“Come on, come on,” she whispered through gritted teeth. “Hurry! Please don’t be too late to save Alex.”
She felt the tears spilling over onto her cheeks now. She knew it was too late. There’s no way anyone in that fire was alive. She wiped at her eyes as she stared into the flames, and then, suddenly, she froze in shock and disbelief.
A giant tiger had just leaped out of the large flames. Cassie rubbed her eyes, trying to see if this was really real. How in the world had a tiger shown up in the middle of a Texas town, and in a burning building no less? The tiger also had a limp body in its teeth. Alex. Cassie wanted to scream or to run. But no words came out and she couldn’t move. Her body was in too much shock.
And then, as if she wasn’t already shocked enough, the tiger started some sort of weird transformation. Alex’s body dropped to the ground, and the tiger was surrounded by a blur of light and energy. Cassie was knocked backward by the force of it, and when she finally managed to sit up, she found herself looking over at a very human, very naked Max where the tiger had been only moments before.
“What the…”
“Cassie, I can explain, but not right now. I need to start CPR on Alex. If he’s even still alive.”
Cassie sat, dumbfounded, as Max dropped to his knees beside Alex and started CPR on the limp body. The fire trucks were pulling into the parking lot now, and the professional paramedics jumped out and ran to Alex. The other firemen began working on the blaze, which was burning completely out of control. At some point, one of the paramedics gave Max a blanket to wrap around himself, and he came to sit by Cassie, his eyes grave.
“It doesn’t look like he’s going to make it,” he said. “They’re trying to revive him right now, but it seems pretty hopeless. Who knows how long he was in there breathing in all that smoke. I’m so sorry, Cassie.”
Cassie felt hot tears rushing down her face, and she started to sob.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe he’s gone. It’s all my fault. I should have told someone about his drug problem. And now he’s dead. He probably overdosed and did some stupid shit to set the bar on fire while he was high.”
Cassie’s sobs came so quickly that she could barely breathe. She didn’t even have the energy right now to ask Max about the strange tiger phenomenon. All she could do was cry.
“Come on,” Max said, standing and then gently lifting Cassie into his arms. “I’m going to get you home. None of this was your fault, so don’t blame yourself. We don’t even know what caused the fire yet. It might not have been Alex’s fault at all. And besides, his choices to do drugs were his own choices. You’re not responsible for them.”
Cassie just sniffed and kept sobbing, becoming more inconsolable by the minute. Max carried her to her car, then fished in her pocket for her keys. She didn’t protest as he set her down on the passenger seat, then climbed in to her drivers’ seat and drove her home. She closed her eyes against the world, trying to block out everything. All she could see in her mind’s eye was the horrible, sickening sight of Alex’s limp body against the backdrop of flames.
Chapter Eight
Max stayed with Cassie until she fell asleep. Then he slipped quietly out to run by his own house and get some clothes and food. He was going to head back to Cassie’s as soon as he could. Hopefully she wouldn’t wake up while he was gone. He had a lot of explaining to do, and he wanted to do it as quickly as possible.
Max had spent a long time running and exploring last night, letting his tiger roam free until he was too tired to want to roam anymore. He had arrived home in the early hours of the morning, exhausted but happy, and had just shifted back into human form when his phone rang. His heart had immediately dropped, and it had dropped even further when he saw that the call was from Cassie. No one ever called at four in the morning with good news, and his heart had clenched up. Was something wrong with her? With one of their friends?
He had to admit, he had been relieved that Cassie herself wasn’t the one in trouble. But that didn’t mean that he hadn’t been concerned about Alex. Alex was a good guy, always ready with a smile or free round of beer for his friends. The thought of him stuck in a burning building was horrifying, and Max hadn’t wasted any time in getting to the bar.
Max had quickly shifted back into tiger form, and had run at full speed toward the burning bar. He knew he was risking someone seeing his tiger, but he couldn’t worry about that then. All he could think about was getting to Alex as quickly as he could. He arrived on the scene before anyone else, and he ran into the building, using his keen tiger nose to smell where Alex was and find him quickly. Alex had been toward the back of the bar, lying on the ground clutching a fire extinguisher. Max honestly wasn’t sure whether Alex was already dead or not at that point, but he hadn’t stopped to worry about it at that moment. His only goal had been getting Alex and himself out of the bar as quickly as possible.
He’d come bounding out of the bar only to come face to face with Cassie. Of course, her eyes had widened with shock and fear at the sight of him. It wasn’t every day that you saw a tiger in the middle of Persimmon Springs. And she’d only grown more confused as he shifted back into human form. He knew she would have a lot of questions, but they had to wait. His top priority had been helping Alex.
Unfortunately, he knew as soon as he started CPR on Alex that the man was gone. He wasn’t breathing, and he had no pulse. Still, Max had to try. The paramedics had tried, too, when they arrived, but it soon became apparent that they weren’t going to be able to revive Alex. He was gone. Max had given a brief report to one of the firemen of what he had seen inside the building. He blamed his lack of clothes on the flames, saying they’d caught on fire and he’d had to get rid of them. The fireman gave him a blanket to cover up with, then told him the police would likely be contacting him within the next day for a statement.
Max nodded. He’d been expecting that. He was just thankful that no one except Cassie had seen him in tiger form. He had a feeling she was going to be mad at him for keeping such a big secret from her all their lives, but at least she wouldn’t try to tell the government or get him in trouble for his shifter side. At least he hoped she wouldn’t.
He’d taken her home, and he could tell from the look in her eyes that she was in a state of total shock. Now, as he made his way back to his own house, he tried to formulate an explanation for his tiger that wouldn’t send her totally over the edge. She’d dealt with a lot tonight.
Max took a quick shower, then put on a pair of black sweatpants and a fitted gray t-shirt. He made himself a giant sandwich and scarfed it down in three bites, then headed back out to his driveway, where’d he’d parked Cassie’s car. He drove back to Cassie’s house, then slipped in the front door as quietly as he could so that he wouldn’t wake her. But he needn’t have worried—she was already awake. He was greeted by the sound of sobbing as soon as he stepped inside.
“Shit,” he said, rushing toward the bedroom, where he found Cassie sitting up on her bed with her face in her hands. Her body was shaking from the sobs that were racking it, and it broke Max’s heart to see her so sad.
“Hey,” he said gently. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. I know it’s a lot to take in right now, but you have a lot of friends around you to help you grieve.”
Max went to sit on the bed next to Cassie, but Cassie started and slid backwards away from him when he did.
“Who are you?” she asked, a note of terror in her voice. “What are you? If I didn’t know better I would say this whole night has just been a really bad dream, because I could swear I saw you turn from a tiger into a human back there by the fire. I don’t think I could come up with a crazy hallucination like that on my own. Did that really happen?”
Max took a deep breath and slid backwards away from Cassie a little bit, to show her that he wasn’t a threat. This already wasn’t going so well.
“Cassie, there’s no easy way to explain this. But you’re right. You didn’t hallucinate anything tonight
. I actually did turn from a tiger into a human.”
Cassie’s eyes widened. “But how?” she asked. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible,” Max said gently. “I’m a shifter. There are actually quite a few of us around. We have a genetic mutation that allows us to shift from human to animal form and back again. My inner animal is a tiger.”
Cassie just stared at him for several long moments. Max resisted the urge to say something, instead forcing himself to give her time to process everything.
“But… I still don’t understand how it’s possible. And why did you never tell me?”
“It’s hard to explain how it’s possible,” Max said. “It just is. I guess somewhere in the course of humans evolving some of us retained some of our animal genes or something. That’s the best I can figure at least. I don’t understand how it happens. I just know that I have a tiger within me. And I’m sorry I never told you. I should have, I know. It’s just that…people can be really cruel. Many shifters have been demonized or persecuted in awful ways by people who can’t accept that shifters exist. People think it’s witchcraft or something, which it’s not. And people think we’re dangerous, which we’re not. At least, most of us aren’t. Sure, there are some bad apples in the shifter bunch. But most of us are just trying to live our lives in peace, like everyone else.”
“You should have told me,” Cassie said, a trace of anger and hurt in her voice. “We’ve been friends our whole lives, and you’ve kept this secret from me that whole time. How can I trust you, when you would hide such a big part of yourself from me?”
Max felt his heart twist in anguish. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I realize now that I was wrong. I just didn’t know how to tell you. It’s a hard thing to explain, like I said. And I guess I was afraid of losing your friendship. You mean the world to me Cassie, you always have. And the thought that you might possibly look at me like I was a monster or something…I just couldn’t bear it.”
“You’ve essentially been lying to me your whole life, Max,” Cassie said, her voice rising in anger. “And it’s really disappointing to know that you didn’t think I was a good enough friend to be trusted with who you really are. You freaking slept with me, Max! How could you possibly think it’s okay to do that without telling me that you’re a shifter?”
Max let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry. I screwed up. But you seemed to think sleeping together wasn’t a big deal, anyway. I tried to talk to you about it and you brushed it off.”
“Because I was worried our friendship would be ruined,” Cassie said, bursting into sobs again.
“Well I was worried our friendship would be ruined if I told you that I’m a shifter,” Max said, his voice desperate. He had to make her understand somehow that he did care about her, and that he’d been trying to handle things the best way he could.
But she shook her head sadly at him. “I can’t deal with all of this right now,” she said. “Please leave. I just need to be alone.”
“Cassie, I’m sorry,” Max said.
But Cassie just kept shaking her head.
“Just go,” she said.
So he did. With a sad sigh, he stood. He leaned over to place a gentle kiss on the top of her head, which, surprisingly she didn’t resist. Then he turned and walked out of her front door, not knowing if he’d ever be allowed to walk back in it again. And the pain of that thought was so great that he almost wished he’d been the one to perish in the burning flames that night.
Chapter Nine
Cassie woke up the next morning, hoping that she would somehow find that everything had just been an awful nightmare. But it didn’t take long for the harsh reality of everything to set in. As soon as she glanced at her phone, she knew the nightmare had been real.
She had dozens of missed calls, and twice as many text messages. Everyone wanted to know what had happened, and whether she was okay. They also wanted to know if Alex was okay—a rumor was going around that he died in the fire, was it true?
Cassie groaned. She knew she should answer the texts, and that people were genuinely worried about her. But she didn’t have the energy to deal with sending a bunch of texts right now. She also couldn’t bear to actually type out the words “Alex didn’t make it” on her phone. Somehow, typing it out would make it all seem too real.
She had a few texts from Max, apologizing again and saying he knew that she was mad at him, but that he was there for her if she needed anything. Cassie wanted to throw her phone across the room in frustration when she read his texts. She felt so betrayed. How could he possibly have hidden such a big secret from her for so many years? How could she ever trust him, when he didn’t trust her?
She felt tears forming in her eyes again. It must have been the thousandth time she’d cried in the last twelve hours, but she couldn’t stop herself. She felt so hurt, confused, and devastated all at once. Not only had she lost her boss and good friend in a fire, she also felt like she’d lost Max.
You weren’t completely honest with him, either, said a little voice in her head.
Cassie tried to push the voice away, but she couldn’t. It was true, after all. She’d tried to pass off the night they spent together as though it hadn’t meant anything to her, when, in fact, it had meant everything. And she’d been harboring a deep secret all these years, too—she’d been in love with him, and never told him.
“I guess we all have our secrets,” Cassie said aloud to the empty room. Wearily, she stood and went to her kitchen to make some coffee. She knew in her heart that she had to forgive Max, but she needed time to process everything. Everything still felt too new, too raw. All she wanted to do at the moment was drown her sorrows in a giant pot of caffeine.
* * *
The next several days felt like a bad dream. Everything about Cassie’s life had been turned completely upside down. Her friendship with Max was on rocky ground, and she didn’t speak to him or text him at all. She just didn’t know what to say to him. Her days, which had been filled with nonstop work at the bar, were suddenly empty. She spoke to the police a few times, who had come by asking questions about what had happened at work the night before the fire, what time she had left the bar, and whether Alex had been acting strangely or not.
Cassie had broken down and told them all about his drug use, berating herself the whole time for not telling someone sooner. The police officers had been sympathetic, telling her that she couldn’t beat herself up for this. Alex had made his choices, and those choices were his alone. Still, Cassie had a hard time coming to terms with the possibility that if she had spoken out about Alex’s problems sooner, rather than covering them up, Alex might still be alive and well today.
The funeral was set for the following Friday, and Cassie spent most of her week holed up alone in her house. She had to figure out what she was going to do for work now, but she figured she’d let herself fall apart for a week or two. She had plenty of savings, thanks to her years of working like crazy with no one to provide for but herself. She could ride out this storm and then make some decisions about her future with a clear head.
She knew she could easily get another waitressing job. Everyone in town knew and loved her, and there were several other restaurants and bars in Persimmon Springs that were always looking for help. But Cassie was feeling pretty down about her life’s path right now. What was she really doing that mattered? Alex’s death at such a young age had forced her to face the fact that life wasn’t guaranteed to anyone. If she died tomorrow, what was she leaving behind? Not much. Alex certainly hadn’t left a legacy. He had no family, and the only thing he had to show for his life was a corpse of a bar. The thing had burnt nearly all the way down.
Cassie continued wallowing in her own pain and grief for several days. Then, on Thursday—the day before Alex’s funeral—the police unexpectedly showed up at her door again. She opened the door for them grudgingly. The last thing she wanted to do right now was answer more questions about Alex. Hadn’t she alre
ady told them everything she knew, anyway?
But it turned out the police weren’t there to ask questions. Instead, they had come to let her know that they’d discovered the cause of the fire. Officer Sanders, who seemed to be in charge, asked Cassie to sit down.
“We’ve had several teams out to look at the site and see what went wrong,” Officer Sanders said. “We quickly ruled out any kind of foul play, such as arson. As it turns out, there was some faulty wiring in the kitchen that seems to have started the blaze. Records we found in Alex’s home show that the wiring was replaced about three months ago, and, it appears that the company that replaced it didn’t handle the job properly.”
Cassie stared at Officer Sanders. “So, Alex didn’t accidentally cause the accident while high or something?” she asked.
Officer Sanders shook his head no. “It wasn’t Alex’s fault,” he said gently. “I know you’ve been blaming yourself for what happened, but this fire had nothing to do with Alex’s addictions. In fact, the autopsy we performed on Alex indicated that there were no traces of alcohol or drugs in his system when he died. This fire, and his death, wasn’t anything except a horrible accident. Alex appears to have been trying to fight the blaze with a fire extinguisher. He made a poor choice to stay in the bar while it was burning, attempting to save it. Unfortunately, he paid for that choice with his life. But there’s no reason to blame yourself for anything, Cassie. None of this was your fault, and none of it was something you could have prevented.”
Cassie felt tears welling up in her eyes. On the one hand, it was a relief to know that Alex’s death wasn’t the result of his drug use. It eased her mind to know that there was nothing she could have done to stop the fire. But, on the other hand, it was hard to hear that Alex’s death was so unnecessary. If only he hadn’t been so stubborn, running in to the fire to try to save his bar, which ended up burning down anyway.
Lone Star Tiger (Shifters in the Heart of Texas Book 2) Page 5