Page 38 of Cold Foot Croc

“I bet Billy-Jack will never leave the house without his jacket.”

She snorted. “And probably ski bibs, and three pairs of socks, and snow boots. I’m scared,” she said suddenly. “I mean, I am scared. I’m…I’m…”

He watched her struggle to find the words for a few seconds, and then he murmured, “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”

“You are right, I might be scared to be close to you, but I’m more scared of other things.”

“Of people? Of someone specifically? Of who?” he demanded, his voice going gritty. The air got heavier, and he looked around the woods.

She understood that instinct. She’d been like that when her mom was vulnerable, back when she was younger. “My mom couldn’t have kids of her own. She tried with her husband for a long time, and then eventually she became open to adoption. She didn’t mind that I was a shifter. She even went to special classes to help her navigate raising me. Her husband was excited at first, because it meant they didn’t have to try anymore for their own baby, and I think that time in their marriage had taken a toll on them. So when they got me at age four, they were so happy in the beginning. But my mom fell in love with being a mom, and my adoptive dad fell in love with his secretary. Cliché, I know. They were separated by the time I was six, and for a long time, it was me and my mom against the world, you know? I wasn’t really her child, but she treated me like I was. She was phenomenal, but she still was open with her heartbreak over not being able to carry a child. She dated but nothing stuck, and eventually she adopted another shifter—a boy. He was my little brother, even though we weren’t really related by blood or anything. He’s a crocodile too, and that was her request. She understood raising one because she’d had me to kind of teach her. She has a heart of gold. She’s one of those truly good people that the world needs more of.”

“What happened to her?”

“She’s still alive.” Raynah’s throat was all thick, and she had to swallow hard before she continued. “She just won’t ever talk to me again.”

“Why not?”

“Because I took the man she loved away from her.”

Garret’s eyebrows lowered over his bright eyes. “But Harold hurt her.”

“Abuse is confusing. For me, it was black-and-white. I watched him hurt her, and it happened more and more. This anger grew inside of me, getting bigger and bigger, poisoningmy crocodile. She would call me hurt, and I would rush over there, and it was police, and making plans and trying to convince her to press charges, or geta restraining order…anything. And then he would be released and love-bomb her the next day. My mom would want me to go back to my place, give them some space to figure things out. She would get protective over him if I was yelling at him, calling him on his bullshit, and then it would be me fighting for what? For my mom to press charges on someone she was protecting? She would listen to him, and he would convince her I was causing more of their problems, and that the tension I brought into the house was part of the reason he kept losing it on her. They would band together and make me the villain, because that’s what he had to do to manipulate her. He had to keep her separated from me, because I was the threat to his way of life. He would buy her all this shit. Jewelry and flowers. Took her to fancy dinners when her face wasn’t bruised. You know, when he would wail on her, he wasn’t even a drunk? He just liked having physical control over her, and didn’t want to learn self-control or how to manage his anger. I was watching her wilt like some dying flower, and she clung to him tighter and tighter, just saying how he was promising he would get better. I didn’t understand, and my brother didn’t know what to do either.” Raynah inhaled deeply in an attempt to combat the growing panic that flared in her chest.

“It’s okay,” Garret murmured, leading her back to her chair. He settled her into it and tucked a discarded sweatshirt over her lap. “You can tell me anything, and I won’t tell anyone. Not even my brother.” He frowned and looked around, then stood, scanning the campsite. “Wait, where is Dylan? Where’s my truck?” He made his way to the tent and threw the flap open, then returned. “He left. He took his stuff, and my truck, and left.”

She reached out and squeezed his hand. “He’s trusting you and your bear.”

He cocked his head and brushed a fingertip across her cheek. “What happened?”

She pursed her lips, wishing he would’ve stayed distracted and forgotten she hadn’t finished the story. “I knew I was going to kill him, Garret.” She inhaled a hiss and dropped her gaze to her lap as her eyes rimmed with burning tears. “You should know that about me. I knew I would do it months before it happened. I just needed him to hurt her bad enough that it snapped my animal, and I knew how I would do it. Iama murderer,” she said. “You should know that, and understand it. I’m not a good person, and everything that happened to me after that, I deserved it.”

“Stop.”

“No. You wanted to see behind the walls, and that’s the story that’s written in those bricks. I deserved it.” She lifted her eyes to him. “My mom was shattered,” she whispered brokenly. A tear streamed down to her cheek, and angry at it, she wiped it away as fast as she could. “She really loved Harold. When she found out I killed him, she lost it—face all bruised, eyes swollen, lip busted, bruises on her arms—and she was crying for him, and cursing me. I had known it might be like that, but seeing it was different. To me, she would never be hurt again, and my brother would be allowed to come around the house again, and my family would be okay, but in her eyes I took away the man she was convinced was her soulmate. And you know, I had a lot of time to think while I was in Cold Foot Prison. Two years, you know? And the year before that just waiting on my trial. I had to come to terms with the wrong I did. I called my mom from prison a bunch of times, but it was a landline and it would just go to voicemail. As soon as they put me in the breeding program, my phone privileges were gone. They couldn’t risk me tellinganyone what was happening to me. I thought about it so much, and I understand why she never contacted me, or picked up my calls. She was supposed to be the one to get strong enough to leave, and I forced it. I took that from her. I had good intentions for her, but bad for the man she loved, and she couldn’t get past it. She couldn’t forgive me. She never will.”

“How do you know?”

“My brother wrote me a letter a couple weeks after I was sent to Cold Foot. He said their goodbyes. I must’ve read that letter a hundred times the week I got it.” She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. “My access to the outside world was completely cut when I was put on the roster as a breeder.”

“What’s a breeder?” he asked, storm clouds in his eyes.

“They paired me up with another shifter. I didn’t have a choice, and neither did he.”

“Oh my God,” he said. He paced away and hooked his hands on his hips, stared out at the woods. “Did he force you?”

She shrugged again, uncomfortable in her own skin when she thought about what all had happened. “I don’t know.”

He flashed her a glowing look over his shoulder. His eyes were sparking with fury. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I didn’t want to, so I refused to fuck. So they threatened me, and that didn’t work either. I was fighting it, and then they put this gas in the vents that took everything out of either of our control—” she gasped at the memory, and closed her eyes tight, trying to think of anything else. “I didn’t want to, but the gas in there had me begging for it. What do you even call that? I was unwilling, but I was willing? Either way, all I feel is shame. It took the first time, thank God. I’d had this huge thought in my head growing up that the worst thing that could happen to me was what happened to my mom, and I wouldn’t be able to have a child for some reason. I just saw her hurt over it, and how it destroyed her marriage, and I was scared of that for me, youknow? And then I got pregnant right away. And I was so stupid, Garret. I was so stupid.”

He closed the distance between them and knelt in front of her, held both of her cold hands in his warm ones. “You’re not stupid.”

“I thought I was going to be allowed to keep the baby, and raise it. I was growing this little baby, and I was so happy, you know? Cold Foot was brutal, but the breeders are kept out of the violence, and fed better, and treated better. Until the baby arrived.” Another tear streamed down her cheek.

Garret glanced down at her stomach, and then back up at her, and she could tell he was putting it all together. “This isn’t your first baby?”

She bit her bottom lip to hide the tremble there, and then shook her head. “It’s my second.”

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