“Yeah,” I rasped.
“Who is she?” Gage asked.
I swallowed hard. “I... don’t even know her last name. She was living on the streets, I’m pretty sure. But we busked together sometimes. We were friends.”
Gage digested that before speaking again. “Kind of a funny reaction to seeing a friend.”
“She... killed someone,” I said reluctantly, before hurrying to clarify. “But it was self-defense! Or, I mean... it was actually me she was defending.”
“Go on,” Gage said, when I didn’t immediately continue.
I took a centering breath, relieved that my panic seemed to be abating. As much as I hated talking about my past, I owed it to this pack if Knox’s attempted murder was involved.
“My stepfather abused me when I was younger. I got out... got some help and moved here from St. Louis to get away from him.”
“He came after you?” Gage guessed.
“Yeah. Found out where I lived... showed up one night and shoved his way into my apartment.” The words were hard to get out, even now. The memory of hands yanking at my clothing, tearing my jeans and underwear down to expose me, made my skin crawl. “Jez was coming over with a pizza. I thought it was her when I opened the door. But she showed up while he was attacking me. The door was still unlocked. She came in, saw what was happening, and bashed his skull in with a table lamp. He died instantly.”
“Huh,” Gage said.
“She ran away afterward.” The words escaped without my conscious decision to say them aloud. “Panicked, I guess. I never saw her again after that... until just now.”
“How long ago was that?” Gage asked.
“A little more than a year,” I told him.
“Guess that’d give you a shock, for sure.” Gage rose from his nonthreatening crouch, dusting himself off.
“Yeah,” I agreed in a whisper.
The alpha’s mouth curled unhappily.
“We need answers, after what she did to Knox,” he said. “And she ain’t giving them. You could talk to her. Maybe find out who the hell she’s working for.”
The instinctive need to say no bubbled up in my throat. But after everything, Ididowe them this. Heath had cleaned up Jez’s mess for me without even knowing it, and then she’d nearly gone and killed his pack leader. Or, at least... Gage thought she had.
If there was any chance this was a terrible misunderstanding, I needed to find out. And, more selfishly, the urge to ask why she’d abandoned me so completely itched beneath my skin. She had to have known that I wouldn’t blame her for what she’d done in my own defense. She had to have known that by running, she was leaving me in the shit, with a dead body on my floor.
Gage wanted answers. So did I.
“Okay,” I said, steeling myself to walk back up those stairs and confront the woman who’d turned all of our lives upside down.
EIGHT
