7. INTERROGATION
Jax spread the stench of rot and carrion through the Investigative Department and into the cramped interrogation room. The bland, white space was a copy-paste of the rooms where I’d met with Holland at Thorngate, minus the handcuff rail on the table. It also had a one-way mirror on the wall behind which Tobin, Vesper, and Felix sat, observing.
I shimmied out of my constricting suit jacket—mourning the chunk of my next paycheck that would go toward replacing it—and dropped into the metal folding chair beside Holland. She held her notepad and pen like a boy scout, always prepared.
The shapeshifter maintained his swagger as though he had neither a care in the world nor a thought in his brain. Arrogance and ignorance were closely related, but I couldn’t help but compare his visit to the Capitol with my own a few months back. Granted, I’d been dragged in after being caught at the scene of a crime and this was, by all accounts, a friendly chat. But did he not fear a return to prison? Or execution?
After a moment of shifting and silence—everyone settling in for what was bound to be an uncomfortable conversation—Holland spoke.
“Mister Rhodes, you were very open about your involvement with the Bloody Hex. Is that a recent development?”
Jax shook his head. He wore a black leather eyepatch now, which should have given sexy pirate vibes, but all I was getting was backwoods hunter with a big fish story about how he lost his eye. One that definitely didn’t involve a prison cafeteria and a plastic spork.
“Sorry, pretty lady, but I only wanna talk to your boy here.” He nodded at me. “That was the deal.”
Holland shook herself like a bird ruffling its feathers. “Of course. Fitch…” She slid the steno pad across the table to me, then slapped the pen down beside it. “Start at the top.”
I glanced at the lined paper where a list of questions was scrawled in blue ink.
Across the table, Jax turned up his nose. “You gonna read off that script, Fitch Farrow?” The way he savored my name made my skin itch. “Or can we discuss things like men?”
“This is not a discussion, Mister Rhodes.” Holland held up her hand. “It’s an interrogation, and there are protocols—”
“Since when are you running the Bloody Hex?” I cut in, glowering at the shapeshifter. “And why? Last I knew, you got your ass beat and were crawling away with your tail between your legs. Not exactly leader material.”
I needed to keep things vague but wanted to ensure he remembered we were members of the same organization, and that I outranked him. I’d beaten him at the recruiting rally and could make an example of him here, though I’d have to do so more subtly.
“I was ahead of my time, was all,” Jax replied. “Now, I’m right where I wanna be. Working my way up. Waiting for people to turn their backs, so I can put a knife in them.”
His sneer felt targeted, and not at the investigator beside me.
Holland jumped back in. “What do you mean ‘running the Bloody Hex?’ What about Grimm?”
Even if Jax was in charge of things in Grimm’s absence, he was at best, a figurehead. The gang’s hierarchy remained intact, and underlings like Jax were little more than pawns to be moved and sacrificed as needed.
“Where’s your fan club?” I asked him, steering the conversation away from dangerous territory. “Did they join, too?”
Jax smirked. “They’re around.”
Holland tapped her finger on the notepad. “The missing people, Fitch,” she said in a hushed voice. “Ask about them.”
“He’s new on the scene,” I replied dismissively. “Wouldn’t know about it.”
Jax narrowed his single, yellow eye. “You should ask, anyway,” he said. “Maybe I’ll surprise you.”
Holland swiveled to face the shapeshifter. “Several influential members of our society have gone missing in recent weeks. We believe it might have had to do with the vote to open the city gate. Something the Bloody Hex had a vested interest in.”
He blinked. “What’s your question?”
“Do you know anything about it?” she asked. “Have you seen or heard anything suspicious? Even rumors?”
I tried not to show my worry as Jax pinned me with a gleeful look.
“I might have,” he said. “But you’ll have to ask me nicely. And say please.”
“What are you playing at?” I barked. “If you wanna run your mouth, you don’t need my approval, but I wonder what Grimm will think when he finds out you marched your happy ass in here, begging to spill secrets.”
In the middle of my tirade, realization struck. I’d already said it. Jax was too fresh, too recent of an addition to our ranks to have gone through our dirty laundry. Even the kidnapping victims had come and gone before him.
“It’s an act, isn’t it?” My chuckle wiped the smug expression from Jax’s face. “You don’t know shit.” I passed the notepad and pen to Holland. “I told you. He’s a lackey. A nobody.”
Standing, I was ready to leave. Be done with this and hope the three investigators outside realized who this joker was and hauled him back to prison. I would have ratted him out myself, but I was happy enough to have him running things for the Hex. Better the devil you know, right?
I gripped the back of my chair, then pushed it against the table. “If you want info, you need to go higher on the food chain,” I told Holland. “Somebody with one of these.”
When I waved my Hex mark in the air, I made sure Jax got a good, long look. I was talking to Holland but glaring at the shapeshifter as I finished, “But those guys won’t tell you anything because they understand self-preservation and have some fucking common sense.”
Jax leaped to his feet and slammed both palms on the table. The sound echoed in the tiny room.
I expected him to yell or growl, so when he lunged and went cat-shaped in midair, I didn’t have the presence of mind to stop him.
He landed on top of me, knocking us both to the ground in a painful collision of paws and claws. My elbows then my head collided with the thinly carpeted floor. Everything blanked to black, and I sucked a breath, forcing my eyes open to find myself facing the open maw of the panther. Saliva roped from its jowls as it blew hot, fetid breath straight up my nose.
“Fuck off!” I snapped and shoved him with both hands and my brain. It would have flung him back if he hadn’t sunk his teeth into the skin of my left forearm.
His front fangs dug in, tearing deep gashes down past my wrist. Blood blossomed rich and red, splattering my clothes and the floor. Jax shook his massive head, and I yelped as pain spiked straight to my skull.
The door flew open, and Tobin, Vesper, and Felix barreled in.
The panther’s single yellow eye went abruptly glassy, fixed in place and unfocused. His chest, which had been heaving, stayed swollen. His mouth clamped down on my arm, flooding my brain with panic signals that redirected every other thought. I could process enough to realize what had happened, though. Time had stopped in the bubble of space above me. Jax was caught in it while the investigative team gawked.
Tobin stood beside Holland, who had her gun drawn and angled toward the big cat’s skull. I appreciated her holding her fire because a bullet at this range was likely to go through Jax and into my mangled arm. But I didn’t appreciate being locked in the jaws of the beast hellbent on detaching my hand.
“Great work, guys.” My voice wavered between measured breaths. “Now what?”
Blood dripped from my fingers into a puddle on the carpet. The wound stemming from the panther’s curved, white canines stretched from my elbow to my wrist, where he’d really dug in. Red covered everything, filling in and spilling over the trenches cut through my skin.
“Felix, get a healer in here!” someone shouted.
Holland? Or maybe Vesper.
The lucky investigator bolted out of the room.
Everyone was talking, but their words crackled like static in my brain.
“Fitch.” Holland’s voice came through. “Can you open his mouth?”
Such things were easily done with a clear head but became mammoth tasks when distractions derailed my train of thought.
I didn’t get a word in before Vesper stepped up and reached toward my face. “Let me.” She grinned in a sly way that made me immediately suspicious. “I’ve been dying to try this.”
I squirmed to evade her, but Jax’s bite prevented much struggle as the investigator’s fingers pressed against my temple. Fresh pain sparked like a wasp sting, and I grunted complaint.
Vesper withdrew. She stretched out her arms and tested her fingers as though feeling them for the first time. Her smile took on a devious slant as she said, “Damn, Farrow, you’ve got juice.”
The meaning of her words, combined with Holland’s description of her abilities, raised alarm in me. She was a magical copycat who had presumably just duplicated my telekinesis. Did access to the power give her the prowess? Or was she about to grind my forearm into a bloody pulp?
Vesper’s face pinched in concentration. The lines on her face deepened, and purple tinted her cheeks. Her hands quivered as she extended them once more with her palms pressed together. Gradually, she hinged them apart, mimicking the motion of an animal’s mouth opening.
Slowly, excruciatingly, the panther’s maw yawned wide.
I cringed away as my stomach surged. Dizziness came next, and my eyelids fluttered, threatening to close for good. I forced them open, then turned my gaze to the pool of blood spreading beneath me.
“Shhhit…” I gasped.
Vesper, in contrast to my growing dread, tittered a laugh. “Good God,” she whispered almost to herself. “ You did every bit of it, didn’t you? How could anyone stop you?”
The moment Jax’s teeth cleared the boundary of my skin, I pulled my arm to my chest and shoved backward. The movement was clumsy and sluggish, a stuttering sort of drag across the floor with little help from my uncooperative legs.
“He’s fading,” Tobin said.
I glanced aside, ready to argue, but moving my head felt like sloshing my brain in a jar full of water.
God, I was tired.
When did I get so tired?
The lights began to dim, and darkness stained the corners of my vision.
I didn’t mean to close my eyes but, when I opened them again, I was somewhere else entirely.
An IV line trailed from my arm where I lay in the white-sheeted hospital bed. Not the cat-gnawed arm. That one was wrapped in so many layers of gauze and tape that it made me look more mummy than man. Further inspection found my hand still attached, though I couldn’t feel it and didn’t dare move it. The discovery brought relief and a smug chuckle.
Rustling came from the visitor chair beside me.
“Oh, good. You’re up.”
Holland sat with her arms and legs crossed. Her scornful look warred with fleeting worry .
Vertigo lingered, challenging my efforts to orientate myself in the room. I’d had no cause to visit the Capitol healers before, but this fit my imagined view of the place. It was sterile and bright, with a window providing a view of the parking lot. An IV tree accompanied a monitor and pump with a corded remote that lay beside my unbandaged hand. Pain management. I grabbed the button and clicked it. I wasn’t uncomfortable, but I didn’t want that to change.
The bedside table boasted a Styrofoam cup and a small pitcher. Seeing them made me realize how dry my mouth was. I reached out awkwardly, dragging a tube full of crimson blood and another administering what I guessed to be saline.
Sighing, Holland stood and grabbed the pitcher, filling the cup then capping it with a lid and bendy straw. She thrust it out for me to take.
“Thanks,” I said and lipped the straw, gulping the tepid water greedily down.
People wearing pale blue scrubs bustled outside the open doorway. But in here, it was just Holland and me. We’d left the other investigators behind, and Jax, too, which reminded me…
“Did you put the furry bastard down?”
Holland returned to her seat. “He’s in a holding cell. Sedated.” She dragged her fingers down her face, holding them over her mouth and nose as she drew a breath. “Did you know he was one of the escaped convicts?”
I emptied the tiny cup, then returned it to the tray table. “He said he knew me from prison.” Shrugging prompted a dull stab of pain that sent me reaching for the button again. “I figured you could put two and two together.”
Her cupped hands muffled her voice as she replied, “Even so, it might have been an important detail to mention. Useful information.” She sat back and swatted at the air. “Why did he attack you?”
“I have something he wants.” I raised my left shoulder in a careful gesture I hoped she understood.
“All that for a status symbol?” Holland rolled her eyes. “He’s already in the gang. Running it if you’re inclined to believe that.” She scoffed, then added in a lower voice, “Which I’m not. And, if he got the mark, he’d be wearing it straight to prison. He must have known we’d arrest him for going at you like that.”
I snorted, remembering the attempted murder in Thorngate’s cafeteria. It had been bold and in broad daylight, with guards looking on. “Yeah, he’s a fucking dim bulb,” I mumbled.
Standing again, Holland opened and refilled the water cup. “You need fluids,” she explained, handing it to me.
I took it but was in less of a hurry to drink this time. Instead, I watched the investigator as she walked slowly across the room. Stopping in front of the window, she stood with her back to me and her hands on her hips.
Her face was reflected in the glass, her expression too faint to decipher. “Are you going to be a liability on this case?”
“What do you mean?”
A breath swelled her chest. “Should I be concerned about my team?” she asked. “Myself? You? ”
She’d removed her suit jacket to reveal a white silk blouse with black pin dots. Bright patches of red stained her sleeve cuffs and the hem of the shirt.
“I wasn’t prepared for our first encounter with a Bloody Hex member to end with you in a hospital bed,” she said.
I eyed her for a moment before replying, “You know what they say about gang life: blood in, blood out.”
“More like bleed out.” She shuddered.
Tentatively, I peered at my bandaged arm. Magical healing was speedy and effective, more so the faster treatment was administered. Since I had only needed to cross the building to receive medical attention, I would be put to rights in twenty-four hours or less.
“You never need to worry about me, Investigator.” I offered a sideways smirk. “I’m a scary bad guy, remember? Used to taking care of myself.”
The obvious question went unasked. What would I have done if not for Tobin stopping time and Vesper using my magic when I couldn’t? I was glad Holland didn’t press the issue. If she had, I didn’t know what I would say. Jax got the drop on me. It was surprising, embarrassing, and a little bit frightening.
My reassurance must have been enough to placate her or free her to move on to other topics because she began anew. “About what Vesper said…”
Oh, yes. The power vampire who leeched off my brain and then bragged about it. Called me out in front of everyone. Seemed to be a habit among investigators.
“This is something I need to discuss with her more than you,” Holland continued, “but it’s best we don’t spread that around. Faith in the Capitol remains tenuous. We don’t need the citizens questioning our judicial process, as well.”
It was no revelation to her. She’d seen me in action at Avery’s Wild West bank heist. Even Maximus admitted he knew the defense that had earned my second lease on life was based on mistruths.
Marionette was alive and well. A capable killer turned double agent. It was honestly satisfying to have my reputation restored. I couldn’t help but think being publicly discredited, then pressed into the service of the Capitol, was what gave a peon like Jax the idea to take a shot at me.
With him back behind bars, I felt more at ease, but he had loyal followers in Jette and York. The other Hex lackeys were no fans of mine, but they knew better than to upset the order of things by trying to murder their superiors.
Holland remained, waiting for my response.
I raised my cup-bearing hand to give a mock salute. “Got it. No bragging, no showboating,” I said. “Just call me Average Fitch.”
Her dark brows dipped below the frames of her sunglasses. “Don’t oversell it.”
“Me?” I gasped, feigning offense. “Never.”
With a nod, she left her post by the window and started toward the exit. “Take the rest of the day off. Tomorrow, too.”
“Is that the going rate for PTO?” I nibbled on the straw sticking out of my water cup. “If I died and had to be resurrected, could I get a week? ”
Holland glanced back in time to catch my grin. “Gallows humor? From what was almost your deathbed?”
I savored a long drink before replying. “Where else?”
Her lips twitched. So close to a smile. “I’m glad you’re all right,” she said. “Let’s keep the near-death experiences to a minimum from now on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She exited the room.
Leaning forward took all the energy I could muster. I set the foam cup on the table and grabbed the pain button, then let my head fall onto the flat pillow. Waiting for the blood bag to empty made for a long, boring afternoon with too much time to think. I thought of sneaking out, but someone had swapped my clothes for a thin hospital gown, and I would be conspicuous enough sneaking out of the building trailing tubes and wires like a cyborg than if I did it half-dressed.
So, I waited and tried to sleep. As exhausted as my body was, my brain was wide awake and churning. The memory of Jax pinning me to the floor and grinding his teeth against the bones of my arm proved haunting. I meant what I’d told Holland: I was used to taking care of myself. Grimm couldn’t be bothered to spare me from investigating my own crimes; I doubted he would go out of his way to stop someone from killing me in cold blood.
If I couldn’t defend my spot in the gang, then I didn’t deserve it. That was the party line. Even if that gang was feeling more and more like a cause I was fighting for rather than a group I was part of. Emptiness carved a pit in my stomach.
In the Bloody Hex and at the Capitol, I was worth as much as I had to offer, for as long as I could offer it. The moment I became too compromised, too weak, too slow, I could and would be replaced.