Page 28 of Always
Raven was born of Sofia’s body…
She doesn’t really talk about her life before Sofia married John, but from what I’ve gathered, her dad- a lawyer in LA- was a drunk, which led to her parents fighting a lot. But he showed up for her. Even toasted. But it caused Sofia to be embarrassed by him a lot. Raven says that towards the end, that Sofia’s disdain for Raven’s father seemed to have rolled over to her. I believe that.
The SUV comes to a stop in front of an old…huh. It’s a buildingnota warehouse. It looks old and crusty on the outside like you’d get tetanus if you touched it too long. There’s a huge ten-foot wrought-iron fence around it. It kind of looks like a small, abandoned prison. The walls are concrete and gray and there’s only a few barred windows every so often but not a lot. The parking lot is empty save two other vehicles, but I trust Damon and Maverick. They’ve been in charge of this entire thing since I’ve been busy but keeping me in the loop enough. I did put my gun in my waistband when we landed, though. Just in case.
We all get out and flank our wife.
We’re led into the facility and it smells like nobody’s been here for years. There’s water dripping on the floors and yellow fluorescent lights hang every so often. I get a weird sinking feeling this isn’t a normal warehouse. Ivan talks to one of the guards posted inside in Russian, and the guard leads us further inside, taking us to a lower level by a back stairwell. And yup. Conditions down here are worse.
I almost stop in my tracks when I realize there arecells.
Good.
I can hear Sofia scream something in Spanish but it’s so fast I don’t catch what she says.
Raven stops in her tracks and turns to face us. Her eyes narrow into a cute little death glare and she marches right back up the stairwell, so obviously, we follow. Once we’re alone in what I’m assuming is an old office ‘cause there’s a desk, her hands fly up so fast and my baby looks so cute when she’s mad.
What the actual fuck! Why is she here? Why are we here? What is going on?!
It’s Damon who speaks just as fast as she’s signing. “Amourette, we were able to track her here. Aleksi was able to set this up for us. This is our wedding gift to you.” He pauses momentarily while he searches her eyes. “What do you want to do?”
One hand goes to her side, the other to her forehead, rubbing it, then scrubs it down her face. She starts pacing but she’s visibly shaking. I want to go and comfort her but I’ve learned that when she needs space to figure it out, it’s best to let her mind work in that mysterious, villainous, beautiful way. My gorgeous killer queen. God, I love her.
She keeps pacing back and forth, running her fingers through her hair, only to grip it towards the back of her skull, where her crown would settle so her hair is out of her face. She stops, puts a hand on her hip and very slowly turns to face us, cheeks puffed up and exhaling slowly so they flatten again. When she lets go of her dark tresses, they curtain forward, framing her face andfuck. She’s so pretty.
Can you call Aleksi? I need to ask him a few things.She signs a bit slower this time but I know she’s still a little mad. Oooooh I wonder if she’ll take it out on me when she heals a bit more from the pounding we gave her on the plane?
Damon nods, plucking his phone out of his suit jacket. “Of course, Little Bird.”
He FaceTimes Aleksi, who answers with a huge smile. It’s loud around him and there’s lights hanging behind him. “Hey man, my guys just told me you got there on time. Is everything okay?”
Damon nods. “Yeah, Raven just has a few questions she’d like for you to answer.”
“Cool. Let me leave this restaurant and I’ll call you back in less than five. Just gotta pay my tab.” He hangs up and it takes him about fifteen minutes to call again. This time he’s in a car. “Alright, what’s up?”
Damon turns the phone to face her. She starts signing but Damon interprets for her. “I think I know what I want to do. You’re good with tech stuff, right? Sabrina said you… stream, or something?”
Aleksi scoffs out a laugh like he’s going‘duhhh.’ “Yeah, I stream.”
Raven nods, eyes moving about the room, gnawing on her bottom lip. Her brows furrow then rise. “D… Do y-you th-think you c-could f-find the d-deed to the M-M-Monroe m-man-mansion?”
I can’t see Aleksi’s face from this angle but he makes a humming noise in his throat. “Yeah.” He pauses. “Actually, I’m in Madrid. Maksim and I thought you might need me so I flew in. If you give me about an hour or so, I can get to you. I just have to stop by somewhere and get supplies but it shouldn’t take me too long.”
Raven nods and signsOkay.
Damon says a few more words to Aleksi then hangs up. Raven sits on the edge of the desk and bows her head, hair hiding her face. “What are you planning, Little Bird?”
Her head snaps up and an eerie smile crosses her lips but she doesn’t answer.
It’s like a switch in her turns off. I’ve seen it the few times I’ve witnessed her kill. The only time she wasn’t able to do it was when we had to take care of Axel. She had the knife right at his throat,right there, going in for the kill, straight for the jugular… but then… she couldn’t.
And we couldn’t let him survive.
I couldn’t let him take another breath.
Damon allowed me to go crazy. He let me beat Axel until he was a gurgling, purple, bloody mess. And I was gonna do it. I was going to slit his throat. I was aching to feel when he took his last breath beneath my grasp… But it was Damon who suggested we let him die the way Raven did. And it was Maverick who told us burying a corpse over a freshly dug grave was the best way to go - nobody would think of going out to look for that unless they were to exhume the body for whatever reason.
So, while Raven was catatonic and Damon and I were cleaning our mess, Maverick was looking up obituaries. He found one of some old guy that had died of a heart attack. So that’s exactly what we did between the three of us. We took care of it. And our bond has never been stronger. Especially now.
