Page 27 of Cruel Revenge (Jacky Leon #12)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CAREY

C arey stared at the ceiling. In and out of consciousness, this was the longest she had been awake. The lights were bright, but she stared at the ceiling.

Nothing hurt. Not her eyes in the light. Not a single spot on her body. She felt oddly detached from it all.

She stared at the ceiling as people ran around her and yelled things to each other.

She could hear their footsteps. Someone was screaming for things, a shrill, awful feminine voice.

Someone cursed as they went around her. Someone came over her head, blocking her view of the ceiling, with a light and flashed it in her eyes, turning away to tell someone something.

Carey didn’t pick up the words. Then the face was gone.

Where am I?

She didn’t know.

Beeping. There was an awful beeping in the noise. Not just one type of beep. Multiple types. She recognized those beeps distantly, a word coming to her mind.

Hospital?

She didn’t know how long she lay there, but eventually, something started to burn.

It started small, a warmth in her body that spread slowly. It turned her on, woke her up in a new way.

She remembered going to dinner with Jacky. That woman, Courtney, her mother came. Things went bad. Jacky told her to run. Carey was shoved into a car. She jumped out.

Oh, yeah.

That was when things began to hurt. Her back. Her head. Her arms and legs. Aching and pain, feeling returning to everything, as even her toes and fingers hurt.

She made a noise, not sure how it even got out of her. Someone yelped.

Then the pain became worse, and Carey was screaming, her body suddenly lit up, feeling like someone had just set her on fire.

She started to thrash, hitting soft bodies as she screamed, trying to stop the pain. From feeling nothing to feeling too much, everything all at once, every ache and pain and things moving in her body that she didn’t understand.

She didn’t notice that she was being moved until she tried to look at the ceiling and saw that it was moving.

She slid off something and hit a new surface as she gained the freedom to struggle against the pain as much as she wanted.

She remembered golden eyes staring down at her. She was lost to reality as those gold eyes stared at her, and Carey remembered what she told those gold eyes.

Bite me.

That was what Carey had asked Jacky.

Had Jacky bitten her? She didn’t know. But she kept thinking of that moment through all the pain until another memory came to mind.

“Daddy, what does it feel like?” a tiny voice asked. Her tiny voice.

“Turning into a wolf?"

She nodded.

"I won’t lie to you… It hurts.”

“How do you do it all the time if it hurts?”

“By knowing there’s no pain on the other side.

Trying to avoid the pain only makes it hurt worse.

So like… when I have to take a splinter from your hand.

When you pull away and make me try for longer, it hurts for longer.

But when you let me get the splinter out the first try, you get to go back to running around, and it no longer hurts. ”

Carey gasped for air as the pain continued, but that memory made her relax and accept the pain.

Then everything started to change.

She tried to ignore it while letting it happen instead of fighting it.

She tried not to think of anything except her parents and her brothers. She tried to live in her memories as the pain crashed over her like a wave.

And when Carey opened her eyes again, the pain subsiding after what felt like an eternity, she saw the world differently.

I’m alive. Oh my god, I’m alive. I did it. I survived.

She tried to stand up, stumbling not from any pain. She felt perfectly fine now. Strong, even. Just clumsy. Having never been particularly clumsy, it was new for her.

“Oh, I thought this couldn’t get any better,” someone said. Carey turned to the voice, seeing a face she recognized.

I hope my parents kill you.

What came out of her mouth were growls, and Carey stopped. She looked down, seeing her big paws with sharp claws. She tried to walk, finding the clumsiness was gone now that she was focused on using all four of her legs.

“The kitten has snarls,” the witch said, chuckling. “This is all too perfect. Tell the team that we’re going to need a fourth compatibility test to see who matches with Carey Everson, our werecat replacement for the one the werecats killed.”

Carey snarled again at the witch.

I might be in a cage, but I’ll be damned before you do anything to me.

“Look at those teeth,” someone else said, stepping up behind the first witch. “She’s a teenager and they are huge.”

“Werecats have impressive hardware, certainly,” the main witch said. “Listen here, Miss Everson. Your mother wants to see you, and she’ll be very upset to see you like this. Why don’t you become human again?”

Carey growled at that. She wasn’t going to entertain them by going back to her human form now.

I’m not really sure how to, either. I’ll have to figure it out if I want to talk to anyone. I can’t do what Jacky can. Or all the werewolves.

“Fine.” The witch walked away and opened a door on the far side of the room, revealing Courtney Lane.

“Am I allowed to leave now?” the woman demanded harshly. “It’s been hours. Hours! I want my money and to go home!”

“You’re not allowed to leave right now. If you do, Heath Everson will hunt you down immediately and get our location from you… so you can’t leave.”

“That wasn’t the deal!” Courtney snapped.

“Why don’t you enjoy a moment with your daughter and?—”

“That thing is not my daughter. Not anymore,” Courtney snapped.

Carey growled, but not out of anger. She didn’t know how to make any other sounds yet.

Good, because you’re not my mother. You never have been.

“And I’m not a prisoner! You have to let me leave.”

The witch just laughed, reaching out to grab Courtney’s shoulder hard enough to make the woman wince.

“You’re lucky you’re alive now that you’ve served your purpose,” he said softly, but it was clear to Carey.

“Now that we don’t need you anymore. Plus, you were supposed to get her alone, and you couldn’t even do that.

You were supposed to gain her trust enough to meet you alone. We lost people thanks to you.”

“You got young werewolves out of this. You weren’t expecting them, though!” Courtney was trying to bargain, and the smell of her fear versus the evil satisfaction of the witch made Carey wrinkle her nose. She disliked both smells. Both disgusted her deeply, making her stomach flip around.

“Listen well, Miss Lane…” The witch pulled Courtney closer. “If you don’t want to see Carey, then you should go back to your room and stay there. Otherwise, you risk your own life by testing my patience. You are my prisoner for as long as necessary. Settle in and shut up.”

The witch shoved Courtney into the wall.

Carey settled down, staring at her egg donor, as the woman came to terms with her reality. After a moment, Courtney looked at her.

“This is all your fault,” she said, venom dripping from the words. “Everything that has ever gone wrong in my life can be tracked back to you and your fucking father.”

My dad fucking you was probably the dumbest thing he’s ever done in his life.

Carey didn’t let the rest of her words affect her. She had her dad and Landon and Jacky. She had a good family. Courtney Lane wasn’t important. Nothing she could say would matter to Carey.

I have better things to focus on, like how to escape.