Page 52 of Scarred Resolve

Standing between them, looking back and forth, I felt both part of the family and a little out of place.

“You steal food?” I asked Davor.

“Less now, but I was always pinching things when I was young. Some days, it was that or starve. Getting caught a couple of times and not eating for days on end… That’s what taught me to really throw myself into trapping. I was too young and weak to hunt, but I could make a snare, and I could hide it. I figured out how to cover my scent. When the first pelts I got weren’t good enough to sell, I learned to skin better. Do you know how I joined the family?” He looked back, waving me over to sit down with him again.

“Subira mentioned it to me… oh man, years ago now. When we all went to the island that summer.” I sat as he requested. “Your human parents died when you were young, and you… caught Hasan?”

“My parents had relied on me for some time. My human mother was always sick. My human father wasn’t skilled enough to bring in much money, and he started drinking as his wife grew sicker. However, although I got better, I was still a kid. I couldn’t bring in the money needed for medicine or anything like that. I kept some food on the table so we didn’t starve… They died, and I knew I had to survive on my own because no one else was going to help me.”

“You were six years old and trapping for your own meals,” I said, trying to understand how any six-year-old child could do that. “Most children are learning to tie their shoes. You were providing for your family.”

I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. He is called the Genius.

“It must seem strange, huh?” Davor stared at the fire. “It seemed strange to Hasan, too. Every morning, I checked my traps from oldest to newest. I was more likely to catch something in a trap I had placed a week before than the day before. Scent. My scent would have left the area. I tried to find ways to hide my scent, going so far as to roll in the muck in pig pens and stables in the village. I was a dirty, homeless kid once my parents died. The village didn’t care so long as they didn’t catch me doing it. Back to Hasan… I went out to my oldest trap, which had been there for a month, a snare and net combination. If the animal hit the snare and tried to pull it from its place and was potentially strong enough to do that, it triggered a net. I was young, so I had to steal the net. I couldn’t make it… Well, I had to steal all of my supplies for traps.”

“Was Hasan… stuck in a snare and a net?” I asked, blinking several times.

“He had removed the snare himself,” Davor said, chuckling. “He had left the net on. Every time I think about it, I want to laugh. He looked ridiculous.”

That’s why he left the net on.

“I couldn’t have been more than eight. A little boy who had just rolled around in farm animal shit came up, and the moment he made eye contact with me, he laughed. I was terrified, but he laughed.” Davor leaned back, still smiling. “He took me home with him. I never looked back.” Davor looked down at his hands, going through the motions of something, but I didn’t understand what. “I still know how to make that trap. Don’t need to, but still do.”

“So, sometimes, you still pilfer food when someone is cooking,” I said, pulling my legs onto the couch and curling my arms around my knees as I rested my head on them.

“There’s hunger you can’t forget, no matter how long it’s been since you’ve missed a meal,” he said softly. “After a while,the pilfering went from thinking I would starve even though Hasan overfed me to me accepting the challenge of them trying to stop me, thinking I was human, and I couldn’t possibly get past them. By the time I became a werecat, it was just a joke and a way to mess with people while they were distracted.”

“You stole cookies from the cookie jar.”

“There was nowhere they could put that cookie jar that was out of my reach. If they put it behind a locked cabinet door, I learned to lockpick,” Davor said, chuckling. “But knowing how to pilfer also helps my security work. If I’m smart enough to think of a way around my security, then I need to improve it.”

I kept listening, finding that I really liked Davor more than I could have ever expected. His story was heartbreaking, but there was a humor to it that Niko certainly didn’t have. Davor didn’t have any hate for his lot in life before meeting Hasan, even though some of his issues were really obvious to me now, especially hearing about their probable origin. He knew he was intelligent, and there could sometimes be arrogance with that, but when he talked about his childhood, it wasn’t that he believed he was the smartest child to live. He had just been doing what he had to do to survive.

By the time Niko brought us each a plate of steaks, Davor and I had trailed off to talk about more recent things. All the conversations were dropped as we ate.

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” I said, lifting up a steak with my hand.

Davor was already chewing on a large piece, and Niko picked one up as well.

“I couldn’t find silverware, sorry.” He tore off a piece with his teeth.

Each of us cleaned our plates, then sank into the couch next to each other like we were about to pass out.

“We should set up another watch,” Niko said, groaning as he attempted to push himself up. “Damn, my legs are really feeling it now.”

“Mine too, but I’ll take the first watch,” Davor said, holding his plate out for Niko. I did the same, and Niko rolled his eyes as he grabbed our plates. He took them to the kitchen to wash them and put them away. When he was back, he shook his head.

“I’ll take the first watch. I seem to be more awake than you two. Go crash in the bedrooms back there. Davor, you can handle middle watch, and Jacky, you can take the last watch. Davor, when we do our watch switch, I’ll stay up an extra hour so we can talk about what you might think about why the werecat was here. In the morning, we’ll all put our heads together.”

“I’ve been mulling it over and have pictures of the damage. You can still see some in here, the claw marks on the walls, but there’s more in the images I want to study. Studying them during my watch is the perfect quiet time to do so. So, we can just wait until morning.”

“If that’s what you want. Jacky.”

I only yawned and was waved away. I didn’t argue. They were the guys who knew the most here. I was perfectly fine with waiting for the morning. I claimed the closer bedroom, falling onto the twin bed. I passed out quickly, only kicking off my boots before losing myself to sleep.

23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

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