Under the Gun

by Hannah Jayne

  Vlad’s pale head popped up from the other end of the coffee table. He was still shirtless and his hair was still a disheveled mess, possibly rivaling mine. His eyebrows went up and he nodded his head, impressed. “Cuffs. Cool. What’d you break out of?”

  I felt myself go sheepish. “Police station.”

  Nina raised an interested brow. “You and Alex getting into the harder stuff? I like. . . .”

  Vlad gagged. “Old people sex. Oh my God!”

  “Look at me! Do I look like this was part of a BDSM sexcapade? Officer Romero arrested me!”

  “What’d you do?” Vlad asked.

  “Nothing!”

  I got a double shot of vampiric “I don’t believe you” faces.

  “I may have stolen some evidence. But it was nothing to cuff me over.”

  “So how did you get out? Sampson bake a file into a chocolate cake?”

  I looked down sadly at my cuffed hand. “No. Alex came in and let me go.”

  “Seems like shoddy cop work if he left the cuff on.”

  “Long story. I have to go across the hall.”

  “Fine.” Nina flopped down on a chair I had never seen before. I don’t know how I would have missed it, as it was an enormous leather monstrosity with buttons all over the arms and our living room is the size of a bread box. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere.” She nudged Vlad with her toe, flipped a switch, and started to vibrate.

  I pointed. “When did we get that?”

  “Today,” Nina said, closing her eyes as a low hum filled the room.

  “Just like that?”

  “UPS brought it. I ordered it from QVC. It’s Heaven.” She cracked open an eye. “Or at least as close to Heaven as I’ll ever get.”

  “Wha—” I was going to say something; I figured I should since our house had gone from Ikea chic to the showroom at the crap factory. Open boxes were scattered everywhere, strips of bubble wrap popping out. We had a massage chair and a hibachi, and our tasteful, minimalist tchotchkes were being strangled by an army of fat cherubs, pig-tailed milkmaids, and crystal(ish) animals with numbered certificates of authenticity.

  But my shoulder ached, my scissor stab wound stung and my eyes went to the videotapes stashed in my shoulder bag.

  I could only tackle one crisis at a time.

  My stomach and my heart fluttered as I stood outside Will’s door for what seemed like the umpteenth time. I licked my lips and then rapped on his door, feeling the sweat break out along my upper lip.

  There was no answer.

  I tried again, then paused, waited. Finally, I rolled up on my tiptoes and felt along the top of the door frame. I felt no pleasure when my fingers fumbled across the spare key that even Will didn’t know was still there.

  There was nothing in Will’s apartment that would signify that Sampson was even there.

  And tonight, it seemed, he wasn’t.

  Will’s array of lawn furniture and video games was still artfully arranged. The teal chintz curtains left over from the last owner looked ridiculous and out of place in the half-empty apartment, but oddly seemed to match the cross-stitched Home Sweet Home pillow that warmed up the plastic chaise longue.

  The kitchen counters were bare and a single glass glittered in the drying rack. Nothing to signify that Sampson had stayed here at all—nothing to signify that anyone had. I swallowed down a lump of fear and headed for the bedroom, hoping that there would be something there—something to prove to me that my trust wasn’t misguided, that Sampson was spending his evenings reading Tuesdays with Morrie rather than taking out his werewolf urges on innocent San Franciscans.

  “Come on, Sampson,” I muttered to myself as I poked around the pristine room. “Prove me right.”

  “Soph?”

  I spun and Sampson was behind me, dark hair dripping wet, bare chest exposed. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and I was all at once hit with the heavy scent of Will’s soap—plus a heap of guilt, angst, and inappropriate naked-man attraction.

  “Oh, Mr. Sampson.” I looked at him, felt the hot blush wash my cheeks, and then looked at the floor. “Sorry to catch you . . . naked.”

  “You okay?”

  “Can you put some pants on?”

  I waited in the living room, doing my best to make myself comfortable in Will’s lawn chair—it was one of those old-fashioned numbers that squeezed every bit of your thigh and butt fat through its plastic slats. I was relieved when Sampson walked out, fully dressed, fairly certain that five minutes more of squirming in that stupid chair and I would be cursed with permanent slat butt.

  “Sorry about that,” Sampson said, taking the chair across from me. “I didn’t expect you.”

  “I knocked,” I said in a feeble attempt to explain myself and the obvious. “You didn’t answer so I let myself in.”

  Mr. Sampson’s smile was easy, trusting—like a knife in my heart. “I’m sure you had good reason. What’s going on?”

  Good reason. Yes, I wanted to say. My good reason is that suddenly, after all you’ve done for me, I don’t trust you. I think you’re lying.

  I cleared my throat, then looked at my hands in my lap. “Mr. Sampson—” I hadn’t planned out a speech in my head. I hadn’t planned anything out, but it didn’t seem to matter anyway, because all the words I wanted to say were stuck behind my teeth.

  Sampson chuckled and his eyes crinkled. He leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, and if he wasn’t in a lawn chair, he wasn’t a werewolf, and I wasn’t about to accuse him of murder, he’d look like a very Norman Rockwell father, about to bite the end of a fat cigar.

  I licked my lips and pushed the words out. “Do you know Tia Shively?”

  “The woman who was murdered in Pacific Heights?”

  He said it. He knew.

  I felt all the color drain from my face. I felt my whole body congeal into a quivering mass of terror and despair. Pete Sampson. My Pete Sampson. A murderer.

  “I read about her in the paper this morning.” He plucked the folded paper from the floor and offered it to me. I recoiled as if he were offering me a snake.

  “I need to show you something.”

  “What is it?”

  I fished the tapes from my shoulder bag and approached Will’s mammoth wall of electronics, feeding the tape into the dusty VCR.

  “We’re watching a movie?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I took the remote, aimed it toward the television and pushed play.

  “Sophie, I—oh my God. Where did you get this?”

  “It’s security footage from the Pacific Heights crime scene.” And then, slowly, “It is—was—Tia Shively.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek while I watched Sampson watching the videotape. He flinched when the “wolf ” crashed through the door and his eyes widened when Tia Shively was snatched up. But other than two tiny reactions, there was nothing else; no indication that he was—or wasn’t—familiar with what was going on. I couldn’t watch the screen myself, but I could tell by the silvery flashes reflected back what was going on.

  I pressed PAUSE.

  “Did you know her?” I whispered. “Was that you—changed—in the videotape?”

  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 disapp
ear 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!”