Chapter 453: Summons
Leilani
I jerked awake with a start and due to the force with which I had snapped out of my relatively deep sleep, I toppled over, nearly falling out of my chair, that is until large warm arms came out of nowhere, wrapping itself around my body to hold me stable.
My eyes snapped open with surprise and my breath hitched in my chest when I found a familiar pair of dark eyes peering down at me with worry and confusion pooling in them.
The arms wrapped around my body tightened and his scent... alluring, exciting, yet very masculine... drifted into my nostrils as if in an attempt to fully pull me out of my haze.
And that it did.
I blinked up at the handsome face, my heart still pounding in my chest as I whispered under my breath; "Thank you, Zevran."
He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that didn’t reach his eyes as he drawled; "What was it? A nightmare?"
But it was more than just a nightmare. It was a disaster.
I gulped at the memory... at the images that still floated behind my closed eyelids, repeating itself over and over again on a loop as if on a mission to disorient me.
I could still remember the raw fear I had felt. The chills that had spread across my body and the pain... the excruciating pain that had seared through my soul with each stroke of the whip as it landed on my body, tearing away at my skin until I was a mass of blood and raw flesh; and until I was sobbing so hard, my tear ducts had completely dried up.
"You seem pale," a different voice pointed out, snapping me out of my reverie. When I looked up, I found Caelum and Kael watching me closely, a flicker of worry crossing their faces as their eyes dragged from my face to my shaky hands.
I quickly crossed the said hands together, hid them between my thighs and whispered; "I am fine."
But no, I wasn’t. How could I be?
"I still think that it is a bad idea to have you returning to NYC just yet. You’re still very sore emotionally and have not fully recovered from—"
"I am fine," I snapped, cutting Caelum off from mentioning Jarek’s name, but he didn’t seem convinced. If anything, he simply nodded, turned away slightly and sighed.
And then I turned to Zevran. "Yes, it was a nightmare. How much longer do we have until we arrive?"
"An hour max." He responded after taking a brief look at his wristwatch. "You can go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up when we arrive."
The cabin fell into deep silence as soon as he said that, save for the occasional sounds of the wind due to the speed with which the plane moved.
I buried my face into a book for the rest of the flight, mostly because I couldn’t afford to fall asleep one more time. And before I knew it, we were landing, and I was back to panicking because... well, because this has been the home for most of the misfortunes I have. ever encountered in my entire life.
And now, I was sure that I was about to encounter another round of misfortunes.
—
The drive from the airport was chaotic, and I say so because as soon as we touched down, the triplets’ phones soon began to ring without stopping. Their emails were buzzing too frequently, and every now and then, one or all of them would pick up their phones, go quiet for a second and then hiss out a curse word.
It was that bad.
"We’ll be heading straight to the company from here." Zevran said to me after a moment, his eyes raking from the lit up screen of his phone to my face, "I am sorry we cannot go home with you right now but there’s a matter of urgency that we need to take care of."
"Don’t worry about me," I quickly cut in, not even batting an eyelash. "I am not heading straight home either. I need to attend to something important at Frostclaw. Inc."
It was high time I stopped running away from that place. High time I come to terms with the fact that Jarek had left me with a responsibility.
The thought made me shiver slightly but I was soon snapped out of it when I felt the way they all turned to look at me with shock and worry filling their eyes.
Kael was the first to speak. His eyes raked along the length of my body slowly but carefully as if afraid of looking at me for a moment too long. He drawled;
"Do you have to go right now? Don’t you need to rest?"
I could feel the worry in his voice. The affection... the warmth. But right now, I’d rather I exposed myself to quite the opposite of all of that than keep hiding like a coward.
I muttered; "I don’t."
He frowned. And in that moment, he reminded me of Jarek. Of how he would’ve been mad at me for over-exerting myself and refusing rest. Of how he would’ve called me stubborn... a mule...
The corners of my eyes burned with tears. "If I don’t go to the company, I would go to Keisha. Would you have me go to Keisha first?" I asked, and as soon as I did, all three responded by shaking their heads at the same time.
"No."
I turned away from them with a small smile and closed my eyes, but deep down, it was not satisfaction that I felt, it was not relief either.
It was restlessness.
I was on an extreme edge.
—
They dropped me off at the front of the familiar daunting building that held more sad memories than good ones, and as soon as I got off, taking in the sight in front of me, my chest suddenly grew tight.
My breathing became very labored and the corners of my eyes stung with unshed tears.
I could still vividly remember the first time I was here like it was the back of my palm. I could remember the look of pride on Jarek’s face as he watched me walk in. The way he had held my hand like a brother would and introduced me to every damn person in the building.
He used to speak for me then thinking that I could never speak for myself...
And now, he is no longer here because for some reason, he has decided to leave me to the world he once used to protect me from...
"Is that Ms Sinclair?!" A shrill voice suddenly drifted into my ear, snapping me to sharp focus.
My eyes lit up as I turned to look at the young woman who looked like she was about to hyperventilate from just looking at me. She clutched at her chest, swaying slightly as she pointed her other hand to me.
"Heavens! The rumors about her being alive are true!" She squealed.
At her outburst, more people turned to us—to me— their eyes widening as they took in my overall almost disheveled look from flying for the past several hours.
While most people were in awe, a majority looked completely scared. And as I strutted into the building, walking through the familiar halls that now felt very unfamiliar, the buzz around me only grew.
"Ms Sinclair?"
"Is that Miss Leilani?"
"I told you I saw her at the funeral! She even gave a speech!"
"I thought that the lady at the funeral was a fake! That they had only looked for her lookalike to give the speech!"
"How is it possible that she is alive when she was rumored to be dead?!"
"What if the corpse that was found in her house wasn’t hers but someone else’s?"
"Now I get why she probably went into hiding!"
As more words floated around me, my irritation only grew, and usually, this would’ve been the part where I would stop by to say hello or something to a person or two. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.
Not when my heart was literally in my mouth and not when it felt as though there were a thousand and one eyes on me all at the same time.
Goosebumps spread across my skin, causing the hairs on my body to stand on end; And for this reason, I didn’t stop walking even as more people stopped to stare... and until I was within the confines of my old office. My body shook as I slammed the door behind me and after plopping into my chair and burying my face into my hands, I let out a long sigh.
"Goddess!"
Just then, a knock sounded at my door and I whipped my head up just as a pretty auburn haired girl with the name ’Amanda’ written boldly on a tiny badge on top of her left breast, walked in.
She smiled and bowed her head, her voice small, almost trembling as she said; "Here is a letter for you."
I frowned. "So quick?"
"Yes ma’am. I found it in the mailbox a minute ago. It was addressed to you like whoever sent it knew you would come in today."
Those words made me freeze for a second and I couldn’t help but wonder who it might be and how they had been so certain, so precise even when I never told anyone about coming back.
I guess that is what I get for coming back to this shithole.
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