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CHAPTER 7
Madeline, Age 12
“It’s utter bullshit, Leon.” Ric’s voice filtered through the bedroom door that they’d left open a crack. “Who the hell abandons their child like this? I was expecting to go over there and have a discussion about Madeline staying at her school, and these assholes....”
Ric’s words became muffled. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was trying to talk quietly, or if he’d turned away from the door, but I couldn’t hear what he said next.
I was dressed in a pair of Ric’s pajamas, and they were oversized on my small frame so they had to be cuffed several times. It was the only thing they could think to give me, rather than having me stay in the soaked clothing that I had shown up in. All of the clothes that I’d shoved into my duffel bag had also been soaked because of my long walk to the library. They all had to be put into the washer, and I had nothing to wear.
I curled more tightly in on myself, and pulled the thick fluffy blanket tighter around my still shivering shoulders. It had been a few hours since Ric had come to pick me up from the library, but even with a shower and new clothes, the pervasive shiver still remained. Leon had said something about shock as he and Gage had piled blankets onto me.
I liked Leon and Gage, they always brought me treats when they came with Ric to visit me. They had also jumped right into action when Ric had brought me home today. Ric had left almost immediately to go to our parent’s house, and had been gone for only an hour or two before he’d returned fifteen minutes ago. He had been angry, and at first, I was sure that he was angry at me. Instead, he’d just pulled me into his arms and told me that everything would be okay though, judging by the way his voice sounded, things were far from okay.
He’d gone outside to talk to Leon and Gage, and I was doing my best to eavesdrop on their conversation.
“So they just signed their rights to Madeline over to you? Just like that?” Leon’s said loud enough for me to hear.
“Yeah, and they wouldn’t even let me get any of her things. I just managed to convince Mrs. Chin to send some of her more personal items.” Ric sounded tired, and I couldn’t help the sliver of guilt that pushed its way into my chest. It was my fault that he was upset, I should have just gone to the boarding school quietly. Pulling my knees more tightly to my chest, I pressed my mouth to them so hard that my teeth cut the inside of my lips. The pain was centering, and I was able to move past my own misery in order to continue listening.
“Your parents are fucking monsters.” Someone rumbled, and it took me a minute to realize that it had been Gage who spoke. He hardly ever spoke, not that I minded, he always brought the best treats, and had even bought me some expensive pens to use with my sketch book. The giant man was quiet, but attentive. Something that I only ever experienced around Ric and his pack.
“Guys, I can’t ask you to help me with this...I’m not even sure how to raise a twelve-year-old girl, but I can’t put that on you.” It took me a minute to realize what he was saying, and the pain in his voice was almost breathtaking. Ric was suggesting that he and I leave, and for their pack to break apart! I couldn’t let that happen.
I was just starting to untangle myself from the blankets, to do what I wasn’t sure, but I’d just managed to plant a foot on the cold hardwood floor, when Leon’s voice stopped me.
“Don’t you even think about it, Eric Zhao. You need us, and we need you, we will figure it out. Three heads are better than one.”
“Okay, but how are we supposed to raise a little girl? We’re in our twenties, for crying out loud.” Ric replied, sounding stressed.
“Better than just you trying to figure it out. What Madeline needs is structure and care. She’ll be fine as long as she has those things.” This was Gage, speaking more words consecutively than I’d ever heard from him before.
With that, the door opened, and I woke up.
The first sense tocome back to me, as I awoke, was my sense of smell. For a second, I was convinced that I was lying in the middle of a rainy forest. The smell of rain-soaked cedar wrapped around me so completely. I chased the source of the smell with my eyes closed, my cold nose pressing into the column of someone's warm throat.
“Your nose is freezing.” The rumble of a familiar voice said, and the memories of the night before started to pour into my brain. The club, my drink being drugged, the fear, and then the utter relief at being rescued.
I very quickly took a mental diagnostic of how my body was feeling. My head ached fiercely between my eyebrows, my limbs were sore, and I had the taste of vomit still on my tongue. All-in-all it felt like someone had chucked me into a dryer and set it on tumble dry.
As I lay with my nose pressed up against Rio’s neck, I should have panicked. That was what normal people did after a scary event like last night...right? The panic, however, never came, and instead, I just felt relief over the fact that I was somehow okay.
Finally feeling ready to open my eyes, the first thing I saw was Rio’s dark eyes. At some point he’d moved so that he was eye level with me. His eyes searched mine, as if he was looking for any signs of panic or fear.
“Are you okay?” Rio asked with a voice that was still heavy from sleep.
I nodded, unsure of what to say and suddenly feeling shy. What do you say to the cute coffee-shop-owner-turned-knight-in-shining-armor? Well...other than....
“Thank you.” My voice was a little bit hoarse as I spoke the words, but I knew that Rio had heard them because the dark depths of his eyes shifted and softened.
“You don’t need to thank me, Madeline. There’s no way in hell we would have left you on your own.”
We. I remembered now that he had his pack with him. The smell of leather and bergamot danced through my blurry memories of the night before along with the fainter scent of something sugary and sweet that I couldn’t quite place. My sense of smell wasn’t as good as an alpha or an omega, but for some reason those scents had stuck with me against the backdrop of what had been a chaotic night.
Sometime between thinking about Rio’s pack, and his last words, I quickly became aware of the fact that I was not laying in my own bed. “Where are we?”
I sat up and was immediately greeted with a bout of dizziness so severe that I nearly flopped back down into the pillows again. “Whoa there, Madeline. Careful...you’re probably still feeling some of the after effects of whatever that asshole gave you last night. You’re at our apartment, do you remember that?”
I kind of did, I definitely remember telling them that they couldn’t take me to the hospital. I knew that Ric would have a field day if he found out that something happened to me, and I’d rather just deal with it on my own than get him involved.
