Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
He used to put dead lizards in my bed and in my book bag to scare me. Later on, he’d snoop and snitch on me. Not for doing anything wrong. I never did anything wrong, but for doing anything remotely good. He’d let my aunt know if I did a good job, and she’d make certain that I knew I wasn’t special.
I have braced myself for whatever terrible things are going to come out of her mouth, but I know that whatever I think, there’s a pretty high chance that what she says will be worse.
My aunt gives a humorless chuckle, sounding like an older, meaner version of Colton. The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree.
“It’s not been easy on us, keeping this secret for so long. Letting you think you were normal. Watching you walk around the world as if there wasn’t any part of you that you need to be ashamed of.”
“I wish you had told me. It was quite a shock…”
“Oh, I bet it was, little miss prissy. I bet you were horrified to find out you’re an animal deep down. No better than any other animal.” She laughs at me in cruel tones. “I would have paid money to see you after that, covered in your pelt, maddened with hunger, ready to rip out your mate’s throat. Did he mark you then? Bite your neck so hard you bled, then beat you until he got the beast out of you and took your human form again?”
My eyes widen as she describes something that must have happened to her by the way her tone goes all guttural and visceral. I don’t tell her that didn’t happen to me. I don’t tell her that instead of being brutalized, I was protected and loved and shown how to behave, but not with any cruelty.
“Who was it? Some filthy city wolf? A gang member?”
“Something like that,” I mumble. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“He did you a favor. You’ve always been so soft. You need to be toughened up. That’s why your uncle and I supported your going to the city. You needed to learn a few things. Now you know.”
This is as kind as my aunt gets. I think, on some twisted level, she believes what she is saying. The world hasn’t been kind to her, and she hasn’t been kind to anyone else. She believes in giving what she gets, and getting what she gives.
Before my uncle drank himself out of his mind, and out of his body, he was cruel. Really cruel. Sometimes I’d hear them. I’d hear her cry. They’d fight a lot, but I used to feel sorry for her, until I realized she was always going to take it out on me. I’m the bottom of this particular food chain.
“It’s good. Now you can go with your cousin on his next job.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Colton has been the one keeping this place afloat since your uncle got sick. He’s the one who has kept the roof over our heads.”
The roof leaks, but pointing that out would be petty and only invite all their rage.
“What jobs does Colton do?”
“I’ll show you,” Colton says. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a system.”
“I’m not going to sell drugs,” I say. “I don’t want a criminal record.”
My aunt stalks over to me, her face twisted with disdain for my attempt to stay legit. “You think you’re not already a criminal?” She takes hold of me by the ear between two thin, but strong fingers. She twists to make me look up at her at an agonizing angle. “You think the thing you are, the animal you become, isn’t a crime here in this world of men? We are monsters. We are irredeemable. We are predators. And we will hunt any way we can to survive. Do you understand me?”
There’s some part of me, some terrible, weak animal part of me that responds to her cruelty. I am a wolf without an alpha. I am alone, I am vulnerable, and my inner beast desperately needs to follow.
I answer with a whimper.
“Good,” she says, releasing my ear. “You know, this is a whole new era for us. We’re going to be the family we once were. Your mother was a very good retriever.”
“Retriever?”
“That means I told her what to get, and she got it. Now Colton, he’s better at selling, but you’re a pretty little thing, and the boys around here are rough. So you’re going to stay out of the way, and you’re going to use your wolf form and your wiles to get what I tell you to get. Then Colton will sell it. See how that works? Everybody has their part to play.”
I nod.
I do not want to commit crimes. I want a normal life. I want to go back to the city and disappear back into the mass of people, none of whom have any idea who or what I am. I want to go back to Cain, but I know he won’t want me now, not once he realizes what kind of trash I am. He will find someone else. I know he will. His pack is full of females who worship the ground he walks on.