Page 48 of Out of the Darkness

The crowd laughed at her pleading, every one of them looking giddy and excited. Monsters. They were all monsters, and she silently prayed to whatever god was listening that they all got what was coming to them.

Colby and another man she never caught the name of managed to drag her to the refrigerator despite her struggling. Colby spun her around to face the camera, gripping her jaw in one of his hands. Both Xavier and Melanie were screaming at the camera, and Melanie was sobbing, but Madelyn couldn’t hear either one of them over the cacophony of noise. Nor could she look at them any longer.

“Say goodbye to the woman you love, Xavier!” Colby yelled loudly. “Because this will be the last time you see her alive! And then, I’m coming for you!”

With that, Colby and the other man lifted Madelyn off the ground and dropped her unceremoniously into the refrigerator. She landed face first, her arms slamming into the hard metal back. She cried out as pain seared through her whole body. She was pretty sure her shoulder had been dislocated, but her main concern was her baby as she had landed on her stomach fairly hard.

A sob wracked her body as she rolled over onto her back. She could see all of them crowding around to get a good look at her before they put her to death. Clint focused the camera on her face as he laughed and laughed while Colby reached out and grabbed the lid. The last thing she saw was the triumphant smirk on Colby's face as he slammed it shut, shrouding her in a never-ending darkness.

Once the lid was closed, everything else became muffled, and all Madelyn could hear was the rapid beating of her heart in her ears. Then, she was moving. She could feel the refrigerator being slid across the ground before she was finally shoved into the hole. Madelyn was thrown around the inside of her makeshift coffin like a rag doll, her head slamming into the sides before once again coming to a stop.

This was it. This was how she died. No matter what she did or how hard she fought, death was imminent, for both her and her baby.

Madelyn squeezed her eyes shut, pushing a few more tears down her cheeks as she began to mourn her child. They were going to die before they even had the chance to live. They wouldn’t get to experience crawling or their first steps, they wouldn’t learn how to drive or go to prom. It wasn’t fair and she didn’t understand how fate could be so cruel as to give her such a gift only to take it away just as quickly. But she guessed fate was a cruel bitch sometimes because, in just a matter of a few hours, she would be dead, and so would her child.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Xavier

The drive was taking way too damn long, and Xavier was nearly crawling out of his own skin. He was practically perched at the edge of his seat with his legs bouncing uncontrollably, not to mention the fact that his wolf was full of rage and aching to be set free.

The image of Madelyn being sealed inside the refrigerator, the terrified and helpless look in her eyes as Colby closed the lid and proceeded to bury her alive, was permanently burned into his mind. He was surprisingly nauseous, too, and more afraid than he had ever been in his life. He knew, without a doubt, that if they failed to reach Madelyn in time, if she was dead when they got to her, then he would have nothing left to live for and would probably end up taking his own life.

It didn’t take much for them to learn that Colby was hiding out at an abandoned Ranger’s station outside of town, and as soon as they figured that out, they were out the door. Xavier was sitting passenger while Isabelle sat in the back so that he could keep an eye on her. He allowed Isabelle to drive only because he was in no position to do so in his current state.

The problem was that their destination was a little over three hours away. Every second that passed was another moment that could be Madelyn’s last, which would mean the end of his child’s life as well.

The more he thought about it, the more he was getting used to the idea of being a father. Even though it hadn’t been planned, he helped to create a life instead of taking one. It was a novel thought, and he found that he actually wanted to see what it was like to be a dad.

The plan was simple, though he continued to go over it in his head just so that he would have something to do other than watch the scenery fly by. Melanie’s job was to go for Madelyn immediately. He even had her bring a couple of shovels so that she didn’t have to waste time looking for one. Meanwhile, while she was doing that, he, Isabelle, and the others were going to focus on taking out the threat. Rodrigo’s crew was tasked with taking them out anyway, so they had a common goal. Everyone knew that Colby was his to kill though.

Xavier had no idea how this was going to play out, but he did know one thing: Colby and the assholes who had chosen to follow him were not going to survive the night.

His body was tense as he stared out of the passenger window, fighting tooth and nail to keep himself from shifting right there in the car. It didn’t help that he could feel Isabelle looking over at him every few seconds, seemingly scrutinizing his every twitch and every shift in his seat. After over an hour of this, he had finally had enough.

“What?” he growled loudly, the volume of his voice shattering the quietness of the car and making both women jump. He couldn’t be worried about their feelings right now though. He was barely holding it together. “What is your problem, Isa?”

“N-nothing,” she stammered uncharacteristically. “I’ve just never seen you this tense before. You are usually more composed and put together before a job. It’s fucking weird.”

“This job is fucking different, you know that.”

“Yeah, but why?” she asked bluntly. “I mean, what makes this girl so different from all the other girls you’ve banged?”

Xavier’s jaw ticked as he ground his teeth together. He wasn’t in the mood to try to explain it to her, nor did he see why he needed to. They no longer worked together and his relationship with Madelyn had nothing to do with her. Surprisingly, it was Melanie who decided to answer for him.

“Oh, haven’t you heard? They’re fated mates.”

Isabelle raised an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

Through the side mirror, he could see Melanie roll her eyes. “It means they are soulmates. At least, that’s what he says.”

Isabelle let out a loud bark of a laugh, which was unlike anything he had ever heard from her before. He didn’t think she could make that kind of sound, and even his wolf stopped raging inside of him for a brief moment.

However, the longer she laughed, the angrier he got again. The situation wasn’t funny in the slightest. While Melanie had brushed Madelyn off when he asked for her after he woke up, he had thought that he set her straight about it. It was clear he had thought wrong.

“I’m sorry,” Isabelle said after a while, running a finger beneath her eye to get rid of a bit of moisture there. “I don’t mean to laugh, it’s just, Xavier doesn’t do serious, honey. Let alone soulmates. He tells girls what they want to hear so that they will spread their legs for him, but that’s it.”

Melanie snorted. “Are you sure about that? Because Madelyn’s pregnant, so I’d say that’s pretty serious.”

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