Tone wry, River said, “Then you haven’t met the right people.”
Camilla cleared her throat. Neither boy displayed an ounce of surprise as they glanced over at us, proving they’d never lost awareness of their surroundings.
I smiled at Cole, and he smiled back, the air between us crackling with electricity. There’d always been an undeniable awareness between us, like calling to like.
“Well. This isn’t awkward at all,” River quipped.
Cole waved me over; I walked to him, wanting to tell him about the papers, and when we were alone, I would, but I wasn’t sure what to say about Helen. If she was, in fact, helping me, I couldn’t allow him to discount the papers just because she’d been the one to point them out.
What a mess.
He tugged me beside him and anchored his arm around my shoulders. Once again his warmth enveloped me, and this time, it was like a drug. I had to fight the urge to lean closer...closer... Heck, why not just climb into his lap?
Camilla moved behind River, forgoing the empty chair and choosing to stand. She was unwilling to give up the advantage of height, I was sure, because she so rarely had it.
“So,” I said, taking over the conversation, “what do you know about our friend Justin?” Camilla and Stocky had mentioned River had some inside info.
“She’s all business, this one.” River grinned at Cole. “I like that.”
“Justin,” Cole prompted.
Leaning back in his chair, River sipped at a glass of amber liquid. Something alcoholic, judging by the potent scent. “I have spies inside Anima, and while they didn’t know what the powers that be were planning, they knew something big was about to go down. We’ve been watching their warehouses.”
Plural. Not singular. “We will want the address of every warehouse you know about.”
He nodded. “Of course. But they’ve already been emptied out. All of them, not just the one you checked out.”
So agreeable now. He’d want something in return, guaranteed.
“You should have given me a heads-up,” Cole said.
“Would you have given me a heads-up?” River asked, brows lifted.
“No,” Cole admitted. “But that’s something we should change, isn’t it.” A statement, not a question. “We’re on the same side of this war.”
River blinked in astonishment. He’d clearly thought Cole would be unreasonable. “Over the past week, activity increased at all four warehouses, but we saw nothing else out of the ordinary. Until two nights ago.”
I tensed, not really wanting to hear the gory details of Collins’s death, but knowing I needed to. We needed to.
Cole was as tense as I was.
“They brought in the guy with the shaved head first,” River began.
“Collins,” I whispered.
“Where were you, that you saw this?” Cole asked.
I blinked back tears.
“In the rafters,” River said.
I pictured the warehouse, looking at it through the eyes of memory. The ceiling...had thick wooden rafters, I realized.
“They took him to the center of the warehouse,” the slayer continued, his tone grimmer by the second, “and forced him to his knees. The other one, the dark-haired one, arrived a few minutes later. He was so drugged he couldn’t stand, so they dumped him beside the other guy—Collins, you called him.”
Stay strong.
“The Anima men talked amongst themselves for a bit. They decided they only needed one slayer.” It was like River flipped some sort of switch. One second he was animated and the next he was utterly emotionless. “They took out a gun and shot your boy point-blank, then dumped him in a hole in the ground. I’m sorry.”
Cole sucked in a breath.
I knew he’d been picturing everything River explained; I knew, because I’d been doing the same thing. We would forever have a mental video of Collins jerking from the force of the bullet. Gray matter exploding through a hole in the back of his head. He collapsed to the floor.
No wonder there’d been sand. They’d used it to absorb the blood.
What a cruel and horrific death. Wrong on every level.
My nails bit into my thighs. I wished I could comfort Cole, but I couldn’t even comfort myself. It took every ounce of strength I had not to curl into a ball and sob.
“They loaded the dark-haired boy in a car and drove off,” River said. “I had a slayer on the road, waiting, and he followed, but I haven’t heard from him since. A few of my guys are out looking for him.”
As much as I hated to think it...River’s guy was probably dead. Otherwise, he would have checked in.
“We’ll want to know the moment he’s found,” Cole said.
“Of course.” There was a pause before River added, “But I’ll expect something in return.”
Cole nodded, flipping the same switch, going emotionless.