Chapter 14 #2
“Okay, Maggie, now comes the fun part. I want you…” He shot glares to both Hunter and Graham. “And only you, to tell me what happened.”
I lifted myself up on my elbows and pain in both my arms and left leg tore through me. And a flash of unrelenting pressure filled my head.
“Oh—” I fell back onto the pillow, eyes slammed tight.
I swallowed against the dryness in my throat.
“I… I think we were bringing things down for the Yule party.” The words came like broken glass carving their way past my mouth.
“Hunter was helping me carry a box… and I must have lost my footing… and… I fell.”
The lie came easier the second time I told it to myself.
And even if he did—even if—what did I expect? I cursed him. I cursed all of them. Hunter was just the one who had to live in it the longest. If anyone had earned the right to shove me down a flight of stairs, it was him.
I knew it wasn’t healthy. I knew the way you knew a stove was hot—right up until you touched it anyway.
Besides—a shove wasn’t murder. Hunter wasn’t a killer. He was cursed and angry and in love with someone who’d done this to him, and that made him volatile, not dangerous. There was a difference. There had to be.
“Don’t you fucking lie to him, Max!” Graham roared, shoving Bishop aside like he was made of paper. He was in Hunter’s face, his fists clenched, his face red with fury, his entire body vibrating with a need for violence.
Bishop didn’t raise his voice. He just moved, a blur of motion, placing himself between them.
And his eyes—they were no longer just yellow; they’d gone molten gold.
The air was thick—heavy. “Officer Locke, stand down or I’ll have to ask you to leave,” he said, his voice a low growl that buzzed in my bones.
“I’m fine.” Graham angrily waved off Bishop and paced the end of the bed, clenching and unclenching his fists.
Something about Bishop’s eyes freaked me out. I agreed with Graham. He wasn’t possessed. The way they changed—a primal aggression bleeding through—like he was protecting everything and nothing at the same time.
“Let’s get this police statement out of the way,” Bishop said.
“Why do the police need a statement?” I asked, darting a look at Graham.
He lowered his voice and leaned into me. “I called it in as a domestic.”
“What?!” I sat straight up and that flash of pressure slammed into me again. “W-why?” I grimaced. “Why would you do that?”
“Max, he pushed you down the stairs.”
“Is that what happened, Mr. Devereaux?” Bishop asked, his pen hovering over the notepad.
“What—no! Never in this life.” Hunter reached out, gently gathering my hair, his thumb stroking my cheek as he stared Graham down.
“We were in a hurry. Maggie’s mom is to arrive tonight…
I grabbed a box from the storage room and came round the corner only to find Maggie—who was just as surprised to see me.
” He leaned in, placing a soft kiss on my forehead.
“She must have taken a step back—startled, obviously—but there was no floor… only the stairwell. Down she went.” He shook his head slowly, like it pained him to say it.
“Fucking unbelievable,” Graham grumbled. He crossed his arms and fell back against the wall with a thud.
I watched him hit the wall and the guilt speared through me, sharp and immediate. He’d done everything he was supposed to as a cop, as a friend, He called it in to protect me. He’d done everything right. And I just made him look like a fool in front of everyone.
Bishop finished his note with a sharp scratch of his pen. “I’ll check in on you in another twenty. Until then, lie back and rest.” Then his gaze settled on them. “Gentlemen… a word… outside.”
Graham
I could have killed that son of a bitch for lying, for touching her like he didn’t just shove her down a goddamn flight of stairs… for putting on the fake show of love and concern. And I couldn’t believe she was protecting him… after everything.
“The good news,” Bishop said, breaking me from my fantasy of destroying Hunter for hurting her. “Maggie doesn’t have any broken bones. But, as with any fall that serious, she will be pretty bruised up and needs to take it easy.”
Hunter let out a breath. “Oh, I’m so glad. That’s great news,” he said, all smiles and manufactured relief. “Thank you, mate.”
“However, she is showing signs of a mild concussion, so it is best she is watched. No hard alcohol, no recreational drugs for forty-eight hours. And she probably won’t want anything to do with it, but loud or bass-filled music will most likely make her sick.”
“The Yule party’s tomorrow…” Hunter said.
“The extra set of eyes will be a bonus.” Bishop scribbled down a note. “It’s best to fill Maggie’s mother in when she arrives.”
It took everything inside of me not to plow Hunter into the motherfucking wall, gut him, and string him in the middle of the harbor so the gulls could play tug-of-war with his entrails.
He pushed her. I knew it. Maggie was clumsy, but she wasn’t clumsy like that.
I just had no way of proving it—and that fucking killed me.