Alpha Asher and Lola novel Chapter 217

Chapter 217

It was all a blur up until the moment my feet. hit the polished tile floors of the towns Hospital.

Breyona steadying me as I screamed, the air melting from between my fingers, replaced with shadow and night, was vacant from my memory.

“Room 232…” A faceless woman in cheery, rainbow scrubs said to Breyona.

I blinked and we were down the hall. The second time and a set of elevator doors were closing, a third and we were in another hall, approaching an open doorway where the scents of my friends and family poured from within.

Every step we took was another chance to get ahold of myself, to control the ragged breaths that slid past my lips.

It wouldn’t have mattered. I wasn’t sure even Asher himself could put together the broken shards of my heart, not when I stepped into the room and saw her.

The woman on the hospital bed, frail and much too thin, couldn’t have been my grandma.

This couldn’t be the same woman that put her entire heart and soul into every pastry she baked to the point where she had the entire town hooked on her desserts. 1

Grandma’s face wasn’t this lumpy, this misshapen or speckled with black and blue splotches like deadly flowers blooming beneath the skin. This wasn’t the woman who would spend all morning baking, dancing to a tune only she could hear while the cottage filled with the mouthwatering scent of cinnamon and baked apples.

This had to be some kind of sick joke.

I told myself this over and over again, but her scent-the scent I’d memorized over the long year I’d lived with her, said otherwise.

The only solace, and the only thing keeping me together, was the steady beep from the heartrate monitor at her bedside.

I scanned the room to find Breyona, but instead spotted Mason, Clara, and Holly.

Clara was rubbing Mason’s back in slow, soothing circles, her grief-stricken eyes on where grandma laid in bed. Even the witch, who had somehow become a part of this pack, cared for grandma. Mason’s hazel eyes were bright with tears, the green specks so much brighter when he cried without abandon. His lips were moving, saying something, but I couldn’t make out the words. Holly was rigid, carved from stone as her attention darted back and forth between grandma and I, unable to settle on one thing.

Chris appeared in the doorway, charging over to grandma’s bedside, his mouth moving but nothing emerged.

I found Breyona standing off to the side, her hand against her lips to muffle the sobs that wracked her chest.

“Where is my dad?” I asked her.

“He’s downstairs…” She whispered, her voice teetering on the edge of a sob. “… identifying the body.”

Again, I blinked and was elsewhere, standing in a dimly lit hallway on the bottom floor of the Hospital. 2

The Morgue.

As the placards above the doors increased in number, I slowed my pace. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember which room Breyona said to go to, but it didn’t matter in the end.

There were windows along the walls that allowed you to see inside, and that was how I found my dad.

No one noticed when the door creaked open, and I stepped inside. Only Flora and the

Pathologist on duty registered my presence, but not my dad.

No, his head was bowed, and his shoulders quaked with the weight of his grief as he cried over the lifeless body of his son.

Sean. 20

My annoying big brother, reduced to nothing more than a fleshy cadaver.

The agony that encased me in it’s shroud of darkness was unlike anything I’d ever felt.

Even mom’s death hadn’t hit this hard, hadn’t tore a hole through my chest so large that already I could feel it festering.

I didn’t want to look at him, at his pale skin. or at the massive gashes covering his body, but I couldn’t look away.

A voice in my head screeched, ‘This is your fault. This is your fucking fault. Yours, nobody else’s.’

I’m screaming so loudly I think my ears might burst, but no one seems to register the sound. It’s then I realize the screaming is in my head, but that doesn’t make it stop. If anything, it makes it grow louder.

Only when I reached the table did my dad’s head snap up. The sight of him, it made the hole in my chest wider-deeper, than ever before.

The man I’d always seen as a beacon of strength, a warrior even though his prime had long passed, was torn to absolute shreds. There was no strength in his glossy eyes, no ferocity on his tear-stained face. Only age lines, grief, and a longing for vengeance remained.

“Dad…” I tried to speak, tried so hard but it came out as a meek whisper.

The vicious voice in my head snarled, ‘He knows it’s your fault. He knows. You’re not even his daughter. You killed his son, his only child. Killed him!’

“Lola…your brother. He-” Dad croaked, but the words faded as he let out a gut- wrenching sob, slamming his hand on the surface of the metal table hard enough to make Flora jump.

Flora, the slender woman who preferred flowery sundresses and dancing to whimsical music, wrapped her dainty arms around my father and held him-held the man who had slaughtered enemies, won wars, and lived to tell the tale. She held the man five times her size as he broke, doing all she could to piece him back together before watching him break again, and again.

My fingers trembled as I reached out, aching to touch my big brother’s skin and see for myself. The truth was right in front of my face, but I couldn’t accept it-not until I grazed his cheek and recoiled at the touch.

He was so cold, his skin stiff.

This was real. Sean was actually dead.

“I know, dad. I’m so so sorry.” I whispered, clenching my fists so hard that my muscles cramped and spasmed, but it kept the tears at bay.

Just like Dad, if I started crying, I’d never stop.

Suddenly, his head snapped up and his eyes found mine.

“You have to find the witch that did this. Promise me-promise me you will, Lola.” He said hoarsely. “Promise me you’ll make them pay.

Hearing my dad beg for justice shattered the last tendrils of restraint keeping me together. The darkness-the grim determination mixed with heady magic flooding my body was a response to his plea. It was as though all this time I’d only been waiting for his permission.

“I will.” I promised him, unable to say anything else.

As I left, the same thought played in my head on repeat, slashing and carving away at the bleeding hole in my chest.