Kota growled as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Even you guys have to admit this is pretty unfuckinbeleivable right? I mean come on.”
Cat got to her feet while glaring in his direction. “I never said you had to believe it, I didn’t want to come here in the first place. I can’t help what I see or hear and I don’t share it with anyone usually. Why I did this wasn’t for you or any of these men.” She motioned around the room. “I did it for Jenna. She wanted justice and she didn’t want the wrong man going to jail for something he didn’t do. That’s the real reason I came here, for Jenna, not for you.”
Titan glared at his best friend. “You’d be sitting in jail on your way to prison, Kota. If not for this woman. You need to apologize, right fucking now—”
Cat turned to Titan. “Would you please take me back to my room now? I feel like a fucking freak show and I hate that feeling.” Then she laughed but it was a cold sound. “It’s probably a blessing that I can’t see right now. I don’t need to see who’s looking at me like I’m crazy. But I can sure feel it.”
“We aren’t looking at you like you’re crazy, Catarina,” Hawkins tried to tell her.
Cat wasn’t having it. She turned in the direction of his voice and called him out, “You all do. Whether you actually mean to or not, you all think I’m some kind of freak. Everyone who’s ever met me looks at me like that. Davey was the only one who understood it and accepted me. When Isobel hit and killed him, she just about killed me and sometimes, I wish she had.” She turned to move away.
Looking furious, Titan cupped her elbow and led her down the hall to his room.
Kota sighed heavily as he looked over at his father. “Fuckin’ hell, Pa.”
Hawkins nodded. “I agree with Titan. This girl saved your ass. Even if you cannot figure out how, she damn well did. And it’s been rough for her ever since she came back to us. I was just as bad as the rest at the time. And Nash didn’t help at all. He’s been a real bastard toward her.”
Kota frowned. “What’s he been doing to her?”
“You mean other than treating her like shit and slapping her?” Hawkins sneered. “He doesn’t believe a word she’s been saying and he has even hinted she might be in league with her mother in her desire to take down the club.”
“Don’t forget someone carried her into the woods when she was hurt too,” Wilder spoke up. “And whoever it was just left her there unprotected and unconscious. She could have been in real danger if the wolves hadn’t been there. The leader, the one she calls Bear, led her to the safety of Jesse’s old house where we found her. When she did wake up, she was blind and couldn’t find her way there alone.” He looked over at Hawkins. “We still don’t know who carried her out there, although we all got a good idea who did the deed.”
Cash just shook his head. “Cat isn’t in league with her mother, but no one can convince Nash of that. She didn’t have to tell us about the attack that would have killed him if we hadn’t found him so soon after he was attacked.” He looked back over at Kota. “Hell, even blind she led us to the cave her mother used as a bank. We found a ton of cash in her safe along with a ledger book that goes back thirty some odd years. We turned it all over to the cops. We found not only Nash barely breathing but we found Nick and Robby’s remains too. But none of that fuckin’ matters to Nash.”
“But even you have to admit that this is all a little strange, Pa,” Kota pointed out. “Isobel is her mother after all.” He shrugged as if Nash’s actions didn’t really bother him that much.
“I don’t fucking care how strange it is anymore,” Hawkins told his son. “Her mother took my baby granddaughter to her grandparent’s place right after she set the fire that destroyed the old clubhouse and abandoned her. Then four years later, she forces their car off the road and they all died, except for Cat. Then she let her daughter go to an orphanage, and ignored her for the next twenty something years. Her mother even managed to kill Cat’s husband by running him down on the street by a hit and run.” Then he snorted. “Some mother Isobel turned out to be. Then when Cat was here, she t boned her car then she was trying her best to kill her own daughter. If Titan hadn’t been right behind her, she would have bashed that poor girl’s head in with a damn rock.”
Kota frowned and asked a simple question, “Why? What other secrets could Cat have that her mother doesn’t want out in the open? Sounds like Cat might know something else and maybe she just doesn’t know it.”
“Secrets we might not get to know about now.” Cash shook his head. “But there is something Isobel doesn’t want known and she’s even willing to murder her daughter to keep it secret.”
“Maybe Isobel said something the day she killed Jesse that she doesn’t want repeated,” Kota suggested. “Hell, I don’t know. I’m just guessing here.”
“We all are son,” Hawkins admitted. “We may never know her secrets but until that bitch is in custody, we have to protect Cat. For whatever reason that crazy ass woman wants her daughter dead.”
Kota just shook his head.
In the bedroom, Titan was holding Cat as she cried. “Baby, please don’t cry anymore. You’re breakin’ my heart here.”
Cat laid her head on his chest and for a moment. “It seems like that’s all I’ve done since I got here. You would think I would have grown used to the ridicule and the staring by now. But it never changes, I would see something in my dreams and I couldn’t just let it go, I would have to find a way to help the voices that speak to me. I keep hoping that one day, the dreams will stop, but they never have. People can be very cruel if you’re different, you know? I mean I don’t understand this stupid thing either.”
Titan did his best to console her as he rubbed her back and held her close.
She sighed hard and moved away from him. “All I do know is that I can’t stay here. Hawkins may be my grandfather but Nash will never accept me living here. I don’t know who carried me out into the woods but if he did that to me, what will he try next? I don’t want to find out. I don’t know how long I’ll be blind and there’s no way you can stay with me all the time. I would never feel safe if I stayed here and I won’t live looking over my shoulder all the time. He belongs here but I don’t.”
“What about me?” Titan asked quietly.
She turned toward him and reaching out, she cupped his cheek. “I can’t ask that of you, Titan. You belong here as well. I cannot, no… I will not ask you to choose between me and your family. These guys are your brothers, your family.”
“They are your family too, Cat. You were born here. That is a fact too. I don’t fucking care what Nash or Kota wants. You saved both those men. Fuck them if they can’t see that!”
Cat shook her head as she motioned around the room. “I was born here, yes, but that was a long time ago. My mother changed all that. But this is who you are Titan, who you all are. I’m the outsider here.” Just then, she turned to the window with a gasp. Getting up, she carefully moved closer to the window itself while cocking her head.
Then they both heard more than one wolf howling. It wasn’t a regular wolf howl but like a troubled howl, almost as if they were warning her of something.
She turned to Titan. “Something is wrong. Bear needs our help.”
“What are you talking about?” He frowned, then he lifted his head and looked toward the woods. He saw not only Bear standing there but several of his pack were standing there howling as well. Bear kept looking back into the woods behind him, then he would howl again.
Titan frowned and then what she was saying made sense to him. “Stay here, I’ll check it out.”
“No, take me with you.” She grabbed hold of his hand.
“Yeah, that might be a better idea.” Titan dragged her along with him. They went out to the main room.
Hawkins frowned when he saw them hustle to the front door. “What’s going on? Where are you two going?”
Cat turned in the direction of his voice and said, “There’s something going on in the woods. The wolves are going crazy.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Nash exclaimed.
“Go fuck yourself, Nash,” Titan growled, as he didn’t stop, he kept dragging Cat behind him.
Kota, Cash, Hawkins and a few of the other brothers followed.
Hawkins warned them all, “Keep your guns in their holsters boys, no one shoots at the wolves, just don’t make any sudden moves and they’ll leave you alone.”
Bear saw them coming and he whined then took off leading them deep into the woods. He stopped beside a lump on the ground.
Titan slowed down and approached the area carefully.
There were other wolves watching and growling but they didn’t move closer.
Titan dropped Cat’s hand as he and Kota moved in on the lump.
When they got close enough to see what it was, Kota growled, “What the fuck?” He knelt down beside the person on the ground and managed to turn the body over. It was a young woman. Her eyes were closed and they both could see bruises all over her face and arms. Dried blood from a head wound marred her cheek near her left ear. There were bruises around her neck indicating that someone had tried to strangle her.
Kota carefully gathered her in his arms and lifted her from off the ground. She was just a little bitty thing and she weighed next to nothing, so he lifted her with ease. He turned to make his way back to the group. When he got to where Cat was, he noticed the wolf beside her.
Cat raised her head and asked, “What did you find?”
“A young woman,” Kota told her. “She’s been beaten and strangled but she’s still alive. If we hadn’t found her, she might not have been come morning.”
Cat’s fingers flexed into the wolf’s fur and she nodded but didn’t say any more.
Kota wanted to say something more but Cat turned her face away from him. He growled under his breath and continued on to the rest of the group.
They turned and followed him back to the compound.
Titan joined Cat as she dropped down to give Bear a hug. “Thank you, my friend. Hopefully, she’ll be okay. We owe you a debt.” Then she hugged the wolf some more and got to her feet again.
Titan took her hand and they walked slowly out of the woods and back down to the clubhouse.
When they got there, they found everyone in the Infirmary and Boots was tending to the unconscious woman while telling the group about what he found, “Whoever hit this girl, hit her hard. Most head wounds bleed a lot so there’s blood all over her but this poor girl has scars all over the place. She’s also got some kind of scar on her shoulder, almost like a star. I have to wonder what caused that one.
”Is that a burn on her neck?” Kota asked. “That doesn’t look good.”
“What the hell happened to her? These scars aren’t new.” Hawkins wanted to know.
“No boss, these scars aren’t new,” Boots replied. “She’s had them a long time. She’s been abused as a little kid.”
Cat turned her head and whispered, “Titan, where are you?”
“I’m right here,” he whispered back at her as he took her hand.
“Tell me something, will you?” she asked.
“If I can.”
“This girl’s hair. Can you tell me the color of it? Like is it blonde, like almost white?” she asked softly.
Titan stared at her then looked over at the girl. “How did you know that?”
Cat had tears on her cheeks as she asked, “Does she have a scar on her left wrist? A scar from like a knife blade?”
Everyone there heard her question.
Boots lifted the woman’s left arm. The scar Cat spoke of was present.
Hawkins took a couple of steps toward the girl to get a better look. “How the hell did you know?” he asked Cat. “Do you know who she is?”
Cat hung her head. “If—if it’s who I think it is, we grew up together in the orphanage. She was a couple of years younger than I was. And you are right, Boots. She came there after her dad went to prison for abusing her. Her name was Lorna Moon when they brought her to the orphanage. She hardly spoke when she first got there but I made friends with her anyway. We were sort of two of a kind, neither of us had any friends there. Lorna told me she hated her dad and she was glad he went to jail for hurting her. She also wanted to change her name. I told her to do it. So from then on, she called herself Luna Moon.”
“But what the hell is she doing here?” Hawkins wanted to know. “How the fuck did she even find this place?”
“I don’t know.” Cat shrugged then wrapped her arm around her waist and shook her head. “I haven’t seen her in years.”
