Shock rushed over Liam’s features, but soon that shock turned into something else. Something that whittled his expression. What did he do to your mother?
He didn’t ask about Becca, which meant he already knew.
When she begged him to let me into the pack and train me, he…he raped her. I dragged in a rough breath. I hated your father, Liam, but I never meant to kill him. It truly was an accident. If I could rewind…if I could just-Ness, my father didn’t die because of any drug.
I know how he died, Liam. I know he drowned. My eyes were so hot that the cold air made them sting. But he drowned because of their effect.
You think he fell into his pool and somehow spasmed to death? His gravelly voice turned almost shrill. Oh, Ness…He nudged my cheek with his wet nose.
But Everest said-
What did he say? His tone was as dark as his glistening fur.
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. My throat had squeezed as tight as a fist.
My father did die in his pool, but he was strangled to death with a silver cord.
The air eddied between us, cold and hot, loud and silent.
Strangled? I whispered.
Your pills might’ve slowed him down, but they didn’t kill him. Liam’s large black face dipped heavily. In a slow, even voice, he added, I wondered why my father hadn’t shifted. And then, Everest knew about the pills, didn’t he?
He suggested them. I only wanted to give your father one, but Everest recommended three. He told me Alphas weren’t built like normal wolves.
Suddenly, everything made sense. How quickly Everest had been to blame me. How swiftly he’d pushed me toward the enemy pack to make me look like a traitor. How he’d up and left Boulder. Why he’d blackmailed me to compete in the last trial.
My death would mean his secret was safe.
Liam’s death would mean my cousin would be free of retaliation.
What he hadn’t counted on was for me to figure it out and share my findings with Heath’s son.
My head swam, but my heart, it shot up from the depths it had been wallowing in. I have to go. I have to go. I tried to wriggle out from underneath him, but he pinned one of my shoulders with his giant forepaws. Liam, I have to go! Let me go! Everest took Evelyn. I have to save her.
I spun my face to see my uncle. He was watching on as intently and curiously as the others. Was he in on his son’s scheme? Was he the one who sawme?
I writhed, but Liam wouldn’t get off me. I snarled at him. I need to find her.
I’ll go with you.
You come with me and they’ll know I talked.
What am I supposed to do? Let you leave to face Everest on your own?
Yes.
No. His yellow eyes sparked like fire.
He’ll kill Evelyn if you come with me.
He might kill her andyou if I let you go on your own.
We’re wasting time. I writhed like a snake. You want to help me? I growled. Then shift back and tell them I’m running away since I can’t forfeit. That’ll give me time to find her, and it will lead Everest astray.
Ness-
I spun so briskly to the side that he faltered. He tried to trap me again but ended up swiping his paw across my face, his claws catching in my cheek. The wound wasn’t deep, but it stung.
Liam folded his ears back. Shit.
I could see my reflection in his gaze; I could see the red seeping over the white. Using his surprise, I flipped onto my stomach, my cheek weeping blood on the cement floor, and leaped out from underneath him.
I burst into the sunlight, speeding away from the boy who made my heart beat fiercely, from the warehouse that held cherished moments of my childhood, from the pack I’d wanted to become a part of even though I’d claimed otherwise.
Liam didn’t come after me, which led me to think he’d changed back to his human form and indulged my plea. I prayed his explanation would get back to Everest, and that he wouldn’t hold my supposed desertion against Evelyn.
I flew toward the inn like a lightning bolt, pounding the earth so violently I thought my heart would crack. The urgency and the adrenaline dimmed the horror of what I’d just learned…of what my cousin had done.
When I reached the inn’s property line, I slowed to make sure there weren’t too many humans but then realized I was wasting precious minutes. To hell with sightings. I was not an impressive creature, not like Liam and the rest of the boys. They couldn’t pass for real wolves; I could. I muscled my way through the prickly fir trees and bounded into the parking lot. Evelyn’s sash window still gaped wide.
As I trotted toward it, I lowered my nose to the hot asphalt and inhaled. There it was again. The ashen scent of a crushed cigarette laced with Evelyn’s minty ointment. Everest didn’t smoke… Or did he? Did I even know my cousin?
The odor of arthritis cream ran the length of the parking lot, tempered with that of gasoline fumes. He’d taken Evelyn in a car. How was I supposed to trail a car?
I ran, but not fast, clinging to the edge of the road. I discovered a cigarette butt, coated in dry saliva, then picked up more hints of Evelyn’s salve. I prayed it wasn’t my addled mind conjuring up smells that weren’t there.
The sun baked my hide, but thankfully, the whiteness of my fur repelled some of the heat. I walked and walked, losing the invisible trail more than once, but retrieving it each time. Like a fractured chain, it hung in the stifling air. The only explanation I could come up with was that her captor had left the car window open.
A fork split the road in half. I smelled the air but froze as I took in my surroundings.
No…
NO!
I’d followed an old scent. Despair limning my vision, I stared at the steep hill with the pockmarked road that led to my childhood home. My heart thudded. I backed away but stepped in a spot of mud that sucked at my hind paw. I yanked my leg free, noticing tread marks beneath my paw print.
Fresh tread marks.
A car hadcome by here.
Maybe I hadn’t followed an old trail.
I sped up the hill, pulse lurching savagely. Tucked behind the house was a black minivan with the Boulder Inn logo. Part of me had held out hope that I’d been wrong. That it wasn’t my own family that had done this to me. The van trampled that hope.
Wolves didn’t have goose bumps, yet my fur tingled with thousands.
I swayed but steeled my nerves as I inched closer to the house, ears perked up for sound. Through the grimy window of my old living room, I caught a sight that sucked all the oxygen from the air.