The Alpha’s Desire 5(32)
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed, though no sound came out. Still, Lex had squeezed my hand, answered, “I know, babe. But I don’t blame you in the first place.”
I flashed a half smile and nodded though I didn’t even believe myself, knew he wouldn’t either. Going through the motions. That was all this was until I could see Chloe again, tell her how sorry I was in person. I’d rip anyone to shreds that stood in my way, and that, I knew, was Chloe healing me all over again. At this moment, people like Daniel deserved whatever befell them. Call me karma, I was ready.
As they raced back to the scene of my earlier crime, I couldn’t think about Daniel’s body and whether the wolves had taken it or left it there anymore. I didn’t care. The momentary thought made me want to spit nails just to have given them a moment of my time, an ounce of my guilt. All I could consider was Chloe and knew that I’d do whatever was needed to be done to save my friend if there was still time. Hopefully they were using me as bait, not an eye for an eye scenario. That was all that mattered now.
“They have her at the warehouse,” Nira announced as she did a U-turn that made the tires squeal to head east rather than west.
Directing the vehicle back towards the factory from the cabins, in my harrowed mind we were running from one horrible memory toward another only to find a new horror awaiting us. If there was a time to justify a psychic break, this would be it, and yet, all I could do at this point in time for Chloe was to keep it together. Grasping onto a sliver of hate did the trick, kept me focused on the newest mission at hand.
In-between hanging on, I fidgeted, anxiously, with everything my fingers could get ahold of from my seatbelt to my hair, and even when Lex tried to make me stop, I played with his hand, either tapped my thumb to an uneven rhythm on the back of it, or rubbed the same digit back and forth over his palm. We were going back to where Daniel had taken Lex before. I held onto the frail hope that they had done this just to scare me, to give me visions of Chloe in the same predicament they had created for Lex. It had worked, certainly, I suffered through the mental images. I just held onto the frail hope that only I did suffer. Somehow, I wished a situation where Chloe magically slept through it all.
As improbable as it was, that thought at least gave me something to concentrate on. Though I couldn’t even come close to calm, not to save my own life, I struggled to find some for Chloe, gave it everything I had. Ironically, I stressed over finding some peace, in an attempt to connect with my friend, to throw some magic my way that would at least help me to calm if nothing else.
I didn’t have the connection with Chloe that I had with Lex, so I had no way of knowing what was going on with her, if she screamed with fear, if she cried due to pain, or if she just wished whatever suffering she was going through to end. I knew my friend to be courageous, self-confident, and strong, all the things I had lacked before. Yet, in the face of the unbelievable, creatures that shouldn’t exist appearing before you, or in the face of torture, people broke, even the best of them. Chloe was the best of them, so for her, I continued on, sent any positive energy brewing inside me to my friend.
Sadly, this only worked to at least give me focus, a purpose to play out as we sped toward the factory. I tried hard to hold it together, for Chloe I continually repeated in my head like a mantra as I gripped Lex’s hand in mine as he wouldn’t let mine go. Still, the new scenery rushed by me in a blur. Just the same, with my friend on my mind, memories with Chloe continued to rush through my brain, only now like a music video montage, in faster, shorter clips. The comparison brought to mind the two of us, countless times, dancing around in Chloe’s room, the music too loud, laughing and just enjoying life by throwing around our limbs in an aimless manner.
One of the songs playing in my head turned my reminiscing to seeing us as little girls in kindergarten working on spelling with a movable alphabet on a carpet on the floor of the classroom. For brief seconds, every tiny detail came to life from the pink ribbons that decorated Chloe’s pigtails to the red and blue striped carpet we’d worked on. I remembered the way that Chloe had helped me then, and thus how she had saved me so many times in school and in life, everything from having the pencil I didn’t have to talking all night to heal my broken heart. Chloe been the one there when my dad was too drunk after my mother died to pick up the pieces. This was how a friend of mine got payback for those many, many kindnesses.