AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We all climb in the car, and I insist on being squished in the middle and leaving the edge for Rylie; after all, these are my men, and I will never say no to being squished up against them. When we get to the gate, they once again just wave us through, recognising our car, and don’t bother to stop and even talk to us, let alone search the vehicle, which they really should be doing, especially since we’re new faces around here.
As we drive, I keep an eye on Rylie, making sure that she’s really okay. She deals with things like I do and, like me, would rather keep it to herself than let someone know that she’s not okay. Fortunately, I think she was genuinely telling me the truth earlier when she said that she was okay because she doesn’t look like she’s fighting memories or demons. In fact, she just looks like she’s thinking about something really hard, like a complex math problem or something. It’s probably something to do with Fredrick and making sure that his punishment isn’t too severe. She’s not naïve; she knows that her mother would kill for this kind of infringement, and all of us in this car know that he doesn’t deserve that.
She remains quiet as we escort Fredrick and herself through the halls and directly to Mona’s office that we were in yesterday. If she isn’t in there, then she will be immediately informed that we are here and will meet us there shortly. As the door closes behind us, I try to catch Rylie’s eye to check on her, but she’s so deep in thought that she simply flops down in one of the chairs in front of her mother's desk and then stares off into space.
I know I should have visually checked her earlier, but I was so distracted by our easy camaraderie and the fact that I missed her and thought she could possibly be dead or worse, that I just didn’t do it. Since we have a couple of minutes to wait for Mona, I quickly give her a once-over as best as I can when she’s sitting down. She looks slightly dirty and a little bit disheveled, and there’s a slight bruise beginning to form on her cheek, but other than that, she looks absolutely fine, which eases the slight knot that had begun to form in my chest.
“Rylie!” Mona exclaims, sounding incredibly relieved as she rushes through the door, slamming it shut behind her and stopping anyone else from following in after her.
Rylie stands and smiles as her mom gives her a very brief hug despite having obviously been worried sick about her. Mona isn’t a touchy-feely person. Once she’s checked that Rylie is okay, she moves to stand on the other side of her desk and adopts a more professional demeanor as she smiles at us, and then her eyes catch on Fredrick, and her expression darkens. She begins to open her mouth, and Rylie cuts her off.
“Before you start on the whole punishment and death thing, I really don’t want you to kill him, and I know that Jynx agrees with me, and you clearly trust her because you sent her to look for me. I’m not even going to ask how that came about,” she starts.
Well, shit, she’s right. She didn’t once ask me what I was doing here or why I’d been sent to get her; she just rolled with it. I mean, I told her some things and hinted at a couple of things but didn’t bother to tell her anything outright. It seemed incredibly unimportant at the time considering what was going on and that neither of us knew whether we were going to get out of there alive, and we just focused on making sure the other was as well as they could be in this situation.
“I’ll fill you in if you want me to?” I interrupt.
She turns to look at me and smiles, “No, it’s okay. I don’t need to know.” She then turns back to her mother, “Seriously, I understand that he needs some sort of consequences, and I wholeheartedly agree with that, but he doesn’t deserve to die; I would have done the same in his position.”
Mona studies her daughter for a moment before she nods, “Very well.” She then presses a button on her desk, and two men enter the room, “Take Fredrick to the interrogation room, but leave him be. I will come to talk to him soon.”
“Yes, miss,” one of them replies as they take Fredrick by his arms and escort him out of the room.
I hope that Mona is going to honor what she has said to Rylie, but realistically there isn’t going to be any way to know, at least not for us.
Once he’s gone, Mona turns to Rylie, “I’m so glad that you are safe. You must be exhausted; why don’t you head up to your room? I need to go over the particulars with Jynx and her team anyway.”
Rylie nods, “I will, but first, I need to talk to you.” She doesn’t wait for Mona to reply as she plows ahead, “I can’t live like this any longer. I know that this wasn’t a real kidnapping, but how long is it going to be until I do get kidnapped for real again? Mom, I just want to be a normal teenager. I don’t want to know how to fight and handle weapons. I want out of this life, and I know that Dad would come with me if I went.”
Wow, okay, that was a lot to dump on Mona in front of relative strangers, but it’s evident to me at least that Rylie needed to say this now before she lost the nerve or even didn’t have her mom’s full attention because she’s so busy. Mona, though, doesn’t look surprised by Rylie’s words. In fact, she almost looks like she expected something like this.
Mona sighs heavily, “Rylie, sweetheart, I’m not sure.”
As Rylie’s expression falls, my memory pings with something that might put Mona’s mind at ease and also get Rylie the life and escape that she clearly so desperately needs for her own well-being.
Stepping forward, I interrupt, “Sorry to interrupt Mona, but someone who D trusts implicitly has just moved to a small town called Serendipity. I am certain that he would be more than happy to keep an eye on Rylie and her father. You would also be able to give them his contact details in case something came up. He’s incredibly well trained and will have several safety measures set up around the town anyway, so he will be able to let you or them know if there’s a threat coming to town or anything like that and then Rylie and her dad could move on.” Seeing that I have both of their attention, Rylie looking hopeful and Mona looking at least like she’s contemplating what I’m saying, I continue; the more I talk, the more certain things occur to me as I remember what D told me about the town that Alaric and Atlas have moved to. Which is why I add, “It is a really small town though, so when you start at the local highschool Rylie, I’d suggest that you tell people that you have been home-schooled and have lived in the town since you were really young, or that you moved when you were like eight or nine and you’ve only just managed to convince your dad to let you attend normal school. People are a lot less likely to be curious about you if they think that you’ve lived in the town for most of your life.”
Rylie turns back to her mom, “That could work, and we’d be safe because someone D trusts are in the town. Plus, as Jynx said, I can just tell everyone that I moved when I was eight or nine, and I’ve been there ever since but have been homeschooled. She even thought of a cover that would draw less attention to us.”
Sensing that Mona needs time to think, I add, “Look, you’ve got D’s number. I’ll give him a heads up about what’s going on, and then you can call him, and he can fill you in a bit better than I can and maybe even put you in contact with his guy.”
“Thank you, I think the fewer people that know about Rylie and her connection to me, the better though, so while I would like to talk to D, I will have him keep it from his man in the town. He can be used as a last resort, and I’ll just make sure that Rylie is kept updated with D’s ever-changing safe words. Hopefully, she will never have to use it,” Mona replies thoughtfully.
I nod, it makes complete sense to me, and I would most likely do the same, especially if the person that I was supposed to be trusting is someone that I do not know myself and have never met. I wouldn’t be able to trust the safety of my child to someone that I do not know, especially under these circumstances. As she said, the fewer people that know about Rylie and her link to Mona, the better.
“So I can go?” Rylie asks.
Mona sighs, “I need to talk to your father and to D. We will discuss this later.”
Rylie nods, “Okay, I’m going to go and shower.” She turns to me and pulls me into a tight hug, her reservations from earlier gone; she mutters in my ear, “I’ve got to practice being normal.”
“Normal is overrated,” I reply with a grin as she pulls back.
“Still, I want to try. Thank you for everything,” she says, her eyes conveying that she’s not just talking about today.
I nod, “Anytime. I hope you get your normal teenager wishes. I’d give you my number, but I don’t think being in contact with me will help with those normal dreams of yours.”
She chuckles, “No offense, but no, it won’t. I’m sure we’ll run into one another again.”
