Her lips peeled back; her teeth bared.
“They said I was at the school not because I’m smart, but because I’m an alpha. They said I’m pushy and mean and can’t control myself. They said Mum… They called Mum…” Her eyes flashed to mine, wide open and full of pain, along with something else. Those deep brown depths contained a silvery ring I’d never seen before. “They called her something I can’t say, because she’s not like the other mums. She doesn’t have one husband, like everyone else. She has… too many.”
“They called your mum a slut,” Damon said, his jaw firming.
“Yes!” Evie’s face contorted then, her hands forming fists. “The first time I walked away, but then they started getting the other kids to say it. Some of the girls told me what their mums were saying and then…”
“And then you stopped them. You stopped their talk, and you made them scared,” Jasper said. “Then that scared you.”
She broke then, her hands slapping down on Ben’s sides, her fingers clawing at his chest. I winced when I heard the fabric tear, but he just scooped her up and held her in his arms.
“You can’t change what you are, cub, no matter what they have to say about it. They aren’t trying to change you into something else. They’re trying to scare you into not using your power.”
Chapter 47
“We need to get her out of here,” Damon asserted in a low hiss as Evie sat curled up between Jasper and Ben on the couch. “Away from the fucking city. Away from that school and all their shit. Somewhere she can just be who she is.”
“Like where, Damon?” I snapped in a hoarse whisper. “Campbelltown?”
“I’d rather drink my own piss than go back to that shit hole,” he replied with a terse shake of his head. “I’m not saying we do this permanently, but… What about Jimmy’s place? I could give him a call, see if we could book out a cabin.”
“That would be good,” Reed said, his brows shifting as he looked at us, then the others. “Plenty of space for her to run around in. Fresh air, animals…”
“But don’t we have to be here to respond to your dad and his legal bullshit?” I asked.
“Be a fucking brilliant power move, leaving him to chat to your lawyer and not front up to the first meeting,” Damon said with a grin. “Fuck, that would put him in his place.”
“Make him think he hasn’t cowed you,” Reed added. “He’s expecting you to be some weak little beta…”
This idea was sounding better and better by the minute.
“Make the call,” I said. “I’ll have to put a sign up at the shop but—”
“On it,” Damon said with a grin.
Which washow we came to be driving down to Victor Harbor.
“There’s alpacas at this farm?” Evie asked me, pressing her face to the window, as if she could already see them.
“They’re gorgeous,” I replied. “They look like a cross between a teddy bear and a llama.”
“Really?” She giggled at that, excited by the idea, and my need to see her experiencing pure joy for a change was so intense that it hurt. She jumped on her tablet then, reading through Wikipedia articles and other websites, trying to inform herself about the creatures as much as possible. And Damon? He just watched the two of us when he could in the rear-view mirror. We were running away, getting out from the city, and I couldn’t find it in myself to regret it. Sophie had just laughed when I told her my plan, and then she’d said what I needed to hear.
“Go and enjoy those hot alphas of yours. Look after the Evmonster. Everything you need will be there. And me? I’ll nail this fucker to the wall if he thinks he’s going to fuck with my family.”
“Back again?”Jimmy said with a cheeky grin, meeting us all at the main house and ushering us in. Barb took one look at Evie and melted. “People come here and they don’t want to leave, so it makes sense.”
“We’ll look after you and your cub,” Tom assured us. “We don’t have many people in the cabins on the weekday and there’s plenty for a kid to do. We’ll get her working with us on the animals.”
“A strong body, a tired body, will let her relax in ways she can’t in town,” Jimmy said. “And there’s the after dark marsupial walk we do of a night time. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, cub? Seeing all the kangaroos and wallabies.”
“Do you get woylies and bettongs as well?” Evie responded. “They’re supposed to be native to this area.”
“Andbandicoots and pademelons,” Jimmy replied. “We get some of the kids from the local school making up little houses for some of the small animals to nest in. Did you want to have a go at making one?”
“Can I, Mum?”
No, was my instinctual reaction. I wanted to snap and claw her back to my side and I think Evie sensed some of that, because she took a step in my direction.