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I felt more than heard Richard behind me. I looked back. Maiden had traded his gun for his baton. He had the baton underneath Richard's chin, pressed against his throat above the Adam's apple so he wouldn't accidentally crush his windpipe. It looked like Maiden had had training.
Thompson said, "Don't struggle yet, lover. You ain't seen nothing to get excited about yet."
I didn't like the sound of that at all. He grabbed the sheet and tried to tear it out of my hands. I fought him. He stepped back from me, holding the sheet, and yanked. It was hard enough I stumbled, but I kept the sheet.
"Thompson," Wilkes said, "stop playing goddamn tug-of-war and do it."
Thompson slid his fingers down the front of the sheet and gave it all he had. It pulled me to my knees in an ungraceful heap, but I won. I kept the sheet. I was pissing him off, not my best idea, but I'm not good naked. I never feel nude. I feel naked.
He grabbed me by the back of the head and used my hair to throw me up against the bed. I could have pulled away if I wanted to leave a handful of hair and blood in his hands, but it would hurt, and unless I was willing to start killing people, this was going to happen. The more I fought it, the worse it was going to be.
As long as it was just a little slap and tickle for Richard's benefit, I could handle it. That's what I told myself while Thompson yanked me half across the bed by my hair.
He held me down by my head, putting enough weight on that one arm that it almost hurt. The sheet had pulled down from my back to my waist. He jerked it down farther, exposing my butt.
I struggled just a bit then. He pressed down so hard on my head that my face was pressed into the bed enough that it was difficult to get a full breath. The mattress wasn't firm enough for this shit. I lay very still. I did not want him to push my face down into the mattress. Passing out would be bad. You never wake up better off than you started.
"Stay," Thompson said, "or I'll put handcuffs on you."
I did what he said. Richard could break a pair of handcuffs. I couldn't. As much as I loved Richard, I didn't want him to be the only person free in a room full of cops gone bad. If it really came down to having to fight our way out it would mean killing. To my knowledge, Richard had never killed a human being. He was squeamish enough about killing other shapeshifters.
Thompson pulled my arms out from under my chest and spread my arms to either side on the bed. He slid his hands over my hands, my arms, as if bare skin could hide any weapons. His hands slid down my bare back, sloping along my waist and lower. His hands slipped over my bu**ocks and between my thighs, spreading my legs. It was too reminiscent of last night with Richard, too intimate.
I raised up. "What is this, a rape theme down here?"
Thompson slapped me on the back of the head. "Be still, or I'll make you be still." But his hands weren't playing with my thighs. He could hit me more and harder if his hands didn't wander lower.
"This can all stop, Richard," Wilkes said. "This can all be over. Just leave."
"You'll kill the trolls," Richard said.
I turned to look at Richard. I wanted to scream at him, "Just lie!" We'd figure it out later, but I wanted him to just lie now. I couldn't say that out loud. I stared at him and did something I had rarely attempted. I tried to open the bond between us. I reached out to him not with my hands or with my arms, but it felt like reaching. I moved out towards him with things I couldn't see but could feel. I opened something inside him. I felt it give. I saw the widening of his eyes. I felt the beat of his heart.
Thompson grabbed my shoulder and shoved me back to the bed. It broke my concentration.
There was a knock on the door. The other deputy, who had been with Thompson that first day, stepped into the doorway. He gave the room a once-over, eyes lingering on me on the bed, but his face stayed neutral. "There's a crowd gathering, Sheriff."
"A crowd?" Wilkes said. "The tree-huggers are out studying their precious trolls. If it's just the bodyguards, f**k them."
The deputy shook his head. "It's a shit load of people, Sheriff."
Wilkes sighed. He looked at Richard. "This is your last warning, Zeeman." He walked over to me, and Thompson backed off. He squatted so we'd be eye to eye. I gathered the sheet and turned to meet his gaze.
"Where are Chuck and Terry?" he asked.
I blinked and kept my face neutral. Once, not long ago, I wouldn't have been able to do it. Now my face gave nothing away. I was as blank and empty as the white sheet around my body.
"Who?"
"Thompson." Wilkes stood.
I felt Thompson move in from behind me.
"Does he do all your dirty work, Wilkes? You aren't man enough to abuse an unarmed woman?"
Wilkes hit me a backhanded slap that rocked me against the bed. I tasted blood. I probably could have blocked the slap, but that would have made the second blow harder. Besides, I'd asked for it. I don't mean I deserved it. I mean I preferred Wilkes to Thompson for abuse. I never wanted to be at Thompson's mercy without Wilkes there to rein him in. Thompson wasn't a cop. He was a goon with a badge.
The second blow was a slap, the third was another backhand. The blows were quick and hard and left my ears ringing. I saw spots of light against my vision. The proverbial stars, and he hadn't even closed his fist.
Wilkes stood over me, breathing too hard, hands in fists at his side. That fine trembling was back again, as if he was fighting not to close his fists. We both knew if he did, he wouldn't stop. If he hit me even once with his fist, it would be over. He'd hit me until someone pulled him off. I wasn't a hundred percent sure that there was anyone in the room who would pull him off.
I stared up at him with a trickle of blood at the corner of my mouth. I licked at the blood with my tongue and stared into Wilkes's brown eyes. I saw the abyss down at the end of his gaze. The monster was there, barely caged. I'd underestimated how close to the edge Wilkes was. I knew in that moment that this last warning was just that: a last warning. A last chance, not just for us, but for Wilkes. A last chance for him to walk away without any actual blood on his own lily-white hands.
The deputy by the door said, "Sheriff, we've got over twenty people outside here."
"We can't do this with an audience," Maiden said.
Wilkes kept staring down at me, and I held his gaze. It was almost like we were both afraid to look away, as if even that small movement would uncage the monster. Maybe it wasn't Thompson I should be afraid of.
"Sheriff," Maiden said softly.
"In twenty-four hours," Wilkes said, voice squeezed down until it was almost painful to hear, "we'll file a missing person's report on Chuck and Terry. Then we'll be back, Ms. Blake. We'll be back, and we'll take you in for questioning regarding their disappearance."
"What are you going to write down in the report as to why you thought I might know where they are?"
He went back to staring at me, but at least the fine trembling had stopped.
I kept my voice neutral but said, "I'm sure some of the tree-huggers called the cops last night. But no one came. You're the law in this town, Wilkes. You're all these people have between them and the bad guys. Last night, you didn't come because you thought you knew what was happening. You thought Chuck and Terry had gotten carried away. So you come by this morning to pick up the bodies, but there aren't any bodies."
"You killed them," he said, his voice soft and tight.
I shook my head. "No, I didn't." Which was technically true. I hadn't killed them. I'd killed Chuck but not Terry.
"You're saying you never saw them last night."
"I didn't say that. I just said I didn't kill them."
Wilkes glanced behind at Richard. "The Boy Scout didn't do them."
"Never said he did."
"That little guy you were with, Jason? Schuyler? He couldn't have taken both of them."
"Nope," I said.
"You are pissing me off, Blake. You don't want me angry."
"No, I don't, Sheriff Wilkes. I really don't want you angry. But I am not lying. I did not kill them. I don't know where they are." That at least was totally true. I was beginning to wonder if Terry had ever made it to the hospital, and I was beginning to think he probably hadn't. Did Verne's pack kill him after I promised him we wouldn't? I hoped not.
"I've been a cop for longer than you've been alive, Blake. You make my bullshit meter go off. You're lying to me, and you're good at it."
