Book 2. His Found Lycan Luna Chapter 13 Azalea POV Walking out of my room, I was greeted by Liam, who came over and looped his arm through mine like we were best buddies. âAnd what adventure are we going on today, my Queen?â he asks, and I chuckle, looking around for Dustin.
âDustin went to get your breakfast,â Liam says as I glance around.
âIâm not hungry. I just want to see Abbie,â I tell him with a frown as I walk down the steps toward Gannonâs room. Abbie hadnât left the room since that first night back, and I know that is why Gannon wanted to take her somewhere, and I wanted to see Abbie before she left.
Kyson told me she was leaving through the mindlink. It always freaked me out when he used it. Not used to having someone in my head, let alone being a part of something. Abbie was rogue again, and I hated that, but she refused to let Gannon mark her. Every time I asked Kyson to make her pack, he said she refused and he couldnât unless he changed her.
I knew why. She didnât think she was worthy of having good things, but that wasnât all. If Gannon couldnât change her, then she wouldnât be Lycan, and I donât know what I would do without Abbie. Gannon stopped by not long after the King left to let me know he was taking her somewhere and that they were leaving after lunch.
Walking through the winding corridors and toward the back of the castle, I knocked but got no answer.
Looking up at Liam, he gripped the door handle and pushed the door open, and stuck his head in the door.
âI think she is showering,â Liam whispers, although he had a strange look on his face like he knew something I didnât, so I push the door open wider and step inside.
âI will wait here. Gannon isnât here,â Liam says, sniffing the air and looking away from me awkwardly. I give him a nod before stepping into the darkroom. The curtains closed, and no light made it a little difficult to see as my eyes adjusted to the darkroom. I managed to kick my toe on a coffee table and felt like cursing the damn thing. Making my way to the bathroom, I knock on the door.
âAbbie? Itâs me,â I call out to her, but I get no answer. However, it sounded like she was crying behind the door, and I suddenly knew why Liam didnât want to come in. Glancing around the room, I open the door and close it behind me. Turning to face the dark bathroom, I find the mirrors are covered over with large sheets of black paper, the bathroom darker than the main room, the air thick with the salt of her tears and the billowing steam.
I instantly broke out in a sweat. It was like a sauna in here. Muttering could be heard from the huge glass shower stall that was fogged up.
âAbbie?â I whisper, opening the shower screen. I find her in the bottom of the shower, scrubbing herself viciously while pressed into the corner. Her skin is bright red from the heat of the scalding water. I knew she wasnât okay. Everyone knew that but seeing her like this broke my heart. She stops like she hadnât realized I was here. Her head lifted and she just stared vacantly ahead. A scourer clutched in her hand, something you would clean a heavily stained pot, not skin with.
âI can still feel his hands, Az, still taste his vileness in my mouth,â she whispers while staring off vacantly.
A tear slips down her cheek before disappearing down the drain with cascading water. Her lip quivered as stepped into the shower, my clothes becoming saturated, and the water was scalding hot. I move over to her near the far wall and sit beside her. Some parts of her skin were bleeding like she had scrubbed herself raw. The scars that littered her body are raw and angry but thankfully healed, now just raised from the scrubbing âSometimes it is okay to remember the dark parts, Abbie. Just donât stay there too long, donât let it trap you, donât give him the control he no longer has over you,â I tell her, and she turns her head to look at me. I grabbed her hand, clutching the scourer, and laced my fingers through hers.
âI donât want control, I want to forget, I want to hate him and still not love him. How can you still love someone even after they do something like that? I should have listened to Gannon. I should have stayed,â Abbie whispers.
âIt was the mate bond. That wasnât really love, just some twisted version of what you perceived as love,â |
tell her.
âI was naive, stupid,â she scolds herself.
âNo, you wanted something more than what we have been given, and thatâs not your fault,â I tell her. I sit with her, letting the boiling water scold my legs. Thankfully she only had her legs under the water, the rest of her pressed against the wall. Yet her skin was raw and raised.
âI canât live like this, Az. I donât want to anymore. I donât want to be the broken doll,â
This wasnât my Abbie, this Abbie had given up. This was what was left. She looked as helpless now as she did when we first stepped into that orphanage. Only then we were younger, and children. Children only know what we are told, accepting of whatever fate we are handed because we donât know better.
Yet now that we are older we see the horrors of the world with a different light, we see the monsters, the lies and understand nothing about our childhood was normal. What we thought was normal no longer is, and this new normal we are still uncertain of. Comfortable with pain because it was normal, comfortable in our own misery that was normal, so broken was normal. How do you fix normal?
How do break the cycle of a thought pattern, pain is not normal yet all we know, or I did know until I met Kyson, Abbie hasnât met her new normal she is still suffering in the version we grew up with. And I knew she was tired, tired of the old normal. She wears her resilience like armor, but now laid bare I knew for once she didnât want to keep carrying it.
âYouâre not broken,â I whisper despite the fact she looked it.
âI am. I donât know who I am anymore,â she whispers, staring off vacantly.
âYouâre my best friend, my sister. You are more than my life,â I tell her squeezing her hand.
âNo, we are you! We are rogue, we are whatever they let us be and nothing more,â she says.
âOnly if you let yourself be, you are not what he did to you, Abbie, you are not what the butcher did to you, and we are not what Mrs. Daley made us believe,â
âYou arenât. You are a princess and soon to be Queen, you are Azalea Ivy Landeena, I am rogue, I am nothing, and now everyone knows what they did, everyone knows the dirty things I wished I could forget, I am sick of them looking at me with pity, sick them looking at me with disgust, sick of being what he made me!â
âThen be Abbie,â I tell her putting my head on her shoulder.
âBut I donât know who she isâ Abbie murmurs, her voice emotionless.
âWhat they did to you is not you but a reflection of them. That is who they were, were Abbie. They are dead, and you are still breathing. They donât get another chance, but you do, so take it, donât let them chain you down in the memory of what they did. They donât deserve it. Live because you can and want to,â I tell her and she shakes her head and pulls her knees to her chest.
Abbie puts her head in her hands, and cries. Her shoulders shook, and I couldnât begin to imagine what she was going through, but she would get through this. She had to because this world wasnât worth being in without her.
âYou sound like Gannon, but even he looks at me the same as everyone else, even you do; I know you canât help it, but-â she choked out, her entire body shaking.