her face blanks.
Fifteen
GUNNER
?
I don’t know what clicked for her, but we will not figure all this shit out tonight. Stepping away from my desk and in front of her. She doesn’t stiffen, she doesn’t move when I wrap my arms around her and pull her to me. It takes a moment for her to respond to my closeness, but she does and wraps her arms around my waist, takes a breath, and leans into me, resting her cheek on my chest. Savvy mental strength is waning. Watching who she is at war with who she was is hard because I always go back to our shared past and what my decisions pushed her into. I shake my head. Ain’t shit I can do about any of that, but be here.
Savvy’s been softer and lighter the more time she spends here with the family–until tonight. Tonight, that woman coming here has brought the past back into the forefront, pulling her back into work mode. I know she always has an eye and ear out for shit going on within the organization, but I also know she’s trying to focus on family and our grandbabies, despite me always being in her face about us. Even if she does occasionally run away from me. More like she always runs from me. I know a blow-up is coming. I know there are things she doesn’t say that she is desperate to, I’m ready for all of it.
