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Cass understood his pause. This was a sensitive conversation. Back in the day, she’d have verbally ripped his head off for less. After months of therapy—physical and mental— Cass realized she protected herself with a prickly exterior, lashing out with words if anyone threatened to crack the delicate mask she wore in public. “I don’t know,” she admitted breathlessly. The power behind her voice felt snatched by their topic of conversation. She was beat. Maybe Gray was right. Once that tough exterior split, the layers within crumbled, exposing a deep well of trauma at her core. It was a part of her that Cass pretended didn’t exist until it reared its ugly head and she couldn’t ignore it.
The waitress appeared, ready to take their order. “We can talk about it later if you want,” Grayson offered.
“We’ll take a brief time out.” Cass wanting anything but. She wanted to get it all out. But first, they’d satisfy the waitress. They paused the conversation long enough to order their meals and then continued.
Cass closed her eyes as the restaurant employee left, her mind flooding with images from the hospital, being stuck in bed. And her mother’s face. She shook her head, clearing her thoughts to try to find the best way to start. “It wasn’t all bad. Healing from the crash.”
“A crash.” Gray eyed the scar above her left eye, slicing through her brow. Shifters were usually quick to heal. She could see the questions he was afraid to ask forming behind his kind brown eyes. “I’d heard you were out of the field for a while, but I never imagined you’d been harmed. I thought maybe you’d gone undercover or maybe you’d taken time off to spend time with your family. Or… that you’d found someone…”
“I was in a high-speed car chase,” she quickly interjected, hating the way his voice broke on the last words. “I lost control of the car and hit a pole. It wasn’t just my face that got crushed but my pelvis too, and I had lots of cuts and wounds all over my body. My car had been sabotaged, and my airbags didn’t deploy.”
“Holy shit,” Gray breathed.
She nodded. “What I didn’t know was the perps sprayed me with some type of bioweapon that halted my ability to heal. I recuperated like a human would. I still heal slower now than I used to.”
“I’m missing the ‘not all bad’ part,” Grayson said gruffly, his eyes wide as he listened to her traumatic story.
“I mean there were some really dark days at first, but then my determination to live, to survive, kicked in. Part of that was looking for the good around me.”
“Such as?” He looked as if he couldn’t imagine anyone finding a bright side in such a situation—but especially not someone like Cass.
“Well, such as Bianca, my friend since childhood. We hadn’t been very close for a long time, but she showed up when I most needed her, and she became a huge support. We grew closer. She gave me hope, and I learned to heal and grow. Not just from the physical injuries but to be a whole person.” Cass wondered why her friend had stuck it out so long with her. Maybe one day she would ask.
“I’m glad you had someone with you, seeing as your mother…”
“Walked out on me.” Cass nodded in confirmation. “But that was good too. Because she did that, I was able to see her for who she truly is and leave behind all the bullshit she’d been feeding me all those years. Without that crash”—she paused, thinking on her words while tears stung her eyes and she fought to hold them back—“I think I’d still be the same cruel, shallow person I was all along.”
“I don’t believe that. I think it would have taken you longer to get here, but I know you would have changed.”
Cass wished she could believe that. Gray always saw the best in people. There was no way to alter reality to see if he was correct.
Needing a break from the intensity of the topic, she smiled and changed the subject. “So, you’re a FUCN’A instructor now?”
To her immense relief, Grayson allowed the new topic as the waitress placed their plates of food before them. Throughout the entire meal he didn’t bring up her accident or scars again, sparing her from having to discuss the chapter of her life she was finally walking away from.
9
Grayson lumbered back to the car, his full belly weighing him down. The juicy, certified non-shifter steak he ate had been incredibly delicious. After some convincing, he agreed to let Cass drop him off at WANC, though his protective instinct still loomed, not wanting to let her go off on her own.
He had to let that go. She wasn’t his to protect, and even with her new scars, she wasn’t someone whoneededhis protection. Better to turn his mind to the paperwork he needed to file before leaving for the night.
“Do you think any of those map leads from the cell phone will pan out?” Cass asked as she pulled the car out of the restaurant parking lot.
“I hope so.” He didn’t want to overpromise anything. “It seems a good chance we’ll find something with the crow gang talking about a Sandy or Cindy down at the park and the goons who took you mentioning a Sandy. They seem like the type of baddies who would save the location of their evil lair on their cell phones.”
“Don’t you think this Sandy flew the coop after we picked up Frick and Frack?”
“Their warning text message didn’t get sent before we raided the place. I’m hoping she has no idea they were captured.”
Cass nodded but didn’t look convinced.
“I have an agent assigned to monitor the phone. If Sandy sends them a message, they will respond accordingly,” Grayson reassured her. Cass was right to worry. Normally they would have been working into the night, following leads. Grayson shut that down out of worry for her well-being, knowing that mistakes could be made when agents weren’t at their best. He was running point on this investigation, and if he made a call that put Cass in danger again, he’d never forgive himself. He was fine with calling it a night and potentially slowing down the investigation if it ensured Cass’ safety.
“What would a hawk shifter want with a cat?” Cass asked softly.
Grayson assumed that question was rhetorical but proposed an answer. “We know the hawk did mercenary work for money, but it’s not a stretch to assume a low-level lackey would want to move up. Especially knowing how smart hawks can be.”
“They’re not content to work underneath a boss forever. I wonder if what she’s involved in now was always her end goal.” Cass rubbed the scar on her eyebrow as she thought.
