Not a lying killer who’d just wanted to use her.

“Someone had to see your wounds,” she told him. “Not just the bullet wounds—the burn wounds from the silver.” There’d been too many other hunters in that holding room. Someone would have noticed his burns. “All your lies are about to come out.”

Curtis glanced nervously between them. “Boss . . . I, uh, I thought I saw some blisters on you—”

“She’d been punching me. The flesh was red from her attack.” Lyle gave a little shrug with his “uninjured” shoulder. “I’ll probably bruise later.”

“Bullshit,” Kayla called.

Curtis shifted from one foot to the other. “I . . . I know the difference between blisters and punch marks.” He peered at Lyle’s neck again. Yes. He was getting suspicious.

“Pull back his bandage!” Kayla urged. This would do it. “Check out the bullet wound at his shoulder, because I bet it’s already healed, too.” Curtis was starting to believe her. This would work. She’d get out of there and together, she and Curtis could take Lyle down.

“You’re so desperate,” Lyle said, sighing, as a frown pulled down his mouth. “When did you become like this? Did Gage make you this way?”

If Lyle had been just a few feet closer to the cell, she would have attacked. But he wasn’t heading toward her. Lyle was closing the distance between him and Curtis.

“I don’t want you to doubt me,” Lyle told the hunter. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Just a heavy white bandage around his shoulder. A loose pair of sweat pants. “If this is what it takes to prove the truth to you . . .” His hands rose to the bandage.

Curtis nodded. He leaned forward. “I just need to know—Kayla’s always been so—”

Lyle grabbed him by the head.

Kayla screamed.

And Lyle broke Curtis’s neck in one powerful swipe of his hand. The hunter never even had a chance to cry out.

Lyle let Curtis’s body drop to the floor. Curtis hit with a thud. Shaking his head, Lyle stared down at the hunter’s twisted body. “You shouldn’t have doubted me, kid.”

Ice filled Kayla’s veins. Horror and nausea spun in her gut, and she could taste bile rising in her throat. Dead. “You bastard—why?”

He looked up at her. Frowned. “It’s your fault that he’s dead. You should have just kept your damn mouth shut, and he’d still be breathing.”

Only Curtis wasn’t breathing. He was dead. And how many more would fall before Lyle was done?

How many had he killed over the years? When she’d thought that the hunters had been protecting humans, fighting the monsters . . .

Oh, God, we were the monsters.

Lyle grabbed the body and dragged Curtis’s limp formover to the cell. Lyle dropped him near the bars. “There. When the body’s discovered, everyone will just think you killed him. Curtis got too close, and you attacked him. We all know how lethal you can be.”

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t stop shaking. Tears burned her eyes.

“He got too close, trusted the wrong person, and you snapped his neck.” Lyle snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

Her knees wanted to give way. She stood only because of her desperate grip on the bars. “What do you want from me?” Curtis. Dead.

“I want your wolf.”

She shook her head. “He’s gone. Gage isn’t coming back.” Lyle smiled. “We’ll see about that.” Then he turned away and headed back toward the door. Was that psycho actually whistling as he walked away and left her with a dead body?

“Gage chose his pack!” She cried after him. “Not me. That’s why he left! He went to keep them safe.”

Gage wasn’t coming back.

Lyle glanced over his shoulder. “Then I guess you’ll be the next one to die.”

When he left, the metal clang of the door seemed to echo through the whole room, through her. She looked over at Curtis. So still. His eyes were closed, his head turned toward her.

He’d been a good man. He hadn’t deserved this . . .

She let go of the bars and her knees buckled. She slipped to the floor and her fingers, still stained with her brother’s blood, rose to cover her eyes.

We’re the monsters.

Why hadn’t she seen the truth sooner?

Gage tracked silently through the compound. He knew where Kayla was, of course. Her scent was one he’d never forget. So he eased through the hallways, slipped around the corners, and tracked back to her as quickly as he could.

Outside of her new holding room, he paused. Inhaled. Kayla wasn’t alone in there. But the one with her . . .

Shit.

Gage used the key card he’d “borrowed” from the guard station and swiped it across the electronic lock. The lights flashed green, and he shoved open the heavy, metal door.

Kayla was in the cell, on the floor. Her hair fell in a curtain around her. A hunter was slumped close to her. His neck was twisted, and his hands were stretched out on either side of his body.

“I didn’t do it,” she said, without looking up. “I swear, I didn’t kill Curtis.”

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to tell me that.”

Her head whipped up. Her eyes widened. “You—you shouldn’t be—”

He glanced back down at Curtis. “There’s something you should realize, though . . .” He made sure the door was shut behind him. “Curtis isn’t dead.”