There’s no telling what kind of methods Doyle might employ to do that, so I nod and gently take Raquel by the arm. “Leave it,” I say, tugging her away from the door. “There are things about this situation you don’t understand, but I’m doing everything I can to get you out of here.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Raquel spins on me, and the security officer shuts the door as soon as her attention is diverted, the lock sliding into place with a loud clang. Her gaze darts to the door, then back to me and she frowns. “What the hell is going on, Neil?”
I blow out a breath, stalling as I try to gather my thoughts. How much should I tell her? Everything? Learning about the existence might be overwhelming, but the odds of me making it out of thissituation are slim, and she’ll need to know what—and who—to avoid afterward.
Full disclosure it is then.
Taking hold of one of her hands, I lead her over to the cot and pull her down to sit beside me. I gently squeeze her hand and take a deep breath to steady myself.
“Under any other circumstances, what I’m about to tell you would probably get me killed, but I think you deserve an explanation.”And I’m pretty much as good as dead anyway.I swallow, my gaze falling to rest on our intertwined fingers. Where to start?
Raquel grips my hands tightly, a slight tremble in her fingers, and I raise my eyes to meet hers. Her brows draw together with concern and she silently studies my face as she waits for me to continue.
“You already know the basics of how I ended up in foster care,” I say.
She nods slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. “Your parents died and you had no other family.”
“Yeah.” I swallow again, the lump in my throat blocking me from forming words. Human or not, Raquel has been my best friend, my sister in everything but blood since I was fifteen, and there’s no way of telling what might happen once she knows thetruth of what I really am—and what I did. “Except it’s a lot more complicated than that.”
“Neil…” She cups my face with her hand, her thumb stroking my skin, and I realize there are tears on my cheeks. “You’re my best friend, the person who is always there for me even when you don’t necessarily want to be. There’s nothing you can tell me that will make me abandon you.”
Sure, she says that now… I wince. Sometimes the voice in my head is a real asshole.
Hearing Doyle recite the lines from the police report was bad enough, having to verbalize the truth to the only person who matters to me is almost torturous. No matter what happens after this, once Raquel knows everything, she’ll look at me differently.
At least I probably won’t be around for the aftermath.
I inhale, letting the breath out slowly through my mouth as I try to center myself. “Growing up, it was just my parents and me. My mom doted on me, but my dad… was not so great. He had plenty of expectations of me and I met none of them.”He wanted me to be an alpha.“Right after my fifteenth birthday…” There’s no way to explain the rest of the story unless she knows the most basic fact about me. “Let me back up a second… You see…” I blow out a breath. How do I even say this?
Raquel stares at me intently, biting on her lower lip. “It’s okay. Whatever it is.”
“You say that now…” I mutter, mirroring my earlier thoughts as I let out a watery laugh. “I’m just going to spit this out then. I’m a shifter.”
“A… shifter?” She blinks at me, her face going blank.
“What some might call a werewolf,” I continue. “But we, as a species or whatever, call ourselves shifters.”
“You call yourselves…” She lets out a harsh laugh that borders on hysterical, then pulls her hand from mine and stands, pacing to the other side of the room.
My heart twists in my chest. This is it then. My only friend in the world is going to walk away.
Raquel paces toward me, opens her mouth, shuts it again, then crosses back to the other side of the room, muttering something under her breath. She returns to stand next to where I’m sitting on the cot, pointing at the air with her index finger as if making a point. “Magic isn’t real.”
“I didn’t claim it was,” I say. “Look, I know it’s hard to believe, but—”
“Hard to believe?” Her index finger aims at my face, her pointy pink nail only inches from my nose. “Try impossible. Why are yousaying these things? What’s going on? I… I…” Her voice breaks and she dissolves into tears. “I don’t understand.”
“I know.” I pause, staring down at the floor. “And I’m sorry you got dragged into this, but I’m going to do what I have to in order to get you out of here.”
She sniffles and narrows her eyes at me. “There it is again.”
“Huh? There what is?”
“That’s twice now you’ve said something about getting me out of here, but what about you?”
“But… why do you care? I’ve been lying to you the entire time I’ve known you and—”
“Shut. Up.” Her nostrils flare and the fire of anger roars in her eyes. “Jesus, Neil, just because I’m taking a moment to process this wild story of yours doesn’t mean I don’t still love you like a brother. Of course I care.”
