by T. G. Ayer
Each step was painstaking, but the closer I got to the second floor the easier it was to hear the hum of voices. By the time I got to the landing, I was able to register the second occupant’s voice. It was a woman.
My mind immediately began filing through possibilities, but I thrust the thoughts away. There was really no point. I’d confirm the identity of the traitor in the next few moments. No sense in losing concentration over it.
The voices came from down the hall to the left. Two open doorways stood across from each other, one with the door half open, the other flung wide.
With my back to the wall, I shifted closer and peered into the room from which the voices echoed. The speakers stood in the middle of the bare floor, with one of them pacing. From the sharp sound of the heels as it hit the wood floor, I guessed the pacer to be the woman.
From where I stood, I was able to make out a shoulder and the side of her head before she spun on her heel and headed back in her pacing.
I didn’t need to see her face to know who she was. The sound of her voice was clear enough, but the content of her conversation put all the nails in her coffin.
Anjelo’s mother, Stella Alvarez.
Chapter 22
Stella’s voice echoed in the room. “You didn’t say lives would be in danger. You used me.” Her voice was high and shrill, filled with panic.
Marsden laughed, and I could almost imagine the flash of white teeth and the mean look in his eye. “Stella, you were the one who came to me. You were the one who said you deserved compensation.”
“Compensation, yes. My son was killed because of the Odel girl’s carelessness, for leading him down the wrong path. Now I’m almost destitute, forced out of retirement to make enough money to put food on my table. But that doesn’t mean I wanted threats of beheadings!”
“What did you expect us to do, Stella? We couldn’t just let her breed with that human. You know the law.”
“The law? That’s your stupid law,” Stella scoffed, pausing in her pacing. “We all know walkers have been breeding with humans for centuries with no issues. That’s just something you all cooked up to get the Odels out of power.”
“Which would mean they also get their comeuppance,” Marsden said. His tone was placating, but the hard edge of his voice implied he was struggling to remain calm. Stella was trying his patience, and that worried me.
I wasn’t surprised when a soft click emanated from the room, and my blood froze. I was familiar enough with the sound of the releasing of the safety on a revolver.
Someone inside the room had a gun. And they were well and truly ready to use it. Stella was in danger, and I needed to get in there before she was hurt.
I shifted one foot closer to get a better look at their locations, my plan being to head inside, grab Stella and bring her to safety before Marsden ended up blowing her head off.
The floorboard creaked beneath my foot, and I sucked in a breath. Footsteps hurried toward the door, and I had no choice but to slip inside the doorway beside me, glad that though the opening was narrow, it was just enough for me to slip through without disturbing the door.
Inside the room, I scanned the place for a hiding spot, finding only the closet available. With little choice, I rushed to the half-open closet door and almost stepped inside the darkness.
Feet on the threshold, some strange instinct—a sense of foreboding or self-preservation—bade me stop and I did, finding myself balancing on the edge of the floor with nothing but a drop all the way to the basement below me.
The entire floor of the closet was gone, and so was the floor of the room below.
My heart thudded as I realized I’d almost plunged twenty feet; a fall like that would have left me badly injured.
Marsden’s footsteps kept coming from the other room and from the sound of it he was reaching the hall already. Panicked, I ran to the window—which thankfully was open to the elements, glass long gone with nobody to give a damn enough to board it up. Slipping over the sill, I balanced on the narrow ledge outside the window, then sprang onto the roof. I took extra care to test the tiles before I took a step. They looked fragile enough that I could fall through at any time.
I listened again, trying to slow my heartbeat down, an ability that most alphas had perfected in order to move around without detection.
Marsden stepped inside the room, the door creaking loudly as it opened. Moments later, his footsteps receded as he returned to the other room with Stella.
I let out a soft sigh of relief, swung myself down into the window opening and back inside the room. I crossed the floor, keeping out of sight of the now wide open door.
At the threshold, I paused and listened.
The gunshot went off so suddenly that I jumped and had to swallow my gasp. The shock that filled me had me rushing out into the hall and into the other room.
My stomach twisted at the sight of Stella lying on the floor, her chest covered in blood. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of me.
The fear I saw there spurred me to rush to her side, to place my hands on her wounds to apply pressure. I had to stop the flow of blood before she bled out. Frantic, I turned around and glared at Marsden.
“Call an ambulance!”
He stared at me, his expression slightly bewildered, but he did reach for his phone. I left him to it and faced Stella whose skin was beginning to lose color.
“Hang on, Stella. The ambulance is on its way.”
“Why?” the woman croaked.
“Don’t talk, Stella. You need to save your strength. Just hold on.”
Stella shook her head. “Why are you helping me?”
I frowned, still putting pressure on the wound. “So you don’t die?” I said, wondering what she was thinking.
Her face crumpled, tears filling her eyes as guilt colored her face for a few moments. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for them to do this. I just…I just—”
I patted her hand. “It’s okay, Stella. It really is. Everything is going to be fine.”
“You’re not angry?”
“No. I’m not angry. You did what your heart told you was right. I know you miss Anjelo. I miss him too.”
Stella shook her head. “But you didn’t endanger the lives of the people Anjelo loved…” Her voice faltered and faded and when she swallowed she winced, her pain clear on her face.
“Don’t you dare think about it now. All you need to do is get better.”
“You don’t hate me?”
I faltered. After selling us out, after being so filled with anger and hatred for me that she endangered not only my own life but that of Logan and Mom and Darcy, Stella was now concerned about me hating her?
I understood then that grief could do terrible things to a person. And I was staring at the proof of it. Anjelo would be horrified to know what his mother had done. And now she’d be joining him in the Graylands soon enough.
It was painfully clear that Stella was not going to make it. And only seconds later she reached for my hand and squeezed it tight. Then she inhaled sharply and coughed, her entire body shuddering. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth and a struggling breath later, Stella took her last breath, then closed her eyes.
As she slackened the sound of something hitting the floor echoed around the room. The gun clattered to the floor beside my knee, and I swallowed a gasp.
Glancing over my shoulder, I glared at Marsden. “What happened here?”
He shrugged, then glanced at the gun. “She wasn’t entirely stable. She pulled the gun then shot herself. Perhaps her guilt was too much.”
I reached for the gun and got to my feet. My first thought was to ensure the weapon, which could still be loaded, wasn’t lying around waiting for Marsden to grab hold of it.
I faced him now, eyes steady on his face. “Care to explain what the hell is going on here?” I snapped, using what I called my alpha voice. I stood taller, spine straight, feet apart, exuding my panther power. My voice lowered, trembling wi
th a slight panther growl that echoed around us in the bare room.
Marsden blinked in the face of my alpha fury. Then he straightened too. “She shot herself. I was too far away to stop her.”
“And of course, your main priority was to stop her?” I asked, disgusted with how low the man had gone.
Marsden smiled and glanced at the gun, then walked toward me with a strange confidence. Something was off about the expression on his face, and I took a step back, realizing too late that Stella lay just at my heel and I had no place to retreat to.
Marsden kept coming and, unsure of what he intended, I was completely unprepared when he reached for the hand in which I still held Stella’s gun.
He lifted the weapon, his fingers wrapped around mine, and aimed it at his chest just to the left of his heart. Too late I realized his intention and began to struggle.
But his grip was too tight, his finger already jamming mine against the trigger. I pulled against him, tugging the weapon away, hoping that if the gun did go off, that it would hit him somewhere that wouldn’t cause a too grievous injury.
He pressed my finger harder, and the gun went off, the smell of gunpowder filling my sensitive panther nostrils.
Marsden’s eyes widened, the smirk fading as he glanced down at his chest. I let out a gasp, not caring that he saw my shock.
He’d aimed almost at his left shoulder, but in my struggle to get his hand off the gun the direction of the aim had changed.
Crimson flared from a bullet hole that was far too close to his heart. My own heart slammed against my ribs as I began to understand what he’d done.
He’d aimed at his arm, hoping to survive and convince the police that I’d killed Stella out of revenge and had then attempted to kill him too but sadly missing and hitting his shoulder.
Too bad I’d struggled, because now instead of Marsden succeeding in sending me to prison for Stella’s murder, it was likely that I’d be found guilty of his murder too.
The man’s mind worked in strange and brutal ways.
Marsden was still smiling when he slumped against me. “You’re going to go away forever,” he whispered, his voice slurred with blood.
I shifted aside and let him fall to the ground, the gun slipping from both our grasps. I stood there for a moment, nothing within me urging me to stem the blood flow from his wounds.
The man infuriated me, and even though I knew I should be helping, my body refused to listen to the commands of my equally numb brain.
And then in the distance, the sound of sirens echoed, growing closer and closer. The sound spurred me to move, and I sank down beside him, now putting pressure on his wound.
But no matter what I did, the blood kept spurting from both the entrance and the exit wound. It was a battle I was bound to lose, and the sirens drew closer still, the reality of my situation sank in.
My hands were pressed on both wounds when two men raced into the room, guns drawn. The larger burlier one rushed me, and hit me on the side of the head with his gun, sending me sprawling.
“Get the hell away from him.”
Chapter 23
I grunted as I rolled over to my knees. “I was stemming the blood flow. You better start doing that now, or he’s going to bleed out,” I snapped, my voice hard and filled with every ounce of the fury I felt.
Whoever this asshole was, he’d just physically assaulted an alpha walker, a crime funnily enough punishable by death.
On my knees, I watched as he faced Marsden who’d fallen unconscious at some point. He waved a hand at the second man who holstered his weapon and fell to his knees beside Marsden, pressing his hands onto the councilman’s wounds.
“What did you do?” the first gunman asked, his green eyes flashing as he spat the words at me. He strode over toward me and grabbed me by the collar lifting me to my feet. I didn’t plan on making it easier for him, so I let my body go limp.
He punched me so hard in the gut that I exhaled all the air from my lungs and then began to cough. The second blow caught me on the other side of my head, this one closer to my eye.
“I didn’t do anything,” I shouted, knowing full well that nothing I said would make any difference.
The gunman didn’t seem to care what I was saying. I felt the blow coming from the left and sank fast to my knees, then swiped at his right leg with my foot. He slammed into the ground in front of me, letting out a roar of anger.
He must have had some kind of military background because no sooner had he hit the ground did he roll over and surge back up, bouncing on the balls of his feet, a grin on his face.
“Stavros? What the hell is going on here?” a man bellowed from the doorway. I glanced up to see Justin standing on the threshold, but that was a mistake.
I’d taken my eye off the gunman—or Stavros as Justin had called him—and he’d taken advantage of the lapse in my attention, landing a punch to my gut, another to my ribs, and then a third to my jaw.
I hit the floorboard so hard that I was certain I was going to shatter them and end up falling through to the next floor. My abdomen flamed with pain, but felt a hell of a lot better than my face. I could feel the skin of my lips and around my eyes swelling already. My left eyelid was already closing, and the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.
“This is none of your concern. You’re just here as an observer,” yelled Stavros. I watched out of one eye as Justin stormed into the room and tried to come toward me.
But Stavros spun on his heel and turned his weapon on Justin. “I have no qualms about shooting you between the eyes, Lake. I have my orders. You move to help her in any way, and I shoot you.”
Justin growled, his cougar eyes shifting. “You think I’m afraid of a gunshot? Do you even know who you’re talking to? Who you’re beating up?”
Justin took two steps toward me, then stopped as the man laughed, then turned the gun on me. “If self-preservation isn’t your thing, then how about you consider this: Move to help her and I shoot her, so she bleeds out extremely slowly. While you watch.”
A growl of fury and frustration filled the room. Justin’s face was a study of emotion, but when he met my gaze, I shook my head, urging him to do nothing. I needed to survive this so we could find a way to respond.
In kind.
I didn’t like the anger, the pure hatred that flowed through me. I didn’t like the mean, cold way that I contemplated how I would punish the man waving the gun at me. He was a lackey, an employee and yet he behaved with impunity, as if he answered to no one. He was either playing a very dangerous game, or he’d been briefed on exactly what he could and couldn’t do.
Which meant this whole incident might not have taken a natural course. It meant that there was a possibility that this had been a setup, that Marsden swerving onto the road had been intended to get my attention. That he’d drawn me to the property with the express purpose of having me witness Stella’s involvement.
But did Stella kill herself or had that been Marsden setting her up, making it look to me like she’d shot herself deliberately. Now that I thought about it, it made little sense as to why she would kill herself at all. She was likely more afraid of the council than she was of the alphas. Killing herself made no sense, and her reaction when she’d seen me had done nothing to shed any light on Marsden’s actions.
I strained to watch as Justin took a step back. I was filled with the irrational fear that the gunman would hurt Justin merely for kicks. He’d gone above and beyond while beating me up, as if something within him had fueled his hatred and he’d used it to power his abuse of me. I’d been in full defensive mode, not wanting to make an awful situation even worse.
My head pounded and my ribs throbbed. I was sure I’d broken a rib, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to attempt to block out the pain. Not when I needed that pain to keep me awake. I was not going to fall unconscious and remain helpless with these men around me.
I squinted at Justin whose eyes flickered from Stella to Marsden to m
e, then on to the gunman. I could see what he was thinking. Studying the situation to see if he could take my attacker down. The muscles in Justin’s neck were tight with fury, and I knew all too well how much he hated not being in control, and especially to not be able to protect the people he loved.
For a long time, he’d hated Iain simply because my brother had failed to protect Sonia, allowing her to die in the explosion at the diner all those years ago. Sonia was Justin’s sister, the third in the trio of best friends who’d stuck together like limpets to a rock since kindergarten.
But Justin had eventually gotten over his anger and mended his fences with Iain, maintaining a more casual camaraderie which had gotten easier with time. But the look on his face now mirrored how he’d looked when he’d discovered Sonia was dead.
It did not bode well.
One thing I knew was that acting out of hotheadedness usually got a person in trouble. I glared at Justin, but though his gaze faltered he didn’t react, just looked away, refusing to acknowledge what I was trying to communicate. He was so frustrating that I was tempted to yell at him.
Only the last thing Justin needed was to be robbed of his alpha power when dealing with the asshole with the gun. The asshole who was now sneering at Justin and then at me. “One move and I’ll shoot. I don’t have a horse in this race so believe me when I say that I’ll lose no sleep offing you both right here right now. I’m here as a witness to the destruction you cause.” He pointed the gun at me. “And now the truth of what Kailin Odel, Alpha of the Panther Clan, is will finally come out.”
“What do you have against her?” Justin asked, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. He’d drawn a calm over himself, appearing more disinterested now. “Seems to me you’re pretty passionate with your fists when it comes to her.”
Stavros let out a harsh bark of laughter. He opened his mouth and then paused as he glanced at the second gunman who was still putting pressure on Marsden’s wounds, his fingers reddened with blood, the front of his black tactical unit jacket soggy and shiny.