“I’m not sure I like this mask.”
She went into his arms as he reached for her this time. “Sometimes, the mask comes in handy.” His hands cradled her face, so gently it nearly broke her. “Only three people know the real me and one of them is dead.”
“Nico and your grandmother?” she asked.
He nodded. “And you.”
“I don’t want to be responsible for you having to do such horrible things.”
“Kat, whatever happens next will not be on you. What happens between me and my father will be on him. You must stop thinking of him as my dad. He isn’t. He’s been nothing more than my alpha, and not a nice one at that. He has never shown me any love. He stole my childhood by forcing me to fight. He’s pushed me and pushed me, and nothing I have ever done has been good enough. I stopped trying to please him a very long time ago, and I stopped seeing him as my father way before that.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be,” he kissed her cheek. “Are you ready to go back?” He turned her around in his arms. “It looks like a few more people have arrived.”
“Oh goody!”
Bass smiled against her neck, nipping at her skin. “I do love you, my snarky girl.”
They walked back toward the house and the hive of activity.
“I’m still not sure I fit in this world.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll make the world fit you.”
Chapter 25
The house was in chaos as they walked in. Katalina stopped in the doorway, stunned. There was a trail of bloodstained rags leading off to the kitchen; Jackson could be heard from the front room, his voice raised.
“Come on.” Katalina pulled on Bass’s hand, leading him toward the kitchen. She wasn’t in the mood to face Jackson. One step into the kitchen and she wasn’t sure she was ready for this either. Toby lay on the kitchen table. He was deathly pale and unmoving. Karen worked over him, her hands, quick and sure in their task. A woman stood nearby, hovering but looking as if she didn’t dare approach. Tears of black mascara streamed down her face.
“Is sh-she g-going to be okay?” Katalina stammered.
Karen didn’t look up, but she answered, “He’d have been dead if not for you, Kat. Toby is a strong boy. He’ll fight.”
Karen’s answer caused Toby’s mother to choke out a sob. She buried her face in her hands. “Terry, why don’t you go find, Cage? I’ll come get you when Toby wakes up.”
Katalina watched in silence as Toby’s mother, Terry, nodded and left the kitchen.
“Kat, come here and help me.”
“What? No, I’d be no use.” She suddenly wished she’d chosen Jackson. Jackson shouting was far easier to handle than Toby bleeding to death.
“Hold this!” Karen ordered.
Katalina walked forward on numb legs. She took the torch off Karen. “I need you to shine the light in here. There’s a bleed I need to find.”
She wasn’t sure how long she’d stood there, holding a torch over Toby’s open body. She focused on forcing her breaths in and out, deep and steady, over and over. She didn’t know how Karen did it, how she had her hands inside someone, surrounded by organs and blood.
“Gotcha,” she muttered. “Pass me that clamp, Kat.”
“Clamp?” Katalina whispered, looking at the tray of instruments next to her. Her hand hovered over what she thought looked like a clamp.
“That’s the one.” With an unsteady hand, Katalina handed it over, and Karen carried on.
Once Toby was stitched up, a dressing over the wound, Katalina turned around to look for Bass, but he’d gone.
“Kat, tell Terry she can come back, please,” Karen called as Katalina left to find Bass.
She found him near the front door, gazing out the window. He turned with a smile at her approach. Katalina paused at open the door to the front room. Terry sat in the corner chair staring into space but no longer crying.
“You can go see him now, Terry,” Katalina said.
Terry’s faraway eyes fixed on her. She stared for a second before her brain registered Katalina’s words. “Thank you,” she murmured, jumping to her feet.
Walking toward Bass, Katalina heard Jackson was having a heated discussion with a woman who looked to be in her late thirties. She held the hands of twin boys. They didn’t seem the least bit affected by the madness of the last few hours, but their mother clearly was.
Katalina had almost made it to Bass when her name fell from Jackson’s lips. She froze, a deer in headlights, wondering whether it would be rude if she just turned, and ran.