Page 250 of Secret Shifters Next Door

“You shut your bastard mouth.” She screamed frantically. I had a feeling that she was one small push away from fully losing it. “Did you know what you were this whole time? Did Dad know?” She was in full-blown hysterics now. Everything felt like it was balanced on the edge of a razor. Anything could happen in the next few seconds.

“Mariana?” Celina said.

The gun swung around and aimed at Celina again. Mariana was wiping tears from her eyes. I clenched my jaw, wishing Celina hadn’t brought the attention back to her.

“You aren’t going to get any answers like this. You need to calm down and put the gun down.”

“Shut up. I know more about what’s going on than you do.” She sneered at Celina in disgust. “God, you were so hard-up for some dick that you fucked an animal like him?” She gestured toward me with the gun. “Fucking disgusting. Bestiality, that’s what it is, or one step away from it anyway. You realize the only reason I pretended to be your friend was because my dad wanted you out of town so he wouldn’t have to deal with the headache of covering up the disappearance of a famous author. That’s all. I was never your friend. I could never be friends with some slut who’d fuck a dog.”

The gun was bobbing back and forth as Mariana became more unhinged. Tate was inching around, trying to get an angle of attack. I did the same, moving closer, hoping I’d have the chance to do something.

“You are one pathetic bitch, you know that?” Mariana said. The hurt in Celina’s eyes made me want to tear this woman’s throat out for hurting her like that.

Jared got to his feet and limped toward Mariana. “Stop this, Mariana. Stop while there’s still time.”

Nothing he said would stop her. It was evident that Mariana was on a mission to make Celina feel small. To try and destroy what little self-confidence she had.

Mariana spun and aimed the gun at Jared. “You’re just as bad. Filthy animal.” She turned and screamed at all of us. “Every one of you. All of you are animals. I’m surrounded by monsters.”

Mariana set her eyes back on Celina and raised the gun. “You know, maybe I can do something for you. One small act of kindness. I can end your worthless existence.”

No. Now was the time. I heard Tate and Jared scream, Celina gasp, and the sound of my feet sprinting toward Mariana. The last thing I heard was the ear-splitting sound of a gun going off.

THIRTY-ONE

CELINA

The gunshot sounded like a canon. A thunderclap of death and destruction. I’d been staring down the black barrel of the pistol only a second before it went off. Dead. I knew I was dead. I clenched my eyes shut, waiting for the bullet to slam into me. In that single instant before I heard the gunshot, I imagined what it would do to my body. The lead slug ripping into my chest, expanding, shredding my lungs and heart, blowing a four-inch hole out my back as it exited, the blood, all of it.

It never happened. The gun went off, and instead of feeling a searing pain blister through me, I felt a puff of wind less than an inch from my cheek. My hair fluttered, and I heard a sizzlingbzzzas the bullet flew past my head. My eyes snapped open, and I saw Miles on the ground wrestling with Mariana, both their hands on the pistol. Tate ran forward to help, but the gun went off again, a furrow of dirt blowing up at his feet.

“Fuck,” he shouted as he jumped back.

“Get…back,” Miles grunted, still fighting Mariana.

He was stronger than she was by tenfold, but it looked like he was attempting to get her finger off the trigger without letting the gun go off again—a difficult task even for a shifter like Miles. Finally, with a slap of his hand, the pistol went flying. It skiddedto a stop only a few feet from me. I ran for the gun. Mariana lifted her hips into Miles, like she was humping him. It was enough to throw him off balance for a second, and she scrambled for the pistol.

Miles recovered and clamped his hands on her ankles, yanking her back just as I scooped up the gun. I shuffled back as fast as I could, getting the gun as far out of reach as possible. Mariana let out a scream so anguished and full of rage that it barely sounded human. She slammed her fists on the ground as tears started leaking from her eyes.

“I hate you! I hate you all. It’s your fault I lost my mom, your fault Dad is so crazy, your fault. All. Your. Fault.” She punctuated each of the last three words with another fist to the ground. “You ruined my life,” she said, her voice dying in volume as she devolved into sobs.

Jared ran forward. “I’ve got her,” he said to Miles.

He knelt and tried to console Mariana. Except that when he tried to wrap his arms around her, she squealed in anger and swatted at him. “Get the fuck away from me. You’re a monster. I don’t want your filthy hands on me.”

Jared’s face fell. He looked heartbroken. I barely knew the man. Ten minutes ago, he’d been trying to choke the life out of me, but all I could do was sympathize with him. The only family he knew had turned their back on him. It was how I’d felt my entire life, at least up until I met Miles and found a true family. I knew precisely how much pain Jared was going through at that moment.

Mariana scrambled up to her feet and walked backward toward the car we’d arrived in. She stumbled twice as she went, but seemed scared to turn her back on us—on the monsters she was so afraid of. She pointed at Jared as she opened the door. “You better not show your face back home. Ever again. I’mtelling Dad you’re a traitor, that you’re one of these things. Then you’ll be sorry.”

Jared stood. He looked weary and beaten, but still gave Mariana a sad smile. “Dad already knows what I am.”

We all fell silent, even Mariana, who looked even more confused than ever. Jared sighed. “You think Antonio only found out about shifters when you lost your mom? He’d known for years. Used his fortune to hunt us for sport. It wasn’t until your mom left for a shifter that he lost his fucking mind and made it some kind of religious crusade.” Jared glanced at Tate. “I was the lone survivor of my clan. I was only, like, ten or eleven. Hadn’t even shifted yet. One of the hunters didn’t have the heart to kill a kid. So, he took me and thought it would earn him brownie points if he took me to Antonio.

“Once he saw me, he got the great idea to use me to fight shifters. He gave me to his team of doctors and scientists. They tested me, took my blood, and tried to come up with drugs or chemicals they could use. They found one that suppressed my shifting ability. Once he had that and knew he could make me safe, he came up with the story about me being an illegitimate kid from an affair. Your mom knew the story was a lie, but didn’t know more than that. She wouldn’t know about shifters for years. Not until she met that dragon. Did you ever wonder why your mother didn’t make a big deal about a kid showing up out of the blue? Or the story about your dad fucking someone else? That never clicked with you?” he asked Mariana. “They brainwashed me for years. Made me think I was evil, dirty. Suppressed my shifting and trained me to be bodyguard-slash-special agent. Antonio thought I’d be his secret weapon. A dragon on a leash. Whenever he had a big enough group to go after, he’d stop giving me the drug, and I’d kill whatever clan was giving him trouble. He never viewed me as a son, only a weapon to be used.”

We all stared at him for several seconds. Tears slipped from my eyes as I thought about a small boy, locked in some laboratory and being poked and prodded. His family and friends all dead, knowing that no one would come to his aid. No wonder he was wound so tight. Antonio had destroyed his mind and turned him into an instrument of war. He’d been told he was a monster, when all along the man who raised him was the true monster.

Mariana shook her head. “That’s a lie. Daddy would never let one of you things in our house. He wouldn’t experiment on kids, either. You’re lying.”

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