Well he didn't go home, he stuck it out instead and the next six days of our vacation was the most awkward of my life. The tension was ridiculous. The entire subject of Solomon and the castle was dropped. He never brought it up after I bailed out of the room, and I of course never brought it up again either. During the day he would literally act like there was nothing wrong, and honestly it was a little intimidating. As scared and angry with him as I was I refused to let him go back to the castle at night, lord knows I wasn't excited to sleep next to him after all this, in fear that he'd go right after Solomon and Baron. It made me a little sad that he refused to touch me all night, part of me still wanted to cuddle with him, like I still loved the fuck out of his asshole self. I know he had to feel the anxiety that was pouring out of my body, just like I could feel the anger that was radiating off of him. He was so upset with me that nearly right after my parents had dropped us off at the air port he pulled us into a handicap restroom and transported us back to my house, then disappeared himself, leaving me standing in the living room. The whole time my heart was pounding against my rib cage. Damn those fucking bobby pins. They fell out everywhere. No seriously, even the bog was littered with them, every once in a while I'd find one laying in the grass.
"You're home early." Kelly comments, walking down the steps. "How'd it go?" She asks. She walks into the kitchen and looks at me. "What's wrong?" She asks, automatically going into panic mode.
"Finn found out that I've been in the dungeon. He also found out that I helped Baron break him out." I rattle off softly. I was still trying to process everything. "I'm in trouble..." I add, looking at her.
"Where is he?" She asks cautiously.
"I don't know. He wouldn't even take the plane ride here, he brought us right home then left." I answer. "He pretended that everything was fine the whole trip... It's going to boil over, and it's going to be bad." I tell her softly. I've seen what he's done to other things that make him angry, I didn't want to be on the receiving end of that. Deep in my heart I wanted to believe he would never hurt me, but there's still that sliver that isn't sure.
"Where's Baron and Solomon?" She questions.
"I haven't had a chance to even find them. I'm not sure I want to." I answer. The realization hit me. "Oh my god, he's going after them!" I exclaim. "I've got to go find them." i say to her, heading up to my bedroom to put on something to go trudging around the woods in.
"You can't just go out there. If it wasn't safe before it definitely not safe right now." She tries to reason with me.
"Well I'm sure not going to sit around and do nothing." I say, pulling on a pair of blue jeans. "I'll be back at some point." I assure her, headed for the back door.
"Wait, what if he comes back looking for you?" She asks wide eyed, "What am I supposed to say?"
"He won't be back, but if he happens to just tell him I went into town." I answer, wandering off into the backyard. I remembered the tree that Baron had told me led to his land, I just wasn't really sure how to get it to work. I stared at it, and focused hard and finally after about 30 seconds it started to open up for me. "Baron!" I called out to the group. It looked exactly like it did that day he kidnapped me, they were all sitting on logs and make shift chairs talking amoung themselves.
"Well, look who showed up." He chuckles, standing up and walking towards me. "You look like you seen a ghost, what's wrong?" He asks, putting a protective hand on my shoulder.
"I got caught." Was all I could tell him. "Where is Solomon?" I ask him.
"He's home, in his new cave. He found a new place so Finn wouldn't be able to drag him back so easily." He answers, "How did he find out?"
"I left behind clues apparently..." I sigh, earning a look. "It was an accident. The bobby pins I wear in my hair fell out in the dungeon, and his men saw you guys leaving through a portal. So good job on being fucking subtle." I glower at him, "Plus with me sneaking around already, like it wasn't hard to put together."
"You shouldn't be here. If he finds you here, like I don't even know." He says, his eyes suddenly full of concern. "YOu need to get your ass back home." He instructs.
"I'm not leaving. I came here to protect you ya big lug." I laughed. We were both trying to protect each other, and it was ridiculous.
"Shit... I don't need protecting." He chuckles, glancing back at the pack. When he turns back to face me I can see Finn's reflection in his eyes, which meant he wasn't that far behind me. "We don't bother you, you don't bother us. Wasn't that the deal?" Baron says in a deep baritone voice. I watched as a few of the guys changed into wolf form, and nearly every one stood up to face Finn. I on the other hand, hadn't even turned around yet. Panic was starting to set in. I was honestly trying to take on more than I could handle. No, I didn't really need to be here trying to protect Baron, but in my mind I thought I did.
"That was until you trespassed onto my land, broke into my dungeon, aided an escaped prisoner, and why you think it's ok to be speaking to my woman is definitely a problem." Finn says smoothly. "Annabelle, I'd like for you to go home while we resolve this issue." He says to me calmly.
"I'm not leaving you to kill Baron-"
"You will go home, as you're told to fucking do!" He yelled at me cutting into my reply, his voice literally making the ground shake. Baron snarled, and I stumbled to the side as he turned into wolf form and stepped in front of me. "You don't really think that you could stop me, mutt?" He asks him, amused.
"Please don't be like this..." I try to reason with Finn. My tone was calm, trying to bring everyone down a notch or two. "Just let them live their lives, and we can go live ours. Isn't that our end goal?" I ask. My eyebrows were furrowed in confusion.
"He broke our agreement, I have no need to be lenient towards him. You have also broken my rules, and I have no need to reason with you. You will go back home as your told." He says simply. "I'm going to ask you one more time to go home on your own, or I'll put you there myself." He warns me. His ice blue eyes were locked onto my green ones, Baron was still between us, his teeth bared at Finn.
"No." I shake my head. It was all so quick that I'm not sure what all happened. All I remember was feeling Finn's hand wrap around my upper arm, letting out a yelp of pain from it and suddenly I was back in my bedroom but he was still gone. "No he fucking didn't." I grumble. I reached for the door handle, only to find that my door was locked. "What the fuck? Kelly!" I shout into the house. "Kelly!" I shout again, giving the door a few good smacks.
"Why is your door locked?" She questions and I hear her jiggle the door on the other side.
"Mother fucker locked me in here." I mutter unimpressed. I take a step back, putting my hands on my hip and looking at the door as if it were a puzzle to solve. "Do we have a key?" I ask her.
"Listen, I didn't even know the doors had locks." She admits. I feel her slam her weight into the door, but it doesn't budge.
"Whatever, I'll go out the window." I say, walking towards it. I easily slip out the window onto the roof of the house and drop myself in front of the back door. She's in the kitchen and I explain everything that just happened.
"He sounds pissed." She comments.
"He's going to kill Baron." I say softly, putting my head in my hands. At this point, regardless of how Finn felt about anything I considered Baron a friend. "I've got to go back, again." I tell her. "I'm probably too late, but I need to go back in there." I insist.
When I traveled back through my mouth dropped open in shock. The field was completely torched, and there was no one in sight. I dropped down the base of a tree, running a hand over my face and trying not to cry. If I'd had just not gone down into the dungeon, not listened to Baron at all... None of this would have happened. A few stray tears fell down my face and I hastily wiped them away. Finn caused all this damage. One man. I realized in this world there was good and there was bad, and I knew Finn was on the bad end, but there had to be a way we could move him just a little towards good. There had to be a happy medium somewhere right? If not, it was something I knew I couldn't handle. He was something I knew I couldn't handle.
***...***...***
I'd been sitting on the edge of my bed for a few hours now, staring at the painted wall with my phone in my hand.
"I don't want you in my house with your current attitude. Please stay away until you chose to be a reasonable adult." Text to Finn.
I knew that was going to get me into more trouble. I was doing everything I could to try and be strong on the outside, and act like nothing he's done has bothered or scared me. To be honest everything has scared me. I didn't want to stand up to him, I didn't want to know what he might do if I angered him more. Within a minute he was standing in front of me, in a black suit that I'd seen him in before.
"Please get out." I said softly, focusing hard on the floor of bedroom. He crouches down in front of me, resting his hands on my knees, which made me flinch, so much for being strong, to hold himself in place.
"I'd like to discuss this as 'reasonable adults' as you call it." He tells me. I heard the demeaning tone when he'd said reasonable adults and had to bite back a scoff. Was he being mean, just to be mean?
"Like you discussed things with Baron and the pack?" I bite back sarcastically.
"Don't use that tone with me!" He boomed. I crawled into myself, still not looking at him. "First, I'd like you to tell me the truth about whether you were in the dungeons or not." He says.
"I was in the dungeons." I almost whispered my admittance.
"Why?" He scoffs. "Why couldn't you have just stayed in the castle? I made sure you had everything you'd need, I let you bring Kelly so you had company. You have Gannicus, you have Dillon... Why couldn't you just do as you were told and stayed put?" he asks in astonishment. I stay quiet. He still didn't know that Baron has been to the house while he was gone. Or at least I didn't think he did. "Why couldn't you just listen?" He sighs, leaning against the wall across from me. "Life would be so much easier if you just listened."
"If you knew me like you claim you do, you know that I have a problem with that." I manage to answer in a steady tone.
"Yes, I knew exactly what I was getting myself into when I found out you were my true intended." He sighs. I watch him rub his temples out of my peripheral vision.
Stupid things I say in 3, 2, 1...
"Maybe you should keep in fucking mind that I"m choosing to be with you, regardless of how much of a fucking asshole you are." I growl, looking up at him.
"Such a disrespectful mouth." He smirks, taking my chin in his hand. This time though it wasn't near as harsh as at my parents house. His thumb rolls over my bottom lip, and I had half a mind to bite on it.
"Did you kill them?" I ask softly, almost not wanting to know the answer.
"Not yet." He replies casually.
"You better not." I say, trying to be strong again.
"Or what?" He chuckles. He seriously found me entertaining right now. This wasn't the man I knew. Obviously after everything I knew that he had this side to him, but I didn't think I would actually have to see it or face it ever.
"Or I can't be with you." I tell him, as if it was obvious. I thought it was obvious. He stopped smirking and looked down at my serious face. I could literally see the emotions running through his brain right now. "I told you in the kitchen, I can't be with someone who's like this." I shrug. The whole feeling in the room changed and I was looking up at the Finn I'd known that past few months again.
"You think it's that simple? To just, stop?" He asks. He was still holding my chin, forcing me to look up at him.
"It should be." I nod.
I knew it wasn't, but that didn't mean he could try, and it didn't mean that we couldn't adjust some things that happened around the castle. I'm not asking for a total 360, I knew some things couldn't change, but on the flip side of that there are a lot of things that can be changed.
"It's not." He shakes his head. I stare at him. I loved him so much. I hadn't said it out loud yet, but I truly did love him, and he was all I wanted for the rest of, forever. Maybe now was a good time to start teaching myself that we don't always get what we want from life.
"I'm sorry to hear that." I say sadly. "I can't be with you for the wrong reasons." I tell him.
"Are you, leaving me?" He said it slowly, not breaking eye contact with me. His tone... I couldn't even place it. I don't want to say scared, but I wouldn't rule it out either.
"I haven't yet..." I murmur. I had to look away from him, his face was legit killing me inside right now. "I don't want to..." I add, taking my lip between my teeth.
"Please give me some time. I need to think and figure things out." He concludes. I can tell he's about to transport out, but I grab his shirt sleeve first making him turn and look at me.
"Take your time." I agree with a nod, "But please let Baron go and who ever else you snatched from their home go." I say softer. He didn't reply, and he left after that.
A/N: This story has almost 100 reviews. You guys... Rock. My. World. Thank you!