Page 62 of The Butcher

“You heard the man,” she says, moving toward me quickly, wiping her bloodstained hands on the already soaked apron. “Inside, my dear.”

But the moment Mona reaches for me, as soon as her fingertips barely touch my hands, I burst into tears.

Loud, angry sobs push out of my body, shaking my shoulders, forcing me to double over and wrap my arms tightly around my middle. I’m almost immediately short of breath, panting while I cry, my tears streaming down my face and falling to the ground at my feet.

What the hell is going on?

Mona catches me just before my knees give out, supporting my weight the best she can despite our height difference, but the smell… My god, the scent coming off of her has me somehow crying even harder than before.

“Oh, pretty girl.” She sighs and she pulls me to her, hugging me while she begins swaying back and forth. “I know why they brought you, but this wasn’t the way.”

“I-I-I d-don’t…” My voice breaks as I cling to Mona.

I have no idea what the fuck is happening right now but I am completely overcome with whatever it is, and I can’t even get the words out to try to explain anything, or ask any questions.

Mona rubs my back for a few moments longer, waiting until my body stops shaking before pushing my shoulders back to look me in the eye. “I need to get you inside, dear. It’s too cold and dark, and I need everyone focused now that The Butcher is awake.”

I nod and frown, wiping my snot on my sleeve while a few more tears slip down my cheeks. “The Butcher?”

“So much to tell you, and not the way you’re about to hear it.”

This woman is making no sense right now. None. And I really need her to because Nash and Clayton are obviously busy, and I’m too much of a mess to ask her to elaborate on anything.

Mona searches my eyes before hesitantly lifting her hands to my face. She cups my cheeks, swiping at the tears as they finally slow. “There are four other men in there. Four aside from yours.”

My brow furrows as I start to rub my biceps.

Has she always been so strange?

Not that I’ve known her for a long time, a couple of months from what I gathered, but in all of our interactions, I don’t think Mona has said such vague or cryptic things to me.

“Pap,” she says as she reaches for my hands and begins leading me toward her house. “You don’t need to worry about him. He’s crazier than a loon these days, but he’s a good man, and he’s nothing to worry about.”

I just nod because I don’t know what else to do.

“Then there’s Rex and Ezekiel. They’re my Maeve’s mates. Two of them, anyway, we lost Carlisle shortly before we lost my girl.”

“Your daughter?” I glance at Mona and see a soft, sad smile on her face.

“My only one. I’ll tell you all about her someday.” She loops her arm through mine, her entire demeanor different from the way it was when she first came outside. And it’s helping me calm down. “You don’t need to be afraid of Rex or Ezekiel, either. They’re a little more intimidating than Pap, only because they aren’t cuckoo bananas or shriveled, but they’re big softies, and they only want to help.”

I sure hope she’s right.

Especially as we walk into her house and I’m overcome by the urge to cry once again.

“Arrow is new to me.”

My head swings in her direction as she says that name. “Arrow?”

Mona nods. “He came in with Butch. Not sure what the story is there but he seems nice enough. Young. Terrified.”

If he’s the same Arrow I heard about at the ranch, he has every right to be.

But I don’t say that. I don’t say anything.

For some reason, I’m more afraid of telling these people about where I came from than actually being isolated with a bunch of strangers, and I’m sure that’s just another way I’m ridiculously screwed up, and will probably get myself killed at some point. But I’m convinced that if I tell them I’m a Harden omega, they’ll take me back and turn me in. There’s too much power thriving in that hell hole for me to believe otherwise.

“I’ll take you there,” Mona says as she helps me with my coat and boots. “You’ll feel better once you can see him.”

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