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An officer named ‘Briggs’ walked up on the scene with a spotlight that went directly into my retinas.
He got out of the car, but the spotlight was so bright that I could barely make out the figure of a man standing behind it.
“Put the gun down…” he ordered.
I did, and five minutes later, I found myself standing at the kennel door with Briggs looking in at the situation we’d found ourselves with.
Al was chewing on a piece of meat, his eyes on Thor who was now silently bawling.
“What the hell do we do?” Briggs asked. “I don’t want to kill Laric’s dog but, if we don’t do something, that asshole is going to bleed out.”
I looked over at where Chastity was being put into the back of a cruiser by another officer, then bit my lip as I thought about what we would need to do.
“Umm.” I backed up and nearly fell ass over tea kettle when my foot landed on top of a ball, and my heart warmed.
“I have an idea,” I said quickly, picking the ball up and giving it a good bounce.
The ball bounced once before I caught it, and Al’s head jerked up and watched it with such avid attention that I knew this would work.
Giving it one more bounce, I handed it to Briggs. “Here, bounce this and then throw it as far as you can.”
Briggs took the ball and looked at it skeptically, then did what I asked and threw it so far that I could barely make out where it landed.
Al bolted after it, giving Briggs just enough time to yank Thor out by the feet before Al showed back up, taking his ball and his bone into the dark recesses of his kennel.
I quickly closed the door, looking at Thor who continued to cry silently.
“Didn’t work out quite the way you had planned, did it?” I teased.
Thor sniffled.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
That deadly quiet, menacing voice had my head snapping up in time to see a wall of Souls Chapel Revenants barreling down on us from the direction of Lynn’s house.
Behind them were the original members of Free, my dad’s makeshift family.
And though they were older, they were no less intimidating.
“You might want to explain fuckin’ fast,” my dad barked from behind Laric.
Laric walked directly to me, caught me up in his arms, and then squeezed me tight. “What the fuck happened?”
I opened my mouth and told them everything, not leaving a single detail out.
In the end, it was Laric who said, “Al can stay here forever.”
CHAPTER 18
There’s no need to repeat yourself. I ignored you just fine the first time.
-Text from Catori to Laric
CATORI
Being back in my apartment was weird.
Having freedom was weird.
Trying to sleep without Laric was weird.
What wasn’t weird? My absolute positivity that Laric was it for me.
At least, I thought so anyway.
After the hell that was last night/early this morning with Thor and Chastity—okay, obviously we really knew how to pick the exes—we’d done a whole lot of sitting around and doing nothing while we waited for the crime scene to be run through, statements to be taken, and shit to calm down enough for everyone to leave and head home.
Then there’d been a discussion on what had happened with the MC and my father and his friends.
Apparently, they’d raided the building that they’d found, helped twenty-two small children find their way out of hell on Earth, and had to leave almost immediately after the cops showed to help because they’d heard about me.
After that, there’d been a whole lot of drinking by the pool, lazing around, and jacking off until they could go back to the warehouse and look for potential clues as to who’d started the operation at that particular location without cops swarming it.
Which had led to me being picked up by my brother for me to finally meet my nephew.
Only, that’d lasted for a couple of hours before I’d realized that it was getting late and I needed to allow them to go to sleep.
Which then had led to me getting dropped off at my apartment. Alone.
I was now on hour three of being wide-ass awake, laying in my bed, staring at the wall.
Was Laric home yet?
Would he miss me like I missed him?
Would he sleep okay? Or would he be lying awake much like I was?
The events of the day didn’t replay in my mind like one would think that they would.
Nope.
The only thing replaying in my mind was the thought that I didn’t know how to function anymore without Laric.
I was lost.
I missed him.
I wanted him here.
And he hadn’t texted me back.
Groaning in defeat—sleep just wasn’t going to happen today without something drastic—I got up and headed for my medicine cabinet.
When I arrived, it was to find not much in there. But at least the pink pills were.
