“Oh my God,” Kat whispered.
A cold breeze whipped down the building, stirring the piles of ashes, picking the flecks up and spreading them along the snow-covered ground. Within seconds, nothing remained of them.
I returned to my human form and faced Kat. She was crouched on the ground, eyes wide. I reached down and took her hand, gently pulling her to her feet. “We need to get of here.”
Before we could head back home, I needed to destroy the evidence. I had driven the officers’ car to the woods and then fried it. Eventually, questions would be asked about them, but with no car and no…no bodies, it would be hard to link back to us.
Once we were in Kat’s house, she made herself a cup of hot chocolate, and we sat on the couch, legs crossed, facing each other. I was keeping my head empty at the moment, not letting myself really think about what I’d done back there. Not allowing myself to ask if…if killing them had been necessary, if there hadn’t been another way.
Kat’s hands tightened around her steaming cup. “Daemon…are you okay?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
She took a sip. “What was inside the building?”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I briefly closed my eyes. “There wasn’t anything in the first couple of rooms. Just empty office space, but it’s obvious the place is used a lot. There were empty coffee cups, filled ashtrays everywhere. The farther I got in, there were…cages. About ten of them; one looked like it was used recently.”
She blanched. “Do you really think they were keeping people in there?”
“Luxen? Yes. And maybe others like you.” I dropped my hands onto my legs. “One of the cages had dried blood in it. All of them had chains and manacles encased in this dark red stone I’ve never seen before.”
“I saw something outside the building, above the doors. It was shiny, looked black to me because it was dark.” Leaning to the side, she placed the cup on the coffee table “And he put something against my cheek, and God, that hurt like hell. I wonder if it was the same thing you saw.”
Anger flashed through me, turning the corners of my lips down. “How are you feeling now?”
“Perfectly fine,” she said. “Did you see anything else?”
“I didn’t have time to go upstairs, but I had this feeling that something…something was up there.” I stood, clasping my hands behind my neck. “I need to get back in there.”
“Daemon, it’s too dangerous. People are going to realize that the officers are missing. You can’t go back there.”
I whirled, facing her. “My brother could be in there, or something that will tell me where he is. I can’t just walk away because it’s too dangerous.”
“I understand that.” She rose, clenching her hands at the sides. “But what good are you to Dawson—or to Dee—if you get caught?”
I stared at her for several long moments. “I have to do something.”
“I know, but it needs to be more thought-out than any of your plans have been so far,” she pointed out. “Because you could’ve been captured tonight.”
“I’m not worried about myself, Kat.”
“Then that’s a problem!”
My eyes narrowed, and the worse possible thing came out of my mouth. “I wouldn’t have involved you in this if I knew you were going to wimp out.”
“Wimp out?” For a moment, I thought her head was going to spin. “I’m the one who involved you. I saw Bethany.”
“And I agreed to let you come with me the first time.” I ran my hand through my hair. “If you’d stayed in that car, I could’ve had time to check the floors above.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You would’ve been caught inside. I got out of the car because you didn’t respond to my text! If I’d stayed in there, we’d both be in those cages.”
Heat hit my cheekbones. What the hell was I saying? None of this was her fault, and she was right, but that didn’t change what I’d done back at that warehouse and I couldn’t just walk away from this. We’d discovered the first real link to Bethany and Dawson, and the lives I took… “Okay. Both of us are aggravated right now. We should just let it drop for tonight. Get some rest. Whatever.”
Kat stared at me a moment and then crossed her arms. “Fine.”
Grabbing my cap from the coffee table, I slipped it on. I started for the door, but my feet turned into cement. I couldn’t walk forward. The anger festering in me caused my shoulders to shudder. When I spoke, my voice was nothing more than a whisper. “I’ve never killed a human before.”
I felt Kat place her hand on my arm. “It’s okay.”
Okay? Ending a life was never okay. Killing Arum was one thing, something I’d grown used to over the years. Wasn’t easy doing it or dealing with it, but a human? No. My jaw clenched. Deep down, I knew those two men were horrible people and if they had captured Kat, they would hurt her in ways that disgusted and enraged me. The fact that they had done it before, in my opinion, had been enough reason to snuff them out.