This is book 2 in the "Beautiful Destruction" series. You MUST READ "Theirs to Claim" first in order to understand this one.
____
When I was ten, my father told me that all of my dreams would one day come true. Naively, I believed him.
I may have gr...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Chapter 9 : Caleb Friday, November 25th, 2022
I can't let Alec smoke. I can't let Xavier work.
I need to find Madelyn.
I need to find Nina.
I need to not break down, and I need everything to just feel okay again.
My eyes protest just about as much as my body, but I know that even a second spent sleeping is a second wasted—a second where Madelyn could be hurting, and Nina could be... I can't even think about what might be happening to her right now.
I can't stop until everything is put back together, not giving myself any other choice but to get everything back in line or risk breaking entirely.
All alone in this cold, empty house, my body almost jolted at the sound of the front door slamming, the sounds of dragging footsteps echoing in my ears.
Alec and Xavier were home, and considering nobody called out for me, I knew they had been unsuccessful all over again. And I, no matter how many times I replayed the footage of Nina screaming out, a large black figure pressing their hand to her mouth until she stopped fighting, found no hints as to who took her.
My body was shaking as I stared at the video again and again, hearing her scream and knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.
For the third time in my life, I felt powerless and it felt as sharp as a knife being pierced through my chest.
"Cal." Xavier's strained voice spoke from my office door behind me, causing me to flinch away from the screen. I wasn't surprised to see him all fucked up when I turned to face him in my chair, seeing the creases across his forehead—marks of his constant stress.
"Don't punish yourself like that." He says, folding his arms across his chest as he leans against the doorframe.
But I had been punishing myself for Nina's disappearance, because when Alec can't speak his way through things and Xavier can't fight, I'm supposed to be able to find things no one else can. What good is my job if I can't even use it to get to the things that truly matter? The very little good left in this world.
"Don't talk like you haven't been either." I shoot him down as I turn away from him, reminding him of just where exactly those cuts across his cheeks and lip had come from.
The guilt of shooting Madelyn, accident or not, has driven him into fights he shouldn't have been creating in the first place. There's a new gash for Alec to tend to every night that he comes home, pretending like he was just out for a bit of fun.
We all knew what it was, though.
We all grieved someone who was still alive and were terrified of the possibility of the same thing happening with Nina.
