Chapter 227
CADE
The messenger was gone but his words still echoed in my head. I supposed it would be doing that for quite a while.
'There was an attack of Icestone," he had said, looking shocked and very sad. "Your father... is dead."
It was ridiculous, of course, the idea of him dying. I had almost laughed. As if on cue, my phone had begun buzzing wildly, the sound of notifications and message pouring in.
It hadn't been only my device buzzing madly. It was Jace and Chase's too. With hands that didn't seem to be attached to my body, I had reached for the phone, unlocked it.
I clicked on a notification at random, saw the headlines in big bold black type: TRAGEDY AT ICESTONE. ALPHA WALLACE AND OTHERS CONFIRMED DEAD.
The phone dropped from my fingers onto the floor.
I didn't know I had read it aloud until Jace had burst out screaming something. At some point the screaming had turned to weeping. Chase had dropped into a chair and remained frozen, his eyes wide and staring at the blank wall opposite.
I stood up. The tears filled my eyes, blurred my vision but somehow I stumbled over to the window.
We were miles and miles from home. We had come to help a pack and now ours had been destroyed. I had no doubt the attack had been planned.
I didn't know how long I stood there, staring at the rolling expanse of hills in the distance but it must have been a long time because the sun was up in the sky when I came to.
I felt the sun heat on my face, drying the tears on my cheeks. I steeled myself and turned around.
The messenger had gone. Cade was still crying. Chase didn't seemed to have moved. He wasn't even blinking. Only the steady rise and fall of his chest could tell one he wasn't a statue.
"We have to go back to the pack," I said as loudly as I could which wasn't much because my vocal cords seemed to have gone on vacation.
I didn't remember anything about the flight back home. I only vaguely remembered the Alpha of the pack we had give to see offering his condolences and then saying something else. I had just walked past him into the waiting car.
Several cars were waiting at Icestone's airport when our flight touched down.
"Faster," I kept urging the driver as he drove the car through the streets leading to our house.
I was out of the vehicle before it had even stopped.
Parts of the house were burned. Most of the trees on the grounds were nothing but charred skeletons now. The whole place looked like it had been hit with a flaming meteor. Even the cars which some trucks were towing away now were just blackened twisted lumps of metal.
I hurried inside. A warm body slammed into mine. Arms went around my neck. I recognized her scent at once.
"Hannah," I sighed, holding her to me.
"Cade," Willa cried and I looked up.
I almost couldn't recognise her. She was too thin and pale with eyes that were swimming in her face.
She launched herself at me. I held them both, heard them cry and it broke my heart a little more.
I counted to ten then let go. Jace and Chase came in then and took the girls in their arms. I noticed for the first time that there were a lot of people waiting in the hall.
Hannah's parents were in front with their arms around each other. Hannah's mother was crying softly.
She put out a hand. I took it.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "So sorry. Your father was a good man."
Elliot started to squeeze my shoulder then abruptly pulled me into a hug instead. I stood still in the circle of his arms, waited for him to let me go. He did.
I moved around the room, receiving firm comforting clasps of the hand, pats on the back and shoulders, words of sympathy. All the council members were present as well as Alphas and Betas of neighboring packs who had come down as soon as they had heard.
"I'm sorry for your loss," they said.
"He was a good man," they said.
"Please be strong," they said.
I nodded, grunted out the appropriate responses through lips that didn't feel like they were mine.
To me all their words were like the wind whistling through a chimney on a cold, cold night. None of it felt real.
Maybe I had somehow gotten caught in a nightmare loop, the type were you thought you were actually awake. Maybe I would wake up sweating and panting in my bed. Maybe-
"I'm sorry, Cade," one of the councilmen, the oldest among them said.
He was clasping my hand.
Suddenly I had to see my father. I had to know once and for all if this was for real.
"He was-"
"Where is he?" I said.
The man blinked. "Sorry. What?"
"My father," I said impatiently. "Where is he?"
"In the council chambers," he replied. "We-"
I didn't wait to hear the rest. I was already on the move. I looked back once. The girls were still clinging to Jace and Chase. I went on, taking the stairs two at a time up to the council chambers.
I jerked open the door and there he was, my father, lying on a platform with different kinds of flowers arranged around his body. With a trembling finger, I touched the cold skin, felt it give a little.
This was no dummy or waxwork. This was no prank. This was my father and he was dead.
I broke down then. My legs gave way. I fell to the floor, sobbing, crying, letting all the hurt and the regret and the pain out.
And there was so much in there I felt like my heart couldn't contain it all. It was too much for me to bear. Too much for anyone to bear.
The guards in the room that I hadn't even been aware of left, shutting the door behind them to give me some privacy.
At some point I noticed my brothers and sister were also in the room, weeping. Somehow the sound of my sister crying gave me the strength to pick myself off the floor.
I walked out. The councilmen were waiting outside the door. They looked like they had been there for sometime.
"Yes?" I said.
"The burial is for this evening," one said.
I nodded. "It will go on as planned. Make the necessary arrangements."
The bowed and went off in a single silent file.
There was nothing much for me to do until evening and so I sat in the living room, close to the window, watching people from the funeral home moving around the grounds and the house, putting things in place.
Hannah was a rock. Though pale and close to tears herself, she went around comforting everyone. To went from Willa, to Jace to Chase.
Finally she came to sit by me. We sat like that for a long time, each lost in our own thoughts.
Finally she said, "It's going to be okay. I know it doesn't look or feel like it right now, but I promise it will get better. With time."
"I know," I said.
Time. How much time? One year? Two? Four? Ten?
How long before I stopped feeling like my world had come crumbling down?
Then Hannah touched my shoulder and I told myself I had to be strong. Whether I liked it or not, whether I believed it or not, my father was gone.
My brothers and I had to lead the pack now. We couldn't do that if we broke down. If we did, then what would the pack who were looking up to us, do?
*********
Evening came and a light drizzle came with it. It was as though the heavens were weeping too, joining it's tears with ours.
I stayed in my room for as long as I could and then I steeled myself, finished buttoning up my black suit and stepped out. My siblings were waiting in the hall.
I took Willa's arm. Together we stepped out into the grounds where the guests were already assembled. I took my seat in front with Hannah and my siblings. The ceremony began.
Jace took the stage and read a brief biography of our father. At a point, he pushed the paper away and spoke from the heart, recalling incidents, some which I had almost forgotten, that proved how much of an excellent leader he had been.
Willa was in tears and couldn't say anything so Chase took the stage.
At a point I stopped listening and could only think of the hollow feeling in my chest. I wondered when or if it would ever go away.
Someone shook my arm and I realized the podium was now empty.
"Your turn," Hannah said.
Her eyes were swimming with tears.
I stood at the podium for a long time, staring at the people who had come to pay their final respects.
All the words I wanted to say got jammed up in my throat and then I swallowed and said, "My father was the best father figure a child could hope for..."
It got easier to speak after than.
The rest of the ceremony passed by in a blur. Thirty minutes later, we were all standing in the graveyard where generations of the Wallace's were buried.
With tears in my eyes, I watched my father's gold coffin lowered slowly into the damp earth that would hide it forever.
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