Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 236

Ch. 8

Cassandra

I’m in the middle of a filing audit when my phone buzzes. Geraldine cocks an eyebrow at me from her desk across the room when she sees me pull out my phone. I’m not sure if prohibited phone use during work time is a hard and fast rule in the Ashford pack or just her personal pet peeve. Either way, it’s frowned upon.

The last thing I want to do is upset her and risk losing the one job I’ve ever been good at. But the problem is, outside of my Sunday calls with Liam, my phone never rings. Who else would even want to talk to me?

No one. Unfortunately the answer comes a little too easily. No one would call me. Unless something happened to Liam. It’s that thought that has me risking my boss’s ire and checking my phone anyway.

I see Vera’s name and I’m already moving to answer before I’ve consciously decided to. Because it’s Wednesday. That has to mean something is wrong and my body knows it before my mind catches up. My hand shakes as fumble for the green button, swiping it three or four times before the call finally connects.

“Vera,” My voice cracks on her name. “What’s wrong? Is Liam okay?”

The sound she makes isn’t a word. It’s the wounded sound a person makes when absolutely nothing is okay and you can’t hold it together anymore. My heart shatters and my legs fold until I’m nothing more than a sobbing heap on the floor.

This can’t be happening. I can’t lose anymore. I just can’t.

“Vera! Please!” I choke out between sobs. “Please tell me he’s okay! I need to hear you say it.”

“He’s-, he’s d-, dead.” She can barely bring herself to say the words. And I scream.

“No! No, no, no! I’d feel it if my baby were gone!” I yell until my voice goes hoarse and trails off into a weak, hiccupping cry. “I don’t believe you. He can’t be gone!”

“Gran Vera, is that my mom?” I hear the sweetest sound in my entire world through the phone line and it takes me a minute to register. Am I hearing things? Is this a psychotic break I’m having, too devastated to accept the truth. “Can I talk to her?”

“No-, not Liam,” Vera cries. “Jarrett. My son is dead.”

“Wha-, what? How?” I ask in disbelief, sniffling back the renewed sob that was building in my chest.

“Most of them are,” Vera goes on without answering me. Her voice is stripped of the careful politeness she usually maintains with me, now nothing but raw agony and grief, barely held together. “Most of them are gone. I don’t-” She stops. Starts again. “I survived because I wasn’t there. I was at the market. I came back and-”

She doesn’t finish that sentence. I don’t ask her to.

“Liam,” I ask, still not convinced I was hallucinating his voice. “Where is Liam?”

“With me. He wasn’t there either. We were at the market.” She takes a breath. “He’s-he’s okay. He’s not hurt.”

The relief I feel is physical. A whimper escapes as the pain in my chest shifts from my own grief to shame. I never loved Jarrett. I used him and left before he even knew Liam was a possibility.

But in the end, he gave me the one thing in my life that matters. And no matter how angry I was when he took Liam from me, I would never wish him dead. I didn’t admit it to him, but I’d actually come to be grateful he gave Liam a safe place to land when I couldn’t.

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But none of that matters now. Liam is the only one who matters, and I need to make sure he’s okay.

era.” I do my best to keep my voice even. “Is he with you right now?”

“He’s here beside me. Watching something on the tablet.” She sucks in a shuddering breath. “Cassandra, I’m sixty -two. I have nothing left. I can’t-he needs his mother.”

It’s not accusatory. Not a judgment, not a weapon. I don’t think she has the strength left for any of those things. She’s just stating a fact. The only fact left standing in the rubble of her life.

“I’m coming.” It’s the only thing left to say.

I hang up and just sit on the filing room floor until I’m sure my legs will hold me. Geraldine seems to understand now is not the time, choosing to ignore me rather than attempt to engage. And I’m thankful for the reprieve.

Jarrett is dead. His pack is gone. Liam’s father is never coming back and he’s too young to understand that løss. But Vera is old and alone. She can’t take care of him anymore so now he’ll lose her too. None of that is fair!

But life isn’t fair, is it?

So I stand up.

And I go get my son.

Cara Anderson Author

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