“Yeah, well, after I injected the werewolf, I just broke a window and jumped.”
That silence again.
Then, Eva smiled. “Who knew you were such a badass, little pixie?” But the smile didn’t really reach her eyes.
They knew I was lying to them—theyalwaysknew. And why in the world couldn’t I bring myself to tell them the truth? So what if it had to do with Dominic—it had to do withme, too.
But soon, I had to call my mom, show her that I was okay, and despite my friends’ protests, I dressed up, took my mom’s salve with me, and went with them to the office. I promised I would stay in the whole day, though, where they could all see me, but I had to know what the Chief had done. I wanted to know if he’d managed to get a search warrant on that ship, and what they’d found in it. So, by the time we made it to the office, I was a mess of nerves, even though I wasn’t hurting half as much as I did when I first woke up. Patricia’s soup and that awful dirt water had really done wonders on me, not to mention my mom’s salve. The deeper cuts in my thigh and the bite on my arm were still throbbing, the skin broken, but they weren’t bleeding anymore, at least. Everything else, all the scratches and the bruises—many more than I’d felt during the fight—had faded for the most part. They’d probably be gone completely by the next morning.
But my wounds and bruises were the least of my concerns when I finally made it to the office, only half an hour late, and went to Chief Randall’s office.
“Nothing.”
I blinked, watching his mouth to make sure he’d said the same word I thought he said.
“Excuse me, I didn’t get that.”
“Nothing,De Ver. That’s what we found—nothing.” He sat behind his desk, one hand wrapped around his chin as he watched me from under his lashes.
It got really hot suddenly. My chest was on fire. And then a second later, my limbs turned numb from the cold realization.
“They moved it.” They moved the syringes. All those cases—they moved them.
“And you know why that is, De Ver?”
I swallowed hard. The Chief’s voice was dangerously low.
“Because you blew it. You went there when you shouldn’t have, and you practically told them all we were planning to do. So, alltheyhad to do was make a big mess for a few hours, until they cleaned everything up from that ship, and then agree to a search warrant like they’re doing me afucking favor!”
“Chief,” I whispered, shaking my head, because I didn’t know what to say.
“We’re a team, De Ver. When we plan something, we see it through. We don’t break protocol. We don’t go around trying to take on the world and become heroes on our own. That is not the world we live in,” he continued, and it was actually worse that he wasn’t raising his voice at me. I couldn’t even look at him.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the lump in my throat making it really hard to breathe.
“You fucked up.”
“I know.”
“You went behind my back. You made itreallyhard for me to trust you again.”
“I swear, I was only trying to make sure we knew what we were getting ourselves into.”
“And now we do,” he said, lowering his head, his eyes on his desk.
“Are you…am I fired?” The words tasted strange in my mouth—worse than Patricia’s dirt water.
The Chief looked up at me, confused. “For fuck’s sake, De Ver,” he mumbled. “No, you’re not fired. But the next time you do something without letting me know about it first, you will be.”
Oh, God. New air slipped down my throat, filling me with life.
“Understood. I won’t mess it up again,” I promised and stood up to leave before he could kick me out.
And then thought better of it.
“So, here’s the deal. I think Crackdown is heavy fae magic, and I think it doesn’t need to be a drug at all to be functional. I think high fae can cause it on another person, too—and they have in the past, except it works a bit differently. It’spermanent.” I stopped to take a breath, and to make sure that the Chief hadn’t started laughing yet. He hadn’t, so I continued. “I think the only reason they made it into a drug is to be able to distribute it faster and also to make the effects temporary.”
“Who?” the chief asked. “Who did they do it on?”