Chapter Eight
Cas
When I wake it’s dark and everything is quiet when I go down to the bar. The clock on the wall says it’s one in the morning and Alannah is the first thing I think of. She’ll be at home even more pissed with me and I’m giving her the reason to let it brew. I have to go home.
I let the wind wake me up as I ride fast from the club all the way home. Riding hard enables me to clear my head and think of nothing but the road.
I’m surprised to see most of the lights still on downstairs and when I get closer, I see Alannah sitting on the porch swing.
I have to fix us. We don’t argue or fight over stupid things. We’re strong and I love that about us. I depend on our strength, I crave it, need it, fucking breathe it.
“I’m so sorry, babe.” Are the first words out of my mouth as I walk up the steps to my house.
“I don’t need an apology, I need my husband,” she says, getting up and coming over to me.
She slides her arms around my waist and I know we’ll always bounce back together.
“I’m here,” I promise her, “I’m always here for you.”
“I’m glad to hear it, come inside and don’t kick off.”
She pulls away but I’m hesitant to let her go. Why would I kick off?
“Come on,” she urges.
She takes my hand and leads me inside, my gut is telling me whatever is inside isn’t good, but my head is telling me my wife wouldn’t put me in a position I won’t appreciate, especially in my own home.
What the fuck? I should’ve stay at the club. Rising to her feet, Jacqueline stands in my house. I grab Alannah’s arm and usher her into the kitchen.
“Tell me why she’s in my fuckin’ house?”
“This is our house and you need to talk to her, she’s made it very clear she isn’t leaving until you have. So, get it over and done with, otherwise, you never will.”
She’s trying to help, I remind myself of that fact and stare at her.
“Do it for you, babe. Take what you need from her and then you can move on.”
I’ve always had questions, it’s natural to want to know the basics of your arrival into the world.
She kisses me, much too brief, and heads upstairs leaving me alone. I’m the president of the Lost Souls and I’m nervous to walk into my own living room and speak to a woman.
Inhaling deeply, I walk in and face her and make sure not to get too close. It’s painfully awkward and the room is thick with tension. I busy myself pouring a drink and neck it in one gulp, before pouring another and pouring one for her. I have a feeling we’re going to be having more than one drink. Handing it over, we sit, her on the couch, and I choose to sit as far from her as I can.
“You have a lovely home, and your wife is exceptionally beautiful.”
Am I to thank her for her compliments? It’s not like she gave a helping hand with them.
“It looks like you’ve done well for yourself.”
Still, I can’t speak. Everything I have is down to me. I grafted every penny and created my own world for my family.
“Please, say something,” she pleads.
“I’m not the one who has a shit ton of explaining to do. I already know I have a nice home and a beautiful wife. I have very little patience for you, so start talking.”
I swill my drink before downing it, hoping it will calm my inner inferno.
“I was twelve when I first ran away from home, and I was fifteen the last time I ran and never went back. I slept rough and sometimes in shelters if they had a bed that night. That’s where I met your father. He made me feel safe during a time I needed it the most. He was a charmer, and everybody loved him. You actually look a lot like him. I loved him so much and he was my knight in shining armour.”
She takes a small sip from her glass and I keep quiet. I want to ask her why she ran from home, but I stay quiet and she carries on.
“After four months, I found out I was pregnant with you and in my head, I thought we were going to find a house, he would get a job and we’d be a family. Only, when I told him he started yelling at me, saying it was my fault for not being careful. He had never spoken to me so violently before and he scared me. He told me if I didn’t get rid of you, he would take care of you. He shattered my dreams and walked out, leaving me with a black eye.”
She isn’t the tallest of women, nor the strongest looking, she looks like a strong gust of wind could blow her over, this time, I do feel something about him hurting her.
“Don’t stop.”
I’m afraid if she stops for too long, I won’t want to hear anymore.
“I couldn’t do it, you were nothing but a pip inside me, but I could feel you. You made me feel warm, it was then I knew what real love was and I couldn’t bring you harm. I lied and told him I had taken care of you and when I began showing, I wore baggy clothes and wouldn’t let him near me. He’d get mad and go elsewhere, I lived through it all and kept you safe in my stomach.”
“How old was he when you fell pregnant?” Is the first question I ask.
“He was nineteen.”
I get up and retrieve the bottle of whiskey and pour another drink. I don’t bother asking if she wants another, I fill her glass for her and sit back down keeping the bottle at my side.
“It was 3pm when my waters broke and as I had kept you a secret from him, I couldn’t let him find out at the last hurdle, so I went down to the basement in a house we were staying at and prepared for your arrival. I read all the books at the library on giving birth and made sure I had everything I would need. I spent thirteen hours alone and petrified until you came along, a perfect baby boy. I allowed myself half an hour with you before I wrapped you up in the softest blue blanket I stole from the store and laid my cross across you and took a photo that I could keep. One token I could keep with me…”
“Get to the part where you dumped me like trash,” I growl.
I can’t stand to hear how she showed me tenderness. It’s not fair. I wasn’t old enough to remember that shit. I don’t need it running through my head now.
“I was tired, and I felt weak, but the determination to get you away overrode every muscle crying out for rest. I held you in my arms and I crept up into the hall, you started to whimper so I hurried out the door and out onto the street. It was cold, so I kept you close as I walked to the hospital. My plan was to leave you inside where you would be found quickly but there had been a major accident and there were too many people around. I couldn’t risk being seen. I saw the church down the street and it still had its lights on. There was a side door and I knocked until I heard the keys turning in the lock. I quickly kissed you and laid you on the floor and then ran behind the trees. I made sure they took you in before I walked away. My heart has always been with you…”
“Don’t give me that shit, your heart was never with me.”
“Oh, it was, each day that passed was a day closer I got to see you again.”
“It took thirty-five years,” I sneer, “Thirty-five fuckin’ years to want to be a mom…”
“I’ve always been your mom, I just wasn’t with you.”
This makes me laugh. Is she for fucking real?
“We have different definitions of what makes a mother. My wife is a mom, she’s here every day, she tucks my son in every night, she’s here every minute of every fuckin’ day. That’s what a mom is.”
I’m losing my temper. Fuck her for having this power over me.
“A mother protects her child, that’s how I’m your mom, I protected you.”
I stand, unable to sit any longer.
“I watched Alannah when our son was born, nothing could come between them, not threats, not even me. Her love was so strong for him I could feel it. I feel it every time I’m in the same room as them.”
I light a cigarette and take a much-needed drag. Lana will give me grief for smoking in the house, but I couldn’t care less right now.
“What was so b
ad you protected me by discarding me away. I was a baby, vulnerable and completely dependent on you,” I roar, “My so-called father threatened you once and you hide me. You’re pathetic and weak or you’re feeding me a load of fuckin’ lies.”
“I’m not lying, it’s the first time I’m able to speak the truth. Maybe I’m not explaining myself correctly.”
“You’ve done enough explaining for one night, you need to go now.”
I can’t hear anymore tonight. I’m too tired to process it all. She rises to her feet and comes to me. She barely makes it up to my chin, I look down at her and her pain is as clear as mine, but I like that she’s hurting. It makes me feel slightly better.
“One time, he threw me down the stairs because he cut himself shaving. It wasn’t my fault, yet I was the one he took it out on. Another time, I hadn’t got his lunch ready fast enough and he ended up breaking my jaw. I couldn’t speak for weeks, which he took great delight in telling me he enjoyed. There were countless times he would hurt me and each time I came around or woke up in the hospital, I was grateful you weren’t there to take my place.”
I look hard into her eyes and I hope she gets the hint. I couldn’t care about her hardships.
“If you want to exchange hard times with each other, we’ll have to arrange a pity party another time, I’m done for tonight.”
“Castiel, please. I’m trying to make you understand how it was…”
“You’re giving me excuses, by all accounts you ran away once, you could’ve run away again and kept me.”
“How was I supposed to support you? Keep you fed and warm, I was fifteen years old.”
“Do you know where I was at fifteen?”
She wouldn’t know, and she shakes her head.
“I was a runaway, it was easier to steal food than it was to be fed at the foster home. I survived and so could have you.”
“Have you ever made a decision where you honestly thought you were making the right one, no matter how hard it was, it didn’t matter because it was for the best?” she asks, stepping even closer to me, “I wasn’t to know you wouldn’t be adopted, I’ve spent years being jealous over a family you’ve never had and a family I thought you loved, believing they were your real parents. I can never apologise enough for being so wrong.”
I’ve blamed this women for everything for so long, I don’t know if I want to move forward with her. She sure as shit doesn’t deserve it and I can’t listen to anymore.
“If you don’t leave, I will make you leave, and you don’t want that. I said I’m done for tonight, and I am so fuckin’ done.”
She doesn’t argue with me and grabs her purse. I turn my back on her as she leaves, and I release a long breath when I hear the door open and close.
I fall back into the chair when I’m alone. I try to imagine her giving birth all alone in a cold and dirty basement and being a child herself.
I shut my heart off for a mother a long time ago when I realised I was never going to have one, now it’s tightening, and it feels like I can’t breathe.
Lashing out, I throw my glass at the wall and it smashes into tiny pieces. It’s not enough, I leap off the chair, and flip the table over, the contents fall to the floor.
Anything that moves, I throw around. The couch, everything on the shelves, and lastly, the tv.
How fucking dare she show up in my life and admit she got rid of me because my pussy ass father threatened her once. It’s the most pathetic excuse I could’ve heard.
I drain the last of the whiskey and that too is thrown across the room. Falling to my knees, I look up and see Alannah is sitting on the stairs silently watching my breakdown and that angers me most of all.
“I don’t need you looking at me like that,” I grunt.
“Why don’t you smash the place up even more then, we have a shit ton of breakables in the kitchen you can smash.”
Rising to my feet, I close the door on her pity and search out another bottle of whiskey from the cabinet.
Chapter Nine
Sparky
I left the club last night with Cas out of it in his old room. He needs us even more these days and we’ll be there for him. I wasn’t surprised to get a call from a prospect in the night to say he had left to go home. So now I’m riding out to his place to check on him. I hear bits from Bonnie that her and Alannah have spoken about and what I’ve heard isn’t good. His bike is in his usual spot on the drive and I pull up beside it.
I cut the engine and I can hear Leo from the back yard. If he’s out back Alannah and Cas are never far. Instead of knocking on the front door, I walk around to the back and Alannah is sat on a blanket as Leo runs around. Cas is nowhere in sight.
“Sparkyyyyy…” Leo calls and I kick his ball over to him.
“It’s a little cold to be out here, isn’t it,” I say, sitting down beside her.
“It’s better than being in there,” she says, nodding towards the house.
She sounds tired and sad and I don’t like it.
“How is he?” I dare to ask.
“He’s not good. I brought his mother here last night, I thought if he would talk to her he could find some peace with his past. I was wrong, he lost it after he told her to leave.”
She doesn’t look at me as she speaks, and it makes me nervous. Alannah is a fighter, she fights for everyone and everything she loves. She’s resigned and down beaten.
“Lost it how?”
“Go in and take a look for yourself.”
I heave myself up and let myself in the back door. The house is quiet. Nothing is out of place in the kitchen. I cautiously walk through the hall to the living room and push open the door. What I’m seeing is not what I was expecting.
Every piece of furniture is turned upside down. The mirrors are smashed, the TV is face down on the floor, and the front window is broken. The only pieces still intact and where they’ve always been, are their family photos hanging on the walls.
I step fully into the room and find Cas passed out in the armchair. I backtrack to the kitchen and pour him a black coffee and take it in to him.
He doesn’t want to wake up but I’m not giving him the choice. It takes him a beat to keep his eyes open and he groans when he takes in the destruction around him.
“Where’s Lana?” he asks, clearing his throat.
“She’s out back with Leo.”
I hand him the coffee and pick the table up, I set it right and take a seat on it.
“You’re destroying your home now? I never thought I’d see the day you’d put Alannah and Leo in harm’s way.”
His head snaps up and he’s angry. He’s more than angry, he’s border line raging.
“I would never harm them,” he growls, coldly.
“Yeah, I used to believe that. But, I’m looking around and all I’m seeing is rage in your home caused by you. It would’ve scared your boy to hear you trying to destroy the place right under him.”
He briefly looks above him to Leo’s room and he sighs.
“You don’t understand…”
“Don’t I? My mom left me too, you’re not the only one. At least yours come to find you.”
He jumps up from the chair and glares at me.
“I didn’t ask her to show up.”
“Well, she’s here so deal with it, don’t do this. You’re not the guy who takes his anger out at home around his family.”
This seems to get through to him, he loses the anger and sits back down.
“She gave birth to me alone and in a basement.”
“The only change about your past is now you know it, it doesn’t change who you are.”
“I don’t need a pep talk, Sparks…”
“What do you need?”
“For everything to go back to normal.”
“So, get showered and freshen up and we’ll get back to business.”
While he drains his coffee, I make a start picking up the furniture and what isn’t broken, I set right.
> “Leave it, it’s my mess. I’ll sort it out.”
“I’ll wait out back for you.”
Cas
I head downstairs feeling fresh after a shower and slip into the living room. Alannah is still out in the yard with Sparky and Leo and I make quick work of righting the furniture and dump the broken bits out on the porch. I’ll have the prospects come by and get rid of the lot.
Satisfied, I grab my smokes and keys, and head outside. Alannah and Sparky have their backs to me and I catch what they’re talking about before I make myself known.
“You went to see her?” Sparky asks her.
“I wanted to check her out and I, um, may have offered her twenty thousand dollars to leave and never come back.”
She did what? Jacqueline didn’t mention it last night and nor did my wife. Then again, women never tell the truth, I just thought my wife was different.
“Barbs,” he groans, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Damn fucking straight she shouldn’t, what the fuck does she think she’s playing at?
I’m about to open my mouth and ask questions of my own but Sparky’s next question stops me.
“Where did you even get that kind of money from? I know you’re not stupid enough to pay her off with Cas’s money.”
“It was from my own stash, and it would’ve been worth every penny if it meant Cas…”
“If it meant I what?” I growl, stepping closer to them.
She jumps up and spins around, Sparky pulls himself to his feet and releases a long breath.
“You tried paying her off with cash from your own stash? Why do you even have that much? Did you plan on leaving me one day and thought you’d burrow away savings?”
“I’m sure that wasn’t her intention,” Sparky jumps in, defending her.
He’s always defending her. No matter what has happened or what she has done, he jumps straight to her defence.