Yeah, it would be okay if she ran and never came back, he thought. Problem was, he didn’t believe his own words for a second.
* * *
“I KNEW YOU were a hunter. I should have trusted my instincts and slit your throat as soon as you showed up at my door.” Trista spat out each word like an angry venomous snake.
Shane shook his head. All because the knife was no longer at her throat, she was suddenly brave. He wasn’t sure whether he thought that was ballsy or just plain stupid, considering he still had the knife in his hand and she was the one handcuffed to a chair in the middle of the Execution Underground warehouse.
“Your door—or Nathanial’s?” he asked. He had to strike where it hurt. Trista had unknowingly shown her full hand earlier in the evening, so making her feel like she was nothing to Nathanial, little more than a disposable lackey, would get under her skin. Getting her all riled up was the only way he would get her to betray the man. She would get sloppy, make mistakes.
“Why is Nathanial raising people from the dead? What’s his purpose?” Shane held his knife in front of her face as a reminder of who was in charge.
Trista laughed. “Cut me a break. No torture you inflict on me will make me rat.”
Shane sighed. “I thought you might say that, and chances are you’re probably right. I’m not the most skilled when it comes to physical torture. Now psychological, that’s a different story, but just so we have both bases covered, I figured you might find a friend of mine slightly more convincing.”
At that perfect moment, the warehouse door slammed open with a loud echo and Trent strolled in, all business and scowls. Without his usual baseball cap, the large scar on the left half of his face from where he’d lost a battle with a not-so-friendly shifter, along with the scowl on his lips, caused him to look more than a little menacing.
“What is he, the bad cop to your good cop?” Trista tried to laugh, but the sound betrayed her true feelings when it came out as more of a sob.
“Trista, I’d like you to meet Trent. He’s a fellow hunter. He’s also an ex-military man. Trent spent plenty of time working intelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq, managing to get some pretty sensitive information out of some of the nastiest members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. I’m sure that if he really wanted to, he could put the atrocities at Abu Ghraib to shame, so if you won’t talk for me, I’ll just hand this over to him.” Shane passed his knife to Trent. Witch or not, they would never torture a captive for the sake of answers, not without the motivation of an imminent threat toward an innocent life. Regardless of Trista’s prominent role in the murders, the knife was no more than a tool meant to scare her, but of course, she didn’t know that.
Trent smirked menacingly but didn’t speak a word as he turned toward Trista.
Trista narrowed her eyes and glared. “You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that if you mean to intimidate me.”
Without warning, her chair fell backward toward the floor as Trent swept the legs out from underneath it. The metal chair hit the concrete with a loud clang, and Trista shrieked.
Trent crouched over top of her, his face only inches away from her own. “Don’t worry,” he growled as he slipped the edge of the blade across her cheek. “I will.”
“Why is Nathanial raising people from the dead, Trista?” Shane asked as Trent righted her chair.
“Bite me,” she growled.
Shane nodded to Trent. In a painfully slow movement, Trent slid the flat surface of the knife’s blade across Trista’s collarbone—what Shane knew was one of the most sensitive areas of the body—just enough so that she felt the cold metal. “That’s your final answer?” Trent sneered.
Shane raised a hand, as if he were stopping Trent from cutting Trista up. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what Nathanial’s planning, because as far as I can tell, Trista, you’re pretty low on his list right now. What did you screw up so badly to make him so angry? Would he show you this much loyalty now that you’ve thrown a wrench into his plans?”
Trista didn’t answer. She glared at Shane with so much hate it was practically palpable.
Without prompting, Trent repeated the same painfully slow movement across the other side of Trista’s collarbone. Only this time he turned the blade against her skin at the end of the stroke. Trista’s chest heaved in and out from the adrenaline released by fear.
Shane spoke again. “You’ve helped him kill two people and raise at least three from the dead. That takes a lot of loyalty. Tell me, Trista, do you think Nathanial would go through this torture on your behalf? Would he endure this pain for you? Because I’m pretty sure from the way he called you worthless in front of the entire coven today that he wouldn’t.”
“Nathanial would die for me!” she screeched.
Shane nearly grinned. A reaction. Now they were getting somewhere. She would crack, and easily; he’d known that from the beginning. All he needed to do was apply pressure to the right points.
“Are you so sure?” he asked. “It seems to me that Nathanial only cares about himself. He doesn’t care about you or your loyalty to him, let alone your silly girlish feelings.” Trista’s right eye twitched in anger. He’d gone out on a limb in assuming she had romantic feelings for Nathanial, but it had paid off. She clearly did, and matters of the heart were always the most insecure.
Trent lifted the edge of Trista’s shirt and positioned the tip of the blade just underneath her right lung, but above her intestinal tract. “Did you know that in this particular spot, I can easily inflict pain without severely damaging any of your internal organs? If you were to die from a wound like this, it would be from very, very slow blood loss.” Trent spoke so close to Trista’s face that he knew she could feel his breath on her skin.
Shane grabbed the back of Trent’s shirt and pulled him away. “I won’t be able to hold him off much longer, Trista. Let me ask you again, why is Nathanial raising people from the dead?”
When she didn’t answer, Trent let out an intimidating roar as he lunged. He pushed the tip of the blade into the smooth cappuccino surface of Trista’s skin just enough for her to feel the sting. She screeched and writhed in her chair, but Trent didn’t remove the blade.
“Are you sure he’d show you this much loyalty, Trista? Are you certain?” Shane raised his voice above her screams. “You’re worthless to him.”
“No, I’m not,” she shrieked. “He loves me!”
“Loves you so much that he abuses you? Uses you for sex and then throws you to the side like you’re nothing?”
“He does love me!” she insisted.
“Has he told you that? Would he say those three little words if you said them to him?”
From the look in Trista’s eyes, Shane knew the answer was no. Tears poured down Trista’s face. In a way, Shane felt sorry for her. People did crazy and stupid things for love, and Trista was no exception. If it hadn’t been for her love of Nathanial, maybe she never even would have practiced black magic.
That was the reason he wouldn’t kill her. Despite what she’d done, maybe in some twisted way she’d thought she was doing the right thing, or at least she’d only done the wrong thing for the right reason: love. Shane could only hope that maybe, with time, she could recognize her wrongs.
Trent kicked Trista’s chair back to the floor as she sobbed uncontrollably.
“He doesn’t care about you, Trista,” Shane said coldly. “You know that. Do yourself a favor and protect yourself, not him. Tell me what he’s planning.”
“He...he...” she gasped between sobs.
“He what?” Trent growled next to her ear.
“He’s using them for practice,” she said.
Shane had anticipated as much. “Practice for what?”
“A stronger spell to raise someone from a lot longer ago.”
Shane’s eyes widened. He hadn’t seen that one coming. “Who is he planning to raise from the dead?”
“J-Johnathan Summers.”
Shane felt as if his stomach had just hit the floor. Bile burned at the back of his throat. This could not be happening.
“Does that name mean anything to you?” Trent asked him.
Shane nodded. “Yeah, it means something to me.”
If Nathanial managed to raise Johnathan Summers from the dead, the first thing on his to-do list would be exacting revenge on the man who’d killed him, and considering that had been Shane’s own father, who was long since dead, that left Shane himself as the next of kin and Summers’s most logical target. If Nathanial was successful in raising Johnathan Summers from the dead, to protect himself Shane would have to kill the father of the only woman he’d ever truly cared for.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WHEN SHANE REJOINED Vera in the car within only an hour, she wasn’t certain what to think. Her insides twisted with emotion, running the gamut from shame to guilt to frustration, happiness and relief, then back again. Her plan for Shane’s return had been juvenile, to say the least, considering her first instinct was to treat him to a whopping round of the silent treatment. Well, she’d never claimed to be the most mature person on the planet. Besides, it was for her own benefit, as well as his. They were both fuming. That much was certain.
Despite her plan, as soon as Shane slid into the driver’s seat, the niggling question of what had happened with Trista itched at the back of her mind. Through a gargantuan act of willpower she managed to keep her mouth shut until they reached the safety of Shane’s grandmother’s apartment, and in a stroke of luck, Grandma Grey was fast asleep in her bed. Mae said hello and goodbye in the same breath, and then Vera and Shane were alone.
“So what happened with Trista?” Vera asked as they entered the living room.
“Trent turned her in to headquarters on my behalf. She’ll serve time, but she’s better off than she was with Nathanial.”
“And what did she say? What are we dealing with?”
Shane shot her an annoyed glare. “We? Last time I checked, I was the only hunter working this case.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m referring to the fact that you seem pretty warm and snuggly with Nathanial and his black-magic thugs. In fact, I’m sure you know most of the information that Trista relayed to me, considering how you were lying to me all along.”
“Lying to you? I may not have been...forthcoming about my black-magic usage, but I never lied to you.”
“What about when you said that a friend told you when Nathanial’s coven would be meeting next? Or how about when you said you knew nothing about what they were doing and weren’t involved in any way? Tell me, how many half-truths and omissions does one have to commit before it finally becomes a lie? Or how about this? Let’s start with the things you were completely truthful about and work from there. I’m sure that’s a much shorter list.”
“What did you expect me to do, Shane? Go running into the arms of a witch hunter and be completely truthful about all the shitty mistakes I’ve made in my life, especially the recent ones? You could have—probably would have—thrown me back in that detention center again, just like Trista.”
“Trista helped orchestrate two people’s murders. She’s hardly innocent.”
“And neither am I. In case you haven’t put two and two together, which I’m sure you have, I participated in Nathanial’s circle before I realized what he was using our powers for. That makes me just as guilty as Trista.”
Shane shook his head. “It makes you guilty of poor judgment and lying, but nothing more. Trista knew full well the pain she was inflicting and the deaths she was causing, and participated anyway.”
“Maybe that distinction makes a difference to you, but I know it doesn’t for the organization you work for. How was I supposed to know you felt that way without throwing myself under the bus?”
He stared at her but didn’t respond, so she continued. “Besides, do you really think I wanted to admit to you that I’d fallen off the wagon? Especially after you told me about your mother’s addiction issues? I knew that you’d think I was nothing more than some worthless junkie. Can you tell me you’ve never hid the truth from someone to make yourself look better?”
Again she waited for him to respond, and again he didn’t. She wasn’t sure which she found more unnerving, his earlier yelling or this silence.
“So what happened with Trista?” she asked again, trying desperately to navigate the subject away from all her failures.
“Don’t act like you don’t know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re trying to tell me you have no idea who Nathanial’s trying to raise from the dead?”
“Other than random zombies, no, not at all.”
The scowl on Shane’s face deepened. “These first few have just been practice.”
“Practice for what?”
“Practice for raising someone more significant and powerful.”
“And why would I know anything about that?”
He paused for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her, before he finally said, “They’re trying to raise your father, Vera.”
Everything in Vera’s mind came to a screeching halt. Her father? What in the world did any of this have to do with her father? And how did Shane even know who her father was?
Before she could stammer out a question, Shane added, “Your father is Johnathan Summers, correct? I’m assuming you changed your last name to Sanders to disassociate yourself from him?”
She gaped at him. “How do you know that?” When he didn’t respond, she stepped forward and shoved him hard in the chest. “Damn it, Shane, how do you know that? That isn’t in my Execution Underground file. I’ve worked very hard to make sure all my connections to my father were eliminated, so tell me how the hell you knew.”
Shane released a long breath. “Wait here.” He left the room, only to return moments later, clutching something in his palm. He extended his open hand to her. Sitting in the crook of his palm lay the missing half of her father’s silver pendant. She gasped and pulled the cord of her necklace from underneath her shirt, then held her half of the pendant next to the half in his hand. Sure enough, it was a perfect match.
All the air escaped from Vera’s lungs in one quick whoosh. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Finally she managed to whisper, “Where did you get that?”
When she raised her gaze from the pendant and met Shane’s eyes, she saw a pitying sadness there. No. No, that couldn’t be it. She didn’t want to know the answer, but the question tumbled from her lips before she could stop herself. “Are you the hunter who killed my father?”
The question hung thick in the air, making it so hard to breathe she was certain she would suffocate. As Shane shook his head, her stomach dropped in relief. If the answer had been yes, she couldn’t have handled it. Even though much bad blood had been spilled between her and her father before his death, she still felt a sense of loyalty to him. After all, he was her father, and if the man she was falling in love with had...
Her breath stopped short again. Falling in love? Was that what she felt for Shane?
“I didn’t kill your father, Vera,” Shane said, interrupting her thoughts. “My father did.”
Any relief she had felt at the confirmation that her father hadn’t died at Shane’s hand was immediately stripped away. She was slowly falling in love with the son of the man who’d murdered her own father? Her stomach churned. The thought made her sick. While she felt no loyalty to her father’s dark ways, her feelings for Shane now felt like a betrayal.
“How long have you known this?” she demanded.
“How long?”
“I realized he was your father when you showed me the pendant. I had no idea before then.”
Anger filled her to the brim. For days he’d known, and he hadn’t said anything to her? He didn’t think for a second that the fact that his father had murdered hers was important? Was relevant? “How dare you?” she yelled. “You have the nerve to shame me for omitting details of my past and the nerve to call me a liar, when you’ve been doing the same damn thing? If by chance Nathanial hadn’t been working to raise my father, would you even have told me, or would you have kept it a secret forever?”
Shane opened his mouth to reply, but she raised her hand to stop him. “No. I can’t. I just can’t be here right now. I need to think.”
She hefted Binksy from the couch and into her arms, then retrieved her bag from the guest bedroom.
“Vera,” Shane pleaded.
“No.” She pinned him with a look of pure anger. She couldn’t deal with his excuses right now. Without another word, she stormed from the apartment. When she reached the bottom of the stairs with Binksy still clutched tightly in her arms, that was when she finally allowed the tears to fall.
* * *
SHANE HAD NEVER been much of a drinker, but that night he gave his fellow hunters a run for their money. He gulped down another hit from the Hendrick’s gin bottle and allowed the alpine-infused liquid to burn down his throat. He felt and had behaved like a first-class asshole, and he regretted every second of his recent behavior. Vera was right. It had been unfair of him to call her a liar when he was equally guilty of the same sin, and he recognized that. Honestly, his own sins had been far more selfish. While she had lied for the sake of self-preservation, if he was honest with himself, he’d held the truth from her, because, well...he hadn’t wanted her to leave. He didn’t want his father’s sins to taint her view of him, and yet hadn’t he done the same thing? Assumed that because of who her father was, her intentions were far more sinister than they really were?
Midnight Hunter (The Execution Underground Book 3) Page 17