He was stronger than a human, but there was no way he was bending those to get out of here. He jerked on the door a little, but the lock held firm; he might try to see if he could break it later, but for now, he decided to wait it out and not cause any problems.
Even if he got out of here, there were far too many tracks to be covered before he could waltz out without a manhunt on his ass. And since he wasn’t a vampire, he couldn’t hide his trail.
He flexed the fingers that were printed before they photographed and booked him for breaking and entering as well as robbery. He doubted the fake book was worth much.
Leaning against the wall, he studied the bars and pondered how much time he’d have to spend here before either Brie or the Alliance came for him. The one thing he had going for him was Brie could use her powers to escape and cover their tracks. She’d have to wait until things calmed down a little first, but she could easily get them out of here.
The only problem was he had no idea where the fake book was now. He was sure the police would want to know what was inside it before giving it back to its rightful owner, or maybe not. But if they did open it, curiosity over the stone would be raised, but the humans would never have answers for it.
He didn’t think they’d give it back to the kid so soon after discovering it on him, but he had no idea. For all he knew, the stone and box were already back in that house, and they would have to gobackto retrieve it.
He gritted his teeth against the possibility. No, the police wouldn’t give it back so soon; they couldn’t. But the awful possibility niggled at the back of his mind.
Pushing himself off the wall, Asher paced the small cell from one side to the other as he waited to see if he would be offered his one phone call or if Brie would arrive first. He hoped she came first, not only because he had to confirm she was safe and sound, but he’d also be irate if she abandoned him.
It would hurt too, he could admit that, but he’d let the anger fuel him as he hunted her down again. He may not know exactly where they were staying, but there wasnowayhe would let her get away from him again.
Plus, having the Alliance descend on this town was not the best way to stay low profile. Even if only a couple of them came to break his ass out, they’d stand out like sore thumbs in a place like this.
But that was if the police came at all. For all he knew, the one phone call thing wasn’t true. He’d never experienced anything like this before, and his stunted knowledge of the human prison system came from the few episodes ofLaw and Orderhe’d caught over the years.
These concrete walls surrounding him and the bars in front of him were an entirely different reality than the one he lived and functioned in daily. And though he hated being caged up in here, this experience wasfarbetter than many of the others he’d endured in his life.
If they’d toss him a magazine or something, he could plop onto the cot and call this a vacation—if the cot would hold him, which it didn’t look strong enough to do. Still, he’d been in far worse situations, and one way or another, he was getting out of this place.
He hoped it was with the stone and Brie and not the Alliance.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
Sittingin the small room with its single glass window, Brie watched the police moving in and out of the main room while she waited for things to settle down. They’d escorted her into this room after taking Asher back to where she assumed the cells were.
She drummed her fingers against the scarred, beaten table as she shifted on the uncomfortable metal chair. The chair across from her looked to have a little more padding, but she didn’t bother to swap them out.
Once the police were finished with each other and someone finally entered this room, she’d use her ability to walk out of here with the box. And she supposed she should take Asher with her too.
It would solve her problem of what to do with him if she left him here for the Alliance to bail out. But he hadn’t gotten in her way and was useful, even if they ended up in jail.
That wasn’t his fault. They’d taken a chance approaching the house during the day, and it hadn’t worked out.
If the metal box held the stone, then it didn’t matter if they were here or not now. This small, unexpected consequence would be remedied as soon as someone entered the room.
The only problem was she didn’t know when that would happen. They were all still processing everything and congratulating each other on a good arrest.
She suspected this would go down as one of the top five most exciting things to happen this year in this town. Before this, their biggest thing was probably some teen trying to outrun the police after spray-painting some graffiti at the local park.
She saw her bagged gun being handed off to another officer but not the box.Where is it?Her fingers drummed faster on the table as she plopped her chin on her other hand.
She was about to get up and start calling them in to take control of them, but she doubted they’d come, and there were too many of them to get them all to concentrate on her at once. She could do something to draw their attention, but it would be difficult to wrangle such a large group of panicked people if she scared them.
They would all start to leave eventually, and someone would come in here, and then she could get free. She glanced at the clock on the wall; it was almost eight o’clock already. They’d been here for too long. Cabo and Zina were probably going crazy with worry.
Finally, the police started filtering out of the building. Some of them, she suspected, hadn’t been on duty and rushed to help when they heard about a call for a possible breaking and entering. And then the confirmation they had an armed suspect in custody.
She cursed that gun even as she missed having it. When only a few officers remained, she expected one of them tofinallyenter the room, but they remained out there, working at their desks.
Brie drummed her fingers on the table as she searched for the box that might or might not contain the stone. She wished she knew what Asher confiscated from the house and where Cabo and Zina were.
Would they try to come here to rescue them if they learned she’d been arrested? Cabo was good with all the tech stuff; he might have found the information somewhere. She hoped they didn’t show up. The last thing they needed was to erase the existence of two more people from the records and video of this place.
