Wolf Bargain (Wolfish 3)

But unfortunately, reality always reared its ugly head and the weight of my actual life and my screwed-up childhood came crashing back down onto me. It took me a long time to realize that my mother would never be that angel to me.

There was a half lie in what I told Romulus last night.

It’s true that I haven’t been speaking much to my mother … but I didn’t tell him why. I didn’t tell him that there was nothing left for me to hold on to because she’s already gone.

The last thing that I heard from her was an unfeeling and abrupt text that she sent saying that she was moving back to Florida with my father—the same abusive man who’d driven us out here to Washington in the first place.

I didn’t argue. Didn’t even reply.

She’d warned me, already, that she was finished with running.

She’d told me she’d been talking to him again.

So, when she left … disappeared on me as the boys had not too long before, it wasn’t so much of a surprise as it was a final disappointment. I only allowed myself to feel sorry for my mother for less than half a second. She had a choice; she always had a choice, and she was either too scared or too ignorant to make the right one.

By the time she left too, a part of me had actually started to think that she actually enjoyed the perverse game that she and my father played back and forth with each other. Kind of like that game of cat and mouse, where she was the mouse and she knew the cat was going to eventually eat her—but she stayed inside the maze anyway.

How anyone in their right mind would walk willingly back to something like that is beyond me.

Then again … I’ve had my own issues with my already unconventional relationship.

Just comparing the two, even for a second, makes me feel sick.

The boys left me. They didn’t hurt me, not physically anyway. And they’ve made up for it … more than made up for it. It’s me who’s holding back now, me who’s forced this gap between us.

But that’s for my own safety, at least until they do as they’ve promised. I can’t trust them, not fully, until they’ve proven to me that they aren’t going anywhere this time. I won’t be left behind again. Not by them, anyway.

I’d hoped that my mom was finally becoming stronger and that we were finally becoming closer, enough that she wouldn’t make such a foolish decision again, but I was wrong.

It doesn’t matter to me anymore. She’s an adult, and this is her problem to deal with now, not mine. I’d barely seen my mom in weeks and had no idea when she was actually planning to leave until she was already one foot out the door.

I was angry at first. But now … now …

Now, I honestly don’t care.

Just the thought of it makes me feel guilty, but now that she’s gone, I’m finally feel like I am free from living under the fear of my father’s capture.

He wouldn’t dare come back here now, not after the last time. Not without my mother to pave the road back to me. Maybe he’ll be content enough in his narcissistic mind that he’s gotten my mother as a consolation prize. Maybe, at long last, not only will he leave me the hell alone, but maybe his memory will too.

If he ever did return, one day, the guys and I would rip him to shreds … and I would enjoy it.

The time for my turning has been marked, but it’s still a long way off.

After months and months of preparations, it barely feels like it’s waned any closer. The gap almost feels as if it’s gotten wider. As if each month waiting takes me further and further away from the thing that I so desperately need.

Safety. Security.

And I’ve grown tired of waiting to be given it, so I’ve decided I’m going to take it.

There’s no point in waiting around. I’m ready now. And I’m finally prepared to demand it happen—and happen now.

It’s just after breakfast time when I walk into the mansion’s expansive kitchen and slam an armful of books onto the table, the weeks’ worth of evidence accumulated to back my desires to be turned sooner rather than later. I’ve taken to sleeping alone in the cabin even though I’ve been offered a room up at the house. It’s my own personal stubbornness now, I suppose, making me do it.

Lydia is in the process of brewing a pot of coffee and the slam of the books onto the wooden tabletop startles her, making her jump.

&n

bsp; “Dear Lord, Sabrina,” she gasps, one hand fluttering up to rest at the base of her throat. “You terrified me, sneaking up like that.”