“You could say that,” he murmured. “It would probably be more accurate to say that losing Hannah was like dropping a nuke on my family. Jenna had to go to a therapist for years, and my parents ended up getting divorced. Jenna and my parents all still live in LA, but none of them ever see each other, much less talk. Hell, Mom and Dad can’t even be in the same room now without a major fight, which means visiting either of them, even separately, is full of so much drama, it isn’t worth the cost of the plane ticket. I see Jenna more often, but our relationship isn’t like it was when we were kids. She never forgave me for not believing her. I’m not sure I even forgive myself.”
Kat tried to imagine what she would have done in Connor’s position. Granted, it was easy because she was a witch and knew all about how strange the world really was. But if she hadn’t been fortunate enough to know all of that, how would she have treated Jenna?
“Gage mentioned that you had experience working missing persons,” she said. “Is that what you did in LA?”
He nodded. “Yeah. It took a little while to get into the unit, but I kept pushing until I got there. I never wanted anyone else to go through what I did, to have someone they love disappear and never know what happened. At times, it could be a heartrending job, but it’s difficult to describe the sense of satisfaction you get after finding someone that everyone thought was gone and bringing them home.”
“You sound like you really loved it,” she said. “What made you move to Dallas and join SWAT?”
Without answering, he lifted his shirt, showing a series of scars along the left side of his torso. “Considering how often you’ve watched me shower, I’m guessing you’ve seen these before, huh?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t even blush as she gave him a nod. “What happened?”
He lowered his shirt again, regarding her thoughtfully. “Do you know where werewolves come from?”
She had to admit she was still a little distracted by the flash of skin, so the sudden change in direction caught her a little off guard. She hadn’t known there was going to be a test.
As a witch, she’d learned a lot about the different supernatural creatures in the world. There were books on that kind of stuff, and her grandma had been all about the books. Since hanging out at the SWAT compound, she’d learned a lot more, especially during all the girl talk with Rachel and Khaki.
“I know you have to be born with a certain gene for the werewolf change to occur and that a bite or scratch won’t do it,” she said, replaying everything she knew and had pieced together over the past nine months that she’d been living with the Pack. “And I know that you have to go through some kind of adrenaline-inducing traumatic event to trigger the change. From listening to some of your pack mates, I get the feeling that the traumatic experience is usually pretty horrible.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone describe the werewolf process so succinctly,” he said, clearly impressed by her knowledge. “And that includes a few doctors and scientists who have tried their hands at trying to help me understand all of it.”
She wasn’t quite sure she believed that. Connor was a smart guy. “So those scars you just showed me,” she said, her stomach already aching at the thought of what she was about to ask, “are they from the traumatic event that turned you?”
“Yeah,” he said, his expression thoughtful. “It happened five years ago. I was tracking down four runaway kids who’d been living on the streets of LA for months. They’d all gotten away from shitty situations that were so terrible, they’d rather be homeless in a city as dangerous as Los Angeles than go back to them. Unfortunately, they ended up on the radar of a group of human traffickers, who looked at those four desperate kids and saw a hell of a lot of dollar signs.”
Kat had spent a little time in Los Angeles while on the run from Marko. Admittedly, not much because LA had way too many cars for a cat like her. But she’d seen enough homeless kids there to understand what Connor was talking about. The worse part was, for all the people out there, it was like no one really ever saw each other. Like everyone was invisible.
“The kids had taken to hiding in the tunnels below the city, hoping to lose themselves in the darkness among the other homeless. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.”
“The traffickers found them?” Kat asked, horrified, when long seconds passed with him staring into the distance, obviously reliving old memories. She felt bad for making him do that, but as afraid as she was to hear what happened to them—and him—she needed to know.
“I didn’t expect to run into trouble, so I didn’t even think of calling in for backup,” he said quietly, his deep voice rough. “Once I got underground and realized what I was up against, it was too late to do anything about it. There was no cell reception down there in those tunnels.”
There was another long pause, but this time she didn’t push him to continue, knowing he’d get there on his own.
“There were six guys,” he finally said, his hand coming up to rub along his side through his shirt in an unconscious movement she’d seen many times before. “All of them were armed, and not one blinked at the prospect of killing a cop. One of them hit me here with a shotgun loaded with buckshot at nearly point-blank range. I was wearing a lightweight tactical vest, but it was meant to protect against a frontal attack. The side was completely open. I knew I was dead the second the weapon went off.”
Hearing Connor say those words made Kat’s stomach twist into knots so badly, she thought she might be sick. The scars were bad, and she’d instinctively understood that whatever had caused that much damage must have been horrible. But hearing the words out loud did something painful to her soul. It hurt so badly that she felt like she’d been shot herself.
“The first thing I wanted to do was drop to my knees and pass out until it was over, but I couldn’t,” he continued. “Not with those kids down there depending on me. So I shot the man who’d shot me, got those four kids moving ahead of me, then ran.”
He shook his head. “I’m not even going to try and describe what it was like down there, mostly because I don’t remember much of it. Even now, when I try and replay it in my head, all I get are brief glimpses of running through mazelike tunnels with no idea which way to go, muzzle flashes from guns going off in the darkness, the kids screaming, and pain. So much pain, I swore every step would be my last. Somehow, I took out all six of those traffickers. I don’t even remember doing it, but ballistics later confirmed it was my weapon that was responsible, so I guess I did.”
“You got all the kids out?” Kat asked.
“Technically, no,” he admitted. “We were a couple hundred yards short of one of the tunnel entrances when I passed out from blood loss and shock. But those four kids—none of them older than fourteen—dragged me the rest of the way to the surface and called for help. They stayed with me the whole time, too, even though it put them at risk. Even when there seemed no chance that I’d make it.”
“But you did make it,” she said firmly, her stomach still clenching, even knowing that everything had worked out okay in the end despite the nightmare he’d gone through.
“Yeah, I made it,” he agreed. “I coded out three times on the operating table and even got pronounced dead the last time. But the trauma of the injury started the change, and my newfound inner wolf wouldn’t let me go, so I survived. Against all possible odds, I lived.”
If she’d thought her body had reacted badly at the idea of him getting hurt, it was nothing compared to realizing that Connor had actually died. She thought her own heart was going to stop beating.
“Regardless of my miraculous recovery, the LAPD wanted to medically retire me,” Connor added with a shrug. “I can’t say I blame them, not with the way my behavior changed in the weeks and months right after the change. I’ll be the first to admit, I went a bit off the rails during that time. But in my defense, I had no idea what was happening to me. My claws and fangs started showing up at the worst possible times, and my nose picked up scents no human should be able to smell. At first, I thought it was PTSD, but after a while, I figured I was going insane instead. You have no idea how many times I came damn close to committing myself for psychiatric evaluation.”
“What happened to convince you not to?” Kat asked.
