Everything in the world stopped. The entire city held its breath, waiting, waiting
for the answer, the explosion, the ultimate firefight. Had I cracked the case, or
accused a man who had been nothing but good to me of a heinous crime?
I watched Sampson’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed slowly. He was silent, and I
couldn’t tell if he was considering his answer or my question. And I didn’t know which
one was worse.
“Sophie?”
I felt the heat of tears forming behind my eyes. I wasn’t supposed to cry anymore,
wasn’t supposed to bop around like a teenage girl, but I couldn’t help myself and
the tears overwhelmed me, fell down my cheeks in a steady stream. I threw myself to
my knees and grabbed Sampson’s hands.
“Oh, please, please tell me you didn’t. And if you did, I can help you. I can get
you away from here. I know you didn’t mean it. I know you couldn’t control yourself.
You’re a
werewolf,
after all, and it’s not your fault—”
I choked on my own words. I choked on the image of the woman—Tia Shively—of the terror,
the confusion that was in her eyes for that split second before they went cold—before
the life slipped out of her body. My chest felt tight and I struggled to breathe.
“I’ll get you out of here,” I whispered again.
A tremor started in Mr. Sampson’s hands and he pulled them out of mine and then stood
up quickly, brushing by me. He raked a hand through his still-wet hair, and when he
turned and looked at me his eyes were dark—clouded—shielded with something I couldn’t
recognize.
Hate? Anger?
When Mr. Sampson spoke, his voice was gravelly. “You really think I could do something
like that?”
I pushed myself up, the tears still falling, silently now. “I know that you wouldn’t
have meant—”
“Really?” He whirled and faced me full-on and I could see now that the look in his
eyes was anger, disappointment, tinged with disbelief. “You think that I could tear
an innocent person to shreds like that?
Three
innocent people?”
The tension in the room ratcheted up the temperature by ten degrees, and I was rooted
to the carpet, my mind ticking—do I run, do I protest, do I stay?
I chanced a glance up at Sampson and when I did his eyes locked mine. What I saw ran
through me so deeply it cut to the bone.
His eyes were glassy.
Red rimmed.
He pressed his lips together, but I saw the twitch, the power that it took for him
to keep his cool. “I can’t believe you, of all people, would think that about me.
I’m not a monster, Sophie. I thought you knew that.” His voice was low, soft—but it
hurt.
“I’ m—”
“No. If you think—I don’t want to make you wonder. If I’m an animal in your eyes,
you should chain me up.”
“No!” I swung my head, feeling my hair flop against my cheeks. “I didn’t mean—I don’t
think—it’s just that . . .” I let my words trail. I didn’t know what I thought or
what I meant.
“You should do it.” Sampson’s voice was even. “If you can’t trust me, you need to
lock me up.” He offered me his wrists. “Right?”
I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to tell him of course not, that I trusted him implicitly,
but something ate at me.
Sampson shook his hands. “If it’ll make all your doubt go away, go ahead.” He looked
sad, but tried a smile. “I don’t blame you if you do. I understand. Sometimes I can’t
believe what I am either—and I know what people like me are capable of.”
Chapter Twelve
My heart slammed so hard against my ribs I was certain there would be a bruise. I
licked my lips. My saliva was sour and the blood that coursed through my head was
unbearably hot, loud.
I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to know I was doing the right thing, but this was
all there was: Sampson, standing in front of me, arms outstretched. Three women dead.
I felt my soul going ice cold, felt my body close in on itself.
“Okay.” The voice that came out of my mouth, that punctured the silence, didn’t sound
like my own. “Just for tonight.” I said it as a kind of buffer, but Sampson just nodded.
“Where?” he said without looking up at me.
I drew in a slow breath, hoping the surge of oxygen would give me strength. “Down
in the basement. The chains that—that used to be in your office are down there.”
“You’ve been waiting for this.”
“No.” I felt my eyes flash. “I’ve been waiting for you. Not like this—it was just—I
wanted to keep something of yours. After you left . . .”
Sampson gave a humorless bark of laughter. “Ironic.” He jutted his chin toward my
one hanging cuff. “Is that to cuff me for the walk downstairs?”
I shook my head silently and opened Will’s door.
We walked the four flights down to the basement in chilly silence, stopping on the
landing just in front of the battered metal door. It was rusted, graffitied, and slightly
dented, its shabby appearance betraying its strength.
“Well?” Sampson asked.
I had come this far, but was suddenly feeling unable to take the next step. My feet
were rooted to the cement underneath us. Then I felt Sampson’s hand on my shoulder.
“It’s okay, Sophie.”
I let the warmth of his hand travel through me. I stepped forward and sunk my key
into the lock. Sampson brushed by me and walked into the basement. “Anywhere in particular
you’d like to lock me up?” His tone was jocular, but the glint in his eye was hard
anger.
I pointed to a heavy steel pipe and Sampson went and stood there, legs akimbo, arms
crossed in front of his chest. I dug the old chains from the cardboard file box labeled
LAWSON/LASHAY, #351 and quietly brought them to Sampson, opening the shackles and
closing them around his ankles, looping the rest around the pipe. Each click was like
a dour stab to my heart, and my hands shook as he held out his final free wrist. I
tried to avoid his eyes, but something drew me upward. The derisive look of just a
few minutes ago was gone, replaced by a defeated one that made his usually clear,
sharp eyes look pale and milky. His gaze was a final silent plea.
I clicked the last cuff on and turned my back.
I thought that final click was going to be the worst, but my angst only grew as I
neared the door. I wanted to tell Sampson I was sorry, that I truly did believe in
his innocence, but the words were lodged in my throat.
“I’ll be back when the sun comes up,” I mumbled to the floor.
I heard the clink of his chains and his long sigh before I pulled the heavy steel
door closed and flicked the lock.
The single light in the apartment vestibule was buzzing, its garish yellow light flickering,
casting weird shadows over the tiled entryway. I shivered and hugged my elbows, giving
one last glance over my shoulder toward the hallway I had just come from. Guilt was
a solid black weight deep in my stomach, weighing on my shoulders. I should have felt
some sort of relief, or a surge of energy that pushed me to clear Sampson’s name,
but everything about me was raw. I was exhausted, spent, confused. I wanted to sleep.
I wanted to lie down and bury myself into my mattress, pull the covers up over my
head and wake up in another life.
I was drowning in miserable self-pity when I heard the glass exploding. Jagged pieces
of marble-sized glass came rocketing toward me and something huge—and heavy—clocked
me right between the shoulder blades. I lurched forward, steeling myself against the
back wall and trying to categorize what had happened when I felt someone grab me by
my hair, yanking my head back until I thought my spine would snap. I heard individual
strands of my hair breaking, felt them popping from my scalp like an army of tiny
pinpricks. I tried to breathe, tried to take stock of my situation, but all I could
do was see that stupid bare lightbulb wagging above my head.
“What the hell—” I widened my stance and pulled back against my attacker, ignoring
the searing ache of my scalp.
I scratched at the wall and tried to regain my footing, but my assailant was strong
and had the upper hand. There was another tug and I crashed against the warm body.
An arm slung around my neck, tightening against my throat and I felt moist breath,
hot lips on my ear.
“I should have killed you when I had the goddamn chance.”
I knew that voice: Feng. But it was bitterer, more tinged with poison than I had ever
heard it.
“Feng?” My voice quavered. I was almost too astonished to be afraid. I wriggled. “Let
go of me!”
Feng’s pit bull grip loosened a hair, but before I could negotiate a step, she turned
me and shoved me hard up against the wall, her hair-pulling hand now at my throat.
My shoulders ached, grating against the tile.
Feng’s eyes were liquid fire, her mouth turned into the most hateful grimace I had
ever seen. “I’m going to rip your head off, Pippi.”
It wasn’t until I pulled my head back against the wall—doing my best to disappear
into it—that I noticed the blood. It was on her hands, on her clothes in spatters
and streaks, and now burning into my skin. And it was fresh.
“Whose blood is that?”
Flame in her eyes. “You know.”
I felt Feng’s fingers tightening around my throat, her thumb starting to dig into
my windpipe. “No, I don’t,” I choked.
Feng didn’t loosen her grip, but she seemed genuinely stunned, momentarily confused.
I clamped my eyes shut and channeled Buffy, doing the best—and probably the only—scissor
kick of my life.
I felt Feng’s hard belly against the sole of my shoe. I felt her ribs licking against
it, cracking, and I heard her breathless groan. Her fingers slipped from my throat,
her nails raking across my skin as she stumbled backward, crumbling in on herself.
In one stunned millisecond, she regained her composure and lunged for me. I thought
of Vlad’s combat tutelage and angled my body, leaning into Feng with an elbow across
her sternum.
It barely stopped her and she laid her entire body weight into me, both of us flying
backward, landing with a painful thud on the tiled floor. Her fisted hand clocked
me in the jaw and I felt my mouth instantly fill with thick, velvety blood. I clawed
at her face, unable to get any swing back for a punch, and tried to remember something
defensively effective.
I started to squirm.
We rolled and jockeyed for position, thighs clamping, fingers fisted then clawed.
“Why the hell are you doing this?” I managed to huff.
Feng tightened the strongest thigh muscles I would ever know and rolled herself on
top of me. Her cheeks were flushed with effort, and tiny white bubbles were forming
at the corners of her mouth. “You killed her. You fucking killed her. You killed them
all, you fucking bitch!”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” I howled. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Feng’s fist connected with a bone-crunching strike. My whole skeleton started to throb,
my eyes started to water. “Your fucking wolf! Your fucking wolf tore my sister apart.
He ripped the shit out of everyone at the restaurant. Fucking animal!”
Feng’s militant struggle slowed insignificantly and a single tear cut through the
blood on her cheek. By the time it drizzled to her chin, her eyes were flaming again,
her jaw set.
“He didn’t,” I breathed. “He didn’t. He’s been chained up.”
I knew that Sampson had been chained up for just a few minutes. My hands were still
cold from clamping the metal around his wrists. I knew that werewolves possessed a
lot of nonhuman abilities, but super speed wasn’t one of them. He
could
have been responsible. There would have been time—plenty of time.
But I kept trying to convince myself otherwise.
But Feng’s maniacal expression remained unchanged. She reached behind her back and
my breath caught when I saw the knife.
Mother-of-pearl handle. Glistening, razor-sharp blade. No match for a bass knife,
had I even had it. My arms instinctively mashed against the wall, the one handcuff
still locked around my wrist banging against the ancient tiles, a battle cry for the
end of my life. I curled into myself as the blade came down, nicking the shoulder
of my flimsy tank top, making an easy, clean slice through my skin. I used Feng’s
technique and threw my entire body toward her, palms shoving at her chest, her face,
whatever I could make contact with. The second she began to topple, I rolled.
“That . . . wasn’t . . . him,” I panted as I crawled toward the door.
The vestibule door swung open, raking across my knuckles, and I looked up.
“Alex?”
I saw him lean down, felt his arms dig under my shoulders and pull me to standing.
He slammed the door hard before Feng could get to us and she pounded frantically,
her hand shooting out the hole that she had made with the rock and going after the
lock. I stared down at her flailing hand as it was shredded by the broken glass. Velvety
blue-red blood bubbled up from her knuckles and trickled over her fingers. All I could
think of when I saw her ruined hand was raw meat.
But Alex wasn’t distracted. He grabbed her hand and yanked her hard enough to smack
against the door, then clamped a cuff on her, fixing the other one to the opposite
door handle. Feng struggled.
“That’s only going to give us a few minutes.”
“But Nina and Vlad—”
“Can have a fresh meal,” Alex finished. He grabbed my arm and shoved me into his car,
flipping the lights to “spastic” and pushing the gas to the floor once he got in.
“You came to save me?” I asked, brushing away a trickle of blood as it ran over my
eyelid.
The muscle in Alex’s jaw jumped and I saw his fists tighten on the steering wheel
until his knuckles went white. “I was just coming by to tell you about the massacre
at the Du place. You weren’t answering your phone, which usually means you’re in a
pizza coma or a life-and-death situation.” There was no humor in his voice and his
expression remained hard, fixed.
“Are we going there? To the Du place, I mean.”
Alex didn’t answer me, but when he squealed the car on a right-hand turn, I knew.
I was chewing on my thumbnail the whole ride through the city, thinking about Feng
chained at the front door—though knowing she had probably already broken out—and Mr.
Sampson chained in the basement. I prayed that the rage and fury that were etched
on Feng’s face would mean that the second she had freed herself, she would come after
us, rather than deciding to go snoop around my building.
“What are you so nervous about?” Alex asked, eyes still focused on the windshield.
“I just got attacked by a crazed werewolf hunter, Alex, and we’re apparently headed
to the scene of a bloodbath.”
“So you’re not concerned that the person responsible for said bloodbath is now running
loose in the city?”
“Sampson didn’t do this, Alex.”
“And why should I believe that, Lawson? Suddenly you’re telling me the truth?”
I pressed my eyes shut. “Please understand, Alex.”
My plea hung on the uncomfortable silence in the car until we slowed at the mouth
of Grant’s Gate. “I know Sampson had nothing to do with this because he’s chained
up.” I watched Alex’s profile, his hard jaw and set, determined eyes. “I chained him
up in the basement.”
“When?”
“Just before—just before—” I sucked in a shaky breath. “Just before Feng got me.”
“So, Sampson was chained up for what, the last hour? Maybe two?”
I nodded, overtly lying, but still trying to convince myself.
Sampson wouldn’t do this,
I reasoned.
He promised me . . .
And he spent a whole year pretending he was dead. The realization hit me like a fist
to the gut and I felt my lips part, felt the words pressing against my teeth.
But Alex was ignoring me, cell phone pressed to his ear.
I studied the explosion of police officers unrolling crime scene tape and trying to
hold back curious onlookers. Squad cars were parked up on sidewalks, giving us a still-narrow
street to maneuver down once the office on patrol waved us through.
“We got to the crime scene just over an hour ago.”
I raised my eyebrows, feeling a sense of relief for the first time in weeks. “See?”
“I see that this massacre happened at least ten to twelve hours ago. Were you with
Pete Sampson ten to twelve hours ago?”
I opened my mouth, my brain racking through the last several hours of my life: prowling
through the UDA, prowling through Alex’s office, running out of the police station
wearing fifty percent of a pair of handcuffs . . . knocking on Will’s door, Pete Sampson
coming out of the shower.
Just a shower
, I told myself.
“You don’t seem to be jumping in with a defense,” Alex noted.
“Why are you so hell-bent on crucifying Sampson?” I roared.
“Why are you so hell-bent on keeping your head in the sand?”
I had never seen that kind of rage from Alex before. It should have frightened me,
but it only made me throw my shoulders back, narrowing my eyes in a hard challenge.
I had to believe in Sampson—
I just had to.