Page 25 of Cold Foot Revenge
Beside her, the door opened, and Dylan was standing there. His eyes were soft, and full of concern. “Come here,” he murmured.
“I have to…I have to…” She didn’t even know. “I have to stop existing,” she sobbed.
He leaned down and slid his strong hand around hers and tugged her up. He was so gentle as he pulled her against his chest, and he held her hand right between them and rested his cheek against the top of her head.
And she fell apart. God, how mortifying, but she couldn’t stop. She hadn’t cried in so long and now she couldn’t lock it all away again.
He swayed her like a dance, and she went limp against him, just feeling demolished.
Why had he done this to her? Why? Why had she given him the power to do this? She didn’t know him. Dylan was a stranger, mostly. Why was she crying against this stranger’s chest like he was the one who could put her back together again.
No one could save her.
“Why did they Turn you?” he asked in a whisper.
No defenses left, she told him, “Because I was engaged to the Alpha. I was in love with him, and he was experimenting on me.”
“Why the coyote? Why not a bear?”
“Too big a risk. They don’t want she-bears in the Grit-Bron Crew, Dylan. He wanted a little animal he could control.”
“You didn’t have a choice?”
She huffed a humorless sound and shook her head against his chest. “It’s a two-part process,” she whispered, knowing she was breaking all the rules. “They drug you first. It puts your brain to sleep, but it also weakens your organs. Blood vessels. Skin. You become fragile so that when they inject you, your bodydoesn’t fight the animal. Makes it faster. Makes it to where you can’t stop them.”
She sniffed and pushed off of Dylan. “That’s what happened to your brother. There’s the information you needed. You should know something though.”
“What’s that,” he asked, his nostrils flaring with the deep inhalation of breath. The fire was back in his eyes. The anger.
“Leech got the wrong brother. He got Garret mixed up with you. I heard them talking about it. Grave wanted to kill Leech for the mistake. He was so mad. They had to Turn Garret then or the drugs would’ve just killed him. You can’t survive the first step without the second.”
Dylan was shaking his head, confusion swirling in his eyes. “Wait, I don’t know anyone named Grave or Leech. Why would they be after me?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.
“Why me, Roxy?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t talk about that part in front of me.” She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. “They’ll kill me if they find out I betrayed the Crew and told you.”
“Why didn’t they Turn me after Garret then? We were here for a few weeks after. Garret was loud. He had no control of the animal. It would’ve been easy to find me.”
She shook her head again, starting to regret telling him. “A dose of the Turn is expensive. You have to get it illegally. It’s ten thousand dollars a dose. That’s why Grave was so pissed.” She frowned, trying to remember that Crew meeting. Grave and Leech were fighting a lot back then, and loudly. “He said something like he’d had to put up the down payment on the bar for that dose and it was wasted. Garret couldn’t be controlled. I remember he said he couldn’t be controlled.”
“And I could?” Dylan asked.
“I don’t…I don’t know,” she said. “Garret was Turned before I was. I wasn’t around for all that. All I heard was an argument that flared up later. I was a new Turn and trying to get used to being in Crew meetings with a lot of really dominant bear shifters and it was hard to even pay attention. I remember I went and did an internet search on you and your brother’s names after the meeting, trying to figure out what happened. I found your social media pages. Your last post was the night Garret was Turned, and then you just went quiet. Garret too. I was scared Garret hurt you, or something happened to you.”
“Why did you care?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I think I was just trying to figure out how Garret was doing, because I knew I wasn’t doing well at all. I went straight to hell and didn’t rebound after I died. And that’s what it feels like, Dylan. The old you dies, and the new one wasn’t your choice, and everything falls apart. I wanted to know if it had done the same to Garret. I hoped it didn’t. I kind of hoped I would find out that he was doing well, and then it would give me some hope or something.”
“And Grave?” he asked low.
“What about him?”
“Are you and him…are you together still?”
“Hell no. I broke that off the second I figured everything out. He had me locked away in his house when I was first Turned, and went into control-mode immediately. He kept trying to convince me that if I did every single thing he said, I would be okay again someday. I found out he was the one who Turned me. I heard him talking about it with Nick.” She tapped her ear twice. “The coyote hearing is something else.” She wiped her damp cheeks with the back of her hand and leaned her back against the back window of her car. “You asked who hurt me.” She lifted her gaze to his. “That’s who.”
