“That’s it. We’re going to die here.”
The news cut from the in-studio view to a sweeping picture of Pacific Heights, zooming in on the yellow-taped house Alex and I had visited earlier. My stomach sunk and guilt weighed my shoulders down.
“How was your day?” Nina said without opening her eyes.
I thought of Dixon, of the zombies, of my blow-out with Alex. I thought of the way he’d told me that I was betraying the Underworld as my eyes shot over Nina and Vlad, looking so listless, so helpless. I swallowed hard. “Not over,” I said softly.
Chapter Ten
I sucked in a sharp breath before knocking on Will’s door. I heard Sampson moving about inside, then his gruff voice.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me,” I said. “Open up.”
Sampson pulled the door open two inches and stared me down, as if trying to make sure it was really me. “Hi there, come on in.”
I went straight for one of Will’s lawn chairs and sat down prissily, kneading my palm in my hand.
“Everything okay, Sophie?”
I looked up, then swiped the hat from my head and watched Sampson’s eyes bulge. “Oh. Did you—mean to do that?”
“Courtesy of Mort,” I said.
Sampson clamped a hand over his mouth. “Oh, Sophie, I’m so sorry.”
“But that’s not why I’m here.”
Sampson sat across from me. “Did you find something out? Did you hear something?”
“Oh, I heard something all right. Is there something you want to tell me, Sampson?”
The openness in Mr. Sampson’s eyes struck me, and I wasn’t sure if he was good at looking innocent, or I was bad at reading faces. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Alex and I were in North Beach tonight.”
Sampson’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? Anything interesting?”
I narrowed my eyes and leaned in, trying again to read his expression. “There was a zombie pub crawl.”
He smiled.
“And a werewolf.”
All the color drained from Mr. Sampson’s face. His mouth fell open just slightly, his eyes widening. “Excuse me?”
“A werewolf.”
“Sophie, you—” He paused, seemed to regather his thoughts. “You don’t think it was me, do you?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore, Sampson.”
He stood up. “I should go.”
“No!” I jumped up so quickly my lawn chair flopped to the ground. “No. You shouldn’t go. Every time something gets sticky, you try and leave. What you need to do is sit down and tell me the truth.” I don’t know where my sudden burst of bravado was coming from, but even as Sampson looked up at me, his dark eyes challenging, I couldn’t consider backing down.
I wouldn’t.
Sampson’s expression softened and he looked at me as if considering. I watched his chest rise and fall as he sucked in a long breath and blew it out, one hand on his head, thumb massaging his temple. “I should have known this would happen.”
“You should have known what would happen?”
He swallowed, and I saw the sympathy in his eyes. “I didn’t want to come here. And I never would have if there had been any other way.”
“What are you talking about?”
He righted my chair, then gestured to it. “Sophie, sit down.”
I did as I was told, clasping my hands on my knees. “You need to tell me everything. This wolf was in North Beach and there were hundreds of people around.”
“I really thought I could end this.” He raked a hand through his hair and looked away from me, the bright earnestness in his eyes gone, strangled out by something I knew far too well: secrets.
There was a mammoth silence; the kind of silence that speaks volumes and fills a room with so many ifs and maybes and what-ifs that they buzz like a swarm of bees, until the air goes electric, the pressure smothering.
“Why did you come here? Why now? You really could have cleared yourself at any time.”
Another deep, shaky breath.
“I do want to stop running. I do want to face down the werewolf hunters and get my life back. But . . .”
“But?”
“But the timing isn’t exactly my own. Remember when I told you about the den in Alaska?”
I nodded.
“When I got back, everyone I cared about was dead. It was horrible. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life, Sophie, in both of my lives, but nothing like this. The hate, the destruction that these people faced—it was overwhelming and it was all because of me.”
“No, Sampson, it wasn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “You didn’t do it. It was—”
“I know who it was, Sophie.” Sampson’s eyes flashed like raw steel. “And so does Nicco.”
“Nicco? Who’s—”
“He was part of the brood. Like a son to me.” The sadness in his voice was compelling, and I thought I saw his eyes begin to mist.
“I’m sorry. Losing him must have been awful for you.”
“I didn’t lose him. He survived. He was gone when they attacked. This”—Sampson rubbed the tip of his index finger over the silvery scar that crossed his eyebrow—“was what he did when he found the bodies.”