Rogue (Shifters #2)(52)

Okay, that was a flimsy link at best—just because they were from the same continent didn’t mean they’d ever even set eyes on each other. After all, how many Canadian cats had I never met? But I was more than ready to grasp at straws.
“Maybe she’s the mother of one of the missing tabbies, out for revenge,” I suggested.
Vic laughed. “Yeah, you gotta watch out for those renegade mommies. They’re the worst.”
I glared at him. “You ever heard the phrase ‘one bad mother’?”
“Let’s focus on the topic at hand, please,” my father said.
“Sorry.” Vic tried to stop smiling but couldn’t quite manage.
“We have to find Andrew, before he makes trouble too close to home. It’s time to call him.” My father frowned, his attention narrowing in on me, and I struggled to concentrate in spite of encroaching exhaustion.
My father cleared his throat to catch my attention. “Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“Yeah.” I clenched my phone in one fist. “I’m going to tell him how he was really infected and apologize. If there’s any of the old Andrew left in him, he’ll respect that.” And frankly, I didn’t know what else to do. 
“If he still doesn’t know you’ve told us about him, don’t enlighten him. He’ll be more willing to play into our hand if he thinks he can get you alone,” my father said. I nodded, and he gestured toward my phone. “Dial.”
No pressure, I thought, acutely aware of every pair of eyes on me, ready to judge my burgeoning enforcer skills. My fingers shook as I pressed the appropriate keys. Holding my breath, I pressed the last button and held the phone to my ear. It rang, a synthesized bleating sound that grated on my already-frazzled nerves.
I heard a click, then the soft hiss of an open line when Andrew answered his phone. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you’re nervous about seeing me again.”
It was a typical Andrew-style greeting—not so much as a hello. But that little glimpse of the man I’d known left me hope that there may yet be more of the old Andrew in there somewhere. “Should I be nervous?”
“In my humble estimation…yes.”
On the couch across from me, Vic rolled his eyes, unimpressed by Andrew’s high opinion of himself.
“Why?” I asked, plucking at a thread dangling from my shorts.
Clothing rustled over the line. “We have something special planned for our little reunion  .”
“We? Who’s with you?” I glanced at my father, asking wordlessly for permission to voice my suspicion. He nodded, so I continued. “Is it Luiz?”
I held my breath, fully aware that if Andrew wasn’t with Luiz, he would have no idea what I was talking about. But his sudden silence said that I was almost certainly right.
“How did you know that?” Andrew muttered.
My pulse jumped, and I sat straighter, both thrilled and terrified to have my guess confirmed. “Is he with you right now?”
Something crashed over the phone, a sound like wood breaking. “How the fuck did you know about him?” Andrew demanded, and all traces of the kind, gentle man I’d known were gone.
Too nervous to sit, I shot up from the love seat and began to pace, uncomfortably aware that my father did the same thing when he needed to think quickly. “Andrew, listen to me. You have to get away from him.”
“Why? So you can turn me into some kind of pet on a leash? Don’t you already have one of those?”
Suddenly unsure, I paused in midstep, glancing at my father for guidance. “Say something,” he mouthed, and from the corner of my eye, Vic used his hand like a talking puppet to reinforce my father’s order.
“Andrew, you have to trust me.” I started pacing again, fast now, my bare feet whispering on the rug. “Whatever he’s telling you, it isn’t true. He’s lying.”
“What, like you did?” His voice was shrill with fury, then for a moment it was gone altogether, buried beneath what sounded like more furniture breaking. “—turned me into a monster, then left me to die. He saved my life. He taught me…everything.”
“No.” I shook my head, though he couldn’t see me. “He’s using you. I bit you by accident, and didn’t figure out what had happened until last night. I swear my life on it. I never meant to hurt you. But he’s been using you all this time, lying to you and twisting the truth to get you to do what he wants.”
“You have to be in cat form to infect someone,” Andrew snapped, his words clipped short in rage.
Okay, that was true. But…
“Which means you did it on purpose.”
“No!” I shouted, by then oblivious to everyone else in the room. “There’s more to it than that. Just give me a—”“You had a chance to say your piece, but instead you left me without so much as a goodbye. Why should I believe a word you say now?”
“Because I can help you. I want to help you.” I’d never said anything truer in my life. It was my fault Andrew was…insane. And likely homicidal.
“I don’t want your fucking help!” he shouted into my ear, bitterness rendering his voice a mere shadow of what it once was.
Time to change tactics. I took a deep, calming breath. “Where are you, Andrew? Let me come get you. I’ll come alone.” I crossed my fingers and held them over my head as I paced, for my father’s benefit. I had no intention of going anywhere near Andrew and Luiz alone. But they didn’t need to know that.
“Where am I?” He laughed, and in that grating, malicious perversion of joy, I heard a faint remnant of the sweet, delight-filled laughter I remembered from the Andrew of old. The man with gentle eyes and slow, patient hands. He was still in there somewhere. He had to be. “I’m in hell, Faythe. And you’re going to keep me company.”
Grief rolled through me in a wave of private despair. Grief for Andrew, and the man he’d been. I stopped in front of my father’s desk, leaning against it, my shoulders hunched in sorrow, and in guilt. If I had taken care of Andrew during his transition, he might have been fine. He might have turned out very much like Marc. But I hadn’t taken care of him. I’d left him for Luiz to find, and now the only part of my Andrew remaining was a familiar note in the hollow echo of his laughter.
What had I done? And could I possibly undo it?
“I’m so sorry,” I said again, hoping to thaw his heart with my penitence. “I would give anything to change it. To give you back your life. But I can’t.” Pacing again, I reached the corner of my father’s desk and turned. “But I can show you how to live the life you have now. Please let me help you.”
“Fuck you, Faythe! You’ll be begging me for help soon.”
My breath hitched in surprise over such an overt threat, and I glanced at my father, who looked almost as concerned as he was angry. “Andrew, I’m telling you it was an acci—”
“You can explain it to Saint Peter,” my formerly human, formerly kind, gentle, and sweet boyfriend snarled in my ear.
“Say hi for me when you see him.” The phone went dead in my hand, and I held it in front of my face, staring at the tiny full-color screen, which now read “end call.”
“Damn it!” My hand clenched the plastic, and it took several long, slow breaths before I regained enough control to keep from crushing it.
“Wow!” Vic said, whistling between his two front teeth. 
“That’s one pissed-off little stray.”
“Two pissed-off little strays,” I corrected, thinking of Luiz, who was just as much to blame for what Andrew had become as I was. “When we find Luiz, he’s going to pay in full for every finger he laid on each of those girls, and for every single lie he fed Andrew.” Though at the moment, it was the truths he’d told that bothered me the most. He probably really thought I’d infected Andrew on purpose.
“Indeed,” my father said from his armchair, and for a moment I thought he was reading my mind. “Well, at least we know now that you were right about his involvement.”
Yet I found that a small consolation, all things considered.
After that, the day hit a bit of a lull. Marc and Parker had seen no sign of the rogue tabby, and we still had no idea where to find Luiz and Andrew. My father sent Owen, Jace, and Vic out for a run in the woods, ostensibly to burn off some nervous energy and clear their heads for the coming confrontation—whenever that turned out to be. But I think he was actually trying to get them out of his fur for an hour of peace and quiet.
I stayed behind, out of sheer exhaustion. Whether it was the lack of sleep, or the emotionally draining phone call to Andrew, by the time the guys filed out of the office, I could barely hold my head up. So I stretched out on the leather couch for a short nap, just like I’d done as a kid, lulled to sleep by the scratching of a pencil on paper as my father sketched to set his mind at ease.
Sometime later—about an hour and a half, according to the wall clock—the guys woke me up when they filed back into the office like a herd of elephants on parade. Jace picked up my feet and sat beneath them, and Vic and Owen settled onto the love seat across from us. I was still rubbing sleep from my eyes when the office phone rang out, startling in the temporary calm. My father answered it, and the moment the caller spoke, I sat straight up, instantly wide-awake. It was Marc.