“That’s none of your concern.”
More likely they didn’t give a fuck, as long as they had one vampire to blame.
“I want to talk to Raph.” As part of the agreement, any vampire arrested by the VLCD had the right to speak to their coven leader.
Harper eyed him like he was the stupidest vampire on the planet. “We’ve already called him. He’s on his way to headquarters now.”
Of course. They needed Raph so they could check his tracker, which would put him at the scene of the fucking crime and no one else.
Motherfucking bastard.
Jesse’s shoulders slumped.
Had he misjudged everything so badly? Had Ian been waiting all this time to go to the police and give them Jesse? And what had happened to Lys?
Dread pooled in his stomach, his mind conjuring up one awful scenario after another.
He didn’t fight as the police dragged him towards their black van waiting on the street. Didn’t resist when they shoved him inside the back and shackled him to the floor. What was the point?
The van doors slammed shut with a finality heavier than the iron around his wrists.
He was so unbelievably fucked.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lys came to with a choked off cry, hands flying to her chest.
What the fuck?
Her fingers found the metal spike protruding from her rib cage, but she didn’t have the strength to pull it out.
Iron.
Pain, hot and fierce, radiated out from her chest, burning through her body to the very tips of her toes. Closing her eyes, she tried to focus, tried to fight through the haze of pain and remember how the fuck she’d ended up on the floor of her bedroom with an iron—and silver by the feel of it—spike through her body.
Keys.
She’d forgotten her bloody car keys.
Her bedroom was directly below Jesse’s and she’d rushed down there, opened the door, and—
Nothing.
Whoever had done this had been waiting for her.
Inhaling hurt like a bitch, but she breathed in enough air to get an idea of who’d done this.
Fucking Peter.
Lys was actually surprised he’d deigned to do his own dirty work.
Blood stuck to her fingers, and her T-shirt was sodden with it. She was going to die there on the floor if she didn’t do something.
Her phone had been in her pocket when she’d run down here, but when she patted the front of her jeans, she came up empty.
Had Peter taken it?
Of course he fucking had. He wasn’t stupid enough to leave it behind.
Rolling her head to the side, Lys tried to get her bearings. She was only a few feet from the door; he must have jumped her as she came through it. Something caught her eye about a foot above her head and to the left.
Her phone, or what was left of it.
Peter hadn’t taken it with him—probably not wanting to get caught with it—but he’d made damn sure she couldn’t use it. The screen was smashed, bits and pieces lay around it as though he’d stamped on it and ground it under his heal.
Lys closed her eyes for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts. She’d known he wouldn’t have left her a way to communicate but the disappointment gripped her all the same. It was brand new too. Not that it was a huge concern considering she was about to die, but for fuck’s sake, she’d only just swapped everything over from her old—
My old fucking phone that should be around here somewhere.
It hurt to move.
Every inch Lys shuffled towards her mangled iPhone felt like someone tearing at her chest, but finally her fingers touched the broken pieces, and she tugged the shell of it towards her.
Please be here, please be intact.
It felt like hours passed before Lys managed to locate the tiny SIM card, and she sobbed in relief, taking a moment to regroup. She felt weak, her strength ebbing away along with the blood trickling out of her chest. Much like if she were human, there would come a point where she’d lose too much to be saved.
With the SIM grasped tightly in her palm, Lys tried to remember where she’d put her old phone.
Please don’t be on the other side of the room. I’ll never fucking make it.
In her mind she pictured her bedroom.
Bed, bedside table, wardrobe, chest of drawers. It wouldn’t be in the en suite, but anywhere else was fair game. Lys wasn’t the tidiest when it came to her room.
Think, Lys!
If it wasn’t out on the bedside table or on top of the drawers, then there was only one place it could be. The bottom drawer where she shoved all the crap she couldn’t be arsed to deal with. It had to be in there.
Tilting her head, she eyed the drawers where they stood next to the door. They were only about five feet away from where she lay, but it might as well have been fifty.
Her body ached just looking at the distance, but it was either try and make it or die anyway.
Sliding the SIM into her pocket for safe keeping, Lys grit her teeth and began the painful shuffle over towards the chest of drawers, one excruciating inch at a time.
It hurt. It hurt so bad her fangs slid out of their own accord, tearing another sob out of her, but she carried on. The distance gradually got less and less until with one final push, her hands closed around the handle.
It took three attempts to get the drawer to move—Lys’s strength slipping away faster now—but eventually she got it open enough to fit her hand inside.
Now to find the fucking thing.
She almost cried in relief when her hand closed around the hard case of her old phone.
Fishing the SIM card out of her pocket, she turned the phone on its side, then abruptly stopped.
You’ve got to be kidding me!
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. The relief she’d felt moments ago quickly faded as she stared at the little hole and wondered how the fuck she was going to get the slot open without the little pointy thing.
She knocked her head gently against the floor a couple of times.
So fucking close.
There had to be something else in that bloody drawer that would do it.
Sticking her hand back in, she starting to sift through the crap, hoping like fuck she found something soon.
What felt like an age later, her finger caught on something sharp. She winced at the pinch but crowed in triumph when she pulled out a roll of cotton with a needle shoved into it.
Jackpot.
Wiping her hands on her jeans, she carefully transferred the SIM into her old phone and prayed like fuck that it had charge.
Surely fate wouldn’t be that cruel?
Lys pressed the power button and waited for the apple to appear.
It took a moment, a very long, torturous moment, but then the phone lit up like magic. Four per cent. She had four fucking per cent battery left. The battery was shit as well, that was why she’d got a new one. Definitely not enough for a phone call, it’d run out of charge the minute the call connected knowing her luck, but enough to text.
Lys could think of only one person who could get her the help she needed.
With trembling fingers, she wrote out the message as fast as she could and hit Send. The screen went black almost straight away.
No chance of getting a reply.
She just hoped it’d gone through.
With nothing to do now but wait, Lys put the phone down and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Raph glared at Peter. “I don’t fucking believe this.”
Ian sat in the chair opposite Raph’s desk and watched him repeatedly run a hand through his hair, gaze fixed on Peter, as Peter calmly told him a version of events that bore little resemblance to the truth.
Ian’s hands were no longer cuffed, but with Cate in the hands of vampires, Peter didn’t need them to keep him under control.
When Peter finished speaking, Raph’s attention swung to Ian.
&nbs
p; “Is that what happened? Did Jesse do all those things?”
He could tell Raph the truth. Tell him that Peter held Cate hostage, but he’d get her killed for sure. If Peter failed to contact Michael again soon, Ian could well imagine what he and Simon would do to her, left to their own devices. And Peter had already told him they weren’t wearing their trackers, so how would anyone find her?
Please forgive me, Jesse.
He felt the weight of Peter’s stare where he sat beside him and forced the words out. “Yes. It’s all true.” They felt like ash on his tongue, but he sat there and answered question after question as Raph’s expression grew more defeated with each answer he gave.
“Fucking hell.” Raph slumped into his chair, head in his hands.
“Not quite the golden boy you thought he was, eh?”
Raph’s head snapped up, eyes dark, expression menacing enough to make Ian press back against his seat. “Now is not the time, Peter. And wipe that fucking smug look off your face. This isn’t about you and whatever little victory you think you’ve scored here.” He gestured to Ian. “An innocent man has been killed and turned into a vampire without his consent. By a member of my coven. It goes against everything in our agreement with the VLCD. Do you have any idea what position that puts me in? Or the coven as a whole? Do you?”
Peter’s expression made Ian think he knew exactly what shitty position that put Raph in. But he wisely kept quiet.
“I sent you to watch him,” he gestured to Ian. “To investigate whether or not he knew about us, knew what Jesse was. What the hell happened? How did Jesse do this under your fucking nose?”
Peter didn’t so much as flinch, the lies rolling smoothly off his tongue. “We did watch Ian, and like I said in my report, we determined that he was no threat. When we left him, he was very much alive. Jesse must’ve followed us.”
“Is that so. Care to explain this, then?” Raph picked up his phone and showed them the picture on the screen. “Harper sent it to me along with a request for me to go down there immediately. I thought it’d been Photoshopped.”
Ian caught the barest twitch of Peter’s shoulders before he recovered himself. Maybe he hadn’t expected Harper to do that.
“I can explain,” Peter said smoothly.
Raph raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you can.” He gestured for Peter to carry on.
“I took that photo.” He paused, but Raph remained silent. “I heard a noise and smelt Jesse’s scent, so I went to investigate.”
“You just happened to be around there.”
“Yes. I’d been following Ian. That alley is a shortcut to the bar he frequents. The one where he met Jesse.”
Ian tried hard not to think of Cate.
Peter carried on. “I rushed back, and this is what I found.” He gestured to Raph’s phone. “I thought he’d drained him, and I took the photo as proof for when he inevitably disposed of the body. I didn’t want you to blame it on me.”
Ian swallowed the burst of hysterical laughter that threatened to come out.
“So you lied, both in your report and to my face just now. Why should I believe anything you say?”
“I was trying to protect the coven.”
“How exactly? Instead of coming straight to me about this, you sent this photo to the VLCD.”
“I didn’t know he’d turned him! I thought either the body would turn up—if Jesse had been careless—or Ian would be reported as missing. I didn’t want to put you in the position of not knowing who to believe when the VLCD inevitably asked for the data on our trackers, which you know they would’ve eventually. Jesse’s would be all over Ian’s flat.”
Ian sat there listening to Peter dig his own grave. The data on the trackers wouldn’t just show that Jesse had been to Ian’s flat or in that alleyway. What would that mean for Cate, though? Either way, for now he was powerless to do anything but sit there and keep quiet.
“Ahh.” Raph steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. “So you were thinking of me?”
“Of course. I know this is hard to accept. I know how much Jesse means to you. But this way the VLCD know who did it, the evidence is clear to see. There’s no need for them to pry through all our affairs. It’s cleaner.”
No need to check tracking data? Maybe Peter wasn’t as stupid as he’d thought, but Ian had assumed the VLCD would be more thorough than Peter was giving them credit for. Would they really convict Jesse on that photo alone?
“It certainly is.” Raph’s expression gave nothing away. Ian had no idea whether he believed Peter one hundred per cent or not. But either way, as Peter pointed out, the evidence was damning. Especially with Ian to corroborate everything. “I’m surprised you’re so quick to condemn him, I thought you and Jesse were making a fresh start.”
Peter shrugged, nose scrunching up into a grimace as though the thought pained him. “I thought so to, but I can’t stand by and watch him blatantly disregard our agreement with the VLCD. Even if I don’t happen to like our little arrangement,” he added at Raph’s raised eyebrows.
That seemed to change something in Raph, and he stared at his phone screen again, then shook his head. Meeting Ian’s gaze, he offered him a sad smile. “I can’t tell you how deeply sorry I am that this has happened to you, that a member of my coven is responsible. Rest assured I’ll cooperate fully with the officers of the VLCD to see whoever’s responsible is suitably punished.”
Ian didn’t miss the way Raph omitted to use Jesse’s name.
“I’d also like to extend a formal offer for you to join our coven. I realise you may not want to after the way in which you were turned, so I am also more than happy to arrange meetings with other suitable covens and help you choose. But please understand that you need the support of a coven, even if it’s not mine. Life will be difficult and very lonely otherwise.”
Ian couldn’t bring himself to accept Raph’s offer when he’d sat there and lied to his face. “Thank you, I’ll think about it.”
Raph nodded and was about to speak when his phone vibrated in his hand. He glanced at the screen, then quickly swiped at it, expression darkening as he read whatever was on there. Typing out what Ian presumed was a response, Raph bit his lip, brows furrowed in concentration.
“Problem?” Peter asked, obviously dying to know who’d messaged Raph.
“No,” Raph answered without looking up. He typed something else, then shoved his phone into his pocket and stood. “Come on. The sooner we get to the VLCD office, the sooner we can get this mess sorted.
Ian followed him out the door with Peter behind him. It felt as though he was being led to the gallows. Except it wasn’t his neck on the line.
JESSE SAT IN the interview room, shackled to the table by his cuffs and with two VLCD officers stood pointing guns at him. One of whom was Blake, and Jesse could feel the hatred pouring off him.
They’d had him waiting in the room for around half an hour as far as he could tell. Neither of the two officers present had said a word to him or much to each other, for that matter. Jesse admired their focus, but all this silence set him on edge.
When the door opened, he startled in his seat.
DI Harper walked in, folder in hand, and took the seat across the table. He opened the folder and glanced down at the papers within. “Jesse Sykes. Born 1930, turned vampire in 1955.”
Jesse waited for Harper to look up. “You know all this.”
“It’s protocol, Jesse. You know how this goes, right?”
“Not really, no.” Jesse had managed to stay clear of the VLCD since the unit had been formed. He sorely wished it’d remained that way.
“You’re being charged with the murder of Ian Moreton and turning him into a vampire without his consent.”
“It was an acc—”
“You’ll get your chance to give a full statement.” He clasped his hands together and set them on the table. “Raph is on his way. You don’t have to say anything until he gets here, but you can choose to respond
to the charges now if you’d prefer.”
Fuck it, he’d already admitted changing Ian, and that photo was enough to convince anyone. “I didn’t kill Ian. I am, however, the reason he turned into a vampire, but it wasn’t intentional.” At least not at first.
Silence filled the room, and Jesse felt Blake’s eyes on him. He resisted looking over.
Harper pointed to a microphone in the middle of the table. “Were recording this interview. If you want to tell us what happened now, go ahead.”
Jesse was tempted. Wanted to get it all out in the open, but Raph would kill him if he said any more than he had already. “I’ll wait for Raph.”
Harper rolled his eyes like he’d expected nothing else. “Suit yourself.” He tapped the papers in front of him. “The penalty for murdering a human is anything from twenty to fifty years in one of our underground cells. But committing a murder with the intent to turn the victim into a vampire? The punishment for that includes the death penalty.”
Jesse curled his hands into fists to stop them shaking. He knew all this. He’d read the agreement plenty of times, but hearing it spelled out to him like that felt different. It brought it home that this was actually happening in a way that nothing else had so far.
They could kill him for this.
“I understand.” He hesitated, wondering whether to ask the question on the tip of his tongue. “What’s the penalty for accidentally turning someone?”
Harper stared at him, as though checking he was serious. “There isn’t one. You don’t make someone a vampire by accident.”
“I did.” Jesse hated how desperate he sounded. He hadn’t meant to turn Ian, surely that had to count for something?
Harper shook his head. “Good luck getting anyone to believe that.”
He stood, took his papers with him, and left. The door clanged shut behind him and the oppressive silence returned. Jesse leant back against his seat and glanced up at the ceiling, any hope of getting out of this alive fading with each minute that passed.
He wished he got his one phone call, like humans did when they were arrested.
Who would he call though?
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