Page 28 of Cold Foot Revenge (Wreck’s Mountains #7)

The lights were on.

Not just the mood lighting that was consistent in each of the private rooms, but Grave had turned on the brightest lights.

It was such a small detail when she opened the door to room two, but every single thing she saw in this moment would be burned into her mind forever.

Crystal was lying on the long couch beside Grave. Her eyes were staring blankly ahead, her hair cascading over the edge of the cushion. She wasn’t moving, other than the hitching rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed.

Grave’s orange eyes were on Roxy, and an evil smile stretched his lips as he stroked Crystal’s hair. “Are you ready for your punishment?”

“Punishment,” she whispered, her attention drifting to the shot glass and the empty vile of step one of the Turn Dose that sat on the table in plain sight. There was step two right beside it—a single syringe filled with clear liquid. “What have you done?”

“You mean what have you done?” he countered.

“Do you recognize that dose? It looks just like the one you stole. Little different though. I don’t gift bears to bitches.

You had plans for the dose you stole from me, right?

Well, now you can carry out those plans.

” He leaned forward, arms resting on his knees.

“You see, I think I have figured out your problem, Rox. You have it in your head that you are better than all of this,” he said, gesturing around the room.

“You feel like this is some temporary downswing in your life, and that’s a very dangerous way of thinking.

How can you ever settle with me if you are giving into that mindset that you are somehow better than me?

I’m going to need you to accept that you are just…

like…me. You will be the one to Turn her. ”

And this was the game, right? He was going to break her down until she ended it all herself. It became so clear at this moment as she rushed to Crystal’s side and shook her. The thought was instant. I’ll die before I become like him.

Grave wasn’t going to kill her at all. Where was the fun in that for him?

Mental torture was his game. The puppeteering was his artwork.

He found satisfaction in deteriorating a mind until there was nothing left but a docile shell of what his victim used to be.

She thought it again as she rolled Crystal over and pressed her fingertips to the pulse on the side of her neck.

I’ll die before I become like him . “Fix her! Take it back!” she demanded. “Undo this!”

“Come on, little coyote,” he scoffed. “You’re smarter than that.

The only way through this is the syringe.

You know this. You’ve been around for a long time, and I see you, always watching.

Even when you dance, you are aware of the whole room, aren’t you?

I wonder, do you have any memory of this room?

It was where you were Turned. Do you remember?

It felt fitting that you do your first Turn in the same room your animal was born in. ”

She had to get Crystal help. Her eyes were getting a glazed over look that scared her. “Crystal, you’re going to be okay,” she whispered as she picked her up and rushed for the door.

Grave appeared out of nowhere, his huge hand splayed across the door, blocking her exit.

“Move,” she gritted out.

“You’re killing her,” he warned. “She has two minutes left, max. Her body is open for the animal, and it will be a quick Turn. She’s weak. Can’t let her get too weak though.”

She’d been struggling to get around him and open the door, but it was pointless. There was a camera in the top corner, and an intercom on the wall by his hand. She turned to the camera and screamed, “Help! Help me!”

“No one gives a shit about helping you,” Grave barked out, his anger wrenching up suddenly.

“You’re crazy!” she screamed at him. “Please don’t do this.” She couldn’t be like him. She couldn’t.

“She’ll be a coyote just like you, Rox.”

“No, no, no,” she sobbed desperately. “Nick! Leech! Donnie! Anyone!” she screamed at the camera. “Help!”

“You’re alone, little coyote. When you Turn her, you’ll have a little buddy.

A little pack within the Crew. Maybe I’ll keep both of you as my trophies.

You can share me. She’s pretty, isn’t she?

It would be a waste if you let her die. She’s dying.

You can feel her fading away, right? You’re going to have to put the needle in her heart now.

She may already be too far gone. Makes no difference to me, but I think you won’t find peace if you kill this poor woman like this. She seems sweet.”

“Shut up!” Roxy yelled, trying to think.

Did she have a choice? “Crystal, do you want the animal?” she asked frantically as she settled her back on the couch.

Roxy smacked her cheek gently and pulled her vacant stare to her.

The eyes were so glossy now, and she felt her pulse again.

She couldn’t find it. “Crystal! Do you want the animal? Just nod yes. Please!”

She couldn’t find her damn pulse.

Fuck!

Roxy thought of the pain she’d gone through. The uncertainty and the confusion. She thought of how it must’ve been for Garret. How it was for Nick and the others. How it was for Dylan. He was just collateral damage, but his entire life had altered course. Because of those damn Turn Doses.

A sob clogging her throat, she grabbed the syringe off the table and hesitated for a moment, certain she would retch. Grave was right though. She couldn’t let her die. Not like this.

She was a person, and she had value.

Roxy screamed and jammed the syringe into Crystals chest, and unloaded the liquid completely.

Crystal arched her back hard and began to shake uncontrollably, and Roxy held her tightly against her. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay, baby. Everything is going to be okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s okay.”

So many decisions had led to this moment, right here. A snarl rattled Crystal’s throat.

“Good girl,” Grave said, and something inside of Roxy just…broke.

The care she had was gone in an instant.

The worry over what would happen.

She was going to hell now, just the same as Grave. He was right. She wasn’t any better than him now.

He’d done it.

He’d broken her.

“I Challenge you,” she gritted out softly.

“What did you say?” Grave asked.

Roxy inhaled deeply, pushed the hair back from Crystal’s shaking body. Crystal’s eyes had turned bright blue now. They were glowing, just like Roxy’s did. Hello, Sister Coyote.

She rose slowly and turned toward Grave. “I Challenge you.”

He stood there shocked, and it bought her time to make her way to the intercom and hit the right button to put her voice over the loudest speaker near the bar. “I am Challenging Grave—”

Grave yanked her away from the intercom. “You’re a coyote!”

“I Challenge you!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs. She didn’t even recognize her own voice.

“You can’t Challenge me. You’re a woman.”

“Are you scared?”

“I’m not scared of anything!” he roared, pacing toward Crystal.

This was it. This was her moment. She had enough room, enough time to get out the door.

Roxy yanked the door handle and bolted out of the room. Oh, she felt the wind from Grave’s hand as he tried to grab her, but she was fast too. She sprinted into the hallway and screamed it again. “I Challenge Grave! I Challenge him for Alpha!”

In the main room, the members of the Grit-Bron Crew were gathering, eyes wide, and questioning.

She drew Grave into the most open area of the room and rounded on him. “Please Coyote. Help me,” she whispered under her breath. “Don’t leave me alone.”

A snarl crawled up the back of her throat. Oh, hell yeah. Rage and the animal that was scratching at her skin were the only two allies she had here now.

Shifter or not, Grave would break Crystal, just as he’d broken Roxy. It’s what he did, and now Roxy was a part of that awful story for another woman? She didn’t have tears anymore. She had boiling blood and heated cheeks, and clenched fists and an animal who wanted to rip Grave’s throat out.

“You want to fight?” Grave asked, arching his dark brows up higher. “Okay, little girl. We can fight.”

“You’re going to die, you dumb bitch,” Leech announced as the Grit-Bron Crew pushed tables and chairs out of the way.

“I’m dead either way,” she uttered, meaning it with her entire being. She couldn’t live like this, and she had to make her stand before she lost herself completely.

Grave had pushed her toward the edge, and Turning Crystal had pushed her over it.

There was too much wrong with this place.

Too much evil being swept under the rug, and her last act as a member of this Crew would be to injure an untouchable king.

It would be to show the Crew Grave could bleed.

It would be to show them that someday, they too could rise against him, if they weren’t too far gone.

If her last act in this world was to draw blood on the man who had caused so much pain to so many, then she had to be okay with the loss—the loss of Dylan, the loss of a better life, the loss of Crystal’s humanity, the loss of so many of these Crew-members’ shots at being decent men.

This hell was full of junkyard dogs who hadn’t known care in far too long, and they didn’t know how to be soft anymore.

If her last act was this…she hoped Dylan would someday figure out what had happened here. She hoped he would be proud of how she went out.

She circled Grave, unblinking, seething with hatred for all that had happened here. The cavernous room was filled with the sound of chair legs being dragged across the scuffed wooden floors.

Grave clenched his fists and yelled at the ceiling, and the demon’s sound there turned into a roar as his massive grizzly ripped out of him.

The coyote inside of her whispered, Don’t run , and then the animal exploded from her.