The door on my left creaked open, and Billy stepped out of a darker room, bringing with him the scents of blood, and fur, and some harsh, acrid chemical. Did they stuff the deer heads here? In the cabin? “For now, we just want your company. But soon, we’re gonna need you to Shift. That’s what you call it, right?”
He raised his knife, still stained with Dani’s blood, and pointed to the far end of the room. My gaze followed reluctantly, and that’s when I saw what hadn’t been visible through the small front window.
I gasped, then choked on my next breath. I blinked, but the horrible images didn’t go away. They wouldn’t even blur mercifully, as Mitch’s body had. Instead, they stared down at me, through eyes too much like my own. Four werecat heads, mounted in a row on the far wall, on identical wooden plaques. They had their mouths open, lips curled back as if they were hissing, but the pose was artificial. Arranged postmortem. I could see that, even if they couldn’t.
Three of them were strangers. Probably strays, based on the fact that I hadn’t heard of that many missing Pride cats. But the fourth, the last one on the right, was Leo Brown, one of Jace’s enforcers. He’d gone missing during his vacation a few months earlier, and no one had ever found a single sign of him. Until now.
“I…” I closed my eyes, then forced my gaze back to Steve. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Denial. It was instinct, if not exactly flawless logic.
“Oh?” Steve raised one brow, glancing at my bloody sleeve, then back to my face. “How’s your arm?”
And that’s when the truth became too much to deny. They knew what I was. They’d known all along. They’d followed me into the woods, and my friends had paid the price.
Wood creaked on my left as Billy squatted next to me, evidently unfazed by my knife. Or maybe he couldn’t see it, held so close to my opposite thigh. “You’re the first girl Shifter we’ve ever found. Been watching you for weeks now.”
“Psych 204?” I whispered, glancing up at Steve, who now leaned against the front door.
“A stroke of genius, if I say so myself. That’s also how I met your girl Robyn, and good ol’ Mitch. When he mentioned you all were going camping, I was happy to suggest a good, private campsite. Not many people know about this place.”
Which was why it had seemed perfect for my solitary run.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t push beyond the fact that they knew. That they’d lured me there to be butchered, stuffed, and mounted. And I’d fallen for it. “You’re hunters?”
“Of the highest caliber,” Steve said, one side of his mouth turning up into a creepy grin. “You didn’t really think no one knew your little secret, did you?”
Actually, I had. I’d always assumed that if anyone knew we existed, everyone would know. But exposing our existence would have put an end to their private safari, and they were obviously unwilling to risk that. Sick bastards.
“Damn, Steve, look at this!” Billy grabbed my chin, and I gasped as he turned my face toward the light. My fist tightened around the knife handle, but I was biding my time. I couldn’t afford to miss. “She’s got cat eyes. Never seen that before. Maybe we should just cut her head off and mount it like this.”
“Hmmm. Dramatic…” Steve ambled closer for a better look. I jerked my chin from Billy’s grasp, seething on the inside. Waiting for the perfect moment. It would come. Please let it come.… “Especially with all those pretty red curls.”
When he was close enough, I closed my eyes and sent up a silent prayer. Then I dropped from my heels onto my rump and shoved my left leg out, grunting as I swept both of Steve’s out from under him.
Steve shouted as he went down. Billy blinked, surprised, and reached for Steve, but my arm was already in motion. I swung Mitch’s knife underhanded, as hard as I could. It slid into his stomach, up to the hilt. Warm blood poured over my hand. I pulled up, and the knife ripped through flesh toward his sternum.