Valiant (Fighter Book #2)

Chapter 2

Travis Kaneland sat on the bed of the destroyed bedroom in Millie Bouldtridge’s home. It matched the rest of the house now more than ever. Anywhere one looked there was some sign that a battle had taken place there. Walls had holes blasted into them, blood lay splattered on furniture and on the walls, shards of glass could be found practically everywhere, and even the sitting room couch had been blasted in half. Travis immediately thought of the shopping center that he, Alexa, and Angelica went to during the holidays with all the white fluff lying around the room; it looked like snow. But the more he thought of those happy memories, the more despair he felt.

He spun the engagement ring around in his fingers, occasionally poking himself with a diamond edge. He felt no pain from that, though. He would glance over at the bedside table that surprisingly still stood intact and see the matching wedding band. These were the only two signs that Alexa had ever even been in the debris-filled room. The only other possible evidence was the blood on the floor, but he figured that belonged to Ariella. It had not been tested yet, but he just hoped he was right. Every time he looked at the slowly drying puddle, Travis would get visions of when Ariella’s body was there. Except her face was not hers, but rather Alexa’s. The mangled body was Alexa’s. The detached arm was Alexa’s.

Travis shook his head and balled his hands into fists, the ring cutting into his skin as he pressed the fists to his temples. His eyes stayed tightly shut until he knew he could open them and not see his wife.

“Travis, honey?”

“Go away,” he replied monotonously to the sound of his mother’s voice.

Helen ignored her son’s wishes and continued on her way into the room. She watched him from there as he continued to sit on the bed, pounding his fists into his head. His eyes remained shut, so he assumed the door closing meant that his mother had left. After a few more hits, he opened his eyes to the satisfactory sight of a bloody floor minus a body. But as his eyes looked around the room more, he did notice Helen leaning against a wall, watching him. Travis made eye contact briefly before looking down and beginning to play with the rings once more.

Helen sighed and walked over to the bed. Travis heard her footsteps on the wooden floor and then felt the mattress sink as she took her spot beside him. Nothing was said. Only silence as Travis continued to sulk and Helen continued to be at a loss of words. Nobody quite knew how to handle him in this state; never before had Travis looked so defeated. The energy that had been exhibited just an hour before during the battle completely disappeared.

All of Olaf’s men had retreated, like they somehow knew that they should. He or Ariella never returned to tell them anything; they just left. Travis and the others who had been fighting wondered what had made them act like that, but his curiosity over the subject had not lasted long. As soon as someone mentioned Alexa, he had taken off the direction she had exited. That was when he discovered the blasted sofa and the bloody, glassy-eyed bodies that lay around it. Next came the bannister and the upstairs wall. Travis continued to use the destruction as clues to where he might find Alexa, but the more he saw, the more his heart began to fear the worst.

When he found the room with the front wall completely blown down, his heart sunk completely. The body under the pieces of wood and cement could be seen within the first step into the room; its blood spilled out even further into Travis’s view. The brunette hair terrified him, making his feet rush into the room even though he was not completely sure he wanted to know whom the hair belonged to.

He crouched down next to it and tucked the hair away off the woman’s face. No breath escaped from the moment he saw her until he figured out the identity. He fell backward onto the floor holding onto the sides of his head, breathing raspy and heavily, when he saw that it was not Alexa, but rather Ariella that had received the worst fate. But where did that leave his wife?