SIX MONTHS (A Seven Series Novel)

Her face lit up and she flew up the stairs. They might have been a pack of males, but wolves had an instinctual reaction to look after children and make sure they were happy. Yeah, maybe that little girl got spoiled now and again, but she’d grow up knowing every last one of these men would bleed for her.

 

“Damn. My wolf has to go for a run before I head out tonight,” Jericho announced, kicking off his shoes and peeling away his Pink Floyd shirt. “If I’m not back in an hour, come find me. I can’t be late. I go on stage at midnight.”

 

In a fluid motion, Jericho shifted into a brown wolf mixed with cream and orange. His milky green eyes wandered up to Reno, who opened the front door and let him out.

 

“You going too?” he asked Ivy. She rarely let her wolf run with one of them. Ivy had gone through the change not long after her arrival, and Austin had carefully introduced her new wolf to the pack, as was custom. But since then, Ivy’s wolf kept to herself.

 

Despite her demure behavior, Reno liked Ivy. Lexi’s sass kept everyone laughing, while Ivy kept the men grounded. He didn’t know much about the pack she came from, but he wondered how they treated their women because of some things he noticed, which were uncharacteristic for a female Shifter. For one, Wheeler had walked by her once while yelling at Reno and lifted his hand angrily as he drove his point home. Ivy had flinched. No one said anything about it, but Reno and Austin made a mental note. She was outspoken with her opinions and the men didn’t seem to intimidate her otherwise, so Reno couldn’t be certain if her pack had abused her. He’d never met such a graceful and easygoing woman, but her wolf was skittish and easily frightened.

 

Reno heard his phone ringing upstairs. When it stopped, the house phone rang.

 

“Reno?” Ivy called out from the kitchen. “Someone’s asking for you.”

 

He crossed the room and took the phone, then leaned against the wall. “Yeah.”

 

“I think April’s trying to kill herself.”

 

Reno’s heart stopped and he almost dropped the phone. It was Trevor. “Is this your idea of a sick joke?”

 

“I need your help. Long story short, April’s mother overdosed and April’s staying in her motel room.”

 

Blood pounded in his head and he almost couldn’t hear Trevor. “Where is she?”

 

“Holed up in a dump by the sound of it,” Trevor said in rushed words. “She’s drunk or something and babbling incoherently. I don’t know how long she’s been there, but she won’t tell me where it is. I have her cell number, but she’s not answering anymore. Look, she told me you were a PI. I’ve called all the motels I can think of, but I don’t know what the fuck her mother’s first name is or if she was the one renting out the room. Dammit! I’ll pay you whatever.”

 

“I already have her number and mother’s full name, as well as the man she usually stays with. I’ll have her location in less than fifteen minutes. And Trevor?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Keep your money.”

 

Trevor’s voice leveled out and dropped an octave. “I’m coming with you, so call me back.”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 29

 

 

You don’t officially hit rock bottom until you’ve lost it all. I’d spent years despising my mother, and after I’d been given a fresh start, I wanted to mend the rift between us by trying to understand why she chose the life she did. Why she left Rose and me with our grandma after Dad died, and why she never once showed any interest in turning her life around. Tracking her whereabouts wasn’t difficult because there were only two places in town where she stayed.

 

This motel housed drug addicts. Every so often, the cops would organize a bust to make a public example, but it never stopped anyone from dealing and using.

 

My mom resembled nothing of the woman I once knew. Her body was frail and she didn’t look over ninety pounds. Her once beautiful blond hair was now thinning and dry. She had track marks all up her arms and in other places on her bruised body. Two of her teeth were missing and she behaved erratically—talking to herself and twitching, as if incapable of sitting still. I tried sobering her up with coffee, and she kept asking if I had any cash she could borrow. I wanted to buy her groceries and new clothes. I wanted to make her better again so she’d leave this life and stop using.

 

But you can’t make a user clean.

 

Mom made a call and thirty minutes later, someone brought her drugs. She had plenty of prescription drugs in the bathroom—either stolen or bought—but they weren’t enough.

 

I cried. I’d never imagined it was possible to feel so much empathy for a woman who had abandoned me. I mostly cried for the woman and mother she could have been but chose not to be. I cried because deep down, I just wanted to feel my mother’s arms around me and know her love.

 

Then things went from bad to worse.

 

She refused to talk about the past and seeing me must have made her shoot up more than normal. I went into the bathroom and broke down, ready to finally walk away for good. But it was so hard. All I’d ever wanted was for my mom to love me. I just wanted to be good enough for her. How could I walk away from the person who gave me life?

 

That was when it hit me how much our lives ran parallel. But I had something my mom never had.

 

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