Page 63 of Fangs
My mind flashed back to that morning when I was attacked in my own clinic. I could see the two men’s sneers and the eager anticipation in their eyes. I could feel the hands that groped my body. I sucked in a desperate breath through my nose, trying to keep from being sick. Part of my mind was raging that she was twisting the story like that, but the majority of me was just so damn tired—tired of trying to prove myself, tired of trying to explain myself, tired of trying. And I could not process the knowledge that Dune, my best friend, had potentially lied to me.
“Well?” Wolf demanded impatiently.
I couldn’t do this. My mind and body started shutting down again. The numbness rushed over me like a cold blast of wind, leaving nothing in its wake.
“What do you want to know?” I asked woodenly.
There was a brief silence.
“I want to know where the fuck you’ve been?—”
“With the Reapers.” I forced myself to look at his face as I said it, and sure enough, horrified recognition appeared.
“Theraiders?”
“Yes.”
“You joinedthe Reapers?”
“You taught me to survive.”
He stared at me.
“So I survived.” It was so much easier to talk when I felt empty like this. “I did whatever I had to do to survive, just like you taught me.”
“I did not fuckin’ teach you tokillandtorturepeople, Ember!” He looked at me like he’d never seen me before, but all I felt was hollow.
“I did what I had to do.”
His jaw worked furiously as if he was so angry he couldn’t get the words out. “So you joined the worst gang you could find? The one that raped and killed for fun? The one that tore families apart and sold them to slavers? That’s how you recognized Sable’s brand, isn’t it? Cause you helpedtraffickpeople like him to Mad Dog?”
I felt removed from my body as if I were watching this play out from somewhere above.
“He was achildwhen he got taken. Achildwhen the slavers put that brand on him. Achildwhen the Reapers shoved him in a trailer packed with so many people they couldn’t even sit down…fordays.”
I had been a child, too, but I couldn’t get my mouth to move.
“Do you know what Mad Dog did to his slaves? Theluckyones were crushed by collapsing tunnels underground. The pretty ones like Sable’s sister, though? Hecollectedthem,” he spit the words out like they burned on his tongue. “Sable got to see her body before they burned it, and he barely recognized her. He would’vediedin those tunnels if he hadn’t escaped. And Juck just kept bringin’ him fucking truckfuls?—”
He cut off abruptly, sucking in a breath, and I tried to brace myself.
“Juck. Is that ‘J’ on your chest for ‘Juck’?”
It felt like I’d fallen into that icy river again, my body numb but somehow still thrumming with pain at the same time.
“Ember,” Wolf growled, “tell me you weren’t Juck’s Angel.”
I flinched.
“Is that why you didn’t want us to see it?” He was so angry his voice shook slightly. “Are you tellin’ me you were Juck’s whore?”
All the blood rushed from my face at that horrible name. It never seemed to matter how often the Reapers sneered it at me; hearing it always made me sick. The brand on my chest felt like it was burning into my skin all over again. I could see the person Wolf saw, and it wasn’t me, but I had no energy to fix it. No matter what I said, he just kept seeing the worst possible version of me, and I was done trying to fight him on it.
“At least Mom isn’t alive to see what you’ve become.” Wolf’s voice was harsh and bitter.
I remembered Madame slowly shoving her knife into Mist’s shoulder and twisting it. I imagined this must be close to what that felt like. I wantedto scream and cry, but I silently bore the pain—just like I always did.
“I have to go,” I said numbly, trying again to jerk my arm free.
