The Alpha's Stolen Luna - Chapter 126: Chapter 126

: Sutton
It was a long night. I don’t think I slept more than five minutes at a time. Every time I started to drift off, Daisy’s dead face and Jack’s agonizing cry took over my mind. Forcing me awake. Lucas didn’t sleep at all. He didn’t even lay down until I made him just so I could hold him.
And he was distant. I couldn’t feel anything coming through our bond. Nothing. I felt incredibly inadequate in the face of what he was going through. Why else would he block me out?
No one was talking much the following morning, unsurprisingly. When Jack finally came downstairs, he looked hollow. All he could do was hang his head with a vacant stare. It didn’t get better throughout the day. He wasn’t talking. Not a single word to anyone. Not even Lara. It broke my heart.
I wanted to go to him. To hug him and tell him it would all be alright. But I didn’t dare. It was one thing to have him cling to me the night before. When there was a moment he felt I was the only thing between him and death. It was completely different now that his mother’s death was sinking in. I couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t blame me in the light of day.
Conner had shifted and run off the night before, but he returned around noon. Well, I should say Tott dragged him back completely inebriated and depressed. Lucas let him sleep it off, but he still had the awkward job of interrogating the rest of his friends. Max had urged Lucas to give him that task but he refused.
While Lucas was questioning his friends, I slipped out to the backyard to take a short walk. I was trying to organize my thoughts when came upon Conner staring into the empty firepit. He must have stumbled out here when the others left him alone. I briefly thought about continuing on but he really was in no state to be left unsupervised. So, with a nervous sigh, I went and sat in one of the wooden chairs near him.
“I should have seen it,” Conner muttered a few minutes after I joined him.
I looked around. “Seen what?” I asked cautiously.
“Daisy,” he stated. “I should have seen she was… struggling. I should have seen that she was capable of this.”
“She was your sister, Conner,” I said empathetically. “You couldn’t have known she was capable of this.”
“You know, I… I always knew she was…” He paused to belch unceremoniously. “She was a bit odd. Eccentric, Ma always said. Passionate,” he said with a wave of his arm. “She was always telling stories. Stretching the truth. But… but… she was always harmless. She never meant anything by it.” Conner deflated, slumping over again. “Decisive. She always knew what she wanted and once she decided that she wanted it” — he slashed his hand through the air — “that was it.”
I didn’t know what to say. Nothing I thought of seemed even close to appropriate to respond with. Still, it felt like Conner needed to keep talking. Like he needed to speak his thoughts to make the reality behind them tangible. So, I slid down to the ground to be on his level.
Conner looked at me, knitting his brow and pursing his lips before looking back at the ashes in the pit.
“She always wanted Lucas,” he said sadly, sobering up a little. “You know… I wanted to be pissed at him when you guys were last here. I let myself believe that he had led Daisy on somehow. That there had to be a good reason for her to say those things to you.” He pulled up a blade of grass and passed it between his fingers. “But then she told me the same things.”
“Love can make us do things we wouldn’t normally do,” I said. “Even the illusion of love. Even unreciprocated love.”
“I know…” He swallowed hard. “I know Lucas would never promise those things. If he had, he would have acted on them long ago. It wasn’t adding up and she was always exaggerating. Even as a kid. She used to get me in so much trouble. The little brat.” He let out a loud huff. “Still… she was my baby sister. I never… I never considered it would go this far.”
I rested a hand on his shoulder, hoping it would still give him some relief, even if it was coming from me.
“I’m sorry, Luna,” Conner said softly. “I’m sorry for what she did to you.”
“It’s not your fault, Conner,” I told him. “Really. You didn’t know what she was doing.”
“She was my responsibility,” he continued. “Truth is, I haven’t really taken her seriously in a long time. I’ve just brushed off so many things. Maybe if I listened more… actually thought about the things she said, maybe I would have been able to get her help. Stop her from doing something so stupid.” He threw the blade of grass away. “You must think I’m a terrible person. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated my whole family after this.”
“Ha,” I scoffed. “Hate you? I’ve been obsessing over how much you all must hate me. I am what drove her to do what she did.”
Conner made a face. “Luna, that makes no sense at all.”
I let his statement sink in and I thought about what Uncle Rodney had told me the night before. The harder I tried to find a valid argument, the more my own self-doubts got pushed aside. Because the truth was, we all could have done thing differently but we were all still innocent at the same time. No one forced Daisy to behave as she had.
“You know what, Conner,” I said, “I think you’re right. Maybe instead of worrying about if anyone is going to hate us, we start embracing that fact that we’re all just here for each other.”
Conner gave a small smile. “I think I can do that.”