“Jesus,” Logan murmured. “I can’t even imagine keeping my animal inside a whole month.”
Winter snuggled closer and shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. “It wasn’t so bad when I got older because my dad found this underground job. A real hush-hush way for us to make money.”
“How?” Logan asked in a dead voice.
“It was like a freak show.” Her voice cracked on the last word, so she cleared her throat. She made her voice stronger as she continued. “I got to shift more in a controlled environment, and we made money.”
“What kind of controlled environment?”
Shame heated her cheeks. “A cage. I was part of the show. People could watch me shift. I would slow it down so they could get more for their money. It hurt, but we got to move to a better apartment after a couple of years.”
Logan was shaking again, but not from nerves this time. She could tell by the slow scent of rage that tainted the air.
She laid a gentle kiss on his chest. “It wasn’t so bad. I went to school, and my dad was protective. I remember some pervert pulled down his pants and started jacking off during one of my shows, and my dad shut the entire thing down for a week, made new rules, beefed up security.”
“He shouldn’t have made you do that in the first place.”
“Yeah well, it was his choice. And when I got older, it was mine, too. It was a steady income. It kept me in school and off the streets. The hard part was the way people looked at me though—like I really was a freak. It was hard to love myself during those years. Hard to accept the animal.”
“So you spiraled?”
“No. That felt like nothing compared to the day my dad told me he was sick. He’d put off going to the doctor, I don’t know why. I was mad at him, but we didn’t have health insurance, and he just coughed more and more until I made him go. I guilted him into making the appointment because somewhere along the way, I think he forgot he was all I had. It was me and him against the world, you know? His lungs were sick, and it was bad. It was incurable.”
“He died?”
Winter swallowed hard and shook her head against his shoulder. “I killed him. I read all the rules, and legally I could Turn one person. I picked my dad, but I didn’t grow up with shifters. I didn’t know how it worked. I just thought if I bit him, he would get better and be a panther shifter, like me. I thought I could save him.” Winter’s face crumpled, and she buried herself against Logan’s chest at the memories of that awful day. “I waited until he was asleep one night. He’d had really bad coughing fits, couldn’t breathe, was on an oxygen tank, and I thought if I bit him when he was on his pain killers, he wouldn’t even feel my fangs. But apparently, you can’t Change a sick person. You can Change an injured person, but they have to be healthy for shifter healing to work. You can’t put an animal in a weakened host. And so he passed on his bed, and it was really bad.” A sob wrenched up her throat. “It was an awful way to go. He loved me the best way he knew how, and I killed him.”
“Shhhh.” Logan rubbed her back in gentle circles.
Sobs wracked her body, and tears made damp spots on the pillow under her cheek. And when she could speak again, she whispered, “At least when you killed, it was people who deserved it. I killed the person I loved the most.”
Logan hugged her tighter—so tight she could barely breathe, but she didn’t care. It felt nice to be swaddled in his strength right now.
“I got to drinking, taking drugs, anything I could do to forget that night. I lost our apartment, started living on the street, begging for change so I could get the next fix of something just to go numb, you know?”
“What made you go find Red Havoc.”
She laughed thickly. “Fate, I guess. My mom showed up at the subway where I was begging for money, and she was all strung out, mascara smeared all over her face, looking a hundred years older than she really was. My eyes are the same color, and I could see my future so clearly. I was going to end up just like her. She didn’t say much. Just that she was sorry I lost my dad, and then she gave me this old, folded-up piece of paper. It was the location of a panther crew. She said she’d known about it for a while and was trying to get clean enough to join. She just…” Winter shook her head. “She just couldn’t get her life together for long enough. She gave me fifty bucks and begged me to go see a man named Benson Saber. I had this moment when she was walking away. She’d never done anything for me in her entire life, but she’d just given me a second chance if I was willing to go after it. So I did. I hitchhiked out to Ben’s crew three years ago and met Brody right away, detoxed, and went to work. I became a professional at pretending I was normal so I could fit in and be a good mate to Brody.”
“And then he chose another.”
Winter dipped her chin once. “Everyone leaves.”
“If you truly believe that, then why are you here, trying for a spot in a crew?” he whispered.
“Because I guess I like the idea that maybe someday I can find my place, you know? My niche. Somewhere people will keep me. I didn’t grow up in a crew, but I used to fantasize about the idea of one. I used to imagine I grew up with other kids like me, especially nights after a show when I felt so infinitely different than everyone around me. When I could hear the echoes of laughter and the sounds of disgust from the people who had watched my shift. I had this cork board in my closet with newspaper clippings from shifter articles. Pictures of the Ashe Crew, the Gray Backs, the Boarlanders, the Breck Crew. I liked the paparazzi pictures of the kids best, and I know it sounds so stupid, but I would pretend they were my friends, and I wasn’t a freak, and I wasn’t alone. I guess a part of me still wants that feeling of acceptance. I thought I found it with Red Havoc, but I didn’t get the urge to register with Ben. I don’t know why. My panther felt fine waiting. Maybe she saw Brody for what he was. Maybe she was just waiting for him to screw up. He was too perfect. Too clean. Perfect smile, perfect answer for everything, perfect hair, perfect place in the crew, and I was trailing behind trying to be good enough. I guess I’m trying for this crew because I still want to prove I’m good enough.”