“You mentioned something the other day about owning a photography business,” Rowen explains. “It just so happens that my dad was a photography fanatic. He loved it almost as much as he loved whittling.”
Jasmine chuckles. “And believe me, that’s saying something.”
“The digital one was Sasha’s,” Ivy adds. “She was just getting into the hobby when… anyway.”
I frown. “Who?”
“Our pack sister who was killed by Foxx,” Rowen says. The pain in his voice makes my heart reach out to him.
Right.
I never knew her name.
“We thought instead of the gear collecting dust, it could mean something.” He smiles again—an eye crinkling hopeful smile that steals my breath.
I lunge for him, hugging him tight. My chest heaves with broken sobs.
Rowen hesitates, then hugs me back, dipping his nose to my neck.
Ivy rubs between my shoulder blades, murmuring something I can’t hear. I must look like an idiot.
Taren offers me a tissue as I sit back.
Jasmine’s warm brown eyes are full of curiosity, like she wasn’t expecting such a strong reaction. “We’d hoped it would give you some joy, after all you’ve been through.”
I wipe my face, even though I can’t stop crying. “You just… damn, you can’t know what this means to me. What you’ve just given me.”
Ivy rubs my back again. “You could tell us?”
I notice Red and Sage eavesdropping, and Forest has set his book down, watching. Jericho has even lost interest in his sketchbook, listening from the other side of the living room.
I turn the lens in my hand and get a sudden rush of calm through my bones. A piece of me just came back into focus.
Taking a breath, I tell them everything.
“About nine months ago, I was at a park with some friends. It was late. Too late, really. We should’ve gone home, but we were having fun. Laughing and just being stupid. Then, these two guys showed up out of nowhere, asking us for money. We gave them what we could, but they demanded more. I didn’t know what they were until it was too late.”
My fingers curl around the camera. “The guys shifted and attacked us. One of my friends didn’t survive. The other ran away. And I—” I swallow hard. “I was bitten.”
The room goes silent. Not shocked, just listening.
“I didn’t think much of it at first. It didn’t look bad, or get inflamed, or anything. But a couple of weeks later, I started to get sick. Likereallysick. Couldn’t keep food down. Couldn’t stop shaking. I was having seizures and constant fevers. My body felt like it was at war with itself. So I checked myself into the hospital.”
I shudder, the memory like broken glass. “They told me—they said I flatlined once, and they had to bring me back. But after that, something finally started working, and I got better… slowly.”
The cameras blur behind my tears again, and I wipe them away. “I was in the hospital for over a month, and I had like bottom of the barrel health insurance. It didn’t cover shit. So the bills were unreal. I was suddenly hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. My business collapsed because I couldn’t work. The recovery was too slow. I lost my home, my car—everything. I had to sell my possessions just so I could eat.”
“Even your cameras,” Rowen says under his breath.
The air leaves me in a rush. “Even my cameras. That was the worst part. I had to give those up too. They were such a big part of my life, it felt like selling off my arms.”
Red leans forward, listening. His expression is grim.
The tree lights continue to flicker, unaware I’m reliving my worst moment.
Rowen touches my knee, but doesn’t interrupt. No one does.
“I ended up homeless. Which, in Prodigy, has its own kind of dangers,” I say, a chill taking over me. “I started donating blood for money. You know, at those banks to feed vamps.”
