It starts out easily enough. My name. My details. Each question clipped and short. Until he flips it. “Your mother. She left you with Rick Traylor, correct?”
I stiffen. “Yes.”
“Why?” Parker asks mildly. “Did she carry the feral gene?”
“I don’t know.” My brows knot. “I don’t think so.”
“What about your father? Did you ever ask him?”
“No.” I pick at the sweatshirt. “But that’s not what turned me. It was… Brett.”
I stumble over his name. My shoulders hunch forward, and I glance to the mirror. Parker follows my gaze. “They’re not out there.”
My eyes slide to his. It’s like a bucket of cold water hitting my body. “What?”
His face settles into something resembling sympathy. “They went out. To run some errands, I believe. Do you feel close to your mates, Kennedy?”
They… left?“They wouldn’t leave.”
My breathing starts to speed up. He’s watching every movement. Assessing me. And I feel myself start to crumble.
Parker clicks his tongue. “I’m afraid they have. But that’s not a bad thing. How do you feel when they’re not with you?”
“Fine.” I force out the word, hiding my shaking fingers in the folds of Max’s hoodie. “I’m not their keeper.”
“But you are their mate,” he says smoothly. “What would you do if they weren’t with you? Out there?”
I don’t understand what he’s asking me. My heartbeat pounds in my ears. “Can I have some water, please?”
“In a minute. Can you answer the question, Kennedy? Do you feel able to cope without them?”
“I’ve done it before.” My words come out in a snap.
Parker sighs. “But we’re talking about now. If something… happened to them. How would you cope? Alone?”
Alone. I squeeze my eyes shut. “I want to stop.”
Nothing is going to happen to them. Even the thought of it pulls a small, broken sound from my throat. “Please. I’ll – I’ll try again. Later. Stop.”
“I don’t mean to distress you.” Poison drips from his tone, layered in a sugared lie. “But these are important questions, if you’re going to be allowed to leave the Center. They could leave you, Kennedy. They’re not waiting for you out there now. Are you sure you can trust them? It’s not the first time they’ve let you down, is it?”
I fold over at the waist. Burning. At the back of my eyes, blurring the floor in front of me. “They’re trying. Nobody is perfect.”
“But you need to be,” he says sharply. “Or you’ll be a danger to everyone around you. And you’re not ready, Kennedy. Are you?”
Pain. In my chest. I choke on the words. “I want to go home.”
With them. I want to be with them.
Polished shoes appear in my line of sight. Parker’s voice drops low. “But you don’t have a home. Do you?”
It’s a direct strike. Straight into my chest.
My lips curl back, and I snarl at him, my canines on full display as the noise ripples from my throat into the otherwise silent room.
Get away.
He smiles at me then, Parker. As if he’s won a game I didn’t know we were playing. “Still a little feral, then?”
