Chapter Three
The walk back to the shiver house took forty minutes.
Jack didn't have money for a cab and he wasn't about to ask anyone at the club for a ride.
The Las Vegas streets were bright and loud at midnight, tourists stumbling between casinos, the neon reflecting off everything until the whole city felt like it was made of colored glass.
Jack kept his head down and walked fast. Most people couldn't tell a shifter from a human on sight, but other shifters could.
The last thing he needed was to run into a shark from one of the other shivers while he was alone and smelled like Kinky Kritters.
His legs ached. Three hours on his feet in those shorts, carrying trays, cleaning tables, bending and lifting while people watched, touched, and grabbed at him like he was part of the entertainment.
His hip still felt wrong where the drunk had pulled at his waistband.
Not injured, just the ghost of unwanted hands.
He was used to that feeling. The shiver had given him a lifetime of practice at carrying the memory of hands that didn't ask.
What he wasn't used to was someone putting a stop to it.
Amani on the bar. The hoodie, the jeans, the voice that cut through a packed club like everyone in the room owed him money.
The lion had looked furious and completely in control of that fury, which was more frightening than the anger itself.
Jack knew angry. He'd grown up with angry.
Angry was predictable. What Amani had done was something else.
He'd seen a problem and he'd fixed it, publicly, without hesitation, and the problem had been people hurting him.
Jack couldn't make that fit anywhere in his head.
He'd kidnapped Amani. He'd held the ropes.
He'd driven the van to Grainger's ranch and watched Amani get pulled out of the back by a man Jack knew was a predator in every sense that mattered.
And on his first night working the club, Amani had stood on his own bar and told a room full of shifters not to touch Jack.
He turned off the Strip and headed south into the residential blocks where the shiver houses sat in a quiet row.
Three houses, one street, sixteen sharks split between them.
The houses looked normal from the outside.
Stucco with tile roofs and small dry yards, the same as every other house in the neighborhood.
Nothing that told anyone the people inside had made their living hurting others for years.
The porch light was on at his house, which meant someone was awake.
Jack slowed his pace. Months in holding.
Months of silence, of meals through a slot in the door, of lying on a cot staring at a ceiling and wondering if Amani would ever say yes.
He'd thought about that moment constantly in holding.
Coming back. Facing them. He'd imagined it going a dozen different ways, most of them bad.
He'd avoided the moment all day, spending his time on the strip and avoiding coming back. But he couldn't stay away forever.
He opened the front door and walked in.
Dresden was on the couch watching television.
He looked up when Jack came in, and for a long moment neither of them said anything.
Dresden was only a few years older but he'd always carried himself like the house was his.
He was the one who managed the money, who decided the chore rotation, who chose which jobs the four of them would take.
He wasn't the leader of the shiver. That position belonged to the elders in the other houses.
But in that house, Dresden was the closest thing to authority Jack had ever known.
"So, they let you out," Dresden said.
Jack closed the door behind him. "The lion said he was ready."
"The lion." Dresden snorted and turned back to the television. "Sit down. You look like hell."
Jack sat in the chair across from the couch. Not on the couch, never on the couch. Dresden's seat. "Where are Lichen and Rashe?"
"Rashe is sleeping. Lichen went out." Dresden studied him with the flat attention that all sharks seemed to share. Gray eyes that reflected light without absorbing it. "You been at the club all night?"
"Three hours. That's the deal. Three hours every night doing whatever Amani tells me.
" Jack kept his voice steady. Reporting in.
That's what this was. He came home to the shiver and he told them where he'd been and what he'd done because there were no secrets.
That was the rule. "I cleaned tables and ran drinks. "
"In those little shorts?"
"Yes."
Dresden grinned. It wasn't a kind expression. "I bet you looked pretty. How many guys grabbed at you?"
Jack's jaw tightened but he kept his face blank. "A few."
"And you just let them?"
"I didn't have a choice. It's my punishment."
"You had a choice when you picked up the phone and called the cops on your own shiver.
" Dresden leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
The television played behind him, some nature documentary about ocean currents that Jack knew Dresden wasn't watching.
"We lost three good sharks because of you.
Dale, Mako, and Paulie are sitting in prison right now.
Do you know what shifter prison is like for sharks? "
Jack knew. Isolation cells because no general population facility would risk housing sharks with other species. It was holding, but worse. At least Jack's facility had a window.
"They're alone because of you," Dresden said.
"And the elders haven't forgotten. The only reason you're still part of this shiver is because we need the body count.
Fifteen isn't enough to hold the territory we've got.
Fourteen was too thin. So you're back, and you'll contribute, and you'll remember who your family is. "
Jack nodded. "I know who my family is."
"Do you?" Dresden stood. He was taller than Jack, heavier in the shoulders. Not faster, but he didn't need to be faster when the rules said you had to fight and the outcome didn't matter if you lost. "Prove it."
Jack's stomach dropped. He'd expected that. Had braced for it the entire walk home. The shiver challenge. You fight, you lose, you take what comes. That was the contract you signed by being a shark, the dues you paid for belonging.
"Pick someone," Dresden said.
The front door opened behind them and Rashe came out of the hallway in shorts and nothing else, rubbing his eyes. He must have heard them talking. Small, wiry, quick. Behind him, Lichen's door stayed shut. Still out.
Jack looked at Rashe. He was the better option. Dresden would drag things out, would want Jack on the floor longer than necessary, would make a point of taking his time because Dresden enjoyed the display of it. Rashe just wanted to get off and go back to sleep.
"You," Jack said to Rashe.
Rashe shrugged and stepped forward. Dresden sat back down on the couch to watch.
Jack threw the first punch because not fighting was worse than losing. It was a bad punch and he knew it before his fist was halfway to Rashe's jaw. He was tired, his body still humming with the unfamiliar tension of the club.
Rashe sidestepped and landed two fast jabs to Jack's ribs. The same ribs. Every shark in the house knew where Jack was weakest and they all aimed for the same spot.
Jack tried to recover but Rashe was already behind him. A kick to the back of his knee sent him down. His knees hit the floor hard and the impact jarred up through his spine. He was on the ground. That was it. Fight over.
The silence that followed was the worst part. The moment between losing and what came after, when the winner decided how they wanted you. He kicked Jack in the ribs, twice, and Jack cried out before he could stop himself.
"Fucking snitch," Rashe snarled, then went back to his room without a word. Dresden was still on the couch, watching the ocean currents on television as if nothing had happened.
"I'm surprised he didn't do more," Dresden said idly. "I was expecting more of a show, for old times sake if nothing else. You always were good for entertainment, little traitor."
Jack got up. His ribs throbbed. His knees were sore from hitting the floor. The rest of him felt like it always felt after a challenge. He went to the bathroom to clean up, then to his room.
His room was exactly as he'd left it three months earlier.
The shiver hadn't touched his things, which surprised him.
They could have gone through everything, thrown out what they wanted, claimed the space for storage.
Instead the bed was still made, his few possessions still in their places.
A book on the nightstand he'd never finished reading.
A glass of water that had long since evaporated, leaving a ring on the wood.
He lay down and stared at the ceiling.
At the club, Amani had jumped on the bar and told a room full of people not to touch him. At the shiver house, Rashe had knocked him to the floor and hurt him without another thought.
Jack had lived in the shiver his entire adult life.
He'd grown up with challenges and the ritual that followed them.
He'd endured hundreds of nights exactly like this one and he'd never questioned it because questioning would have meant admitting that the foundation of his entire world was built on pain and fear.
He lay in the dark and thought about Amani's voice carrying over the music. About the hoodie and the way Amani pulled at the hem when he was nervous. About how the person Jack had helped break was the only person who'd stood up for him.
His phone was gone, confiscated when he'd gone to holding and never returned.
No clock in his room either. The house was quiet.
Even Dresden had gone to bed. Jack lay there in the silence and tried to find the blank space he usually retreated to, the place where he didn't have to feel or think or remember.
It wasn't there.
He rolled onto his side and pressed his face into the pillow and waited for sleep to take him somewhere better than here.