Taken (Ava Delaney #4) (18 page)

“Leave her
alone!” Emmett ran past me and pushed at his father, but when Peter
took a step toward him, hands out to embrace him, Emmett hid behind
me, trembling.

Peter flinched
visibly, a weird mixture of horror and longing in his eyes. He kept
his focus on Emmett, shutting out the rest of us, and a lump in my
throat made it harder for me to control the situation.

“Let’s everyone
calm down,” Carl said nervously. “Hey, Emmett. I’m Carl. Can your
dad and me come in and have a little chat?”

Emmett’s
breathing grew noisy, but I leaned my arm on his shoulders. “Don’t
worry. If they upset you, I’ll kick them out, okay?”

He nodded and
disappeared into the living room.

“You even think
about raising your voice in front of him again, and I’ll karate
chop your face,” I hissed at Peter.

Peter laughed,
but he sounded mildly hysterical. I couldn’t help acting like an
over-protective mother hen because, as far as I could see, Peter
had rejected the kid at the one time his son needed him most. The
big eejit.

“I brought some
things,” Peter said when we all moved into the living room to join
Emmett. “Just some stuff I kept. From… from before.”

Carl shrugged
at me, and I could see he was thinking the same thing I was. We had
never seen Peter so uncertain.

Peter shrugged
off his jacket, and then rummaged through the bags he had brought.
He paused to stare at Emmett for a couple of seconds before
clearing his throat. “This was your favourite thing when you were a
baby,” he said, his voice cracking. He handed Emmett a small fluffy
teddy bear, the kind of soft stuffed animal that was perfect for
snuggling. Emmett glanced at me, and I nodded, hopefully
reassuringly. Maybe everything was going to be okay.

Emmett took the
bear hesitantly, ran his long, slim fingers across the fur, and
surprisingly, sniffed it. “I like how it smells. It smells like…
something.” Then he shook himself and laid the bear next to him.
“Are you really my father?” he asked Peter earnestly, staring into
Peter’s face as if searching for something.

Peter kept his
eyes on Emmett and nodded. Swallowing hard, he took out his wallet
and showed Emmett the picture he carried around. A baby picture of
Emmett.

“It looks a
little like me,” Emmett said, but he sounded uncertain.

“I can tell
he’s your dad,” I said. “Your blood smells the same.”

Emmett rapidly
glanced from one face to another, suddenly scared, if his
increasing heart rate was anything to go by.

“Don’t worry,”
I said hurriedly. “It’s just a gift I have.”

“You hit me,”
he said sternly, his soulful eyes never wavering from Peter as he
waited for an answer.

“He thought you
were something else,” Carl said softly, coaxingly. He would make a
good dad, I thought.

“He hit me the
first time he met me, too,” I said. “But Carl kicked his ass for
me.”

Emmett stared
at Carl, his eyes going from the walking stick and back to his
father. Then he laughed, for the first time, a real laugh, and all
of the tension leaked out of the room.

Everything went
easier after that. So easy, I was left with a cold feeling in the
pit of my stomach that warned things would eventually come to a
head. But not that day.

Peter and
Emmett chatted, although Emmett seemed more secure with others
around him. Emmett even asked to see a photo of his mother, and
Peter promised to show him as many as possible. I had to sneakily
wipe a tear then. He would never know his mother, and I knew how
that felt.

Carl left soon
afterward, and I escorted him to the door to thank him.

“Sorry for
snapping before,” I said.

“Meh. I’m used
to you.”

I pretended to
punch his arm. “Yeah, well, thanks for dragging him over.”

“Actually, he
asked me to come with him. He’s terrified. I never thought I would
see Peter so scared. All over that little squirt.”

I really did
punch him that time.

“Wow,” he said,
rubbing his arm. “In love already, are we?”

He laughed as I
pretty much shoved him out the door, but I gripped his arm at the
last moment. “Did you hear about Esther?”

“No, what?”

“Nobody’s heard
from her. From anyone who went to England. I’m scared for her.”

“Shit,” he
murmured. “What do you think is happening?”

“Maybe they
just have no way to contact us, or maybe they’re already on their
way back home. I just don’t know.”

“Try to stay
optimistic,” he said.

“Maybe I should
go over there.”

“Why? We don’t
even know if anything is wrong. Wait and see what the Council does
about it.”

I went back
inside and listened to Peter attempt to make friends with his son.
I almost dozed off until I heard Peter ask, “So how about coming
home tonight?”

“No!” Emmett
and I yelled at the same time.

Peter looked
confused. “It’s his home.”

“Yeah,” I said,
“and it’s the first place anyone will look if they want him
back.”

Peter stared at
me and, probably seeing the fear in my eyes, nodded. “Okay, but how
about I hang out here then? Just in case.”

“It’s up to
him,” I said, still annoyed at Peter.

But Emmett had
a new look in his eyes, something he didn’t hold for anyone but
Peter. Maybe he wanted to know where he came from. The importance
of family reared its ugly head again, but I ignored it because I
didn’t want Emmett to go.

“He’s safe
here,” I added. “Mrs. Yaga keeps us safe here.”

That night, I
put Emmett to sleep in my bed, and after I got Peter up to speed
with what had been happening with Emmett and Esther, I told him he
could have the single bed in the spare room.

“What about
you?” he asked.

“He has
nightmares,” I said. “He needs someone with him.”

“Well, I’ll
stay with him then. He’s my son.”

I made a
scoffing sound.

“Ava, stop,” he
protested, blocking my way as I tried to get away from him. “You
don’t understand.”

“What do I not
understand? You wanted this child so badly that you risked your
life to find who took him, then he’s dropped into your lap like a
gift, and you run away. What am I supposed to think of you?”

“You don’t get
it.” His shoulders slumped, and I stopped trying to escape. “You
don’t understand what it’s like. I gave up on him, Ava. I gave up.
I thought he was dead. I was looking for vengeance, not a rescue. I
have a baby. In my head, my son is a baby, not a nine-year-old boy.
It’s his tenth birthday soon. Tenth. But I still see the baby I
lost. I can’t make any fucking sense of it.”

“Deal with it,”
I hissed. “You don’t have time to lose your damn head over it.”

“It’s not just
that. It’s the guilt. I’m supposed to hate what took him, and then
I’m hanging around with you, getting all—”

“What the hell
is that supposed to mean? Since when did I become what took him? I
didn’t do anything to deserve—”

“That’s not
what I’m saying! It’s just you’ve distracted me, and I’ve gone off
the path. And you’re one of them, Ava. Whether you like it or not,
you’re not like me.”

“You don’t seem
to care when you’re—”

“Just stop it.
I should have known you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, fuck off,
Peter.” I stormed into the spare room and huddled on the bed under
the blanket. How dare he compare me to those things? How dare he
say I distracted him from finding his son? Guilt, indeed. Where was
the guilt from denying his child and leaving him with me?

I fumed in the
darkness for hours, my temper becoming an almost physical thing. My
body was so tight and tense that I grew sure moving would break a
limb, make it snap in half the way I wanted to break Peter’s limbs
for the things he had said. I was done with him.

But he crawled
into the bed later on, wrapping himself around me, his hand resting
on my stomach. “I’m sorry. It came out all wrong.”

“No, it didn’t.
And it’s stupid anyway. You should be upset that you punched him,
that you made him feel rejected. Instead, you had to focus all on
your stupid self.”

“Stop,” he
said, his breath warming the back of my neck. “I’ll take him
somewhere safe and get him out of your hair tomorrow.”

I stood
abruptly, shaking off his caresses. “He can’t be alone while he
sleeps,” I said as I left the room. I thought he would see how
upset I was and leave me alone, but he didn’t. He followed me into
the bedroom. I sat by the bed, and Peter knelt at my feet as I
watched Emmett breathe.

“He’s not
yours,” he said softly, his palms on my thighs.

“Thanks for the
reminder.”

“No, I didn’t
mean… I’m sorry, okay? For everything. The way I’ve been, the way
I’ve been handling it all. At first, I thought you were angry
because you were stuck with him.”

“Well, then
you’re an idiot. If you had stuck around, you would have seen how
great he is. I don’t want him to go because I don’t think you know
how to look after a kid.”

“And you do?”
There was laughter in his voice.

“Just shut up.
You’ll wake him.”

He laid his
hand on my stomach. “You think you want to have your own some
day?”

I shoved him
away. “I can’t. I wasn’t made that way. I’m not like you,
remember?” The lump in my throat made it hard for me to speak, but
I refused to cry. Being around Emmett seemed to have opened some
kind of weepy dam, and the sooner I got back to my old self, the
better.

“Ava, I’m so
sorry.”

“It doesn’t
matter. I would hardly bring a kid into this even if I had a
choice.”

He put one arm
under my knees, and the other behind my back, lifting me.

“What are you
doing, you lunatic?”

He laughed
softly. “Getting comfortable.”

He sat on the
chair, with me on his lap, and wrapped the blanket around us. I
leaned against him because I desperately needed the comfort. I
needed lots of things, but comfort was what he was offering.

He kissed the
top of my head, and we dozed off together. Me, Peter, and Emmett.
All together.

The next
morning, I forgot my worries for two whole hours. The three of us
had breakfast together, both Brannigans flashed genuine smiles, and
everything felt easy. I was comfortable and happy, and I knew it
couldn’t last. I was simply ignoring what was really going on.

I had woken to
another branding, a ring around each elbow, and I knew I had to
hurry, but I wanted to savour that feeling I had when the
Brannigans and I had breakfast together. Family was something I
craved, and I had gotten a taste of it for myself.

But Esther was
AWOL, and according to the branding, she wasn’t busy freeing the
twins from slavery. Shit was about to hit the fan, and I was busy
playing happy family.

Peter was a
different person around Emmett, and I was reluctant to bring him
back to the real world. He even climbed the wall to lift Dita over
to play, and I saw a different side to him, a way for him to heal,
a way for him to be the man he was always supposed to be. And if
there was hope for him, there was hope for me, too. Maybe someday,
we could all find a normal life.

Anka stood on a
box to look over the wall at Peter and the kids playing
together.

“That’s his
father?” she asked me.

“Yeah. They’re
getting acquainted again.”

She nodded.
“That’s good. He needs a real parent.”

My face fell,
and she apologised profusely. “It sounded… I meant… I mean, I’ve
told you how I feel about children having their fathers around. You
see the happiness on the boy’s face right now? It’s like that with
Dita when her dad spends time with her. Her little face lights up.
It’s beautiful to see, and I just can’t bring myself to take it
away from her.”

“I did okay
without my parents.”

“Did you? I
thought you had a story, too.”

I made a face.
“I’m okay now, though.”

“Didn’t you
ever wish for them? Don’t you want to know your heritage?”

“I’ve learned
enough of my heritage to last me a lifetime.” I pressed my palm
against the wall, digging my fingertips into the grooves. “There
wasn’t a point wishing for them. They couldn’t come.”

“Maybe you
should find out more. For closure. Dita told me she doesn’t want to
see her father anymore, not until he gives up drinking. I told her
he’s sick, that giving it up isn’t an option for him right now, and
she said she’s willing to wait. But she wanted to know everything
about him. And about me. She keeps asking questions about where we
came from, and I’m not sure what to tell her. She’s such a bright
little girl. She would know if I lie, but sometimes the truth is
dangerous.”

“So tell her.
She has a right to hear the truth. Trust me. It’s easier in the
long run.”

She nodded,
looking thoughtful. “Maybe I will. She’s been asking me about
Emmett, too, but I’ve warned her word about him can’t reach anyone
else’s ears. Don’t worry.”

I stared at
her, realising she meant it. “Word’s already out. But thanks.”

“Life will work
out the way it’s supposed to,” she said, and that kept me
thinking.

As I made lunch
a while later, Emmett snuck up beside me and touched my arm. I
flinched, moaning at the sudden pain.

“Are you hurt?”
he asked, his face creasing into a worried expression.

“It’s nothing,”
I said, but he tried to roll up my sleeve anyway.

“What happened
to you?”

He sounded
horrified, so I tried to play it down. “I owe someone a favour.
This is just a reminder.”

“I’m sorry.”
His eyes filled with sudden tears.

“What’s wrong
with you?” I asked, almost amused.