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There was silence. Finally the woman nodded. “Thank you for your honesty,” she said. “I have a daughter too."
Okami closed his eyes briefly, and then he bowed to her. A deeper bow than Abby had ever seen him make. Well, she deserved it. All honor and respect to all of these women. Abby looked at the woman who had said Benny should speak and nodded once. The woman swallowed hard.
“We talked while we ate,” she said. “I know, I know, shifters don’t talk while they eat. But sometimes exceptions must be made.” It broke the tension, and people relaxed a bit. Abby nodded her respect to the woman —Jean. Jean went on. “And we all agreed that you all needed to hear our stories. But it’s too raw. None of us — even Olivia, who is more together than most —can talk about it. And the irony of this gathering, is that the person we’re most comfortable telling our stories for us is you.”
Benny’s head jerked up at that. He stared at her.
“You’ve held our hands, listened to us, counseled us,” Jean went on. “You’ve spent hours helping us deal with what happened to us. We want you to speak for us. Keeper of Stories? Tell ours.”
She sat down. Benny stared at her, shaking his head. “No, no,” he said. “You don’t understand. I should have stepped up when Ricci first brought the proposal to Stefan. I’m a psychologist! Oh, I was having fun being a carefree fitness coach, who taught the woo-woo classes. But I could have set up that reintegration center! I could have said, Stefan? Let me run that center here on the island. I can teach them to be werewolves. I can help them. But I didn’t. I’m the one most responsible for what you went through.”
Ah, Abby thought. There’s the thorn in the festering wound. And he was right. Did it make a difference?
“I wouldn’t have listened,” Stefan said ruefully. “I was too arrogant, Benny. I would have dismissed you, just as I dismissed Cujo when he tried.”
Cujo sighed. And everyone turned to him. “OK, I got to admit, hearing Stefan confess he didn’t listen to me and should have is balm to some wounds,” he said. “But the truth is, Stefan and all of us would have been slaughtered if Stefan hadn’t gone along with Jones’ schemes. I did know Jones. I didn’t realize at first that’s who was funding this project —it was pretty funny actually when Jones realized he was paying my salary. Me, a man who had competed with him all over the world and offered to kill him more than once. Jedediah Jones was a powerful man,” Cujo continued. “I had proposed to my former employer that I take him out, and even they hesitated.” He must have seen the confusion on faces, because he grimaced, and muttered, “Well, here goes the NDA. I worked for the CIA for 30 years.”
There was a murmur at that. Cujo shrugged. “So now you know. And they’d be really unhappy if they knew I told you. But if the CIA thought Jones was too big to take down, do you really think you could have done it, Stefan? After I quit the Wolf Harbor Resort, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to take him out. I lay in wait more than once with a sniper rifle, hoping for a shot. And there were no opportunities.” He looked wistful at that.
“Trust me, Jones didn’t take ‘no’ well. He would have killed everyone on the island and gone out for dinner afterwards” Cujo continued. “We were truly trapped. Even Tanaka had to walk wary of Jones with his connections to the World Council of Alphas. Stefan, if Tanaka couldn’t do it, what makes you think you could? Even if Benny had proposed a center here, it wasn’t going to happen.”
“But why?” Jean asked, bewildered. “Why did he want us so badly?”
Cujo blew out a long sigh. “Because those of you he sold went for millions,” he said bluntly. “He was pouring a lot of money into this operation because he wanted to control the serum. And he would have charged obscene rates for it, whereas the pack makes it free to any girl. That was about power — he would have ruled the shifter world. And he placed some women with men he wanted to court for more power. But selling you was also about money. I went back to my former employer and asked if they would mount an operation to take him out now. They said no. They acknowledged that I had been right years ago when I wanted to do it back then, but that Jones had grown even more powerful, and they didn’t think I could get it done now. If I tried and failed, Jones’ retaliation would be too severe. That’s the CIA talking, folks. And that increase in power was in part because he had a hot commodity to trade — you women.”
There was silence at that. “But Abby killed him,” Olivia said, also sounding bewildered.
“You know the saying around the island, that I can do things no one thought possible because no one has had time to tell me they’re impossible?” Abby asked ruefully. “Well, me killing Jones was like that. He kidnapped me at the Castle, and he wasn’t taking me seriously. He wasn’t at all cautious. And so I killed him. But if anyone had actually briefed me thoroughly? It probably wouldn’t have happened. And the repercussions of me doing that were quite severe.” Abby swallowed. She was not going to think about Anton Vuk, she told herself. She was over that.
Obviously not,Olivia said dryly.We’ll talk someday about that. I met the man, you know. Up close and personal like. We’ll compare notes.
Abby snorted.Only if we have a lot of wine to drink.
Deal.
“OK,” Jean said finally. “I can see all of that. But I think it would help us to be heard. And you all probably need to hear the details of what happened to us. Benny? Please?”
Benny sighed, but he nodded. He looked around the room. “I’m not sure about the girls,” he said. “Maybe it’s too much for a 13-year-old girl to hear?”
The women conferred, and Olivia nodded. “Girls? You’ve heard enough for the night,” she said firmly. “You’ve got classes in just a few hours. So go. But let me say thank you. It did help us to make the link between what we sacrificed and what shifters gained. And I’m speaking for myself, but yes, I’d do it again, so that you all have a chance to live.”
“Thank you, teacher,” Joy said. She led the group out the back door. Sarah stayed.
“I’m old enough to hear it,” she said. “I’m 17. I’ve heard worse.”
Abby felt sorrow that that was probably true. “Benny?”
Benny came forward and pulled a chair around so that he could sit in it, cross-legged. Abby briefly envied his limberness, and then she went to sit next to Yui. She reached over and squeezed her friend’s hands. Yui tried to smile, but her distress was obvious. Abby left her hand resting on Yui’s. She hoped this would bring about the healing that Olivia envisioned. She hoped that the price wasn’t higher than the results.
Then Benny began to tell stories. The stories of the women who had been abused, raped, sold. The stories about how they had survived, and eventually triumphed. Abby was startled by how the stories went. She’d been expecting a litany of what happened. She hadn’t expected the story arc of them as what? Heroes?
Survivors and heroes,Olivia agreed.We’re hearing how he sees us. And seeing ourselves through his eyes? This, Abby. This is what us women needed.
There were tears when Benny was done. He stood up and bowed to the women in the panel box, and then to the other women in the room. “You are the bravest people I have ever known,” he said seriously. “Do not ever doubt that. I have the utmost respect for all of you. You faced down evil and won. An evil so great, that even the CIA flinched. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.”
Jean nodded, and sniffled. “Thank you, Benny,” she whispered.
Another break?Abby asked Olivia.I don’t know where we go next?
