Chained (Caged Book 2) (13 page)

It had taken me longer than Kloe. It hadn’t been until I had delved into Kloe’s life that I found out exactly who her step-father was. My shock had been devastating. Hank and Mary had often goaded me with the fact that I had been born solely for their sick and twisted entertainment. A part of me hadn’t wanted to believe it; I’d wanted to think it was another of their cruel ways. Yet deep down I had known, believed. And finding various newspaper articles that led right back to Kloe confirmed it.

I gathered Terry had seen all the media coverage when the Dawson’s had committed suicide and I had been brought out of the basement, and then that led to Kloe being the therapist who had been assigned to me. I imagined Terry’s shock had been as great as mine.

But then he’d have realised exactly what this could mean for him. His fake death could be uncovered, the heinous act of selling his own child would have come out into the open, and the imprisonment and abuse of his step-daughter exposed. All because fate had brought two broken souls together.

So, of course, he had to bring Kloe near, make her trust his son, Robert, just to see what she knew, what she disclosed to him, and whether I was in her life.

And then, when Robert had found me at Kloe’s, Terry knew he had to act quickly. But he wouldn’t have banked on me taking Kloe and hiding her out at mine. I presumed he knew exactly who I was and what I did to earn cash, so just trying to take me out had suddenly become harder than he initially thought, but he knew he needed to silence both me and Kloe before we revealed exactly what kind of man he really was.

I watched in silence as Mike set up the scanner. My heart was already in my stomach, my nerves frayed. There was a part deep down inside me that knew after what Kloe had gone through there was no way a baby had survived that. But, and this was a big but, my soul told me to trust, to hang on for just that moment longer before I accepted what my head was telling me.

My jaw ached as I watched Mike part Kloe’s legs. I wanted to punch the fucker for touching her, and I bit down my anger, blowing out a breath to calm my possessiveness.

Keeping my gaze on the small screen, refusing to torture myself any more with the face of another man between my woman’s legs, I gritted my teeth and prayed.

A phone rang somewhere in the house. The rain that had been beating down hard since the early hours tapped on the window. The wind howled, whistling through the trees and creating eerie silhouettes on the walls inside the room.

I didn’t see anything other than the flicker of the monitor. I didn’t hear anything, only the thud of my pulse in my ears.

Blurry images showed nothing but static, and my pulse, which I’d heard raging in my ears for the last few minutes, ceased. No baby appeared on the grainy image. There was nothing but white lines and grey mass and black vastness.

Mike seemed lost in his procedure, continuing to shift the probe around as my soul crumbled within me. I grew angry with him, the emotionlessness way he carried on regardless building the rage in me to a dangerous level.

My eyes narrowed on him. Was he taking the piss? There was obviously nothing but an empty womb yet he carried on prodding and poking like he couldn’t get enough of Kloe’s cunt.

He finally turned to look at me. Ignorant of the storm building around him, he smiled at me. “Your lady is one strong fortress, Anderson.”

I blinked at him, his words not making it through the humming in my head. “What?”

He tipped his chin to the screen.

Slowly moving my eyes, my breath shunted when the outline of a small, but perfect, jelly bean wriggled against the reservoir of black emptiness on the screen. A blinking dot flashed rapidly and Mike pointed to it. “He has a strong heartbeat.”

“What?”

He smiled again then his expression saddened. “There are remnants, fibres, in the amniotic fluid. I assume this little guy here had company.”

“What?” I couldn’t seem to form any other word.

“Twins, Anderson. I’m so very sorry but one didn’t make it.”

“But…”

When I couldn’t finish, Mike grabbed my forearm gently and nodded. “You’re going to be a father in roughly thirty-two weeks.”

Of course I wouldn’t be here that long, but the overwhelming happiness for Kloe that engulfed me was astounding. “She’s still pregnant?”

“She’s still pregnant,” Mike verified with a larger smile. “Congratulations.”

My legs shook and I dropped heavily onto the edge of Kloe’s bed.

Mike quickly packed up his stuff. “I’ll be back in a couple of days. Caroline will remain here for the near future, just until Kloe is back to her usual self.”

Lifting my eyes to him, I sighed. “And you think that’s a possibility? That she’ll get over this?”

He looked anxious for a second. “There’s always a possibility of anything, Anderson. Kloe is strong health wise, but her psychological strength I can’t determine quite yet. Time is on our side here, and all we can do is wait.”

Giving him a short nod, he returned one of his own and left, quietly shutting the bedroom door shut behind him.

Sliding my hand into Kloe’s, I couldn’t hold back the grin, even if my gut didn’t dare to hope. “Did you hear that, my little wolf? You kept our baby safe. You’re already such a good mother.”

She didn’t respond. She continued to sleep in the realms of peace where she belonged, for a short while longer, anyway.

And I would be right here, beside her, chasing away the demons in her nightmares until her mind would accept that everything was going to be okay. For her, anyway.

I
WAS COLD.
S
O VERY
cold. A shiver raced over me and I gritted my teeth at the ice that seemed to weld my jaw together.

Everything was dark.

I felt his hand in mine but the soft way he was breathing told me he was asleep. I didn’t want to wake him, but I needed to.

“Anderson.” My voice was choked, raspy and quiet, and I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me. “Anderson.” It took effort to squeeze his hand, but putting all my strength into it, I felt him jerk.

He gasped. “Kloe?”

“I can’t see, Anderson.” Sensing his hesitation instead of seeing it, my chest heaved with panic. “Anderson! I can’t see!”

“Hey, hey,” he soothed. His voice was soft, the softest I’d heard it since we had been trapped in his room at Seven Oaks, his request to kiss me taking his courage and making his voice low and cautious. “It will be okay. It’s just your mind needing a reprieve.”

I knew he didn’t believe that as much as I didn’t and I screwed up my face in frustration. When his hand settled on my cheek, I pressed against his touch. “What if it isn’t?”

“There’s no point worrying about something we’re not certain of yet. Give it time. How are you feeling otherwise?”

It was one of the most stupid questions I’d ever been asked, and I huffed. “Hunky-dory!”

Clicking his tongue, I felt him tense beside me. But then, as if catching himself, he relaxed again. “Our baby is still alive.”

Every part of me froze in shock. I daren’t hope. I daren’t. Anderson could be cruel, and although I felt every bit of his kindness radiating around me, I also knew his words could have been a sadistic joke.

“Kloe?” he pressed when I didn’t answer him.

I wanted to see the truth in his eyes, determine the lie in the vivid green of his eyes. But I couldn’t. Frustration grew and I shifted angrily. “Please don’t lie to me, Anderson. Not about this. Please.”

“What?”

“You’ve lied to me over so many things. I can’t see you. I can’t see the facts in your eyes. I can’t establish what’s real and what isn’t with you if I can’t fucking see you!”

His hand tightened in mine and I tensed when I felt him close in on me. His breath tickled my cheek and then drifted over my ear. “It’s the truth. Our baby is still alive. You were carrying twins, and unfortunately, one was lost. But the other, he’s fit and strong, Kloe. His heart beats as hard as yours and mine.”

Something broke inside me and a wail reflected the turmoil that had been disturbing me. “I thought… I thought because I wanted to… to kill my own child that… that…”

Anderson’s arms came around me and he smothered me to his chest. His fingers cupped my head and his thumb twirled a short length of my hair. “That’s just silly. Nothing you did makes this your fault. It’s all on me. It’s all because I was too fucking stuck on revenge to accept the truth.”

“The truth?” I asked as my tears soaked his t-shirt.

“That none of this is your fault. It never was. I was wrong, Kloe. I admit I was wrong. All my life I’ve never understood how my parents could do such a thing. There had to be a reason. And I looked for a reason nearly all my life. And then there you were, and it was so easy to put that blame on you. Blaming you helped me to make sense of it all. It helped me to free the guilt. But it also made me believe a lie. A lie I wasn’t willing to trust but couldn’t seem to find another explanation to make that stupid one go away. I had to have something, anything, to blame. And I blamed you. I was wrong.”

I couldn’t begin to translate his statement. I was tired and his declaration deserved more than a quick thought and a half-hearted argument on my side. “Okay. I’m tired, Anderson, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to talk about this more.”

“I know. I just needed to say it before…”

He clammed up and I tilted my head, listening to the change in his breathing. “Before what?”

“Before I can’t.”

Well that didn’t make any sense, but before I could react to his puzzling words, he slipped his thumb against my lip, telling me he needed my silence. “Terry is waiting for you.”

Fear, just with his name, settled into my bones, and I sucked in a breath as my head shook from side to side. “Waiting for me?”

Quickly, Anderson realising his mistake, said. “No, not like that. I have him. He’s in the basement. Waiting for your vengeance.”

Visions of the last week flooded me and I winced. “I didn’t let him in, Anderson.”

After a short silence, he asked, “What do you mean?”

“He wanted my sanity. But I wouldn’t let him have it. I tried so hard to keep him out, and I think if you hadn’t turned up when you did, then he would have forced his way in.”

“You have no idea how strong you are,” he whispered.

“You. That’s all I could think of. Throughout it all, everything he did to me, I kept telling myself that I couldn’t let him win. I couldn’t fail you. I know he did what he did to me to hurt you, so I wouldn’t let him. Physical pain I can handle, but I refused him the mental torture he tried to put on me. I pushed him out, I closed off to him.” I turned my head, looking at him without seeing him. “You think I forced this blindness on myself?”

His sigh was heavy. “Maybe. Maybe it helped you. If you couldn’t see, then you wouldn’t visualise the horror for the rest of your life. Like you say, physical pain heals, but mental pain burns itself to us for a very long time.”

His hand slipped to my belly and I lowered my own, the cannula that was stuck in the back of my hand catching and making me hiss. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as shame made my stomach twist. “I shouldn’t have said those things I said to you. I was angry. You will be a fantastic father. You have so much love to give, so much gentleness inside you.”

Sorrow seemed to seep from him. I didn’t understand; I thought he would have been happy. “Anderson?”

Shaking himself, he rubbed my tummy. “I know. I hurt you. You had every right to say those things.”

Before I could say anything else, I felt the bed move as Anderson stood. “You need to eat. You need building up, for you and our child.”

I opened my mouth to say I wasn’t hungry but the sound of the door clicking closed made me blink. Something was bothering him. Still, even now, he lied to me. He hid things from me. My heart had soared when he had told me he no longer blamed me, that he had been wrong. Now there was room for hope, for our future, and for both of us. But I sensed Anderson didn’t think that way, that something was holding him back.

The silence made my blindness all the more real. My head flipped from side to side as my ears picked up various noises. Panic made my chest grow tight and my fingers dug into the sheet covering me. Being trapped inside a vacuum of blackness was brutal. We take sight for granted, well I did, and all of a sudden it was gone, leaving nothing but a gaping hole of things I couldn’t see, things I was vaguely aware of but unsure of. Every sound mocked me and my head spun from side to side, my eyes even narrowing as if I would be able to see through tiny slits instead of wide eyes.