Desired Again: The Alpha's Reject

She killed the kid. Or she almost killed the kid; semantics don't work with murder. She kept her head in her hands, and the only picture that came to her brain was the dowdy orange uniforms of prison. Murder was illegal in every state of the world, and a murder of a 6-year-old kid in the braces era is going to land her in trouble. She fingered her grandmother's metal rosary and wondered if heirlooms were allowed in prison. The lights in the hospital reception were harsh. The nurse on the counter had been giving her the most outrageous side-eye. She doesn't blame her, not after Mrs. McCain has fed her with tales about how she had lathered her son's bread with peanut butter. Her son, Dylan, had a deadly allergy to peanut butter. She was Cara Milton. Her great-grandmother mended the uniforms of soldiers without pay. She would turn in her grave if she saw that her 25-year-old great-grandkid had put peanut butter on a 6-year-old's breakfast to kill him. The story didn't go the way Mrs. McCain described it. She had been in the kitchen that morning, babysitting Mrs. McCain's kids, Dylan and his bitchy little sister, Jenna. Mrs. McCain worked late and wanted to sleep in. Cara had put a generous amount of peanut butter on the first piece of bread and jelly on the second. The peanut butter was for Jenna, and the jelly was for Dylan. Note to herself: When she became a mother, she shouldn't trust little kids who were late for school. They would say they had brushed their teeth, even when they hadn't. It was no surprise when Dylan grabbed the peanut butter bread in a hurry and bit into it while she was loading the dishwasher. Jenna's piercing shrill had brought the adrenaline pulsing through her blood. Dylan was spasming on the floor, having a deadly reaction to the peanut butter. She emptied the chest of drawers for his EpiPen. It was in his school bag, but her brain wasn't working at that minute. Jenna had rushed into her mother's room screaming bloody murder, and Mrs. McCain had lost it. She invented this story about Cara hating the kid. She didn't even let her get into the ambulance, but Cara was no monster. She got into her car and drove to the hospital to know if Dylan was going to be okay. He was okay. She learned that minutes later from the kind doctor with intimidating square frames. Mrs. McCain denied her access to her son, not that she blamed her, and she fired her in that spot. Cara felt her heart splitting in two and dropping red fragments on the white tile floor. Mrs. McCain berated her and promised not to give her her pay for her last two babysitting gigs. She wasn't going to press charges because Cara "wasn't worth the hassle." "I don't want to see you anywhere near my son!" Cara left the hospital, satisfied that Dylan hadn't died from the accidental peanut butter. She got into her car, rolled her window panes up, and yelled in the lonely confines of her car. Her life was pathetic. This is what pathetic would look like if it aired in Hollywood. Since she was a little kid with pigtails and the best cartwheels on the beach, she was sure she was meant for something bigger, something better. She didn't stop believing that, even when her mother married a junkie who cared more for beer bottles than his children. She kept holding on to the dream of bigger, better things even when she buried her dad, who lived by the bottle and died by the bottle. She tried to pursue that dream when she turned 16. She lived with her mother, who had picked up alcohol to console her masochist heart, which mourned the loss of her first love. She left her hometown, Bloominville, for Maine and worked an almost 24-hour shift. She worked as a roller skating waitress, a courier, and a babysitter. The only thing those three jobs had in common was her innate ability to fail at them. She drove out of the hospital's limited parking space to the grocery store. She was less tense, thanks to screaming therapy. She wheeled her current necessities that could survive on her declining dollar bills. The girl working the counter was a high schooler with over-dyed hair. She gave her credit card and wondered, with nostalgia, if she should dye her hair to feel more youthful and alive. The drive back home was filled with sad country songs. A slow car in front of her paused abruptly, causing her to hit the brakes in an instant. She heard the eggs break before she saw the sloppy mess leave the white grocery bag. She was an ardent believer in bad luck. She was sure a crow had landed on her roof today, blessing her with an incurable dose of bad luck. That morning, she had run out of water due to her failure to update her water bill. She had gotten sacked later, broken all her eggs, and now, getting home, she found an eviction notice in her mail. "I can't deal with this." She dumped the stack of mail on the coffee table and removed her crossbody bag. She felt dead inside. It felt like the weariness of her endless work since she was 16 was coming down on her with no mercy. She desperately wanted a hot tub and sweet-smelling bath bombs to soothe her aching nerves. "I can't do this anymore." She looked around her old apartment, which had leaking walls and a dripping tap. She doesn't even have a life. It was like she was seeing it for the first time. Like someone who had been holding a ball of ordinary wool over her eyes. She was a 25-year-old with no college degree, no job, and no friends—if you don't count the octogenarian on the second floor and the stray cat that kept coming to her window to watch the birds. She would go home. She had to go back to Bloominville. The old Volvo that she had to drive was high on fuel, and Bloominville wouldn't take two days on the road if she bought a lot of coffee and spent the night on the road. She opened her closet and threw some clothes into an overnight bag. She loaded her car, patted some gloss on her parched lips using the rearview mirror, and sank aviator sunglasses into her blonde hair. The drive to Bloominville took two and a half days. Although she had bought a lot of coffee to defy sleep, Bloominville wasn't exactly as she remembered it. The Welcome to Bloominville sign had a large claw mark on it, and people taking strolls paused to watch her with acute suspicion. She wasn't sure they knew she was Cara Fitzgerald, the girl who babysat their kids for stipends and watched over their plants in the summer. She rolled to a stop in the trailer park and trudged to her mom's trailer. Her mom had purchased it after her father's death. It was the beginning of her alcohol addiction. The park was quiet save for the neighborhood kids playing a silly game with lots of running. She climbed a crate, a makeshift stair, and opened the door. Her mom never locked it until it was evening. "Frogie!" Her mother called her by her embarrassing nickname in a soft voice. Cara didn't trust her excitement, which lingered in the stench of alcohol. The house was clean—well, as clean as Alexis Fitzgerald could get it when she was high. She looked older than she was the last time she saw her. Her hair was in a brown ponytail, and Cara could spot a few gray hairs on the roots of her locks. Her face and hands were wrinkled. The rest were covered in slacks and flannel. She looked like worn-out rubber, and she moved like a bunch of stones stacked on top of each other. Cara flinched when Alexis came to envelop her in a bony hug. "Welcome, Frogie. The electricity bill was two months old. Too old for me." "Oh! C'mon!" She shoved her mom off her and padded through a bunch of empty cans to her room. "The bathroom is unwashed, baby." "I'm not staying for long." Alexis did not reply to that. "Are you going into town today?" "No, why?" Cara asked, looking at the knick-knacks in her teenage room that should be in the storage room. She breathed a sigh. "I wanted you to pick up dinner. What do you want? Thai or Chinese?" She looked at her mom. Alexis was splayed on the shabby couch, looking tired of just existing. Alexis Fitzgerald has never paid for anything that was about her daughter since Cara's a-hole of a father died years ago. Not even the tampons she used when she first had her period. "Do you have juice on your card or money in your walley? My purse was stolen yesterday. I'll pay you back." That was a lie. Alexis was a Neanderthal; she shoved everything in her pockets. Cara dumped her bag and asked her mom about something that bothered her the minute she entered Bloominville. "Why is everyone quiet?" "It's almost curfew." "Curfew?" "Yes." Alexis stirred; she was almost drowsy now. "There's a rabid animal in the woods that killed three girls last week. No one found their bodies. Only blood and large paw and claw marks." "Weird. Is it a bear or something?" "No, it's a wolf. A werewolf." “Wait, what?!” Cara was intrigued. "What time is curfew?" Alexis yawned and dismissed her question. "So, Thai or Chinese?"