Page 65 of Tangled Fates

22

DEAN

As I sat at my kitchen table alone, I gazed out the window at the pack. I watched Levi hobble back and forth with Hudson, checking on everyone and generally making sure that things were running smoothly. The smoke from the fire we had started had long since dissipated, giving way to a bright, blue sky with not a cloud within it. The sun was out, children were running around while their parents barked orders at them, and for once it felt like the world wasn’t crashing down on our shoulders.

However, it had been four days since we had attempted to rescue Brody, and I hadn’t even so much as smelled a whiff of an oncoming vision.

I feared the worst as I sat there, sipping on my disgusting chamomile tea that one of the healers insisted I drink to help with my sleeping.

I’d been having a hell of a lot of nightmares as of recent.

“All right, time to check on Raven.”

I groaned as I pushed myself up from the chair. The lemon-laced tea could wait. I wanted to know how she was doing, because I knew her well enough at that point to know that she was carrying around a great deal of guilt on her shoulders. I wanted her to know that we’d regroup. Once we were all back in fine working order, we’d come up with a different plan—a better plan—to save Brody. One that wasn’t on the fly and reliant on second-hand information that my brain decided to pass down whenever it was convenient.

But when I found myself at Raven’s front door, I knocked, and knocked, and knocked.

With no response coming in between them.

“Raven?” I called out. “It’s me, Dean. Can you answer the door?”

I jiggled the locked knob before I knocked again.

“Raven, can you hear me?”

Fear gripped hold of my throat. I rushed around the side, looking for an open window, or possibly an unlocked door. I peered through the glass, squinting to see if I could clock her shadow. Or her presence. Or any sort of movement that indicated to me that she was okay.

“Raven!” I bellowed. “Come on, now!”

I made my way to the backyard and found that the sliding door had been cracked. I wasted no time in throwing it to the side before easing the screen door open. My head was on a swivel as I made my way into the kitchen, my lower jaw growing closer to the floor.

All of the cabinets had been thrown wide open.

And the refrigerator, of all things, was cracked.

“Raven!” I barked.

“Dean?!” she called out.

Relief threaded through my veins. “What the hell? Didn’t you hear me knocking?”

“I’m upstairs! Come on up!”

I shook my head as I walked through the house. The kitchen chairs were tipped over and the living room was in fucking shambles. Chairs were overturned. Books had been tossed to the floor. Every single cupboard and drawer and door had been thrown open, and amidst all of the chaos Raven sounded just as chipper as ever.

I slinked my way up the steps, trying not to focus on the cockeyed picture frames that Colin would have never tolerated being touched. And as I followed the trail of random items all the way back into the master suite of the house, I found Raven hunched over the bed.

Lost in her thoughts.

“Looks like you’re searching for something,” I said.

Her wild hair framed her face as she peered over her shoulder at me. My God, she looked so damn adorable, with her disheveled features and the chaos littered around her.

It was almost as if she thrived in it.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I walked up to her side.

She shook her head and looked back down at the faded pictures and articles and flash drives that she had sprawled out across the linens.

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