Children of the Fallen: Bloodlines (BOOK #3)

Chapter 36: Emotional Whiplash

Chloe Whitlock

"What Victoria?" Sterling answers her phone as I take my seat next to her on the plane. Keeping my eyes on Grayson unconscious laid back in his seat.

"Don't take off yet, I'm coming with Morgan." Victoria says frantically. "I'm 10 minutes away."

Sterling sits up in her chair, she exhales heavily pinching the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "Glad to know you listen to us."

"Keep the plane grounded." Victoria demands while Sterlings already on her way to the cockpit for them to hold off.

When Sterling entered the plane with a bloodied mangled Grayson I ran to get the bandages on board and the ones I brought with me to start wrapping him up. He was unresponsive the whole time aside from when he gained consciousness for a split second to mumble, "Morgan," only to pass out right after.

I had only just finished applying the bandages when Victoria called.

Victoria walked onto the plane with her hand on Morgan's back like she was helping her walk. Victoria appeared flustered while Morgan was tense and quiet as some kind of wild storm brewed in her eyes. Sterling and I looked to Victoria for answers but she shook her head and gave us a shrug. Her eyes held on Morgan watching her like she wanted the perfect words to come to her or the right thing to do. Her heart visibly ached, that slight raise to her eyebrows and the look in her eyes- a look Victoria rarely has. The last time I saw it on her was when I told her the plan I had for myself once this is all over.

As for Morgan the only shift in expression she had was looking at Grayson for a moment before taking her seat. The entire plane and car ride back to the house she sat staring at nothing as her knee bobbed up and down and she held the back of her neck tightly. She looked ready to explode and when I asked if she was okay she responded with silence.

Now at the house, Victoria and Sterling bring Grayson inside as Morgan in a daze quickly heads to her room, slamming the door behind her so hard that the hinge breaks. The door comes right off falling to the floor. I follow her towards her room. She paces around breathing deeply, each one more shaky than the last. Aggressively taking off her jacket she throws it to the floor then grabs at the back of her neck. Digging into the skin of her neck— clawing at it, blood drips down her back and onto her hands while she mumbles to herself.

Taking a cautious step into the room, closer to where she paces her mumbles become clearer. "Weak. Weak. Weak..." she repeats under her breath standing still now.

Weak?

I put my hand on her shoulder and her head snaps to me, her eyes widened and glassy but full of a storm of emotions. Her hand comes to my throat. In the split second she tightens her grip down she realizes it's me and drops her hand. "Sorry." She mutters.

I cough, reeling from the sudden shock of her hand wrapped around my throat. "It's okay."

"No, it's not." She says pacing once more and shaking her head, crumbling more and more by the second. "It's not okay. None of this is okay." She gets to the small desk in the corner of the room throwing everything off of it sending it clattering on the floor. With her back turned she plants her hands down on top of the desk breathing heavily, the desperate and violent energy radiating off of her didn't subside after her attempt to purge it.

"Morgan." I call out her name as I slowly step towards her.

Her breathing worsens. "He fucking lied!" She shouts flipping the desk over.

"Morgan!"

She whips around to me. "I did everything! I wasn't weak. I wasn't weak- and he lied!" She shouts, her voice breaking throughout. Drowning in despair, her under eye twitches as tears well. "He said he got rid of it! He said if I wasn't weak he would get rid of it!" Tears begin to fall and she harshly wipes them away. Her hands quickly goes to the back of her neck gripping it brutally. "I did everything." She chokes back a sob fighting it with everything in her.

I cross the room to her wrapping my arms around her, pulling her into a hug. I don't know what could brought her to this point but seeing her like this made my heart clench in my chest. Her hands come down from her neck but remain at her sides not hugging me back but she stays.

"You're okay." I say quietly resting my chin on her shoulder.

After a short while she steps back from me no longer crying but her eyes right now... the fury raging in them. The turmoil subsided leaving her with a clear and concise emotion. Icy flames had ignited in her eyes.

"What do you need right now?" I hesitantly ask.

"A drink." She exits the room walking right past me. Past Sterling, Victoria, and Pierce standing in the living room with Kellan sitting back on the couch. She goes into the kitchen, opening every cabinet until she finds something to drink.

Sterling gives me a confused questioning look. I can only offer a light shrug as she comes over to me. I enter the kitchen with Sterling at my side. Morgan stands with a bottle of scotch in her hand and a glazed stare at the floor.

"Hey Morgan. What's going on?" I say as Sterling reaches for my hand, interlocking her fingers in mine as Morgan brings the bottle to her lips taking a swig.

"It was all for nothing." She softly shakes her head bringing the bottle back down.

I ask, "What are you talking about?"

She looks up with some sense of clarity parting through the anger that's clouded her eyes. "Where is he?"

"Who?"

"Grayson."

"Sleeping," Sterling starts. "He's in the master bedroom he's-," before Sterling can finish her sentence she's walking out of the kitchen heading down the hall towards the master bedroom.

I trail her, my eyebrows scrunching together at her emotional whiplash. She stands in the doorway to the master, Grayson sleeps bandaged up with spots of blood peppered on bandages where he's bled through and sweat glistens on his forehead. As soon as she gets a good look at him, her spine stiffens. She enters the room like she's on autopilot stopping at the edge of the bed looking down at him for a moment then slowly climbs into the bed laying next to him. With about a foot in between them she lays there just staring at his side.

She doesn't at all acknowledge my presence, keeping her eyes on him so I close the door and head back. Sterling waits for me at the end of the hallway with her arms crossed looking as confused as I am. Out in the living room Pierce holds Victoria in a comforting embrace while Kellan sits on the couch without any discernible facial expression. "Victoria, what happened?" I ask.

She steps out of Pierce's arms turning around to Sterling and I. "I don't know. She was... I've never heard her scream like that and those scar marking things on her were like glowing. When it disappeared whatever she was experiencing stopped." She says with her eyebrows pulled together the whole time.

Kellan sits up straight, "It's demonic magic." He states and Pierce nods.

"You knew?" Victoria questions Pierce.

"I didn't know what they did but when I saw a glimpse of them the other day... I just know what demonic magic looks like. That's definitely it." He responds and that phantom grip around my heart tightens further in my chest.

I look to Kellan, "How do you know what it is?"

"While she was you know, ruining my life," he rolls his eyes, "they appeared. I hadn't seen them before, she said she usually gets the glamoured. She also said they were a failed attempt at demonic magic. Clearly not."

Victoria exhales squeezing her eyes shut as she lowers her head. Pierce begins rubbing her arm, "It's okay." He says gently.

She runs her hands over her face. "It's really not. I need him dead then it will be okay." She walks off going to her bedroom upstairs with Pierce following her and Kellan going to his room shortly after.

Leaving Sterling and I alone in the living room. We sit down on the couch together, she lets me rest my head on her shoulder. "Lucien never fails to surpass new levels of being a disgraceful person."

"He really doesn't." I agree relaxing next to her as she wraps her arms around me, surrounding me with her warmth and comfort as I breathe in the scent of her perfume I've grown to adore.