“After a few minutes—I think. I was raging with fever, and I suspect my perception of time was distorted. Anyway, at some point a man came in, and I started screaming. I feared the worst, obviously. But he didn’t try to touch me. He just brought me water to drink through a straw. He set it where I could reach it, and he left.
“I couldn’t get out. I could move around with just one arm cuffed, but I couldn’t get to the door. He just… He left me there with a big jug of water and an empty bucket.”
“So, what did you do?”
“Nothing. That’s the only thing I could do. I lay there for what felt like an eternity, delirious with fever. Sipping water. Trying to remain calm and rational. Eventually I realized there was a bite on my arm. It was too swollen for me to tell much about it, but later, after that was all over, Eamon said it was a remarkably clean bite. No tears in the skin. Because I was unconscious when Silas bit me.”
Austin nodded slowly. “Yvette’s bite was clean.”
“I know. Unfortunately, we don’t have information about any of the other victims’ wounds. But based on the fact that none of the hospital records mention them, I’m guessing they were so minor as to have gone unnoticed. Unassociated with the symptoms they presented.”
Another nod. “So, how did you get out of the cabin?”
“I didn’t. Icouldn’t. Until I shifted.” I finally forced my fingers to unlock, then I ran my sweaty palms across my thighs over and over. “I thought I was dying. It felt like my body was trying to pull itself apart. It didn’t feel real. I couldn’t process the…the reality of it. I didn’t have the concept. The ability to understand what was happening. All I knew was that suddenly the pain had ended, but the entire world looked different.Ilooked different.”
“And I’m guessing your paw slid right out of the handcuff?”
“Yeah. Though I didn’t process that at the time, either.”
“How’d you get out of the cabin, without hands to open the door?”
“The window.” I swiped my palms down my jeans-clad thighs one more time, then I parted my hair and showed him the jagged scar running across my scalp for an inch and a half. “I crashed through the glass, with no idea what I was doing. I just kind of…leapt. Then I ran.
“I have no clue how long or how far I ran. I was terrified, and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t thinking in an entirely human way. I’m sure you remember your first shift. If you were alone then, you remember that terror and confusion.”
Austin nodded, but again, he said nothing.
“Eventually, I collapsed. I don’t think it took too long, considering that I was still recovering from the fever and was utterly exhausted. I just kind of fell down on the ground in the woods, sort of…seizing. Paralyzed by pain. Until I was human again. But I was too tired to move. And that’s how Eamon found me.”
“Eamon?” Austin’s brows rose at the new information. “The previous Marshal?”
“Yeah. He was a regular at the bar, even before my parents moved. And a friend of my brother’s. He’d been on a run in the woods when he caught my scent and recognized the change in it. Evidently, I’d been thrashing through the underbrush, leaving a trail of blood, so…”
“So he chased you.”
“Yes. But not for any nefarious reason. He’d never seen a female stray, and he knew me, so… He approached cautiously and gave me his shirt.” Just like Austin had, that night in the woods. “I recognized him. I knew him. But suddenly I couldsmellhim. Even in human form, I could smell him, and I could see things like I’d never seen them before.
“He had food in his pack, and he gave me that too. And water. And when he’d calmed me down, promising he had all the answers I needed, he drove me straight to Titus.”
“All the way to Jackson?”
I shook my head, leaning back in my chair. Trying to force my frame to relax. “Titus met us somewhere. A hotel. Someplace nice, with room service. They ordered me rare steaks and let me stuff myself while they explained everything. Eamon sewed up my scalp. He even helped me wash my hair, without taking any advantage. He had sent someone back to the bar for the stuff I’d dropped in the parking lot, and that guy showed up with my purse and keys.”
“Vance?” Austin guessed.
“Yeah. That was how I met him. They talked me through texting my sister, explaining why I couldn’t just tell her what really happened. But I had to tell her something, because I’d disappeared on her for more than a day. So I told her I’d gone home with someone after I closed the Fat Cat. Then I…” I shrugged. “I parted my hair on the other side to hide the wound, and I went on about my life.”
“Just like that?”
I shrugged. “What else was I supposed to do?” Though perhaps I was overselling the ease of my adjustment atinybit. “What did you do, after you were infected?”
Austin mimicked my shrug. “The same, I guess. Though I didn’t have access to the northern zone Marshal. That position didn’t exist back then. Nor did the rest of this.” He spread his arms to take in my entire world. “But I’m glad you did. I suspect you needed all this worse than I did.”
I had, at first. Badly. Until I’d learned to defend myself, I would have been very vulnerable on my own, as a woman in a man’s world.
“So, how did Silas wind up in that grave?”
“We found him.” My voice dropped in pitch until I was practically growling. “Eamon wanted me to let him, Jace, and Titus handle it, but Titus thought it would be good for me to confront my assailant myself. To play a role—the most important role—in seizing my own justice. Like very proactive therapy. Jace agreed.Iagreed. So they took me out to the woods where Eamon had found me, and we searched until we found the cabin. Titus did some digging and identified the owner as Silas Morelock. He evidently used the place as a hunting and fishing retreat, mostly on the weekends. Titus tracked him down, and they brought him in. And—”
