4

Chapter 4: Emotional Neglect**

The next two weeks were a slow, freezing kind of hell.

I moved out of the apartment the same night Victor cleared the bar with nothing but his fists and a growl that still echoed in my dreams. Jessica and Lori dragged my suitcases to their couch while I sat on the floor staring at the wall, numb and hollowed out. Damien texted a hundred times the first day, apologies, explanations, threats, more apologies. I blocked his number. Then he started using Lisa’s phone. I blocked that too. Then random numbers. I turned the phone off completely and shoved it in a drawer.

I kept waiting for the big crash of grief, the kind where you scream and throw things and can’t get out of bed. It never came. Instead it was this quiet rot, like something inside me had died and nobody told my body yet.

Days bled together.

I skipped classes. My professors emailed gentle reminders about attendance policies. I didn’t answer. My dance scholarship required me to show up for rehearsals; I stopped going. The studio felt too bright, too loud, too full of girls who still believed in forever. Every time I tried to stretch at the barre, nausea rolled through me so hard I had to run to the bathroom.

Morning sickness. That’s what G****e told me when I finally typed the symptoms in at 3 a.m.

I bought the test at a gas station at two in the morning, wearing Lori’s hoodie pulled up to hide my face. Two pink lines appeared before I even set the stick on the sink.

Positive.

I sat on the bathroom floor and laughed until I cried. Because of course. Of course this would happen now.

I didn’t tell anyone. Not yet.

Jessica tried everything, ice cream, rom-com marathons, dragging me to coffee shops. Lori took a more direct approach. She showed up with a bottle of vodka and a lighter and asked if I wanted to burn Damien’s lacrosse jersey in the parking lot. I almost said yes.

But mostly I painted.

I turned Jessica’s spare closet into a makeshift studio. Canvas after canvas of black and red and bruised purple. Wolves with glowing eyes. A white dress soaked in blood. A platinum blonde screaming without a mouth. I painted until my fingers cramped and the smell of turpentine made me throw up again.

Damien still found ways to reach me.

Flowers showed up at the apartment, white roses, my favorite. The card just said I’m sorry. I let them die in the sink.

Then the jewelry, a delicate silver bracelet I’d pointed out months ago. Another card, I messed up. Let me fix it.

I threw the bracelet in the trash so hard it bounced out and skittered across the floor. Jessica found it later and quietly put it in the donation pile without a word.

He came to the apartment twice. The first time I hid in the bedroom while Lori told him through the door to leave before she called campus security. The second time Jessica answered and told him if he didn’t get off the porch she’d let me set his car on fire myself. He left.

Lisa, of course, posted everything online.

Couple selfies with Damien, her lips on his cheek, captions like “Found my real soulmate” and “Some people weren’t built to be luna.” Luna. Another one of their weird wolf-pack words. Her comments were full of heart emojis from girls who used to be my friends.

I stopped opening social media.

The morning sickness got worse. I could barely keep water down. My breasts ached constantly, and every smell, coffee, pizza, Jessica’s vanilla candle, sent me running for the toilet. I lost eight pounds in ten days.

One night I woke up at 4 a.m. drenched in sweat, heart racing from a dream I couldn’t remember. Just the feeling of teeth on my throat and golden eyes watching me in the dark.

I stumbled to the bathroom and stared at my reflection. Pale. Hollow cheeks. Dark circles like bruises. The girl in the mirror looked like a ghost wearing my skin.

I lifted my shirt and turned sideways. Still flat. But something was growing inside me anyway. Something that belonged to a boy who’d called another girl his real mate while I was planning our wedding.

I pressed my palm to my stomach and whispered, “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do this.”

The tears came then, hot and silent, sliding down to drip off my chin.

That same morning, my dance coach emailed, scholarship on probation. Show up next week or lose it permanently.

I closed the laptop and curled up on the couch under three blankets even though it was sixty degrees outside.

Jessica found me like that when she got back from class. She took one look at my face and sat down hard.

“Elena… talk to me. Please.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. The words were stuck behind my teeth like broken glass.

She waited.

Finally I croaked, “I’m pregnant.”

The silence stretched so long I thought she hadn’t heard me.

Then she pulled me into her arms and held me while I shook apart all over again.

Lori came home an hour later, took one look at us, and poured three shots of tequila. She pushed one toward me, saw my face, and silently dumped mine down the sink.

That night they made me eat toast and ginger ale and tucked me into bed like I was made of porcelain.

I fell asleep to the sound of them whispering in the living room.

“We have to do something,” Jessica said. “She’s disappearing.”

“I know,” Lori answered, voice dark. “And I still think arson is a valid option.”

I wanted to laugh. I didn’t have the energy.

The next day I dragged myself to the free clinic on campus. The doctor confirmed it, seven weeks. Heartbeat strong. She asked if I wanted to discuss options. I stared at the little grainy blob on the ultrasound and felt something fierce flare up inside my chest.

“This baby didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. My voice surprised me, steady for the first time in weeks.

The doctor nodded, no judgment. Gave me prenatal vitamins and a list of resources.

I walked out into the spring sunshine clutching the blurry printout like it was the only real thing left in my world.

That’s when I saw him.

Leaning against a black motorcycle in the parking lot, arms crossed, leather jacket open despite the chill. Victor.

He looked exactly the same as that night in the bar, dangerous and beautiful and staring at me like I was the only person on the planet.

My feet stopped working.

He pushed off the bike and walked over, slow, giving me time to bolt if I wanted to.

I didn’t.

When he reached me he didn’t speak at first. Just looked at the ultrasound photo in my shaking hand, then up to my eyes.

His jaw went tight.

“That pup’s not getting near you again,” he said quietly. Not a question. A vow.

I swallowed. “How did you find me?”

A tiny smirk. “I’m very good at finding what’s mine.”

There it was again, mine. My skin lit up like it recognized the word.

I hugged my arms around myself. “I’m a mess, Victor. I’m broken and pregnant and I can’t even.”

He stepped closer, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to hold his gaze.

“You’re not broken, Elena. You’re waking up. And I’ve been waiting a long damn time for it.”

His hand lifted, slow enough that I could pull away. I didn’t. He brushed a strand of hair off my cheek, thumb lingering on my skin.

That electric pull snapped between us again, stronger than ever. My breath stuttered.

Victor’s eyes dropped to my stomach, something ancient and protective flaring gold in his irises.

“I can smell him on you,” he growled, low and furious. “But it’s fading. And when it’s gone…”

He leaned in until his lips brushed my ear.

“…there’ll be room for my mark instead.”

My knees almost gave out.

He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes again.

“Come with me, little wolf. Let me take care of you. Both of you.”

I opened my mouth, to say yes, to say no, to ask a thousand questions, but before I could, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I glanced down on instinct.

Unknown number. A single text.

Damien.  

We need to talk about the baby. I’m coming over tonight. You don’t get to keep my pup from its pack.

My blood turned to ice.

Victor read it over my shoulder. A snarl rumbled out of him that didn’t sound human at all.

He plucked the phone from my hand, crushed it in his fist like it was tissue, and tossed the pieces into the trash can.

Then he took my trembling hand, lacing our fingers together.

“Change of plans,” he said, voice deadly calm. “You’re not going back there. Ever.”

He tugged me toward his bike.

I followed.

Because for the first time in weeks, the hollow place inside me felt a little less empty.

And because the way Victor looked at me, like I was worth fighting for, worth protecting, worth burning the world down over, made me believe, for one terrified second, that maybe I still was.

The motorcycle roared to life beneath us.

As we shot out of the parking lot, wind whipping my hair, Victor’s voice carried back over the growl of the engine.

“Hold on tight, mate.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face against his back.

And for the first time since that night under the moon, I didn’t feel alone.

But in the distance, somewhere in the trees that lined the campus road, amber eyes watched us leave.

And they did not look happy.