Page 6 of Locked Souls

Being undercover was fucking hard. I hated it, and the things I had to witness didn't help me sleep at night. I’m happy to be out of that hellhole, but I didn’t plan to return here. I’m too damaged and broken now to be anywhere near my family.

Laughter greets me as I step out into the sunlight, and I pause.

They can’t see me yet, and for that, I’m thankful. Chastity is standing there in a cute yellow sundress. She’s blatantly pregnant, and has a dark-haired little boy on her hip. She’s booping him on the nose as he giggles, and I’m frozen.

Jonas is talking with Bast and drinking a beer. If I wasn’t lost in my own head, I may have found that weird. They are at a religious academy, out in the open, afterall. But I can’t stop staring at the little boy.

Doing the math in my head, I think I may vomit.

“Are you coming, Spider?” he asks, and I shake my head. I open my mouth a few times, unable to find the words. He grunts, before leaving me in the bushes, hiding while I watch the loves of my life, like some fucking Peeping Tom.

What the fuck happened while I was gone?

Collapsing onto a bench, I watch as Chas goes off into the academy. Jonas and Bast are laughing with a man I don’t recognize and Jacob. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting, freaking the hell out about possibly being a dad, when Levi enters the yard with another little boy in his arms.

He’s wearing a light blue outfit and sucking his thumb. If I thought the baby that Chastity was holding was my son, I was mistaken; this child is mine. The resemblance is uncanny, and I feel sick.

My heart is racing and I’m trying to get my feet to move. I need to leave here before they see me. It’s not safe yet for me to return. Especially if there are even more innocents involved.

I have seen hell this past year and a half. I have watched children be taken, exploited, and destroyed. Broken down into a devastating shell. I won’t have that happen to my family.

Looking down at the ground, I drop my head into my hands, and I don’t hear him approach. Fuck, I should have forced myself off this bench and ran back to the underground.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Ash?” Levi growls, and I startle. Being around shady types that won’t hesitate to stab you in the back has kept me on edge.

I glance up at him and wince. Glaring at me, he crosses his arms.

“You need to leave. You have no idea what you put my family through. Months they looked for you. Not sleeping or eating. Where the fuck were you?”

I know I owe him an explanation, and I can’t tell him everything, but maybe because he’s a member of The Society, I can give him something.

“Levi, I…” I try to think of what to say, but he doesn’t wait. Laughing, he turns, shaking his head. “Wait, Levi, I… Fuck,” I shout, getting to my feet and gripping my hair tight.

Levi moves closer to me, until we are chest to chest. He’s fuming and I honestly can’t blame him.

“You don’t understand. I had to go. You know I owed a boon to The Society, and when they say now, they mean it. I can’t talk about it though, you know the fucking rules.” I plead with my eyes that he will listen and understand.

Sighing, he looks at me with not only anger, but hurt shining in his baby-blue eyes. “Do you know how many nights I held Chastity as she cried?” he asks, while moving back to the people I need to avoid. It’s bad enough that he’s seen me.

I follow him, but try to stay hidden under the trees. “We were ruined for months. The only thing that helped pull her out of it was when she started to feel the baby move.”

My throat clogs as I choke out, “Baby…” Is this where he tells me that little boy is mine?

“Yeah, we all moved on because we had to. Life doesn’t exist in a vacuum, Ash.”

I’m about to argue again that I had no choice, when he reached the others.

“Hey, did you find her yet?” he asks Jonas and Bast.

“Nope. I’m starting to get worried,” Jonas mumbles, then looks behind Levi, right at me. My heart feels like someone is stabbing it repeatedly, and if I thought seeing Chas again was going to be hard, it has nothing on seeing Jonas.

“Hey,” I whisper. I don’t know what else to say to him, and when his eyes fill with tears, I feel lower than low. Levi steps in and grabs him, pulling his attention away from me.

They continue speaking, but I’m not paying attention. My eyes are glued to the babies. Now that I can see them better, I can tell one is older than the other, but I don’t know which one is mine.

“Is… is he mine?” I choke out. My hands are shaking and I think I may pass out. Tempest gives me a look of shock and Bast growls.

“Wow, after all this time, you return and can’t even recognize your own son,” Bast says with a snarkiness that's new. He bounces the little boy in the blue outfit, the one I think is mine, then takes off after Tempest says they need to find Chastity.

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