had the feeling they were quite comfortable in the money department. “I’m happy. I came here because I want you to know that. I’m not . . . sick. I can’t explain it, but everything that happened over the past years . . . well, it’s all okay now. I’m fine. And I just wanted you to know that. I’ll be okay—I am okay. So I’d like you to call off the dogs. I’ll stay out of the media and just live a quiet life.”
“Gillian, that can’t happen,” her father said sternly.
“But it is happening. You can’t put me back in a hospital without my consent.”
“We can ask a hospital to hold you for forty-eight hours until a doctor assesses you.”
“Do I seem like there’s something wrong?” Gillian asked calmly. “I wish you’d believe me.”
“I want you to move back in here, not the hospital,” her father said and for a minute, she thought they really believed she was better. But his next words proved that was the farthest thing from the truth. “You’ll have your own doctor, round the clock. You’re sick—you just don’t realize it.”
She hadn’t thought it would be easy. She’d never win this argument—she just hoped to come out unscathed. “I need you to respect the fact that I’ve made this decision.”
“You don’t have a choice, Gillian,” her mother said sadly, and at those words, her anger rose. She swallowed her temper, not wanting to prove them right about anything.
In her calmest voice, she asked, “Where did you find me?”
“What are you talking about, honey?” Her mother wrung her hands together, urgency in her voice. “Dave, tell her she’s sick.”
“I know I’m not your biological child.” She stared between them, looking for any kind of tell, but there wasn’t one. They were good. But why the big secret? Plenty of people were adopted. There was no shame in that.
Although, with the Blackwells, continuing the line was important. Hiding her and her faults, more so. But using her to front their philanthropic efforts . . .
“You need to get back on your medication, Gillian. You’ll feel much more like your old self,” her father explained with a logic she used to believe in.
When had she begun to see through the act? There was the normal parental rebellion for sure, but she’d taken it further. The more they disapproved, the more she’d pushed. Until . . .
“Your temper caused the death of your classmates.”
“Dave, we promised we’d never tell her,” her mother cried out.
“She has to know the consequences for what she did. What could’ve happened to her if we’d told the truth.”
She was shaking her head, standing and backing away from them like that would make what they’d said disappear. Out of sight, out of mind.
“Gillian, please. We promised the judge and the doctors—the families of the victims—that you’d forever remain in custody, watched by a doctor. If you don’t, we have to put you in prison.”
“Prison,” she repeated. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“Because you didn’t remember what you did. Dave, it wasn’t her fault—it was the horrible mental illness,” her mother said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—why you’re lying about everything!” she yelled, right before she felt the prick of a needle in her neck. She whirled around and drop-kicked the man who’d stuck her with the tranquilizer, threw him across the room without thinking. Sister Wolf was enraged, gearing up to be uncontrollable, which Jinx and the others had warned her about and, yes, this had all been a huge mistake.
And there was no turning back from it.
She fought as long as she could, the hallway leading to the front door seeming to stretch out as she ran toward it, a never-ending kind of hall as she ran on jelly legs.
They’d used the same amount of drugs they did at the hospital—the dose was enough to take her and her wolf down, no matter how hard she fought.
Gillian woke up slowly. Her head throbbed, her face was sticky and when she touched it, she realized she’d been bleeding. She ripped a piece off the bottom of the T-shirt she wore and held it to the cut to staunch the bleeding, because there was nothing else in this literal cell that would help.
A mattress on the floor. A small window she couldn’t escape from—and it was barred anyway—and cold, hard cement floor and walls. A door that looked solid. She stood and tried it anyway. The doorknobs bent under her touch and she frowned at that. Why would someone bother to make a prison like this and use shoddy equipment?
She tried the handle again and only succeeded in ripping it off, which was no help to her. She crushed it in her hand, the metal cutting her. But it seemed to heal quickly. Just like her head. She felt for the cut that had reopened and there was nothing.
Only then did she realize that the knob wasn’t the issue—she was. She’d never translated her strength into being able to do things like this, but she was getting stronger on an hourly basis, it seemed. And none too soon.
She stepped back and readied herself, gave the door a hard kick with the bottom of her bare foot and waited for the pain.
There was none. Instead, the door flew open and she realized she hadn’t needed to kick that hard. She walked out and found herself in a maze of hallways. It was only when she reached a staircase that she knew exactly where she was.
She was home.
There were running footsteps above her head. She waited, crouched in the dark corner, because in order to get out of here, she would have to get upstairs.
The door opened with a creak and she heard lots of talking. They must have hidden cameras upstairs, watching her every move.
She heard, “She’s out . . . door’s off . . . impossible.”
Impossible.
“It’s the sickness. I’ve heard mental illness makes people do things they normally couldn’t do.”
Her mother’s voice. They had no idea Gillian was a wolf. That in and of itself actually made her feel better. If they’d known all this time . . . if they’d been using her . . . well, that was worse than locking her up because they didn’t know how to deal with a perceived illness. Not by much, granted, but still.
“There were marks on the side of the van . . . looked like they’d been made by animals,” her father was saying. “One of the men swore he heard barking.”
She smelled them now. The hellhounds. They were protecting her because she was Jinx’s.
And they would kill anyone who they thought was hurting her.
She had to get out of here, lead them away from this house, her parents, or there would be a bloodbath. And as she moved to walk up, prepared to leap past her parents, when they met her halfway up the stairs, she simply froze at the fear in their faces.
“You can’t leave, Gillian,” her father said in a tone of voice she’d never heard him use before. “You’re violent. You’ve hurt people.”
“I didn’t do what you’re saying. It was a car accident.” She wanted to believe it—she did believe it—but she couldn’t remember anything about the night in question.
“There was no car accident. We told you that.”
“My legs were broken.”
“You were tied down after it all happened, for your safety and everyone else’s. Look at the pictures.” Her father shoved them at her angrily. He looked at her as though he’d never seen her before, like she wasn’t even his.
Because she wasn’t. But they wouldn’t—couldn’t admit that. They could only pretend to take care of her because they loved her.
She slid the pictures out of the folder, glanced down at the first one on the pile and nearly vomited. It showed dismembered people. She forced herself to stare at them. She recognized the faces of the dead . . . three of her classmates. She saw deep claw marks and bites on their flesh.
“You did this. You scratched and clawed at them. You strangled them first. And then you did horrible, inhuman things to them. You were like an animal,” her father told her as her mother sobbed behind him.
