Driver stepped heavily into the containment room, facing the bullet proof glass that separated him from his betrayer.
She stood at his approach; a shiver left her body.
They regarded each other for a moment through the thick glass.
“Did you kill Lora and our unborn child?” He asked it so clinically and controlled, like a lawyer.
Fraya watched him for a long moment, then opened her parched, bloody lips. “Yes... but I-”
Driver growled from deep within his chest and Fraya stopped with her mouth partly open. “Here's how this works: I'm going to ask you questions, and you answer them with either yes or no and nothing else until I say otherwise. Got it?”
She stared at him, the acceptance of her horrible fate so resolute now, her eyes sunk as if the light had gone out of them; as if she was already a corpse. “Yes,” she answered.
“You poisoned her with hemlock?”
Fraya gazed down at the floor and kept her eyes there throughout his questioning. “Yes.”
“You acted alone?”
She hesitated at his question.
Driver clenched his jaw, his gaze burning with regret, fury and pain. “You were ordered by someone to do it?”
“No. It was more of a test.”
“An initiation?”
“No.”
“Explain,” Driver rumbled.
“A test, not for me. But for her... he wanted me to prove she was a pureblood.”
“Or to prove she wasn't a pureblood?”
Fraya closed her eyes. “Yes.”
He stepped outside without another word.
Jaz was waiting on the other side of the solid steel door. She could see the conversation through the one-way glass; hear the words from the speakers. Now she was looking down at Njord's piece of paper. Reading it again and again.
Your sister was murdered. You suspect it, but I know it. I also know who did it. I hear on good authority you had a disagreement not so long ago.
And then the rest that after a thousand times of reading it still alluded her:
All was fuelled by the encouragement of her lover. He is the real enemy.
A few minutes later, Nik entered the room. “She confessed,” he mumbled.
“I know,” she said, eyeing his cuts, bruises and chalky pallor.
Nik gazed at her, then at the piece of paper she was staring at. “You're still not going to tell me who gave you that?”
“It doesn't matter. I believe what it says.”
“Fraya admitted to killing my child and my mate. I won't take that lightly.”
Jaz looked up, tears in her eyes. The horror of what had happened in the past twenty-four hours had shaken her to the core: Alf's disfigured face, the dying man with the gaping hole in his chest, the discovery of her sister's killer, Nik's weakened, poisoned state, her own brush with death more than once. And now the sight of Fraya as she accepted her punishment as though she welcomed it.
Jaz was severely uncomfortable by the prospect Fraya's punishment might only mean one thing: death. Seeing Fraya's surrender and acceptance of it caused Jaz to feel nothing but empathy for her. Her fury seemed to have vanished, though she knew it could easily return. She believed witnessing the deaths of the Weres in the arena had sobered her up to how cold, cutting and merciless death truly was. She didn't wish it on anyone; even Fraya.
Her words came out slow and with effort. “It says the real enemy is her lover. He pushed her to do it. You heard it yourself. So who is her lover?”
Nik hesitated. His hand lifted up to touch her arm but stopped midway. He dropped it to his side. “I can find out.”
“Ask her. If she doesn't say, ask around. Just don't do anything to her.”
“Okay. I won't.” He turned and walked away. As he left he added, “Yet.”
*
It was a shock to everyone, including Fraya, when Carr came forward.
“Please, don't do this, Nik. I love her.”
Nik gaped at him, tortured, shocked. And then in a lightning bolt of anger he cracked Carr on the side of the face.
Then Roscoe, Garth and Leif were on Carr, dragging him away into a containment cell away from Fraya. She didn't know about it until Nik strode into her cell and announced it; his expression grave and defeated.
Fraya gaped at him, her black eyes watery. “He didn't do anything.”
“He's your lover,” came his acidic reply.
“Yes. But it wasn't him, I never said-”
Nik huffed. “I don't have time for this shit! He came in and practically confessed!”
“He wanted to protect me. Please, you don't understand!”
He launched for her, stopping himself from pounding her face in when Maria's voice came over the intercom in a warning tone. “Nik. Could you come in here, please?”
He sighed, his shoulders hunched over. “This isn't over. I suggest you think really hard before you speak to me again.”
When he left the room, Arik, Maria, Erica and Jaz stood there gazing at him.
“What?” he snapped.
“Jaz has just made a good point,” Arik said.
Nik regarded her but she was looking at Fraya through the one-way glass.