Avenger(63)

I finished off the orange juice and placed the empty glass on the table. My parents watched me with curious gazes. I think they kept waiting for the moment when I’d crack and completely splinter apart. I was trying my hardest to hold myself together. For now, Beau wasn’t completely lost, so I was trying to do what my dad said and believe I’d hold my son in my arms.

“Do you still want me to braid your hair?” My mom asked.

I nodded, my head peeking out from the covers.

“You’re going to have to sit up then,” she laughed.

I reluctantly forced my body into a sitting position and turned so my back was to her. She already had a brush and hair ties. She sprayed detangler into my hair and began to brush out the tangled knots. I winced when she hit a particularly knotted spot.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay,” I muttered, playing with a loose piece of thread on the blanket covering my legs.

Once my hair was tangle free, she braided it, draping the end over my shoulder.

“All done,” she patted my back in a motherly gesture. I guessed no matter how old your children got, you couldn’t stop yourself from still treating them like a child—not necessarily in a bad way.

“Thank you,” I whispered, tucking myself back into my nest of blankets. “I-I want to go to sleep, but I still don’t want you to leave. I-I need someone to be here, if I wake up.” No way in hell did I want to experience another panic attack, if that meant I had to beg my parents to stay with me like I was still five years old and scared of the dark then so be it.

“We’re not going anywhere,” my mom assured me. “We won’t leave until Caeden comes back.”

“Thank you.” By the time the two words left my mouth I was already asleep and I gladly let exhaustion consume me.





Twenty Two.

Sophie

I forced my tired and battered body out of the bed.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Caeden jumped out of the bed and came running to my side. “Sophie, let me help you.”

I swatted his reaching hand away. “I don’t need your help,” I grumbled. “I’m perfectly capable of walking to the bathroom by myself.”

“Sophie—”

“Leave me alone.” I shuffled past him at a turtles pace, but he let me. I’d been home for three days and he barely let me do anything on my own. This was me asserting that I was okay. I was independent by nature and I was sick of having to ask people for help. I needed to prove to myself and to Caeden that I was okay. I was getting better, and soon I’d be ready to hunt down Travis. When I got my hands on him…well, it wouldn’t be pretty.

I finished in the bathroom and made my way back into the bedroom. Caeden shadowed me, like he was waiting for me to fall over.

“I’m fine,” I snapped with an angry bite to my tone.

“Sophie,” he said my name sternly, “accepting help doesn’t make you weak, it makes you smart.”

“I’m sick of your help,” I spat, heading for the door, not the bed. He jumped in front of me and used his body to block the door. My nostrils flared in anger. “Caeden, move. I refuse to sit in this room for one more second. In order to get better, I need to get up and move around. Lying here doing nothing isn’t helping me. It’s making me worse. Can’t you see that?” I spread my arms wide in exasperation.

He rubbed his jaw and moved aside. He swung the door open and motioned me out. “Fine, but I’m helping you down the stairs. Don’t even think about arguing with me.”

“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes. His overprotectiveness was grading on my last nerve. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the man with all my heart, but it was getting to be a bit much.

I stepped into the hallway outside our bedroom. A ladder sitting outside one of the guest bedrooms caught my eye. I headed that way out of curiosity. What was he up to?

“Sophie, no—”

His warning was too late though. I’d already opened the door.

I dropped to my knees as an indescribable pain ripped through my body. It was like I was being torn apart from the inside.

The room…it was a nursery. Beau’s room. A room he might never come home to. The room was perfect in every way. It looked like something straight out of a magazine but it was missing something very important—a baby.

I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten this was his room. It was like I was purposely torturing myself.

“Sophie—” Caeden reached for me, but I shrugged off his touch.

“No.” The word left my mouth sharply. “I need to see this.”

I slowly came to my feet and stepped forward into the room.