Chapter 176 I Would Have Killed You

Caleb growled in response to her words.

“What did you expect?” she growled back. “You made yourself into the bait. You got what you wanted. He came after you.”

“He was supposed to come after ME, not my people.”

“Then you understand less about the shamelessness of a sadist than you pretend to!” she growled again. “You said it yourself, he enjoys the pain he inflicts, and he likes to see you weakened.”

Caleb stared at her with anger and frustration.

“What better way to show you that he is stronger and more capable than you are,” she said. “It would never be a direct attack. Even at your weakest, that would have been stupid.”

He let out an angry sigh.

“Granger knows the kind of leader you are. He knows how much worse it would hurt you to have failed to protect your people in a crisis,” Ashleigh sighed.

“I didn’t….” Caleb couldn’t finish his sentence.

He hadn’t thought about it. He had never considered that Granger would go after those around him instead of just removing Caleb. But Ashleigh was right. Granger had told him so himself, he enjoyed the pain he caused.

“You took a gamble, and you lost,” she said as she sat down on the couch with a deep sigh.

Caleb stood quietly for a moment. He always knew this moment would arrive and that it would be difficult to make her understand why he had lied. But he didn’t expect this.

She looked exhausted.

He got down on his knees before her, reaching for her hand. He was surprised she let him take it. He rubbed her hand gently with his thumb before saying anything.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, looking into her sad eyes.

Ashleigh sniffled and looked away. She pulled her hand back from him and hugged herself..

“I told them not to look for you,” she said softly through a sob she had tried to hold back.

“What?” Caleb asked, unsure if he understood what she had said.

Ashleigh closed her eyes.

“After the explosion on the platform, Fiona and the others were focused on trying to find you, securing you, making sure you were ok,” she said.

Caleb nodded.

“I told them to stop,” she said, looking him in the eye.

Caleb saw pain and sadness. He reached out to touch her cheek, but she pulled away.

“I told them you were fine, to focus on the others and not worry about you. That you would take care of yourself.”

“I did, I was,” he answered quickly, “I am! I’m fine!”

“I didn’t know that!” she shouted. “How could I?”

Her tears fell in rivers, her voice shattered, and he heard deep despair that he wasn’t prepared for.

“I told them to abandon you, and then I felt your pain… I saw the shed, the fire…” she managed to say between ragged breaths. “I saw your chair… your empty, bloody chair!”

Her tears were angry and desperate.

Caleb clenched his jaw and did everything to hold back his own pain. He was watching her unravel, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“I thought you were dead or dying, somewhere alone,” she continued. “One of these rogue bastards had gotten to you and dragged you off somewhere.”

She put her hand to her chest as her breathing became more difficult.

“The shed was so close to the party. I should have known. I should have followed the first explosion and come to you immediately!” she shouted through gasps. “If I hadn’t stopped them, if I just let them look for you, you… would… still… be… alive!”

Ashleigh’s breathing had gone into complete hyperventilation. Caleb could no longer stand by and do nothing.

He grabbed her, pulling her to his chest. Caleb moved himself onto the sofa and held her on his lap, rocking her and shushing her like a scared child.

“It’s ok,” he whispered through his own tears. “You’re having a panic attack. You need to try to breathe.”

Ashleigh gasped for breath. She couldn’t control it. Her mind was stuck at that moment, staring at the empty chair on the ground.

“Listen to my voice,” he whispered against her ear, “Ashleigh, come back to me. Hear my voice, follow my voice.”

Everything around her felt cold. She was shivering. The chair, the blood. Caleb was gone, but those wolves… they were there. They were coming for him. She felt the rage stirring in her.

Caleb felt the change in her breaths. She was calming, but it was too fast.

“Ashleigh?” he called to her gently.

But she didn’t respond.

He pulled away from her and looked into her eyes. They were glazed over, far away from him.

“Ashleigh!” he shouted.

Ashleigh could hear them circling the shed. Hear them laughing at having found one of the Summer wolves. She looked at the chair again. He was gone. The cold spread in her veins. The tremors were starting.

These wolves had come to destroy what was hers. She wouldn’t let them keep what was theirs.

Ashleigh’s body moved on its own. Her mind was lost in the fog of grief and anger. Her body was fueled by the rage inside.

Flashes of what she had done flew across her memory. There were only five when she stepped out of the shed. But by the time it was over, she had killed at least twenty.

The ground was soaked in blood and entrails. Not one of them remained whole. Bits and pieces of them all scattered across the forest floor. They screamed. They howled. They died.

“Ashleigh, please, love, please wake up.”

Ashleigh stood in the moonlight, drenched in the blood of these rogues. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of his voice calling her back.

She blinked heavily; the blood dripped from her chin. She looked around at the massacre that surrounded her. And then she saw him. Alive. Fighting.

He was fine.

Ashleigh raised her blood-soaked hands, and suddenly she was aware of what she had done.

“Please, come back to me,” his voice held such worry, such fear.

She closed her eyes and focused on them, listening to his words and feeling his warmth entering her cold heart.

“She’s coming back,” a voice she didn’t recognize said softly.

“Ash? Ashleigh!” Caleb’s voice came to her on the other side.

She opened her eyes slowly. Blinking several times, trying to focus on waking.

“Thank the Goddess,” Caleb sighed as she looked into her eyes.

“I’ll give you privacy,” the other person said.

Ashleigh looked over as he walked away. It was one of the doctors she had seen earlier in the hospital.

She looked around and realized she was in Caleb’s bed.

“What…” she started to ask.

Caleb grabbed her and held her tightly. She was surprised, but his warmth felt good. She hugged him back.

“What happened?” she asked.

He pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes.

“You’ve been in and out of consciousness for a few hours,” he sighed. “I didn’t know what to do… I thought you were so upset with me that you had a panic attack.”

He pulled away from her and let her sit up, but he held on to her hand, not wanting to lose physical contact.

“But it was something else,” he continued. “You didn’t respond, and you were freezing. So I moved you into the bed and tried to warm you up. But it didn’t seem to help.”

Ashleigh listened closely.

“I called in Jonah, the doctor you just saw,” Caleb said, pointing towards the door. “He said he didn’t know what it was either.”

Ashleigh nodded.

“It’s from–”

“The berserker rage….” Caleb interrupted. “Yea, I got desperate.”

He smiled at her, and she couldn’t help but smile back.

“I called Corrine. She said she didn’t realize how bad it was, or she would have already sent someone. Saul is on his way to take you home.”

Ashleigh could see that Caleb didn’t like this turn of events. She sighed.

“I have to go,” she said. “I pushed myself too far, lost control… it’s been years since I have done that. There are… treatments. But we only have them in Winter, and I need another berserker to guide me.”

“Yea,” he said. “Corrine said as much. Saul should be here in the next couple of hours.”

Caleb had a look of guilt that she didn’t like.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you, too,” he whispered back.

Caleb laid down beside her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

“Is this my fault?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“It’s both of ours,” she said. “You pretended to be crippled because you were afraid of Granger or the other Alphas tearing us apart.”

Caleb clenched his jaw. He had made the idea far more noble in his mind. But in the harsh light of day, she was right.

“I lost control because I thought I lost you, and I accepted the rage,” she said. “I killed all those people.”

“They were attacking us. They weren’t innocent,” Caleb stated.

“You don’t understand, Caleb,” she said. “There is a reason we have a limited number of berserkers. It’s difficult, yes, but it’s also dangerous. The rage makes us killing machines. If we lose control, we have no target. We will kill anything and anyone within our range or perception.”

“I understand, but–”

“No, Caleb, you don’t understand,” Ashleigh interrupted. “Those men, whether good or bad, didn’t deserve what I did to them. No one does. And if my rage had lasted even two more minutes, I would have killed you.”