Kate Brian - Endless

“Come with you where?” he demanded. His gaze darted to Joaquin’s face, then Fisher’s, then Kevin’s, as if he was studiously memorizing every detail. “Are we under arrest? We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“We just want to ask you a few questions,” Dorn said firmly.

“So ask,” Selma said.

Dorn glanced over at us, and at the man in the bathrobe, then toward the stairs leading up, where who knew how many people were listening.

“We’d rather do it over at the station.” Dorn reached for Sebastian, and in a blink Sebastian lunged at him, slamming the much bigger Dorn back against the staircase wall behind him. I flinched and Selma screamed. Almost instantly, Dorn got Sebastian in a headlock and wrestled him face-first to the floor. Liam craned his neck past me to get a better look at the action.

“That was a bad idea,” Dorn said in Sebastian’s ear. “Now you’re under arrest for assaulting a police officer.” I heard the cuffs click around his wrists without ever seeing Dorn take them off his belt. The guy was good.

“Sebastian!” Selma cried. “Are you okay?”

“Get the girl,” Dorn growled at Joaquin as he dragged Sebastian to his feet. His face was red and his cheeks quivered. He was angry, maybe even embarrassed, that Sebastian had gotten the better of him, even for that one second.

More doors opened and a crowd started to gather. Joaquin made a move toward Selma, but she flinched back. I grabbed his arm.

“Let me try,” I said.

He raised his hands. “All yours.”

I took a deep breath and approached Selma. Without her brother by her side, she looked scared. Angry, but also scared. She eyed me cautiously, and I turned my palms out in an apologetic way.

“Look, if you just come with us willingly, everything will be fine,” I said. As long as you aren’t the one who hauled my family off to hell , I added silently.

“Yeah, right. Your ape of a cop just mauled my brother,” she snapped.

“Your brother attacked a police officer,” I shot back, frustration niggling at my nerves. “But if you agree to answer our questions, I’m sure they’ll let him off with a warning.”

Selma leaned out of the apartment doorway when she heard the police car’s door slam. Her hand covered her mouth. I could see how much she wanted to be with him, and recalled from my flashes of Sebastian’s life the depth of emotion they felt toward each other.

“Do you want to go with your brother, or do you want to stay here?” I asked. “Alone.”

“I’ll come,” she snapped, grabbing her bag from just inside. “You got any lawyers in this town?”

I shot a glance at Bea, Liam, and Krista as Selma stormed out the door. The twins were not about to make anything easy.

“You guys good?” Joaquin asked as Dorn loaded Selma into the backseat of his car next to her brother. Bea, Krista, Liam, and I were supposed to stay behind to search the Tses’ room for more coins, or anything else suspicious.

I glanced back at the apartment. “We’ll get it done as fast as we—”

Suddenly, a crackle of static cut me off. Grantz’s voice boomed through the speakers on our walkie-talkies.

“Be advised, Pete Sweeney has been located. We’re transporting him to the station now. Over.”

My eyes widened as I looked at Joaquin. “He’s alive.”

“This is a good thing, right?” Liam said.

I zipped up my jacket. “I’m going over there.”

“I’ll come with you,” Joaquin offered.

“No. No way.” Dorn was standing in the doorway now, practically filling up the space. “I need you and Fisher here with me.”

“It’s okay. I can go by myself,” I said.

“No. You can’t. Nobody goes anywhere alone anymore, remember?” Joaquin said, briefly cupping my face with his hand. I felt everyone staring at us—at that brief moment of intimacy—and my skin burned.

“I’ll go!” Krista and Liam offered at once.

“You,” Joaquin said, pointing at Liam. “You go with Rory. Bea and Krista, search the room.”

Krista’s eyes filled with worry. It was nice to have someone around who cared about me that much. My friends back home were really more casual acquaintances—people I studied with or ran track with. But Krista had become more than that. She’d become like a second sister. Unfortunately, right now all I could think about was getting my real sister back.

Krista looked at Joaquin. “But Rory might need—“

“Just do it, Krista,” Joaquin ordered.

Her shoulders slumped. “Fine.”

“Come on,” I said to Liam. “We’re wasting time.”

On my way out the door, Joaquin grabbed my wrist and turned me to him. I could feel the excitement, the anticipation, coming off him in waves. “You radio me the second you find out what’s going on,” he said, glancing at the twins, who sat whispering in the back of the cruiser. “By the end of the night, one of these people is going to talk. We’re gonna get them back, Rory.”

His energy was contagious, and for the first time in days, hope filled my heart. I nodded. “We’re gonna get them back.”

“He’s unconscious?” I said, standing in the stiflingly hot and humid hallway outside the prison area in the basement of the police station. Chief Grantz was drenched with rain and smelled of pungent sweat. Heavy bags settled under his eyes like water balloons. His dark blue vinyl JLPD jacket had a long tear up one arm, and mud covered his black boots, soaking the hem of his police-issue pants as well.

“Yep,” he said, wiping his face with a rag. “We found him at the foot of the wall at the cove. Looks like he slipped and knocked himself out.”

“You could have maybe said that on the walkie-talkie,” Liam said.

Grantz shot him a beady-eyed look. The man seemed as if he were one sarcastic remark away from a meltdown. “Teresa’s in there with him now, assessing him. You can go in if you want.”

I nodded and he opened the door for us. There were two very tiny cells with bars comprising their front walls and the walls between them. Goose bumps popped up on my arms, and I shivered as I moved aside to let Liam in behind me.

Pete was laid out on the cot in the first cell, blankets piled over him. His face was turned to the side, away from us, but I could see most of his cheek, chin, and one ear. He looked fine, just a bit pale. At least his skull was intact.

Why couldn’t we just find someone who was conscious for a change?

Teresa, a woman of about forty with short graying hair, knelt next to the cot holding Pete’s wrist between her fingers. She looked up as we came in and placed his arm gently down on the bed. My teeth clenched as I tried to fight back my vindictive side—the side that felt that Pete didn’t deserve such care when he was the one who had taken Nadia’s and Cori’s lives, who had rendered Tristan unconscious.

“How is he?” I asked.

Teresa stood up and sighed. “Vitals are fine, but he’s out cold. Only time will tell.”

“Do you have any idea when he’s gonna wake up?” Liam asked, pushing his hands into his pockets.

Teresa opened the cell door with a clang and slipped out. “Unfortunately, no. But it’s not as bad as what Tristan suffered. I’d say a few hours maybe? At most a day or two.”

A day or two. I thought of my dad and Darcy and squeezed my eyes closed as a wave of despair crashed over me. Every hour, every minute that they were in the Shadowlands was too long.

“You’re Liam, right?” Teresa said, lifting her chin. “The mayor told me it was your idea to check Cori’s lungs. Good call. I did a rudimentary autopsy, and they were full of salt water. Turned out she did drown.”