I wanted to tell him that Eamon had been wrong about that. That I would never have punished him for what Silas did. But considering that we hadn’t yet cleared him of involvement in several more murders, it seemed premature to assume he was telling me the truth about what happened three years ago. “How long were your mom and Silas involved with each other?” I said instead.
“From the time I was in middle school. Denny didn’t live with us that whole time, though. He lived with his mom, Rebecca, until he got into some trouble, and she handed him off to his dad. To live with us. I think I was thirteen, then.”
The year before he was infected. At least, according to the story he’d told us at Davey’s request.
“And were Silas and Denny already shifters when you met them? When he and your mom…married?”
“No.” Billy scooted back on the cot, tucking his legs beneath him with his back pressed to the cinderblock wall. “No, we were all three infected at the same time. On that fishing trip I told you about.”
My gaze narrowed on him. “Silas and Denny went on that trip with you?”
Billy’s pulse spiked for just a second. Not enough to necessarily indicate a lie, but enough to suggest that he was nervous about this line of questioning. “Yeah. Silas took us both out to the lake after school got out, that first year Denny lived with us. He said we were celebrating, because we both passed. But really, I think my mom was just ready to have us out of the house for a while. She said that even though Denny was just one more boy, he had this way of feeling like several.”
“So, Silas took you camping?” Vance prodded.
“Yeah. We didn’t go very far. Just out in the woods, a few miles from home. We had a tent, and sleeping bags, and this old camp stove. S’mores supplies, canned beans, and our fishing poles. And Silas, he had his rifle. Just in case we saw a deer.”
“Did you see a deer?” I asked.
“No, but we caught several fish. We cleaned them right there on the lakeshore, then we took them back to the tent to cook them, but when we got there, there was this giant black cat in our tent, kind of…rifling through our stuff. We didn’t know it was a shifter. We didn’t know therewereshifters. Silas had his rifle, but by the time he dropped all our gear and got the gun aimed, the cat had heard us. It tried to leave the tent, but we were kinda in its path, and everything wascrazy. Silas was just standing there, aiming the rifle, shouting that he wanted to mount the cat’s head on the wall, and it was like the cat couldunderstandhim.
“I mean, of course it could, but back then, we didn’t know that was even possible, so anyway… The cat pounced. Silas fired the gun, but it wasn’t a kill shot. The cat was wounded and scared, and it lashed out, while Silas was yelling at us to corner it, while he reloaded.”
I blinked at him. “Your stepfather told you to corner an injured wildcat?”Father of the year...
“Yeah. We all wound up scratched—Denny’s wound barely bled—and the cat ran off into the woods. Silas wanted to follow it. To get his trophy. But he was hurt pretty good. The cat shredded his shirt and gored him right here.” Billy spread his right hand over the left side of his rib cage. “So, we packed up and went home.”
“Where your mom sewed you up?”
“Yeah. Denny didn’t need much more than a bandage, but Silas and I got stitches. That night, we were both burning up, but by the time my mom realized that ice baths weren’t going to do the trick, Silas was already shifting. It happened to me right after that. She wasfreakedout.” He shrugged. “But like I said, she’d heard rumors. And we’d told her about the cat in the woods.”
“That was when you were fourteen?” Six years ago. Two years or so before the Pride was established. Three years before I was infected.
“Yeah,” Billy said.
The poor kid never had a chance.
“So, tell us about Silas,” Vance said. “How did he adjust to being a shifter?”
“He loved it.” Billy frowned. “Can I get some juice? Or some water? I’m really thirsty.”
Vance handed me his phone, which was still recording, and turned to grab a bottle of water from the case under the card table.
“Thanks,” Billy said as Vance slid the bottle between the bars. “So, yeah, Silas loved it.” He cracked open the bottle and drained half of it in a few gulps. “We all three did. We felt powerful. Fast and strong. We felt like we had this amazing secret. We saw really well in the dark, and we could lift really heavy things, and we could hear… Shit, we could hear people talk like we were fuckin’ spies. But without the equipment. We felt like superheroes.”
“And your mother?”
“She was paranoid, like I said. She thought that if anyone found out about us, they’d take us away from her and do experiments on us.”
“So, you kept your secret.”
“Yeah. For a long time. Then one day Silas came home and said he’d met another guy like us. He said the man smelled him in a crowd on the street and followed him to introduce himself.” Billy’s gaze found me, and suddenly I knew.
“Eamon,” I whispered.
“Yeah. Silas invited him over, and Mom cooked for him. And he told us about everything. How we were strays, and how there are rules, and how the ‘natural-born’ cats will leave us alone if we follow the rules. How you can’t tell anyone, and but you can still have fun, as long as that fun doesn’t bring you to the attention of human law enforcement. Because if the ‘council’”— He used air quotes.— “has a reason to hear about you, they’ll come after you.”
I glanced at Vance, who shrugged. Billy was not wrong. Back then, there had been no Mississippi Valley Pride. No Alpha, Marshalls, or enforcers to inform and protect the local shifter residents. And Pride cats preferred that strays remain out of sight and out of mind. Silent, obedient, and invisible.
