Coming Home

Chapter 25

The room was silent after I answered Cayden’s question. Cain and Asher, sensing something was wrong, had stopped their petty little argument and were now watching the three of us with wide eyes. Cayden face was a mixture of emotions as he tried to make sense of what I had said. Dylan stood in front of me, an arrogant smirk on his face. I could tell he was proud of himself for finding me, something that he promised he would do but I was sure it would never happen. I stood rooted to the spot, arms still extended in an attempt to protect my sons, my eyes trained on Dylan. He had hurt my sons once before but he wasn’t going to do it again.

“Leave. Now. I’m not having you around my sons or me for that matter. Not after what you did,” I said, my voice shaking slightly from fear so it didn’t have the desired effect.

“I think I’m pretty comfortable here,” Dylan responded smugly, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

I glanced beside me to look at Cayden, whose eyes had gotten hard. The look on his face was murderous and he launched himself across the room at Dylan. Usually, I’d yell at Cayden for resorting to violence but, in this case, I didn’t care. I watched frozen as Dylan and Cayden threw punches at each other, blood flying everywhere. Behind me, Cain and Asher were crying, but I couldn’t risk turning my back on Dylan.

“This isn’t over, you little bitch. I’ll be back for you,” Dylan snarled at me as he managed to break away from Cayden and run out the door.

I let out a whimper, spinning around and scooping the boys up, clutching them to my body protectively. I wasn’t going to let him hurt them again.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay babies. Everything’s going to be okay,” I said, trying to soothe my hysterical children.

“I’m sorry. Daddy didn’t mean to scare you,” Cayden soothed, hugging the boys from behind.

The boys turned away from me to snuggle up to Cayden so I stood up and made my way to their room. I went to their closet and grabbed the duffle bags that were in there. Setting one of the bags on top of the dresser, I yanked open the top drawer and started shoving the contents into the bag, repeating the process with the rest of the drawers.

“Kenzi, what are you doing?” Cayden asked as he appeared in the doorway, one son on each hip, as soon as I finished packing the boys’ clothes.

“I’m packing. He knows where I’m at and he’ll come back for me. I can’t let him hurt the boys again, I won’t let him. I need to go to my parent’s house. He doesn’t know where that is,” I answered, my voice slightly panicky, as I grabbed the other bag and tossed everything else that the boys would need into it.

“Kenzi, calm down and explain to me what’s going on,” Cayden requested as he set the boys on the ground and grabbed my shoulders.

“I’ll explain everything to you, Cayden, but we need to go. I can’t have the boys here and I’m not leaving them with that psycho around,” I responded, tears starting to trail down my cheeks.

He stared at me for a moment before nodding. I think he could see that this was something I had to do and he probably knew that I had to do this before I explained what was going on.

“Come on. I’ll help you pack. I guess I need to pack too since I’m not letting you go alone,” Cayden said, grabbing the boys and following me into my room.

I grabbed the duffle bags from my closet and started haphazardly throwing my stuff into them. I didn’t care about the stuff. I only cared about the two little boys that were currently jumping on my bed. Normally, I would scold them, but I ignored them instead, continuing to pack my things. I could hear Cayden in his room doing the same thing. Once I was done, I threw the bags down in the living room with the boys’ bags before heading into the kitchen.  I grabbed the diaper bag that was on the counter and started raiding the refrigerator and the pantry for drinks and snacks, knowing the boys would get hungry along the way.