While I’m distracted for a split second, Raymond yanks me against him. My exposed throat goes straight to third base with a pair of razor-sharp claws.
Elliot is holding the gun pointed right at me. Or the man behind me. The scene gives me the strangest deja vu. It has barely been over a month since we were standing in the same positions, except that last timeIhad the gun. And I wasn’t terrified of the man with the claws.
Raymond snorts. My body recoils from the noise. “Are you going to shoot me, Eli boy?” He outright laughs then. Elliot hesitates. His breath audibly hitches. “You were right. We’re nothing alike becauseyouwon’t shoot.”
If I trip this man right now, he’ll definitely cut a vein or two open before going down. But then one of the thousand Bureau agents here will have a chance to catch him and put him away so Elliot won’t ever have to look at him again. Maybe Cami will be able to save me, too?
“You, with your fancy ways of killing werewolves so you didn’t have to fight before they died? The Vigilante WolfHunter. Too long a name for a coward like you.”
No no no no. I gear up to twist my knees when I feel claws prickling my skin. Blood flows down my neck.
Elliot’s fear contorts into a smile right in front of my eyes. A loud bang, and Raymond collapses, his cruelty finally reduced to flesh and blood.
No one moves. But I don’t pay any attention to anyone else. My gaze is focused on Elliot.
He stands frozen, gun still trained up. I walk toward him slowly, only partly because of the dizziness. Every time I lift a leg, a fresh wave of nausea threatens to make me hurl. Every cell in my body hurts with movement. But I swallow the winces and groans.
When I gently coax the gun out of Elliot’s hand, it feels like we’re the only ones here. His hands are cold. He doesn’t fight me. Gives it to me easily. I slide it into my pocket before pulling him onto my chest.
He wraps his arms around me, slumping into me. My body protests at the contact. Blood is still oozing out of open wounds. Elliot will never be able to wear this shirt again.
He rests his head on my chest. I’ll keep him here forever. Safe and happy. If only I had enough energy to lift my eyes. The next dizziness spell is worse than the last, and I find myself falling over, taking Elliot with me. I hear his worried cries before I go down, just like Raymond.
Before I close my eyes, I see Meena walking over with cuffs. Then all I hear is, “Elliot Rhodes, you’re under arrest for eleven counts of murder,” before it goes dark.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Claws and Chaotic Commitments
Elliot
Getting arrested and dragged out in handcuffs from the place where you'd just been held captive for hours wasn't exactly ideal. But watching Nicholas slump to the ground, not knowing if he’d be alright, was worse.Way worse.
For the last twenty-four hours, I’ve been stuck in this tiny cell, with a small window near the ceiling. The air has smelled faintly of damp concrete and bleach.
I’ve asked every person who walked past about Nicholas. That’s too much socializing for me. Not that it helped.
When I was driven to the large unmarked building in a secluded place, the agent who drove the car told me she had no update on him. Then I asked the person at the reception desk while they were registering my information, and she refused to meet my eyes.
They took their sweet time processing my arrest. Apparently, it involved a lot more than finding an empty cell to shove me into. Fingerprints. Questions. Paperwork. Pictures. Then I didn’t see another person for hours. Just dark walls, then faded light filtering through the window.
I don’t know what I expected a Bureau lockup to look like. It was close to the ones I’ve seen on Nicholas’s favorite sitcom, except the precinct is much nicer and the lockups are much drearier. Gray concrete, harsh fluorescent lights, androws of identical cells. They only had one person per cell. Werewolves aren’t the most peace-loving creatures, so all this makes sense.
They’ve slipped three meals from under the bars, some kind of porridge I was too tired to taste in the beginning and too concerned to question later. I just swallowed my third plate of the questionable food, and Nicholas is still not here yet.
He is fine.He has to be. I can live with the fact that I made his life difficult at every step. That all I did was cause him pain for the short duration he knew me. That he’d have to work hard to earn his friends’ trust back. That he might lose his job at the Bureau.
I can live with all that because this is just supposed to be a blip in his long, happy life. I’ll be here. Or some place worse, because this looks more like a temporary holding place. But he’ll be out there, living his life. His friends will still love him, of course, they will. How can anyone not love Nicholas? The Bureau will realize they need him. Everything will go back to normal.
I can stay here or in any gloomy cell. I’ll be happy to. But only if I know he’s fine. He’ll get a chance to find everything he deserves. He is fine.He has to be.
Then why the fuck isn’t he here yet? I just wish someone would tell me he’s fine. A tiny whisper, a complicated haiku, a long-drawn poem.Anythingwould do.
I fidget around the cell as the last strip of daylight slips out of the window, leaving me with nothing but harsh overhead fluorescent light. They never switch it off, a constant reminder that someone else controls your life now.
I hear occasional footsteps every once in a while, hoping it's him. Or anyone I can talk to. But then the sound of a heavy door slamming shut echoes through the lockup. Happens every few hours, like clockwork. By the twenty-fifth hour, I stop even noticing it.
That’s why I’m caught off guard when heavy footsteps stop right in front of my cell. I can barely make out their facesunder the light, the shadows make everyone unrecognizable. But I know these agents. They were the ones who walked me out of the warehouse after saving our lives. I don’t know if I’m grateful or angry yet.
