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Once I’d found that link, I started looking through minor violations in the cities and states where the shifters’ bodies had been photographed and started finding links.
I was putting this together for Raj when the commotion started in the bullpen.
Taavi had noticed first, lifting his head, his giant bat-ears pointed toward the doors. I sat up, pulling my headphones out of my ears and damn near hitting the ceiling when a hand settled on my shoulder.
“Fuckinghell, Dan,” I hissed.
Then I saw his face, his forehead creased, pale, and worried. His fingers tightened on my shoulder.
At first, I couldn’t make out the difference between the murmurs of voices in the bullpen and the sound of voices outside. Then somebody opened a window, and it became clear that there was chanting and shouting coming from outside.
My stomach felt like it held a rock.
“A good Nid is a dead Nid!”
So nice to know that they’d promoted that particular slogan from poster to chant.
A few people were leaning out the window—we were on the second floor—but most of the room’s attention was very firmly fixed on me.
Because of fucking course it was.
I was the only damn Nid in the room. That they knew of, anyway.
I put a hand down and felt Taavi’s head push against it, not sure if I was trying to reassure him or needing him to reassure me. Probably both.
Villanova came out of his office, his eyes wide and his ears red.
“Hart!”
I turned, but didn’t stand, Dan Maza’s hand still holding me to my chair—not that I couldn’t easily have shrugged it of if I’d wanted to. “Sir?”
“Stay the fuck put, you hear me?”
“Yessir.”
Dan’s fingers tightened again. Other people were getting up, most to go look out the windows. Dani Bowman came out of their office and walked over, hopping up to sit on the edge of my desk without saying a word.
Someone else—Mara Shay, a detective from SVU—walked over, then grabbed a chair and sat next to me. I blinked at her, confused.
“Captain said stay,” she said, leaning back in the chair, her grey gaze steady over a cream colored mask that made her fair skin look almost tan, her short brown hair streaked with highlights that matched the gold hoops in her ears.
“Not planning on going anywhere,” I replied, confused and a little nervous. I didn’t want to start a fight inside the precinct, not when there was clearly one brewing outside.
“Good,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
A few other people wandered over. Someone handed me a cup of shitty breakroom coffee. Someone else crouched down to pet Taavi, who allowed the attention, although he kept looking up at me.
Someone by the window called out that they recognized someone from the night shift among the protestors, and then things got really awkward.
One of the Vice guys who sat about as far away from me as he could grabbed his jacket and left, everyone’s eyes on him. A couple others followed.
Nobody said anything, but I read it on the faces of the people by the windows.
They’d joined the protest.
Dan’s hand still hadn’t left my shoulder, and his fingers dug in almost painfully. I reached up and tapped his knuckles. “Ease up, okay?”
“Sorry,” he muttered, but moved his hand to the back of my chair, instead. I could still feel the ridges of his fingers against my back, but he wasn’t putting bruises on me anymore.
