Chapter 28
URSULA PUSHED FORWARD through the debris from the blast and
stopped in her tracks as she took in the scene in front of her. “Where is he?”
Ready to sprint up the stairs, she spotted a groaning heap on the
floor. Yannick was there, right there.
“Ewan!”
He dashed past her into the cell and he and the two officers
started grappling with him. Ursula hurried to the wounded man on the floor.
“Are you alright?”
He groaned. “Marie . . . is she . . . did he?”
Ursula took the keys off his belt and unlocked the woman’s
handcuffs. “She’s just fine.”
The woman threw herself at him as soon as she was freed and sobbed
into his shoulder. His leg was in pieces but he would live.
“Aeron?” Ursula said. “Is she?”
Aeron was shaking, her eyes fixed on Renee. Wide eyes. Shocked
eyes. Ursula got to her feet. She looked down. A cold, sick feeling twisted her
gut.
Oh no.
Yannick had slashed open Renee’s beautiful face. He’d done it in a
manner that would leave irreversible scarring. It was such a mess.
“Watch, he’s—”
Yannick threw Ewan and the sheriff from him. A flash of metal. His
hand stopped mid-air. Aeron gripped his wrist. She lifted him clean off the
ground and plowed him into the bars. His head hit them. His eyes glazed but
Aeron was too energized to notice. She lifted him off the bars and slammed him
into them again.
“You want to pick on someone.” She slammed him into them once
more. “Try me!”
Ursula touched her shoulders. “Aeron . . . he’s out . . . let him
go.”
Aeron was too fixated on him and Ursula gripped her arm.
“Let him go,” she said, softening her voice. “Renee needs you.”
Aeron dropped him and robotically went back to Renee.
Ursula pointed to the scalpel on the floor. “You might want to bag
that,” she told the sheriff.
As she turned, Aeron was lifting Renee into her arms.
“Where are you going?” Ewan asked.
“I’m taking her back to the cabin,” Aeron grunted. “Anybody got a
problem with that?”
A series of shaking heads greeted
her question. No one was going to argue with her in this mood
, and she
carried Renee out
.
“You got straightjackets?” Ursula asked the sheriff.
He shook his head.
Great. She pointed to the bars. “Handcuff him through them. One
hand to a set of bars so he can’t reach.”
“Why aren’t you guys—?”
“We were never here,” she said. “Blast happened when he set it
off.”
“But what about Aeron and—?”
“They were never here either.” She stepped forward, her composure
slipping with the want to rip Yannick’s head off. He was right in front of her.
She could nail him and who would argue with her? “Neither woman ever appeared
in St. Jude’s. Whatever they told you or said, you will forget.”
“Well, that’s fine for us,” the older man said. Now that she
looked at him, his deputy badge caught her eye. “But what about the other
people Aeron helped? What about little Zack?”
Ursula’s mood darkened. “Aeron helped . . . Zack?”
Ewan was pushing her out of the cells before the officers could
answer as the CIG medics came to help with the wounded.
“I’ll deal with it,” Ewan whispered to her. “Go be with Renee.
Aeron will need your help.”
Ursula put her hands on her hips. “Who is
little Zack
?”
“Ma’am,” Ewan repeated. “Renee . . . please?”
She sighed. It would take a long time for Aeron to process the
extent of Renee’s injuries and longer for her to come to terms with the fact
that they had probably lost Renee by now.
It stung, it stung like hell and she glared at Yannick. She should
take him out right now. Her hand dropped to her gun.
“Ma’am,” Ewan said. “Renee.”
Ursula snapped from her thoughts and nodded. She needed to get out
of the station before she did do something stupid.
“Or sane,” she muttered as she walked out of the station.
I HAD PUT Renee down on the couch. Blob sat beside her as I
gathered water and sponges to bathe the wounds on her face.
“You know, you shouldn’t heal her,”
Nan said from behind
me.
“She’s not asking you for your help.
”
“You think she wouldn’t want me to fix up her face?”
Nan’s presence lingered beside me.
“I think that unless she
comes back to you, Shorty, you need to let her make the decision.”
“Why would she want to be trapped in her mind?” I asked. It was
unthinkable. No. She was right in front of me and I could fix her. “Why
wouldn’t she want to live?”
“She’s been through more than you will ever understand.”
Nan sighed.
“Aeron,
it’s her choice, just remember that. It’s what is best for her.”
She was gone before I could ask what she meant but when the door
opened behind me, I understood why.
“Thought you’d be dealing with him,” I said.
My voice sounded so odd to my own ears, so
detached. I realized I was angry at Frei for stopping me from wringing his
neck.
She stood in the doorway like she didn’t know if she was allowed
in. “There are a lot of questions you might want answered.”
“Damn right there are.”
Instead of glaring at her like I wanted to, I reached into the
warm water and started to dab at the wounds. They needed stitches or something.
“I have a kit,” Frei offered.
I moved out of the way and watched her set up on the coffee table.
I dragged over a bean bag to sit on.
“I am a bitch. I know you’re aware of that,” she glanced up at me,
her piercing blue eyes echoing the pain I felt, “but I do care about Renee.”
Her hands worked like she had stitched people up a million times.
“And about you too.”
I tried not to pull a face but failed. Yeah, right.
She smiled at my reaction. “When I met
Renee, I didn’t care about anyone.” She sighed. “Actually, that’s not really
true but . . . I was so . . . different.”
The truth glimmered around her and I couldn’t help but be
transfixed by it. Frei was always so guarded that it was like there was fifty
feet of steel around her.
“She pulled me out of myself.” Her hands were gentle but efficient
as she tended the wounds. I’d never figured her for gentle, ever. “I guess you
don’t need me to tell you that she is a hero.”
“But you’re her boss,” I said. “How did that work?”
“I’m her boss
now
,” Frei replied. “Back then I was . . . We
started off on a different standing.”
The shield rose up with her response and I sighed. I was sick and
tired of CIG politics and secrets. “So what happened with Yannick? If you can
tell me that?”
Frei concentrated on the stitching but something cold oozed from
her, making me shiver. “She was sent in to watch him. Lilia had a vision about
a serial killer and his name was the only one she could really decipher.”
Her eyes focused but I could see that she was struggling with the
emotions. They started to snake up into her normally unreadable aura.
“They met in Paris. Renee came to the opinion that he was a good
man.”
“And she was wrong?”
Frei sighed. “She was played.”
Her blue eyes met mine again, and I saw the full depth of the
sorrow she was feeling inside. It made my throat constrict with the sight.
“Yannick is a true psychopath. Have you met one before?”
“In the institution but they weren’t hiding.” No, they were like
uncaged hyenas. “You could really feel something . . . creepy . . . from them,
you know.” It was like a whole part of their brain was dormant. “Then there was
Sam.” Was that what he was? I wasn’t sure.
Frei looked back to her task. “He is claiming insanity, you know
that, right?”
My stomach knotted up tighter. “So another vicious killer gets a
shot at out?”
Her blonde eyebrow quirked. “You don’t believe he’s insane?”
I shook my head. “Scum . . . that’s it.” Watching her administer
to Renee with such care made me feel even more helpless and I got to my feet,
not knowing what to do. “Yannick is the same. More . . . pronounced.”
Frei remained silent and I stared out at the falling snow. One
question really circled in my head. I could feel that he thought he owned her.
“Did he hurt her . . . you know . . . in that way?”
“No. The game was to make her watch the suffering of those she
couldn’t save from him. To prove the victory had been won.” Frei’s own anger
bubbled unmasked. “He wanted her to fall in love with him . . . so he could own
her.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. The pain of it was too unbearable
to think about. It sounded way too much like Sam. That’s what he’d wanted from
me.
“He made her watch . . . every last one.” She sighed. “But you
know that feeling.”
My tears tasted salty, the warm streaks trickled down silently.
Yes, I knew. I’d felt every blow and lived every moment with Sam’s victims.
God, Renee was brave sticking with me through that. She’d stuck by me even when
others told her I could be the one who was doing it. Her belief in me soared
above her own fear. What a woman.
“Why a year?” I asked. I didn’t want to know, but I did. I
couldn’t bear it but I needed to hear it. “How did you find him?”
“Renee,” Frei said. Her voice was as level and calm as ever but
torment lay underneath, I could hear it now. “She got hurt in the process but
she saved the remaining hostages.”
“Hurt?”
I tensed, waiting for the answer. When I didn’t get it, I turned
to look at Frei.
She had finished sewing and was staring down at her hands. “She
has trouble with the left side of her peripheral vision.”
“And the claustrophobia?” I asked, remembering her pacing back in
Oppidum, how anything dark or enclosed made her edgy.
“They were locked in a tiny cellar.” Frei shook her head. “I
should have cut her loose after it. Lilia pleaded with me to let her stay on
but with her vision problem, she should have been retired.”
I stared up at the ceiling. What a surprise. “Yet my mother
wouldn’t let her have a life.”
Frei placed the kit away. “You’re a lot like her.”
I glared at her but she nodded.
“Renee wouldn’t have coped if she’d been sent home broken.”
“I don’t understand.” Why would she
want
to be in the line
of fire?
Frei wandered down the hallway. I knew she was gathering her
thoughts. I heard the water run in the bathroom and I stared at Renee’s
stitched-up face.
I went to her and knelt down. Blob was still keeping her company.
Careful not to touch her, careful to heed Nan’s warning, I fought desperately
not to bury my head in her and plead like a child.
He’d hurt her in ways I could never understand. He’d hurt her and
I wasn’t allowed to fix it. I couldn’t cope without her around. What would I do
if she stayed locked in her mind? Was I just meant to watch her fade?
I lifted my hand up, I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t brave like her.
I couldn’t just stand back and watch her slip away.
“Renee burned to be like her father,” Frei whispered. I could hear
how much guilt poured through. “To have sent her home having watched so many
people die and tell her that she was useless to us—”
“She wouldn’t have survived it.” Now, Frei was blaming herself for
the whole thing.
“Instead Lilia called in a personal favor.” I heard her approach.
She touched my shoulder and gestured for me to leave Renee. “We made a show of
investigating Serenity Hills while she protected you.” She smiled. “Lilia knew
you were good . . . and Renee needed to learn she could do her job still.”
“She did, she was amazing.”
Frei looked at me like I’d said snow was white. “Of course she
was. I was just thankful that she didn’t have anyone come at her from her weak
side.”
I bit my lip. Frei needed the truth, she was the boss after all.
“I fixed her.”
Blue eyes were steady, waiting. No doubt she already knew.
“Sam rammed her into a pole and she nearly drowned. Her head
injuries were . . . well . . . I just couldn’t let her die.”
Frei shoved her hands in her pockets. “Aeron. I know better than
to dismiss your claims but if she comes out from this, and that is unlikely,
I’ll be retiring her.”
That felt like a hammer blow, one too many, and I hugged myself so
tight my nails dug in.
“She will come back to us,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “She
can’t leave.”