This could’ve ended so differently. My stomach turns, and I slam my eyes closed to keep from puking like a little bitch. What the hell happened to me? My fingers flex again against Trix’s neck. She’s here. Alive. That’s what matters.
My muscles calm and I move to sit up. Pain slices through my arm, but it dies quickly when I study my surroundings. “Holy shit!”
Helicopters and SWAT teams litter the once-dark desert floor. I scan the area, able to make out faces that are now illuminated as spotlights shine on every space.
Jonah helps a man to his feet, only to hand him over to be cuffed. Blake’s arms are crossed over his chest while he’s deep in conversation with a guy who looks completely out of place in a suit and tie. I search for Rex, but can’t find him. Fuck! My stomach lurches again and I push up further. “Come on. Where is he?”
Trix’s grips my forearm. “Who?”
My eyes continue to survey. “Rex. I . . . if anything happened to him . . .” Dammit, he has to be okay.
“There!” She points over my shoulder to a cop leading Rex away in handcuffs.
I push to stand, but fire stabs through my arms and my side. I groan and drop back to my ass.
“Mase . . . you’re hurt.” Her hands move over me in tentative touches, but I can’t take my eyes of Rex, who’s being loaded into the back of a van.
“Sorry, man.” A SWAT guy dressed in black tactical gear steps in front of me. “We had to tase you.”
“Why is my friend being arrested?” I motion toward the van whose doors just slammed shut.
“Looks like you’ve got some injuries.” The cop studies my arms and torso.
I tilt my chin and see multiple puncture wounds in my arm. Eli, that fucking asshole. “Why is Rex being arrested?”
The cop swings his gaze to the bloody heap of a man at my side then to another mound of blood and body across the way before turning back to me. “I’m afraid you and your friend have some explaining to do.”
I didn’t have to hear him say the words to know what we’d done.
Elijah and Hatch are dead.
Thirty-eight
Trix
Everything is so fucked up.
While I’m sitting in a hospital waiting room, unable to see Mason, who’s in a hospital exam room guarded by cops, Rex is at the police station. They’ve both been arrested for murder, but Mason’s stab wounds had to be attended to before—I take a shaky breath—before they take him to jail.
I’ve answered all the questions and given them all the information I have, everything from the night Svetlana was murdered until now. They know the truth, and even though they see me suffering for answers, they’ve given me none.
The door to Mason’s room opens, and Detective Hodgeson, the man who questioned me both at the scene and again here at the hospital, strolls out. His eyes latch on mine, and he waves off the cops who are with him. They nod and leave, and he heads over to take the seat next to mine.
I shift and wipe my palms on the fresh scrubs they gave me when I arrived. I was able to clean up a little in the bathroom, washing the blood and dirt from my arms and face, but the smell of death still lingers on my skin.
“Miss Langley.” With his dark hair and kind eyes, he smiles at me so sweetly that I almost cry.
No, hold back. I have to be strong for Mason.
“Is he okay?” I fist my hands in my lap.
He nods. “He’s fine. He’ll be sore, and I’m pretty sure they lost count of how many stitches he got, but he’ll be okay. Luckily, the knife missed all his vital organs.”
I exhale and my shoulders droop. “Oh, thank God.”
“You were very brave tonight.” The edge of anger tinges his words. “Things could’ve gone differently if we’d had better intel.” He shakes his head.
From what I understand, Jonah and Blake called the cops, and if they’d been even five minutes later . . . A shiver slithers up my spine. Detective Hodgeson’s words finally sink into my sleep-deprived and traumatized brain. “Wait . . . intel? What do you mean?”
He tilts his head, studying me. “I think you need to talk to Mr. Mahoney.”
I jerk my gaze from him to Mason’s hospital room door. “What? Can I? I mean they said I couldn’t.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “I think it’s okay. I’ll need to talk to the DA, but something tells me charges won’t be filed. Everything else you need to know you should probably hear from him.”
Taking that as permission, I shoot to my feet and move toward the door. His chuckle makes me pause, and I realize I was rude not to thank him. “Thank you,” I call over my shoulder then speed walk through the door that the guards had opened for me.