Chapter Fifty-One
Lily didn’t even remember what she and Simon talked about on the car ride back to his house, most likely it was filling in the gaps from what Simon had learned earlier that evening, with Rey lying dead on the floor. She was still in a daze over all the events that occurred since she first stepped foot into the lingerie shop, all the revelations that had come spilling out.
Miller and Tybalt were the only other adults in the house when they arrived. Miller quickly assuring Lily that the twins had been fed, bathed, tucked into bed and told stories by Bawwic until they fell asleep. Simon quickly filled them in on what had happened.
Tybalt peppered her with questions about the other man in the lingerie shop, the one that had threatened Phoebe Buffay and the shop owner. Lily did the best she could to describe his appearance and demeanor, especially when Simon joined in with the probing questions. What little she could recall of the man’s words seemed to frustrate Tybalt, but he was quick to reassure her that he wasn’t aggravated with her, just the situation, which she appreciated.
It didn’t help that she kept watching the door that led to the backyard the entire time, with her senses on hyper alert for all the other entrances, in a futile hope that Col would walk in.
Miller intervened at last, telling Lily to go to bed, and both Tybalt and Simon agreed.
Somehow she made it up the stairs and to the wing where her room was. She dredged up the energy to peek in on the twins, but even the sight of them both quietly sleeping in their beds only reminded her of what had occurred just the night before, when Col had been waiting for her outside their room. And then what happened afterwards, when under the moonlight he had told her of his feelings for her.
It had been bliss.
It had been short-lived.
She changed into a teeshirt and cotton skirt, as if somehow that would summon him to her. And then she waited.
She lay on top of her covers, and still she waited. The hours passed, as her senses were painfully attuned to anything that might indicate his approach. When the first streaks of dawn appeared in the sky, she at last yielded to the tears that racked her body.
And finally, when she could cry no more, a merciful, dreamless sleep arrived.
* * *
Col raced the furthest he had ever gone through the woods in wolf form, in a vain attempt to outrun the agony engulfing him. Aylwyn, Barric and Merek were in wolf form as well, but far away, where they could not hear his pain. He didn’t want them to, did not need for them to. He wished to be alone in his anguish.
There were no thoughts worth sharing anyway, for it was only a brutal onslaught of suffering. Torrential feelings of betrayal, hurt, despair, all caused by the woman he had laid bare his soul to. Would have laid down his life for. Had imagined his young with, suckling mother’s milk from her breasts.
On and on he ran, the four thick pads of his feet silent upon the forest pathways lined with leaves, earth and felled plants. The nighttime birds with their cries seemed to mock him, the chittering of the crickets a symphony of laughter.
He had never heard mild-mannered Simon sound so angry, but the cause was deserving of such ire. Col knew of the scourge of illegal drugs, one of the modern plagues that in his day were the poisons, potions and elixirs that conveyed visions, the draughts that affected the mortal body, meted out with great care by those wise enough to wield it. It had horrified him, when he had learned of its widespread use as weaponry in modern day warfare. Only those without honor would employ such means.
And he had been filled with even greater disgust upon learning of its growing use by the young and innocent, with the eager encouragement by those greedy for coin.
He also remembered now, the use of some drug on him, as Simon’s friend Dr. Chuck had confirmed, on that day he woke up bound in an underground chamber. The scent of the man responsible had been all over that place last night where she had been, and so to Col, her involvement with that man was clear.
As was the proof of the drugs, spilling out of the toy’s belly. He could see it once more in his mind’s eye, that initial time he had laid eyes upon the totem. It had been kept close by where she had slept. To where they had lain together for the first time.
Mayhap her effect on him were the result of a similar misuse of drugs. A potion or powder that she had used to befuddle his very senses. No, he shook off that idea. She had been around the others as well. They would have well spotted it if she had been targeting him with some type of brew or concoction.
Yet she was cunning. The betrayal seared through him — though he knew not if it was from the failure of his senses or from her duplicity. Had she been lying to him from the beginning? Was she lying to him last night? Nothing made sense to him any more, it was as if his senses were once more in open rebellion, and he could not even trust the ground upon which he moved.
Faster and faster he ran, until the fingers of dawn stretched across the sky. He knew he had to head back, at least to be within mind-messaging range of hisWar Pack, even if he could not yet endure seeing her.
He needed to attend to his duty as aWaryeor.
It was all he had left.
* * *
The alarm went off, as it had been set the past few days, early enough for her to get the children and herself ready to the Childcare Center. Lily had fallen asleep in her tee shirt and cotton skirt, and it only took a few minutes to jam her feet into her sneakers and splash some water on her face.
She looked like hell.
Her face was drawn, haggard, and her eyes were swollen and bloodshot.
She looked better than she felt.
