Finally Her Turn

Chapter 19: Message Not Received

Marissa

I leave my dad’s unconscious body in a pool of his own blood on my bedroom floor and head over to the disgusting bathroom to try to clean myself up some. The downside of having Tasha keep my suitcase is that all my clean clothes are over at the packhouse, so I have nothing to change into. I know that my shirt has blood on it, and my pants probably do too.

But when I get into the bathroom and face my reflection, I realize that I have an even bigger problem than my clothes. My dad hit me in the face a couple times, and I definitely look like I was just in a fist fight. My lip is bloodied, my eye swollen and starting to bruise. My shirt is torn, and the bruises from where he tried to choke the life out of me are starting to surface.

So now I’m faced with a tough choice. Go over to the packhouse like this, or stay here and wait until I’ve healed some? I don’t want Tasha or anyone else to see me like this, but this place is a dump and I’m not going to be the one to clean and fix it up this time. I’m not going to spend my hard-earned money to replace everything that he sold and destroyed. And I've decided that I’m not going to stay here either, not one second longer than I need to.

Then I remember my phone. It’s still in my back pocket, but I expect that it’s smashed to smithereens by this point. I reach back and pull it out, sighing when I see the extent of the damage. It’s bad. The screen is shattered and unusable, and there are small, detached pieces of plastic that were once the bottom corner of the outer casing. Some of the inner components are exposed, and that’s probably not good.

When I push the power button to turn it on, nothing normal happens. Just a flash of white light behind the shattered screen, and then it goes dark. Looks like it’s a goner. I don’t know why I bother, but I tuck my dead phone back in my pocket, intending to take it with me. Maybe some of the information can be salvaged from it or something.

There’s a somewhat clean washcloth on the bathroom counter, and once I spot it, I decide that cleaning myself up as best as I can is my best option for now. My effort doesn’t really improve things much, but at least my face is less bloody when I’m done.

I decide to journey across the hall into my dad’s room to see if he has any clean shirts I can use. He’s much bigger than me, but I’d rather baggy over ripped and bloody. His room actually still has some furniture in it, which doesn’t surprise me as much as it should. Just his bed and an old dresser, though, the rest of it nowhere to be found.

But what does surprise me is what I find in the remaining dresser. None of the clothes in there are his. It’s full of women’s clothes, and not from any woman whose scent I recognize. The other shocking discovery is that the bottom two drawers are filled with what seem to be my old clothes, some tiny enough that I must have worn them as a baby. Why has he kept all this stuff in here all these years?

If he was anyone else, the answer would be obvious. Sentimental attachment. But since it’s him, I have no idea. I’m also not here to learn his secrets though. All I care about is that the women’s clothes, though a bit musty, look like they might fit well enough. I’m sure he’ll be mad about me taking them, but I just don’t care. I don’t plan to stick around long enough for him to notice, and even if he does, I don’t intend to hang out anywhere that he’ll be able to get to me.

There’s not much that I can do about my face, but the fresh clothes and the little floral scarf that I found to tie around my neck should hide a lot of the issues. It’s too bad about the clothes I was wearing, though, but at least I only have one outfit to replace since I thought ahead and had Tasha keep the rest for me.

On the one hand, I feel like my return home couldn’t have gone any worse. All my stuff is gone, the house is destroyed, and I even broke my phone. But on the other hand, it also couldn’t have gone any better. Owen is still alive, and he’ll heal in time, but he’s injured enough that it will be a while before he can even pick himself up off the floor.

Honestly, I thought about dragging him over to the basement door and letting him get a taste of what it feels like to tumble down all those stairs and spend the night sprawled out on the bare floor, too injured and exhausted to even move, but eventually decided that would be stooping too low. I’m better than that.

Now I just have to figure out my next move. I know I want to take Tasha up on her offer to go stay with her in her dorm room, and even though my phone is broken, I can still contact her by mind-link. So, the phone should be a low priority because I don’t technically need it right now.

But the problem is that I feel like I do need it. If I don’t find a way to get in touch with John, he’ll be getting worried that something’s up, and I’m sure he isn’t going to figure out on his own that the something is me fighting with my dad and breaking my phone. He’ll figure that it has something to do with this weekend.

With the Elders gathering here tomorrow, and John being a personal guard to one of them, that means that he’ll be here tomorrow too. I know that it also means that he is probably expecting to see me. Though I still haven’t settled on exactly how I feel about that and whether I’m ready to hang out with him in person, I also wouldn’t do something like ghost him the night before. But he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t really know me.

Then it finally hits me. Aly. Her mate still has John’s number, which means that I just have to tell them about my predicament. I can’t do it in person, though. Aly is just nosy and clever enough to put it together that someone has been beating on me, and my broken phone isn’t the result of some simple accident. She already knows a lot about my dad, so I’m sure she’d figure it out. It has to be a mind-link then. But can I just do that? Am I allowed to just contact the Alpha’s daughter about my personal business?

It feels important enough that I suppose I’ll try it and find out. She did call me her friend earlier today. That has to count for something.

I leave the house much less cautiously than I entered, no longer worrying about waking Owen. He’ll probably be out until tomorrow, and possibly even wake up in a mess of his own making. I almost hope he does because I feel like he has earned that feeling of disgust and humiliation that I’m all too familiar with.

I toss my ruined clothes in the trash bin out front, which is remarkably empty considering the mess in the house. I suppose that means that he hasn’t even been taking the trash out since I left. He managed to find a means to restock his whiskey supply, but that seems to be about all that he’s done for himself.

Out of curiosity, I make my way over to the garage, wondering whether his car escaped his sudden urge to sell off everything we owned. But when I raise the door and look inside, somehow, it doesn’t surprise me that the space is vacant except for a few empty bottles. I don’t know what he plans to do when he runs out of whiskey again, but it’s not my problem. If I have my way, it will never be my problem again. I just hope that I’ll have enough in my savings to afford my own place once my special assignment is over.

As I begin my trek back up to the packhouse, which takes about fifteen minutes on foot when I’m in good shape but will probably take longer now that I’m limping and moving much slower, I decide that now is as good of a time as any to send that mind-link to Aly.

Are you busy? I ask her for starters. If she says that she is, then I’ll just have to find some other way.

Nope, just enjoying the pack dinner. Are you here? I don’t see you.

No, I had some personal business to tend to, and I realized that I left my phone in my back pocket while unloading our luggage and then doing some chores and stuff. I must have sat or leaned on it at some point because it’s broken now.

Yikes, that sucks.

I have to chuckle to myself thinking about how many years it’s been that Aly’s been saying “yikes” like that. We even had a teacher in fifth grade that would tease her about it, but she’s Aly, so teasing doesn’t bother her. She laughs about it.

Yeah, but it’s fine, I assure her. I don’t use it all that much, but I’m just thinking of John. I don’t have any way to let him know that it’s broken so he doesn’t worry if he tries to text me and doesn’t get a response.

Oh, that’s true. Did you want me to have Tyler text him and let him know?

Yes, please. That’s actually why I contacted you.

Yeah, it’s no problem. Let me know if you need some help replacing your phone.

Thanks, Aly. Sorry to bother you, but I hope you enjoy your dinner.

Don’t apologize. You’re always welcome. Night, Rissy.

Night, Aly.

Things have definitely changed between us. I’m actually a little shocked at how naturally I was just able to carry on a conversation with her. I’m glad it wasn’t in person, though, because most of it was fibs. I’m a terrible liar. I can’t control my face. She’d have seen right through me if I was standing in front of her.

Which brings me to the next person on my agenda. Tasha. Can’t hide my face from her, but if I had to pick someone to tell my business to, I guess it would be her.

Are you at the dinner? I ask her over mind-link.

Yeah, did you want to join?

She sounds so excited that I hate to have to tell her no. But not only am I not hungry after everything with my dad, not to mention the after-effects of the nasty punches and kicks he delivered to my abdomen, but there’s no way that I’m going in there like this.

Nah, I’m going to have to pass this time, but I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind me staying with you this weekend?

No, of course I don’t mind. I’d love the company. If you want to meet me there in about an hour, I can let you in.

Sure, sounds good.

I agree to wait the hour, even though I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself until then. I’ll probably have around a half hour that I need to kill, somehow managing to avoid everyone the whole time.

I spot an inviting-looking tree not far from where I’m still limping along the path and decide to just drop myself on the soft ground in front of it, leaning my back up against the trunk. Maybe if I’m lucky, taking a little rest will allow my face a chance to heal some before I make my way back into town.

-

-

John

It’s Friday, and I’m in a bit of a jam. I’m with Uncle Ben and his guards, and we are on our way to the airport once again. And then when we land in Arkansas, we will once again be on our way to a hotel.

I pleaded with Uncle Ben to somehow make it so that we could just stay at New Horizon for Friday and Saturday night, but he refused. He said that Elder Stirling has forbid it for this trip, since that whole rogue situation still hasn’t been resolved. In fact, he’s making us stay closer to Silver Crescent territory than to New Horizon, since it’s only a couple hour drive away.

But here’s the thing, though. I really need to see Marissa. I need a chance to talk to her about the transfer that I’ve set in motion for her. She doesn’t know a damn thing about it, and yet the official documentation is already in Uncle Ben’s pocket.

I know I shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to tell her about this, but I’ve discovered that where my mate is concerned, I’m a coward about telling her things that I can’t predict her reaction to. I couldn’t bring myself to actually send any of the twenty drafts of the text message I’ve been trying to muster up the nerve to send her all week.

But even the coward in me knows that the time is now. It’s horrible timing, actually, since we’re just about to get on a plane and I’ll be out of contact until we’re back on solid ground, but I don’t have much choice. It’s now or never, and never is a terrible option.

Marissa, I know we haven’t really talked about our next steps or how we ultimately see things going between us, since we’re from two different packs and all, but I can’t stand this distance between us, and I want you here with me. I decided to take advantage of the fact that I’ve been working so closely with my uncle, Elder Benjamin, whose grandson is the Alpha here. They prepared the necessary documents to submit to Alpha Kane to request a transfer for you. If it’s not what you want, I understand, but I’d really appreciate you giving it some serious consideration. We’re going to be in your territory tomorrow, and Uncle Ben plans to talk to your Alpha about it while we’re there. Just let me know what you decide before then.

It took me a week, and that’s the best that I’ve come up with. I just hope that it says what I need it to in a way that won’t immediately inspire her to say no and consider whether she should just reject me. I hate that I basically have to send that off and then suffer the agony of not knowing how she’ll respond for the entire time that I’m in the air, but it’s my own fault.

Once we finally do get back on the ground, I’m shocked to see that there are no new messages from her. There’s one from Serena, who apparently wants to get together so we can “chat like mature adults” and try to salvage our friendship, and I’m glad to see it. I’m not interested in her romantically anymore, but we’ve been friends for too long and been through too much together to just throw that all away overnight. I shoot her a quick text to explain what I’m up to this weekend and tell her that we can pick some time next week to get together, and then I’m back to staring dumbly at my dishearteningly quiet phone.

I haven’t actually heard from Marissa all day, which was understandable earlier. She had guard duty with Aly, and then she had to travel to New Horizon, and I’m sure it took her some time to get settled in. But now I’m just plain getting worried. It’s been hours since I texted her, since I sent the text, but she’s been silent this whole time. Why is it that every time I want to talk to her about our next steps, she seems to disappear on me?

This certainly doesn’t bode well for my chances of bringing her home Sunday, though I’m not fool enough to mention any of this to Uncle Ben. Even if I have to sit in a room with him and Alpha Kane and face the humiliation of having my mate turn me down when I’ve been telling everyone that she’s already agreed to it, at least I’ll finally get to see her. I still want to go through with this. My gut is telling me that it’s the right thing, and I just have this feeling that no matter what, Marissa is coming home with us Sunday.

It’s Tyler who comes to my panicking mind’s rescue again, just like he did last weekend. We’ve just about made it to the hotel when I get a text from him.

Marissa just told us that her phone didn’t survive her unfortunate decision to stick it in her back pocket while she was busy unloading stuff. She sat on it and crushed it, and now it’s not working. She just wanted me to pass that along to you so that you wouldn’t worry in case you’ve been texting her.

My automatic reaction is to exhale with relief, hoping that every bit of that is true. It would explain her sudden silence, and I suppose the timeline matches up. But once I sit and think about it more, I realize how totally screwed I am now. When Alpha Kane calls her before him to ask whether she wants the transfer I’m asking for, it will be the first time she’s hearing about it.

All that brave stuff I was thinking before was based on the assumption that she’s read my text but just doesn’t know what to say to it yet. This changes things. This means that I’ve royally screwed up, and everything is about to implode on me.

-

-

Marissa

I wake up to the sound of Tasha in my head, frantically trying to get me to respond and let her know that I’m okay.

If you don’t answer me, I’m sending out a search party, she threatens.

I’m so sorry. I fell asleep, I apologize in a rush. I only meant to sit down and take a little rest, but I guess I drifted off.

It’s okay, I’m just glad you’re alright. I thought that maybe your dad … well, it doesn’t matter now. Are you still coming?

Wow. She has somehow figured out not only what I’m afraid of, but who. I guess it makes sense that she would have started piecing things together after witnessing all the nightmares and panic attacks and little hints of something being amiss at home over the weeks we’ve spent together. Maybe I’ve even said things in my sleep that have clued her in. But like she said, it doesn’t matter now.

Yeah, I’m still coming. I’ll be there in maybe twenty minutes or so, I tell her.

She instructs me to head to her room because it’s unlocked now, and makes more threats about search parties and involving the Alpha if I don’t make it there soon. I believe her too. She did sound pretty worried, which makes me wonder how long I’ve been asleep.

Not long enough, judging by how I struggle to push myself up off the ground, the stiffness of all my injuries having settled in while I was resting. Now I’m moving even slower than I was before.

As I get closer to the packhouse, I remember that there’s a door in the back that leads directly into the dormitory wing and decide to work my way around and try to get in that way, assuming it will be more discreet. But when I finally find that door, a quick tug on it tells me that I’m going to need a plan B. It’s locked.

And to my horror, it starts opening right in front of me, and I try to dodge out of the way so that whoever is coming out of it won’t see me. No such luck. It’s Devon, and he seems to catch my scent or something judging by the way that he lifts his nose into the air and starts sniffing. He’s looking for me, I just know it, even though I have no reason to think that other than paranoia.

But when he comes around to the little nook in the building that I’ve tucked myself into, I know I wasn’t just being paranoid. He just used my scent to track me, which is both impressive and intimidating.

“Marissa,” he greets me, already looking me over and examining my face. “What happened to you? And why are you hiding?”

“I was just coming to visit Tasha,” I explain without answering his questions. “I didn’t know the door was locked, though.”

“Yeah, only people who live in this wing have the key,” he tells me.

I used to live here. I should have remembered that. I remembered the door, but the lock slipped my mind.

“Do you live here?” I ask him, hoping that the answer is yes and that he’ll let me in.

“I do, but if you want to use my key, then you need to explain this.”

He points at my face, and I sigh, feeling like he might be the worst person to have caught me looking like this. I know he’s kind and compassionate and can keep a secret, but I hate it all the same. I think because I like and respect him so much, and hate that he’s seeing me this weak and vulnerable.

“I really don’t want to,” I plead with him to just let it go.

He purses his lips and exhales through his nose as he looks me over again, thinking, and then nods once as if he's made his decision.

“Alright, well then at least tell me this. Is whatever happened over? Whoever hurt you won’t be hurting you anymore?”

“Yes, it’s over. I’m never going back there,” I promise, as much to myself as to him.

“Okay, good. I really hope that’s true.”

“It is.”

“Then come with me,” he says, nodding his head in the direction of the door he just came from.

And true to his word, he lets me in. Tasha is in her room when I get there and pretty quickly comes and opens the door after I start knocking. Though her eyes widen, and she reflexively gasps at the sight of my face, she doesn’t say anything. I’m sure she already knows what happened, but I’m glad that she doesn’t seem to feel a need to question me about it.

“Come in, come in,” she says invitingly, stepping out of the way so I can join her in the room. “I was just setting up my air mattress for you. I hope that’s okay with you, or if not, I can take the air mattress and you can have my bed.”

“The air mattress is fine. Honestly, I’d have been content on the floor. It still would have been a step up from home.”

At least this carpet isn’t all shredded and covered in paint, and this place doesn’t smell strongly of urine, sweat, and whiskey the way that “home” does.

“Actually, you take the bed,” she changes her mind. “You look like you could use some more rest, and the bed is already made up. Final answer, and it’s not up for debate.”

It’s so nice to have a real friend. I hope that I don’t end up paying back her kindness by choking her out first thing in the morning like I’ve done all this week, but more rest sounds absolutely perfect right now.