Twisting Her Fate
Chapter 80

Still tied to the punishment pole, Maggie finally wakes to her mother stroking her hair. She looks up and just notices Astrid staring out into the trees in a trance. Astrid hasn't slept a wink the entire night, not because she is cold or because she has never done it rough, it is because she can't get Cora out of her mind. The scene replaying over and over. She had just resumed luna duties, she wanted to stay home for longer, she wanted to stay home until Cora was one-year-old. But Simon was swamped with work so he talked her into working two days a week. It was the second week back and when she got home expecting to be able to grab her baby daughter and hold her close, all she got back was her corpse, her sweet little girl that was just smiling that morning was so destroyed that she couldn't even recognize her, she couldn't even recognize her own daughter, her scent was there through all the blood. The look on Rose's face as she handed Astrid the baby. There was not a scratch on Rose, yet her baby looked like she had been through a mincer. It was all so brutal that Astrid passed out and by the time she awoke, Cora's body had been incinerated.

Simon said that he didn't want her going through such pain again, so he got rid of Cora.

There was no funeral, it was like her baby had just disappeared from the world. Cora never had a chance to leave her mark on the world, instead she left a mark on Astrid's heart that was so deep and so jagged that there was no way it would ever heal. "Mum?"

Astrid looks down at Maggie's face, her eyes glassy and a smile so heartbreaking that if it was anyone else but Maggie she would ask if anything was wrong, but Maggie doesn't ask because she doesn't care, she is much too wrapped up in her own world to care about what her mother is going through.

"Hello sweetheart"

"What happened?"

Maggie is slightly confused, she feels slightly damp, her mother is still and everyone else is gone, she shifts uncomfortably, slightly pulling at the cuffs. Maggie remembers pain so blinding that she couldn't stand it and then nothing else. Astrid quickly gets another vial of the serum out of her pocket and deposits it in Maggie's mouth.

Maggie spits it straight back out, glaring at her mother.

"What good is that crap?"

"Maggie, it healed you"

"What good is healing if I am so painful that I pass out?"

Astrid wipes off the liquid that just hit her face.

"If you sat there laughing, do you think Gabriel ever would have let up? A single serum can't do everything, you healed and that was the goal"

"It was so painful, you don't even understand"

Astrid laughs harshly, it is the first time that Maggie has ever heard such a sound come out of her mother.

"You think I don't know pain? What you experienced yesterday is only a taste of what others feel each and every day"

Astrid stares out at the trees once more, whispering so quietly that Maggie can't even hear her words.

"What I go through each and every day"

"Why would I care about what others go through? I only care about what I went through, I didn't deserve that at all"

Gabriel walks over just in time to hear Maggie's words. He laughs hard, eyeing the woman who looks so wronged but she has been tended to for a whole night, cradled in a loving mothers embrace.

"Didn't you deserve it? That is the funniest thing I have ever heard. You deserve so much worse"

Maggie sits up in shock as she looks at Gabriel, suddenly wishing she hadn't spit out the serum. Is he going to whip her again?

"Gabriel, baby, my love"

Gabriel snorts in disgust as he looks at the pleading woman. He stares down at her, trying to decide what attracted him to her in the first place. He always thought she was beautiful, but now she looks so average, there is no appeal at all. "Save it Maggie, I want to know the truth. Do you really think that you don't deserve it?"

"Of course I do, I deserve everything that you give me. I know I did wrong and I will do anything to rectify it"

Gabriel crosses his arms over his chest, he is back to his magnificent self, the only sign of the abuse he has done to his own body is the fact that he has leaned out a little.

There is no sign of the decadent, self-loathing man that stared back at him in the mirror in the morning.

He doesn't believe a word that Maggie says but he needs her for this. She takes some of the attention off him.

"We are going to the stormy pack. We have some things to sort out without an audience"

The last thing Maggie wants to do is face Connor again. There is not a single time that she came out on top. Even that first meeting, she thought that she had won by choosing Gabriel over him, but the reality was that he didn't walk out because he was devastated, he walked out because he couldn't care less.

She would never voice her resistance to the plan because she needs Gabriel and if Gabriel wants to face those two, then she just has to suck it up and deal with it.

"Of course, whatever you want baby, I am with you every step of the way"

Astrid watches the interaction between the two. There is nothing healthy about the relationship at all. Gabriel looks at Maggie with hatred and Maggie looks at Gabriel with raw desperation.

This isn't what she wanted for Maggie at all. Is this the example she set? Astrid stands to her feet, straightening her clothes.

"Gabriel, do you mind if I join? I will just stay in the background, I won't interrupt at all"

Gabriel looks over Astrid, who still looks beautiful. There are no signs of the rough night at all except for a few wrinkles on her clothing.

Maggie has thick panda eyes, one of her fake lashes is hanging off strangely looking like insects have crawled on her face during the night and made themselves at home, tear streaks though her thick foundation and vomit sitting on the corner of her lips. "Sure you can come"

At least Astrid might be able to tell Maggie what to say. He leans down, tearing the cuffs off in a rough manner, Maggie screams in pain.

"Help her get ready Astrid, I want her to look good, not like a f*cking prostit*te, don't let her embarrass me in every way"

Astrid nods, hiding Maggie's torn wrists behind her back as she helps her daughter toward the pack house. Astrid looks back at Gabriel, who is just staring at the punishment pole in a stupor. She feeds Maggie the serum and watches as her wounds heal. Gabriel stares at the punishment pole, all he can think about is every lash hitting Leilani's back, the way she never made a peep, lash after lash hit her back and it was like she couldn't even feel her skin being ripped apart. He remembers the rest of the pack standing around laughing, staring at her with malicious expressions. Staring at the whole scene like it wasn't someone getting punished, like it was purely for entertainment.

The jeers and the voices that just spurred him on, made him hit harder and harder till his arm was sore. He only finished when she passed out, but there was no sound from her, no pain-filled cry, no begging for mercy, there was nothing at all. When he finished Lance patted him on the back.

"Good job Gabriel. People need to know their place in life and if they have a single thought outside of that, it is your job to set them straight. That is an alpha's job"

Gabriel nodded to his father.

"I know dad, shouldn't she be happy with what she has?"

"She should son. You know what you did just then?"

"I taught her that her place is in that cupboard. She has no rights to dare to dream bigger than that"

Lance smiled and ruffled his young son's hair as they walked away from the unconscious girl.

"Good boy, everyone has a place in the pack, we are the top and she is the bottom. If she needs reminding every now and then, it doesn't hurt, it helps that others stay in line too. It is easier to punish one person than a whole pack, so now they have seen what we can do, what you can do, it keeps everyone in line"

Gabriel nodded.

"I understand dad"

Gabriel glances at the pole once more before walking to his car and sitting in the driver's seat with a new conviction.

Everyone has a place in the pack and some just need to be reminded of theirs. Leilani was nothing and she is still nothing, it doesn't matter what others say, he knows it and deep down she must know it too. Gabriel smiles as he taps on the steering wheel, staring blankly ahead waiting for Astrid and Maggie.