Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Caleb picks another bullet out of his thigh.
“How many times were you shot?” I ask.
I spot at least four bullet holes. Three on his torso and one on his thigh.
Caleb ignores my question as he straightens up, rising to his full height, and steps forward. I take two steps back, my gaze flashing toward the driver’s-side door. Can he outrun a vehicle going at full speed?
“Don’t even think about it,” he snaps. He points to the passenger seat. “Get in. I won’t ask again.”
I have no choice. I clasp my hands behind my back, a sad attempt to hide their tremors, before climbing into the passenger seat of the car.
Caleb is behind the wheel a heartbeat later, and he pointedly avoids looking in my direction as he turns the car around and begins driving back the way we came.
“HPAW was thoughtless to give you a meeting point so close to the shifter border.” Caleb scoffs. “I’ve been trailing you for hours. It’s given me time to think—to put together the pieces the mate bond had me foolishly ignoring.”
I bite at the skin on my bottom lip, not stopping even when I taste blood.
“I knew you were hesitant about my kind,” Caleb continues. “Most humans are, but I was a fool not to realize just how deep your hatred was. It never occurred to me that you were working for HPAW. Kudos to you, I suppose.”
Caleb lets out a dry laugh. “I believed you loved me.” His laughter grows, borderline hysterical.
“I found the fucking knife. Did you think I wouldn’t notice a knife hidden underneath our pillows?
I found it and told myself you were just being cautious.
Surely, my mate wouldn’t want to hurt me.
She’s just skittish, maybe a little nervous to be living in the middle of a shifter pack.
She was recently abducted and tortured, after all.
She wants to feel safe. I can’t fault her for that. ”
I stare out the front windshield. I have nothing to say, and even if I did, I doubt Caleb wants to hear it.
Caleb adjusts the air vents, blasting me with warm air.
“I hope you aren’t pregnant.”
His words sting. They shouldn’t, not after everything I’ve done, but they still do. Is that why he hasn’t killed me? It makes sense. He doesn’t want to risk killing his unborn child. He’ll wait until he has confirmation that I’m not pregnant before taking my life.
Caleb sighs. “Why’d you do it?”
I take a moment to respond. “I’m protecting humankind. I had no choice.” The answer isn’t what he wants to hear, but it’s the truth.
“You had a choice.” Caleb taps his pointer fingers against the steering wheel. “It seems I have a choice to make now, too.” He slams on the brakes, and the seatbelt digs into my throat as the car jerks to an abrupt stop. Caleb spins in my direction. “What should I choose, Evelyn?”
I shove my hands underneath my thighs, sitting on them. They won’t stop shaking, and I don’t want Caleb to see. I open my mouth, shut it, and open it again. I don’t know what to say. Is Caleb looking for me to beg for my life? Beg him to let me live?
“I don’t want to die,” I eventually say.
“I don’t know many people who do.”
I refused to show Caleb mercy, so I can’t very well expect him to show me any. If I’m honest with myself, he’s probably well within his rights to kill me. If I were an outsider watching this, I wouldn’t blame him.
Caleb tuts. “You really think I’m going to kill you?” He shakes his head and resumes driving. “How disappointing. HPAW will kill you if you return to them. Once you’ve given them the sad scraps of information I’ve shared with you, you’ll no longer be useful. If anything, you’ll be a liability.”
I lick my lips, unsure. He sounds so confident.
Daniel practically raised me. He may not be a warm, glowing father figure, but he would never let anybody hurt me. If he thought there was a possibility of HPAW killing me, he’d warn me. I know he would.
“I no longer want you as a mate,” Caleb continues.
“But I’m not going to hand you over to HPAW to be tortured for information and murdered.
I’ll tell my people you were unfaithful.
It will explain your dead mark. You’ll be permitted to remain within the pack lands, but I want nothing to do with you.
If I hear even a whisper of you conspiring against us, I’ll have your throat torn out, ex-mate or not. ”
My dead mark?
I rip my hands out from underneath my thighs.
My mark is black as night, not a hint of color left. The once-sharp edges are now fuzzy and blown out, the design distorted and almost unrecognizable. I swallow, my throat dry. Our bond is dead.
“I saw you kill those men,” I whisper. “Your shipment. You spit in that human boy’s face, then snapped his neck. You killed all of them. I saw it.”
Caleb nods. “I did. Those men kidnapped, tortured, and murdered a twelve-year-old girl.”
What? I open my mouth, then snap it shut. Is that true?
“Would you like to read the autopsy report?” Caleb continues. “We also have video footage, if the report isn’t enough for you. Human men love to harm young female shifters. Prepubescent shifters are weak, and humans take advantage of that. We had been looking for those men for months.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, a headache forming at my temples. Even if what Caleb says is true, it doesn’t change anything. This is only one example of many.
“The shifters claimed the entirety of fucking Canada during the exodus,” I tell him, “displacing millions of humans. You continue taking land, pushing farther and farther south. You wish to enslave us.”
Caleb blinks, cocking his head to the side. Then he laughs. “Is that what the American government is telling you now? It can’t be said that you people aren’t creative.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why should I bother trying to explain anything to you?” Caleb asks. “You’ve made your judgement, and you won’t believe a word I say. I won’t waste my time.”
I stare at my mark for a moment longer, then tuck my hands back underneath my thighs. I don’t care to see it.
“Explain it to me,” I say. “You’re suggesting that HPAW is lying, so tell me the truth.”
I’m eager to see how Caleb defends generations of murder and abuse. I’ve seen the photographs and read the reports. Men, women, and children torn to shreds in their homes. They had been innocent, murdered solely because they’d had the misfortune of living too close to the border.
Caleb twists his fists around the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white.
“We didn’t displace millions of humans, Evelyn.
Most of Canada was already shifter territory.
We just legitimized it. The shifters who happened to be living outside the borders chose to come, and it was pure coincidence that so many came from the States.
It wasn’t some orchestrated attack, and we didn’t force anybody out of their homes. ”
“Millions of Canadian human refugees came to the States after the shifters took over. There were massacres. You killed the humans who were too slow to leave.”
Caleb shoots me a sideways glance. “I don’t know how to respond to that. That’s simply not true. Several million humans were living within Canada when we legitimized ourselves, and most chose to stay.”
“Where are they now?”
“Gone.” Caleb shrugs. “Shifters are loyal to their mates, and most humans born without a marking choose to leave. They aspire to have families, which they can’t do here.”
What Caleb is saying is wildly different from HPAW’s teachings.
Somebody is lying to me. If Caleb is to be believed, that means HPAW has entirely rewritten history.
How is that even possible to do at such a large scale?
The people who were alive during that time would have shared their stories.
People would notice the discrepancies. There would be questions.
“Your government doesn’t like us because we’re stronger than they are,” Caleb says. “Most of your intelligent, influential leaders were shifters, and we took a great deal of information and power with us. HPAW is terrified we’ll use it against them.”
“Do you plan to?”
“No.” Caleb shakes his head. “We have no interest in taking your land or killing your people. Honestly, we just want to be left the fuck alone.”
“Humans who live near the border are frequently murdered,” I say. “I’ve seen the images and read the reports.”
Caleb shrugs. “It’s not us. Either the images and reports are fake, or the human government is committing the murders and blaming us.”
“Why would they do that?” They would never. It’s a horrifying thought.
“Because humans are selfish, irrational, and fearful creatures.” He looks into my eyes as he spits his insults, making me painfully aware that they’re also aimed at me.
“Shifters maintain good relations with other countries. We have extensive and robust trade agreements, as well as powerful alliances. America hates that. They thought themselves on top of the political food chain before the exodus, and they can’t handle the loss of power. ”
Caleb pinches the bridge of his nose. “Do you think HPAW truly gives a shit if you live or die? They look at you and see a means to an end—a way to finally get their revenge and prove they’re big and scary.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if I believe him. I’m not sure if I want to.
If Caleb’s telling the truth, it means my entire life, and everything I’ve ever been told, is a lie.
HPAW insists the shifters terrorize the borders, forcing themselves onto our land in violent attempts to take us over.
They say the shifters intend to enslave us, to take over our government and use us for cheap labor.
“A black mark frees me from the burden of you,” Caleb says, changing the subject.
“I’ll tell the pack that I caught you in bed with another man.
An American human. It’ll explain why you snuck out of the shifter lands.
They’ll understand why I can’t send you back.
You know too much, and the humans will torture you for information.
I suggest you keep quiet about having tried to murder me. ”
With a flick of his wrist, the radio is turned on.
I open my mouth to speak. Caleb turns the radio louder. It must be hurting his ears. My heart thumps, and I slowly shut my mouth before directing my attention out the windshield.