Chapter 19

"Taker wants to see you immediately. He's in the medical wing. You should…prepare yourself." That was all Melina said, before taking off to check on a few other patients that were at home resting, instead of in the medical wing.

Raising a slow brow, Abigail racked the bar and stood up from the bench, wiping sweat from her neck and face with a towel. Why would Taker want to see her in the medical wing? Shrugging, she draped the towel around her neck and headed out of the workout room, trying to remember where exactly the medical wing was. It took a bit, but she found it and walked inside, seeing Taker looming over a body.

"You wanted to see me, Undertaker?" His huge body was blocking the one on the table, so she couldn't see who it was right away.

He was still staring down at the woman, finally stepping away to reveal her to Abigail. The surprised gasp and she said the woman's name, she knew this woman. "She stumbled in here while we were gone, Abbie." He informed her in a monotone voice, trying not to think of just how damn convenient that was. Abigail told him about why she was really in Wonderful and then, while he was outside of its walls, another person from the DOV wandered in. He did not like these feelings of doubt, not used to them. "Who is she?"

Flashbacks of that horrific day pulsed through Abigail as she covered her mouth with her hand, tears swelling in her eyes. This poor girl's tongue had been removed by force and then she was raped afterwards, nearly choking to death on her own blood. Abigail shook herself mentally, swallowing hard at Taker staring down at her hardening and wondered how the hell Susan managed to escape the castle. Had Malcolm helped her?

"T-This is Malcolm's granddaughter, Susan. The sorcerer I told you about." She spoke quietly, sounding haunted and slid fingers through her hair when Taker demanded her to elaborate. "Her mother, Malcolm's daughter, Lily, was…killed shortly after Susan was born. If she says she's one years old, she is. Lily was injected with the serum I told you about that makes the babies grow at an astronomical rate. The serum Bray wants to enhance to ensure the women breed boys instead of girls by using Mythril. She…she shouldn't be able to talk to anyone because…her tongue was cut out…"

"Lily?" He echoed, frowning and brought his hands up, pressing his forehead against his palms. Malcolm, a sorcerer, that was something he could overlook as a very rare coincidence. "Curly brown hair and green eyes?" When Abigail muttered a yes, he shook his head. "Leave us, Abbie." He ordered, his voice dropping. "Please…"

Lily had been a baby, well, not a literal baby, but the youngest of the three. She had two older brothers. When things had started going south… she had been taken away for safe-keeping. Malcolm was supposed to come back for them, but they had been boys and were supposedly a lot safer than their sister. Malcolm had never come back. Then the fire happened…

Knowing better than to push him right now, Abigail simply nodded and walked out of the medical wing, no longer in the mood to work out and train. She walked around Wonderful, trying to keep the tears in her eyes and failed, a few sliding down her cheeks. Finding a corner of the town, in a small alley, Abigail pressed her back against the building and slid down it, burying her face in her hands crying.

She would never, ever forget that day as long as she lived, or when she went to Bray telling him what Luke had done to Susan. He hadn't shown an OUNCE of remorse and simply said a message had to be sent, proving to her further the monster he had become. Had Malcolm somehow gotten her out of the castle? And yet, Bray was doing all of this 'for her'. No, Taker was right. He was using her as an excuse to justify his actions and she was done with it, vowing to make him pay for everything he'd done since the day the DOV had been created.

"Taker?"

Amy was probably the only person who could get away with being near him right now and that was only due to the fact that they had a bond. He had saved her early on, brought her with him, and she had been loyal ever since. Steve may have been his right-hand man and Stephanie his left-hand woman, but Amy was… just another wandering soul with damage that he had bonded with. "Do you trust her?"

"Abigail?" Amy considered it. "Yeah, I do. I think she's hiding something from us, but I don't think it's necessarily something that's… you know, going to put us in danger."

He nodded, reaching back to pat her hand as she had put it on his shoulder. "Go let Steve know I want outside patrols 5 miles from the wall and sweep in. If people are escaping the DOV, I want to know why." And HOW. There was no way this woman had been given a chance like Abigail had. Not unless the sorcerer had intervened. "And I want them to be prepared for an ambush." His woman gone and another woman escaping, he'd bet that would spur Wyatt into doing something irrational.

"Will do." Amy placed a hand on his arm, his eyes turning to meet hers and she could see the tears in them. "I'm here if you need to talk. About anything." She wanted to make sure he understood that before walking out to go let Steve know what Taker wanted done.

The only reason Susan had escaped was because Bray thought she was dead. Malcolm had given her a potion that temporarily stopped her heart – they ruled it suicide and tossed her body with the others. Once enough bodies piled up, they burned them all at once instead of one at a time. It cut back on the stench of burnt human flesh. Malcolm had gone out, taken his granddaughter off the pile and brought her to his chambers to wait for her to awaken.

While asleep – dead – he performed a magical hysterectomy on her, not taking any chances she was pregnant with Luke Harper's demon spawn. Then, he waited for her to wake up and sent her on her way, ordering her to go straight to Wonderful…where he knew Abigail was. He knew she would care for Susan and had to take the risk, refusing to subject her to the cruelties of the DOV. As far as Bray and anyone in the DOV was concerned, Susan was nothing more than a corpse.

Her name was Susan and she resembled his mother, her grandmother… quite a bit. This was his niece and she wasn't all that much younger than him, really. Only a decade in physical appearance, which made the niece bit impossible since Lily hadn't been much younger than Glen. Magic. That was why he smelled it IN her instead of ON her. She had been, her growth, accelerated with magic. Sighing, Taker reached out to slowly take her hand, watching as she stirred but didn't waken.

"How much did you give her?"

"She'll sleep until morning." Jeff said, having been summoned when Susan hadn't woken up by early evening. "She was in a state of shock, Taker. I'm honestly surprised she managed to make it here. Whatever she was running from, whatever happened, it was… traumatizing."

"I want someone with her around the clock, when she does wake up, send word immediately." As much as he wanted to stay, he had business to attend too. He had learned early on one couldn't be put before the many. It ended badly.


As promised, Abigail walked into the common house a little before noon and began her task of cooking, helping Stephanie, Trish and Amy. The redhead kept glancing at her and she ignored it, trying to focus on what she was doing. Susan would recognize her, no doubt, whenever she woke up. Abigail had a feeling she wouldn't be seeing much of Undertaker, especially after the meeting tonight, where everything would be revealed. Once lunch was done and served, the cleaning done, Abigail ate her lunch since she skipped breakfast and went upstairs to lay down in her bed. She was not feeling good at all and didn't want to talk to anyone, hoping this nightmare ended soon.

"Amy, go get Abbie, we have to start dinner."

It was nearing 4 PM, she'd been sleeping for the past 3 hours and they really needed her help. She wanted to tell Stephanie to leave Abigail alone, but also didn't want to flare the woman's pregnancy hormones up, or her temper. Obeying, Amy climbed the ladder to the upper floor and walked over to where Abigail slept, gently shaking her awake.

"Hey sweetie, I'm sorry, but it's time to get dinner started…" The red-rimmed, swollen eyes staring back at her broke Amy's heart. It was obvious something tormented Abigail and had since she came to Wonderful. Did she know who the new girl was? If that was the case…

"Okay, give me a few minutes to clean myself up, and then I'll be down." Abigail murmured quietly, slowly sitting up in bed and rubbed her eyes before heading to the bathroom to wash her face. She looked in the mirror and groaned, hoping the swelling of her eyes went down a little. Crying herself to sleep was not a smart idea. "Fuck." Tossing the towel to the side, Abigail walked out to head downstairs to help with dinner.

Stephanie took one look at Abbie and steeled herself. She had already been told not to be nosy and not ask questions, so… she bit her lip at the questions she did want to ask and pushed aside the desire to send Abigail back to bed. The girl looked ragged. But everyone else was pitching in as usual, regardless of their issues, nobody got slack. Abigail really did look like crap though and she sighed.

"Want a cup of cocoa?" She offered with a gentle smile.

Abigail cracked a small smile back at her and nodded, not wanting to be rude to the woman who had done so much for her. "Thanks, that'd be great." She watched Stephanie pour her a mug of it and took a slow sip, the warmth doing nothing to soothe her, but she smiled anyway. "Before we get busy with dinner, I just wanted to say thank you. You've helped me out a lot and I'll never forget it."

Stephanie blinked, not expecting that and didn't know how to respond, especially since she didn't trust Abigail fully. "Okay…"

Taking another sip, Abigail set her mug down and began getting to work on dinner, having pulled her hair up on top of her head in a messy bun to keep out of the food. She snapped her gloves on, like always, and began kneading the dough Stephanie had left out to rise for a few hours.

She kind of felt like she was being set up or something, or maybe Abigail was trying to weasel herself into remaining in Stephanie's good graces. Her blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully, wondering just what DID happen between Abigail and the Undertaker while they were out for the night.

"Need help?"

She jumped. "WEAR BELLS, TAKER!"

"Do you want to know how you'll look at 9 months?" He asked, his eyes flashing blue for a moment.


"Find Abigail, find her and she'll take care of you. I'm sorry I can't go with you, sweetheart." Malcolm hugged his granddaughter close, seeing the tears in her eyes along with the confusion. She didn't understand what was going on or what happened to her, but there was no time to explain. "I fixed your mouth, so your tongue is back." He didn't bother mentioning the hysterectomy. "I love you, Suzie. Now run. Get out of here and head to Wonderful. When you make it there, don't trust anyone and find Abigail. She's there – the Queen Mother and she will take care of you. Now GO!"

Her eyes snapped open with a startle as Susan slowly looked around the place she lay in, swallowing hard at the sterile smell. It took a few minutes to get her equilibrium on track and to where she could slowly sit up, looking down at the dark blue dress she had on. She could hear her grandfather's voice in her head, reminding her of who she had to find in Wonderful and hoped she'd made it. The last thing she remembered was collapsing outside of the gates of a town, but she didn't know where it was. There were fuzzy flashbacks of a conversation she had with a woman, but…Susan didn't know if that was a dream or not.

"Well hello there, sunshine!" Melina smiled, walking inside, and knew she had to inform Taker of the new girl's awakening. "How are you feeling? Do you remember me? I'm Melina, we spoke earlier…before you passed out again."

"Melina…" Susan tested out her new magically reattached tongue, surprised she could still talk without a problem, and felt her eyes widen. "Melina…"

"Yes, that's right. Let me check your vitals and then…"

Susan shook her head, slowly standing from the bedding and swallowed hard, remembering her grandfather's warning not to trust anyone. "Abigail…I have to find Abigail…do you know if she's here?" She knew better than to call the woman Queen Mother since she was undercover for the DOV currently.

"You know who Abbie is? Abigail Waters?"

Susan nodded, lowering her eyes from Melina and clasped her hands in front of her. "I-I need to find her…"

"O-Okay…we'll find her, but let's get you checked out first…"


Taker was good at sneaking up on people, which in turn made the girls laugh at Stephanie's squeal. All except Abigail, who was deep in thought kneading the dough with a hint of flour streaked across her cheek. She didn't hear him come in or his voice, though she was in the back while Stephanie remained in the front. Amy and Trish were insistent on it since she'd taken care of breakfast and wanted her to rest her feet, which were really swollen. They actually wanted her to take the night off, but Stephanie was stubborn and refused.

The next person to walk through the door had everyone stop in their tracks, including Undertaker, as Susan looked around before her eyes landed on Stephanie. "I-I'm looking for Abigail Waters. I-I was told I could find her here…" She looked scared to death, but also determined and swallowed hard at the giant staring at her.

"Stephanie, I think we…"

"Abigail!"

All Abigail could do was catch the girl that cried out her name running toward her, eyes wide, and felt her arms wrap tightly around her, feeling her heart break all over again. "Susan…Susan, it's okay…" She soothed, ignoring everyone staring at them and closed her eyes, not believing the girl was actually speaking. How did she regain her tongue?! "Ssshhh…"