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Willa took a step toward the car and waved at me. “Oh, Sloane, you look…”
I forced a smile and then regretted it when the action pulled at my lip. “Horrible?”
She sat down next to me and put my arm over her shoulder. “Let me help you to the woods.”
I sucked in a breath and held it as we stood. My muscles were stiff from lying in the back of the car for the past few hours. My leg throbbed. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten in my head.
Willa grasped me tighter. “You okay?”
“Mmm-hmm,” I forced out.
“Should we sit back down?”
I shook my head and then had to fight off a bout of dizziness. “No, let’s just get to where I can transition.”
Willa and I took small, calculated steps through the yard. She wasn’t the best person to be helping me, considering she had her own bum leg to worry about.
“How many women did we rescue?” I asked, hoping that a conversation would take my mind off the pain.
Willa looked down at the ground. “Thirty-eight. I guess there were seven women they couldn’t talk into coming back with them, and then three more were recaptured, along with two of our men.”
Those must have been the people we were in the car with. If we’d gone after them, would we have been able to help them, or would we have been captured too? I guess we’d never know now.
Willa licked her lips. “I can’t imagine not wanting to leave. Alpha Dane is a monster. Look at what he did to you.”
“This was Mikey.” And that creep was still alive.
Willa stood up straighter and looked ahead before turning to meet my gaze. “I think we need to add him to our list, right up there with Alpha Dane.”
I tucked my bottom lip between my teeth to keep it from trembling. “I killed three men today.”
Granted, Sawyer had helped with two of them. The third guy had been all me though.
“I’ve never killed someone before.” A hollow ache filled my chest.
I wouldn’t say that I felt bad for the men I’d killed, but I didn’t like it either. It made me feel dirty.
Willa shuffled her feet as we hit the uneven ground under the cover of the trees. “I killed someone when they attacked me after Jacob and I fled. I didn’t even realize it until he was dead. I hit him with a tree branch in the back of the head.”
She stared vacantly ahead. “I still see his eyes sometimes.”
I wondered if the men I’d killed would haunt me, too. “It was self-defense. We have the right to protect ourselves.”
Some of my guilt lessened as I said those words.
Willa led me to a log, and we sat down on it. She reached down, unlaced my shoestrings, and helped me wiggle my foot out of the sneaker.
Her gaze darted up to mine. “I just don’t want to end up like him. Like Alpha Dane or Mikey.”
“You won’t.”
Her brows pinched together. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I see your heart, and it’s pure.” I gave her a small smile as she helped slip off my other shoe.
Getting my clothes off was a chore as well. I had bumps and bruises all over my body. The more skin we uncovered, the paler Willa got. Once I was fully undressed, I dropped to my hands and knees and focused on my wolf.
She bristled under the surface. I pictured her soft white fur with gray patches and inhaled the sweet scent of the wildflowers we loved to run in out back by Mom’s garden. She trembled. My back arched as my bones snapped.
