Page 36 of Scapegoat

“She does,” Atlas stepped forward then and it took me a moment to recognise him. He’d kept his hair relatively short when I knew him, but now it fell in long waves, looking like it was a long time since it’d seen a brush. His beard was as thick and long as Billy’s, and his eyes formed slits when he sized up the other man. “We’re her family and—”

“No, they’re not. Billy.” I redirected the boss’ eyes back to me. “They’re not. I knew them when we were growing up and… things didn’t end well. It’s why I was ringing Jamie.” I looked down when I felt my phone buzz in my hand. “But these guys are just going—”

“We’re not going anywhere.”

I’d heard malice, threat in Jayden’s voice before, but never directed at me. He squared his stance, his feet digging into the gravel, as if preparing himself for a physical attempt to remove him, but I just shook my head.

I wasn’t going to try and push him away; I’d just take myself out of the situation.

“Let’s go back in the kitchen,” I told Billy, but when I put a hand on his arm, a low growl from the guys made clear what they thought of that. “We’ll lock the door and—”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Xavier? I spun around to find his hand clamped around my wrist, his skin searing me far hotter than any hotplate could. I frowned, jerked my hand once, twice, trying to get myself loose, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Let. Me. Go,” I snapped in a low voice with just enough of the wolf to make clear my intent, but not enough to scare Billy. The wolf leapt to her feet inside me, snarling her disgust. As if to make sure I didn’t forget, she shoved images of the three of them clustering around Anna in my face, each one evidence of their crimes, but I knew those images well enough.

When I went to sleep at night and when I woke up in the morning, in the moments when my guard was down and I was vulnerable. That’s when I saw my sister and the bleeding marks on her neck. Their mating marks. I knew that they’d made their choice under false pretences, that Mum had managed to trick them, but…

I had no hope for Mum. She hated me. No, hate indicated she actually cared, on some level. I’d just been a means to an end, and when she got what she wanted she let me go, without a fight. I’d actually done her a favour by running away; I’d realised that later. Jamie and I had talked long and hard about all of this on one of the many trips I’d made with her. She always liked to tell me she was no psychologist but… there was something that came from just having someone listen to you.

But part of me had needed, still wanted, the guys to be better than they were. To see through Mum’s bullshit and Anna’s. To politely set my sister aside, find Dad so he could take care of her and…

And see me.

See all the fucking pain that my mother had caused. See the violation. See the depths she was willing to go to hurt me and raise Anna up, until I couldn’t help but hate both of them. I’d wanted them to be my champions, my soft place to fall and instead…

“We’ve gotta get inside and get the food out,” I told Billy in low, urgent tones. “I’m sorry about all this drama but—”

“Don’t.”

Xavier seemed to recover himself, pulling his hand away and then staring at it, as if he couldn’t believe he’d grabbed me like that in the first place. So it looked like the boy wasn’t entirely lost in the man. And what a man he was. I observed, objectively of course, how much taller, bigger, stronger he was now. With a button down flannelette shirt and well worn jeans, a sheepskin jacket pulled over it, he didn’t look like a boy anymore.

And I wasn’t a girl.

Humans and wolves had one thing in common, they didn’t like drama, and I spent my life making sure I didn’t bring any to my workplace. I’d been successful, right up until now. I marched back into the kitchen, stirred the pots and then added some extra herbs and spices, a touch more salt, then turned to Billy as I undid my apron.

“I’m sorry, but I’m giving my notice,” I told him.

“What?” Billy looked at the back door, then the front, where people were still pouring in. “You can’t. You can’t be serious! Kai—”

“Stir the pots, let the stew and the Bolognese sauce cook down. Stew needs to be kept a lot more moist obviously, and may need a little cornflour to thicken it. Serve it with some mashed potatoes.”

“Kai—”

“Cook up some pasta for the Bolognese. You might be able to pad things out a bit with some cheese to make it go further.”

“Kai—”

“Keep my wages,” I said, smiling even though I didn’t feel a moment of joy. “Maybe it’ll go some way towards making up for—”

“Kai, chips!” one of the girls called out.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta go.”

People watched me walk past as I wound my way between the many people clustered in the truck stop. Some frowned as they recognised me or recognised what I was, seeming to know what I was walking out on. Billy made things worse by calling out my name, but I just kept going, out the front door and over to my car. I jammed the key in the lock and twisted it, right as I heard the sound of tense footsteps in the gravel, coming towards me. I jerked the door open, intending to slip into the driver’s seat and get the fuck away from whoever it was, when a hand grabbed my door.

“So we’re not even going to talk about this?”

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