The Problem with Promises (32 page)

A rivulet of bright Were blood snaked down Biggs’s ribs.

The copper scent spoke to my inner-wolf (prey, weakness) but it said squat to my conflicted emotions.

He inhaled sharply through his nose. “All those times you tried to change into your wolf and you couldn’t … I used to think, why her? How come Hedi can resist the moon? She’s no more pure-blooded than Brenda.” The trickle of blood—wolf and pain tinged—widened into a thin stream. “And then your brother shows up, and I find out that he can change into his wolf.”

Biggs shook his head. “And then I knew you could face the moon. Transform into your Were. You just don’t
want
to. Jesus, I hated you yesterday. When I knew that…” His tone turned venomous. “What makes you so special, Hedi? Why do you get the pass? You’re a half blood, just like Brenda, and no one’s put your name on any list.” He shook his head in self-disgust. “All those months I stood by you because I thought you were like Brenda. But you’re not like her at all.”

“Where is she?

He lifted his gaze so I could read his condemnation and resolve. “I don’t know.”

“I will hurt you, Biggs. I will do whatever is necessary.”

“You’d do it, wouldn’t you? You and Bridge—you’re no better than Mannus.”

“Neither of us is anything like him.”

“Yeah? You tell yourself that’s why you’re doing whatever it takes. Bring out the silver chains and the knife.” He lifted his chin. “Go ahead. It won’t help. I know jack.”

Merry warmed, then unfurled a long strand of ivy. She lengthened it, flattening all the articulated leaves along the strand until there was only one at the razor-sharp tip. “Shall I?” she silently asked.

I could let her torture him. She hadn’t minded turning Stuart’s cheek into ground beef. Easy-peasy. I’d stepped back and let her wring information out for me before.
When I was dodging responsibility and self-knowledge like a cokehead avoiding rehab.

Suddenly, Biggs flinched. The slug, having received one final push, tumbled to his lap. Without a word, he plucked the flattened bullet from the folds of his jeans, then flicked it into the open fire pit. Courage and stoicism—that’s something I hadn’t associated with him before.

I studied his set jaw. His expression telegraphed the desire to be noble, the determination to hold tough, the damn doggedness of the soon-to-be-martyred. He was going to push himself to the limits to protect the girl he loved. He was going to face the heartless inquisitor.

Which would be me. Hedi, the Torturer.

Goddess, he was right. I was Mannus, planning to use pain and disfigurement to get what I wanted. Mouth dry, I said to Rachel, “Get me the rifle.”

“Let me do it,” whispered Cordelia. “You don’t know how to use it.”

“I can point and shoot.” I shook my head, grimly watching Trowbridge’s sister lean into the truck to retrieve the weapon.

Just do it. When Rachel passes you the rifle, raise it to your shoulder, aim for Bigg’s thigh, and pull the trigger. Then do it again, choosing body parts—foot, hand, bicep, gut—until he breaks.

You must.

Otherwise Trowbridge will die, and then you will die.

Rachel handed me the gun. Over her shoulder, I saw Anu peering at us through the back passenger window. Her nose was flattened against the glass.

You had no problem killing Dawn when she went after Trowbridge. This isn’t much different. If you don’t have the information … And come on. He betrayed us. He texted with Knox’s girlfriend and didn’t tell us he knew her. He’s been hiding things all night. He’s still covering up. I can see it in his eyes.

The gun weighed a ton. I fit my finger into the trigger and lifted it.

“Butt braced in the shoulder,” said Cordelia. “Otherwise you’ll feel the kick.” Her voice was too controlled, too modulated. “Choose your target, then release the safety.”

Sweat rolled down my back as I picked a spot about three inches above his knee. “Brenda’s not worth it.”

“She is to me,” said Biggs.

Don’t make me do this.
“I order you as Alpha-by-proxy—”

“You going to use your flare on me?”

I only wish I could. My Fae and I? We were depleted.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, lifting his hot eyes to snare mine. “Stuff it, Hedi. Do what you think you have to.”

Bile. Up it went, burning my esophagus. Why was this so frickin’ hard? It was simple: it came down to me and mine or him. And—not to get too dramatic—the potential for the annihilation of mankind. Because if I didn’t save Trowbridge, then I’d die, and Lexi would soon wither away—taking the Old Mage with him—and bad things could drip into this world.

Meh. I don’t give a flying fig about the rest of the world.
I did, however, dread hurting my slacker friend. Because he bought me books. Because he saved me once. When the odds had been against us at the pond, Biggs had come to our rescue carrying a shotgun loaded with pellets and a gut filled with repressed resentment. The former he’d used to blow a huge hole through Stuart Scawens, the latter had added rage to his cry, “This first one was for Becci!”

I should have asked him who she was but I never had.

“Do you know where the safety is?” asked Cordelia.

“Yes, I know where is,” I said through my teeth.

This. Was. So. Unfair.

I used to be able to tick off those I called “mine” in this world on two fingers: Merry and Lou. The rest of the world’s population could drop like flies and, providing they didn’t turn into flesh-eating zombies, I wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass. But Trowbridge … damn him. He’d opened me up to feeling. Then he’d brought back my twin, the other part of my frozen heart. If only for a night, my Trowbridge had reunited us and, in so doing, had restrung the bonds between brother and sister. Making me almost whole again.

Now look at me. I had more “mines.”

Bottom line, I loved them as much as Rachel loved her daughter. How’s that for irony? She—the future Alpha’s Helicopter Mom—knew deep affection for only one person. Not her brother, not her pack, and definitely not her errant husband. While I—the former Call-Me-an-Island—now loved five. Or six. No, five now.

Harry’s dead and my hands are beginning to tremble.

I flicked Rachel a glance of loathing. She stared down at the road, her arms crossed, chin lifted so that she could graze on the scents streaming by.

Wait a minute.

“Rachel?” I called, returning my gaze to the leg I was planning to shatter. “Is Biggs telling the truth? Does he really not know where to find Brenda?”

Two “Mississippis” before she reluctantly replied. “Yes.”

“Told you.” Biggs’s voice sounded rusty.

The weapon sagged in my hands as I swung around to glare at Helicopter Mom. “And you were going to let me shoot him?”

Rachel lifted a shoulder. “There’s evasion in his scent.”

Cordelia sighed. “It’s in his body language too, Hedi,” she said reluctantly. “He’s not telling you everything he knows.”

Tell me something I didn’t know.

I swung the business end of the weapon back toward my perspiring friend. “So in all those texts you exchanged with Brenda—did you offer to be her white knight?”

Bingo. Biggs blinked.

“I’m going to aim for high on your thigh. You might want to remember that this is the first time I’ve ever pulled the trigger.” Biggs’s hand shifted to cover his privates. “Where were you going to hook up?”

Defiantly, he clamped down his lips. Though his teeth were busy. I could see them gnawing away at the inside of his cheek.

“Tell her, boy,” said Cordelia tersely.

I thumbed off the safety. “Think what Whitlock will do when he finds her. Then think what will happen when you don’t show up and she makes a run for it—where’s she going to go?”

“Make me a promise.” The pulse beat frantically at his throat. “And I’ll tell you everything.”

Promises, promises. Everybody wanted to extract one of those buggers from me. “Biggs, you know how good mine are.”

“Yeah, I do,” he answered. “Which is why I want you to give your word.”

Talk about kneecapping your opponent. “What do you want?”

“If Brenda can give you the evidence you need, give me your word that you won’t take her to the council.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, I can’t do that. I need to be loaded for bear when I face them. She’s my star witness for our defense.” And maybe soon after that, the condemned for the prosecution.

His gaze darted to Cordelia. “If we can find evidence at her home—”

“Biggs…” she said, shaking her head.

“Please,” he said, turning to me again. “You know how good I am with computers.” Now he was blinking. Rapidly. Almost as fast as words were tumbling out of his mouth. “There must be bank accounts or a client list.”

Pity swelled to do a half lap with regret. “Documentation would be a bonus. But we’d have to find it and we—”

“It will be with her,” he broke in. “She’ll give it to us.”

“Sorry, Biggs. They can say we doctored the evidence. Downloaded a file into his computer.”

“They’ll have truth sensors,” he pleaded.

“But I don’t have scent.”

“Then I’ll be your witness. I’ll tell them everything I know. About her. About the texts. About what Knox did.”

“Words, Biggs. Just—”

“I
do
have a scent and they’ll know by that I’m not lying. I’ll tell them the truth. Please, Hedi. I’ll go to the council with you and tell them everything I know. The texts. Everything I’ve seen or heard.”

“Chihuahua, they’ll execute you for betraying the pack,” said Cordelia.

“Biggs, it won’t make any difference,” I said, my wrist aching. “Without Knox she’ll run out of sun potion. When the moon calls, she’ll be alone in that forest again.”

That’s when the worst expression crossed his face. I’d hardened myself to anguish. I’d told my nose not to interpret the fox-sour scent streaming from him as fear. I’d held the gun steady on his perfectly formed thigh when my instincts were screaming, “This will ruin you.” But this? I wasn’t ready for this blank slate of a face. Or the fatalism behind his eyes.

This was the man he might not ever get the chance to grow to become. It all came down to me. Either I brought him in, or the pack dealt him justice … whatever I decided in the backyard of this forgotten house … it all fell on me.

The girl who might not grow up either.

“Not if you let me take care of her first,” he said, his voice raw. “If you let me do it—not them—she won’t be afraid. She won’t feel pain. It will be fast.”

Oh, sweet heavens. Now? Now he turns into Mr. Nobility?

“Don’t be a weakling!” said Rachel, sidling up to my shoulder. “You have him where you want him.” Her patience snapped and her voice rose to a near scream. “Shoot him! Make him tell you everything we need to know!”

“Back up and shut up.”

“He’s not important,” she insisted. “He’s just a—”

“Don’t you freakin’ say ‘pawn.’ No one’s life amounts to being a ‘pawn.’” And yet, that’s what I was making of Brenda, wasn’t I? If Trowbridge needed to gut Newland to show his strength to another Alpha, just what would the council feel required to do to showcase theirs?

Biggs said, “I swear, Hedi. I’ll die before I let you take her to them.”

“Shoot him!” Rachel screeched. “He’ll break.”

“I won’t,” he vowed.

“This is why Bridge should never have chosen you for his mate!” She was so angry I could feel her heat warming my right shoulder. “You don’t have the guts or the mentality of an Alpha!”

“I don’t need Alpha guts,” I said, steadying the rifle. “Been there, done that, and burned the postcard. Trust me. If Bridge and I walk out of that council meeting, I will bow out of pack politics. You guys can knock yourselves out fighting over boundary lines.”

“And you’ll go back to hiding in your trailer,” she said in disgust. As if that was worse than shooting someone you broke bread with.

“Haven’t you heard? I’m living in the big house now. I sleep on your mother’s side of the bed in the master bedroom. The mattress is little lumpy but I can get used to that. The thing I can’t tolerate is the wallpaper in your old room. That’s going. I want our kids to grow up with something a little more cheerful.”

“You—”

Rachel’s tirade was interrupted mid-foam by the sound of breaking glass. I turned just in time to see her do a tree fall into the fire pit. Cordelia shrugged unrepentantly and tossed the neck of the broken wine bottle to the turf. “She was boring me.”

I licked my lip. “Tell you what, Biggs. If the evidence is sufficient to stand without her, and you come along to be the witness, we’ve got a deal.” He nodded and I lowered the gun. “Where can we find Brenda?”

“She wanted to meet me in Bradford West Gwillimbury.”

“When?”

“Noon.”

And back we go—rats in a maze with no exit.

Glass tinkled on the rocks rimming the fire pit as Rachel rolled to her knees. “Robbie will never see lunch hour.” Her teeth flashed. “Neither will you.”

“You never know,” I said, baring my own pearly whites. “I might hang in till afternoon tea.”

West Gwillimbury wasn’t too far—just a few more kilometers farther south on the 400 Highway—but its population was at least ten times the size of Creemore’s. Tracking someone by their scent alone would be daunting unless we had a better fix on their location. “Where in Bradford did Brenda want to meet you?”

“At the gas station on the corner of Holland and Ten.”

Great. A public place, rife with petrol fumes.

Biggs read the dismay on my face. “But I think she might live in the town—right there in Bradford.”

Cordelia murmured, “She and twenty thousand other people.”

“Did she say she lived in Bradford?”

“No.”

At his reply, Cordelia selected another grimy bottle from the cache of empties, which she began to tap menacingly against her thigh.

“She smelled like candy!” Biggs pitched desperately.

I threw up my hands. “So? Half the time I do, too!”

“Hedi—”

“Make it fast, Biggs.” My goodwill had gone hunting.