“As long as she stays in there, we’re okay.”
Hunter shook his head and said, “How will you contain that?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured, “but I’m hoping she’ll do it for us.”
“Are you saying that wasn’t her?” he asked in astonishment.
“Well, it was,” Stefan said, “and it wasn’t.”
Chapter 4
When Beth opened her eyes the next time, sunlight poured in through the window, adding a brightness to the world around her, a world she barely recognized. She was used to the darkness and used to hiding. Sunshine was a joy for her, something she hadn’t had a chance to appreciate in a very long time.
And, when she had, look what had happened. She was so sure she’d been safe, so sure she’d made a new life for herself. One that nobody could track down. Yet not only had they found her but they had taken her out so fast. If she hadn’t moved at the last moment and managed to keep moving, she would be dead by now. At that, she laughed bitterly.
No, she wouldn’t be dead; she would be living a life much worse than death. She would be their captive again and forced to do their bidding because the only other option was death. And, even after her escape from the compound, they had found her, and now she couldn’t do anything except live her life as they allowed her. Not a whole lot of good escaping did for her.
It was hard not to think on it now that his thoughts were in her head. And she hated her tormenter for it.
Showered, dressed in clean clothes, courtesy of Celina, Beth sat in the living room sipping tea, surrounded by the others. She didn’t want to be here, and neither did she think they wanted her here, but it seemed like she had to deal with that right now. Finally she looked at Stefan and said, “You’ve done well.”
He nodded slowly. “I have,” he said, “but it didn’t come without cost.”
“Isn’t there always a cost?” she asked. “It seems like the price is higher than most of us can pay.”
“It’s not higher than we can pay. It’s higher than most of us want to pay,” he murmured, studying her.
She shrugged, feeling oddly disconnected from the whole thing. A part of her didn’t even think she should have come, though she wasn’t sure what other options she’d had, if any. Obviously she needed his help, and he’d given it willingly, and, for that, she was grateful. “I need to leave, you know?” she said.
He nodded. “I know you believe you need to leave.”
She gave a bit of a laugh. “What does that mean?”
He said, “I think there might be another way, but, if you’re not ready to hear it, that’s a problem.”
“It’s not that I’m not ready to hear it,” she said. “You just don’t understand how difficult this is.”
“So help me understand,” he said.
“No,” she whispered. “You’ve already been through life on the compound. You need to stay out of it. You’re getting me back on my feet. That’s enough.”
He gave her a deep blossoming smile. “What you don’t understand is, I’ve been out for a long time, and my skills have gotten stronger, better, and faster.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “No, I’m not Superman, but I am not the victim I was before.”
“Good for you,” she said, “but I don’t have that same security, that same sense of assurance that I can do this,” she whispered.
“And that’s because you’re still running in fear, and nobody would expect you to be running on anything but fear right now,” he said. “Don’t misunderstand. We don’t expect you to handle all this on your own.”
“Aren’t you?” she said, shooting Hunter a veiled look.
“No, not at all,” Stefan said, “and, of course, we don’t necessarily understand all the ins and outs of what’s currently happening, but you need help, and I’m someone who knows you, who knows what you went through because I’ve gone through it myself, and I’m willing to help.”
“And why is that again?” she asked. “Why would you put yourself in a position where you could get hurt again? Or where those you love could get hurt?”
“I have safeguards here for my family,” he said, “so I’m not worried about them.”
“You should be,” she said, quietly studying Celina. “It’s obvious that she loves you.”
“And that love will not die at the end of this lifespan either,” he said, studying Beth. “You just haven’t necessarily come to that same acceptance yet.”
“It’s a little hard to,” she said, “when everything out there is so intent on hurting me.”
“And that’s something we have to fix. You need to have the same time to heal that I had.”
“And how do I get that?” she asked, staring at him.
“Fearful?” Hunter asked. “Again?”
“Who wouldn’t be?” she said, glaring at him.
“Hey,” Hunter held up a hand, saying, “I’m not making this more difficult for you.”
“Well,” she said, “you couldn’t prove it by me.”
He groaned. “Look. We’re not supposed to be at loggerheads here.”
She gave him another flat stare. “Then let me go.”
“I’m not holding you anywhere,” he said, and she just stared at him. He frowned, then looked at Stefan.
Stefan said, “That’s me, not Hunter.”
She said to Stefan, “Then let me go.”
“I can,” he said, “but you’ll just get hurt again.”
“Maybe, and maybe it doesn’t matter.” She didn’t know where all this defiance came from, but that feeling of being held captive would never go down well. She waited, edgy for him to answer.
Finally he nodded and said, “I won’t hold you any longer. You’ve been held for too many years in your life. I just wanted you to know that you were safe here, could heal here.”
“No, this is where you think I’m safe,” she murmured, “but you don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t,” he admitted, “but I’d like to think that you are safe here.”
“What you consider safe and what I consider safe are two different things.”
“Does it matter?” Celina asked impulsively. “You’re obviously still hurt, and people are out there after you.”
“And how will you handle it when they come here and burn down the house?” she asked Stefan.
He tilted his head and said, “A shield is around the property.”
She nodded. “There might be, but that won’t help you in this case. They have somebody who can create all kinds of hell with fire.”
“There will always be people out there who can do that,” he said. “It depends on what kind of fire and whether it’s that hard to put out.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them test it,” she said, “but I know he was working on all kinds of chaos with it.”