The officer jotted down some notes then turned to me. "Can you tell me what happened?"
I swallowed hard. I had no idea what to say. Without discussing harpies, what possible reason could I have for cutting off a young girl's fingers?
"I can tell you what happened." Mim's voice cut into the awkward silence.
As I lifted my head, I saw her walking toward us, her hand wrapped in white bandages, her arm in a sling. The rest of the pack jumped to their feet and I about knocked over my chair trying to get to her. "Are you okay?" I croaked, wrapping an arm around her and tilting her face upward. I couldn't look at her bandaged hand.
She nodded and continued her explanation, although it was clear to the rest of us that she wanted the cop to think she was a bit of an airhead. "We were exploring the back roads east of Limon and saw an old barn off in the middle of a field. I insisted on exploring it. Dare tried to talk me out of it since it seemed to be on private property but I wouldn't listen. So we parked on the side of the road and took off across the fields. When we reached the barn, the wooden door was a lot bigger than it looked from the road. It was really heavy and we had trouble when we tried to open it. It swung back and closed on my fingers. While I was screaming my head off, my boyfriend got his knife out and tried to pry the door open a few inches. But his knife slipped…"
She looked up at me, probably expecting me to back up her story. But I was stuck a few words back. She'd called me her boyfriend. Her boyfriend. True, she was putting on a dumb act for the policeman…but still. She called me her boyfriend. In the end, I wasn't much help. Fortunately, the pack covered for me.
Havoc fell heavily into a plastic chair. "I think I'm going to faint," he moaned and covered his eyes with his hand.
The officer glanced briefly at my brother and shook his head like he thought Havoc should man-up. "You didn't think to bring the fingers along?" he questioned me.
I felt the blood drain from my face. "F-fingers?" I croaked.
"Yeah," he said, like he was talking about a sleeve torn from a shirt. "If you'd brought them with you, the doctors here could have sewn them back on."
I stared at him and tried to decide if he was making some kind of sick joke. I didn't know they could do that nowadays! 'Course the cop didn't know the fingers had turned to stone. "It didn't occur to me to bring them," I answered faintly.
Havoc let out another moan. This one might have been real. A chopped off limb was one thing; we were used to things like that. But reattached fingers conjured up visions of a monstrous Frankenstein girl, roughly stitched together from spare parts. The idea was way gross to a bunch of twenty-first century rookies like us.
"He was probably in shock," MacKenzie suggested as I sank into my chair again and Mim took a seat beside me.
Sadly, the cop didn't find that too hard to believe. By that time, I think he'd probably decided that Brits aren't very tough. After a few more questions, he told us to stay put as he tucked his hat under his arm and strolled over toward the pretty receptionist.
"What do you think?" he muttered from the side of his mouth, not realizing that we'd be able to listen in on his conversation.
The receptionist shook her head. "I've seen a lot of abuse in my time, Rick, and this isn't it." She gestured in our direction. "I mean, look at them. Those two kids are absolutely devoted to each other. That poor boy was as white as a sheet when he brought her in. And shaking like a leaf."
He nodded as if he was satisfied. "If you'll contact her parents or guardian, I'll just have a word with the doctor before I let them go."
Except for MacKenzie and Mim, who hadn't heard the conversation, we all let out a collective sigh of relief. The policeman probably heard us. At least, he turned to give us a sharp look while we all held our breath again. But the receptionist diverted his attention when she said, "That driver dropped in here the other day, just to say thanks."
I started to tune out their private conversation then realized they were talking about a driver who worked for the same shipping company that MacKenzie's father used.
"He ought to be thankful," chuckled the cop. "I don't know how he didn't die in that fire. I don't know how he was thrown twenty feet and survived!"
"Me neither," she agreed, twisting her hair around her finger and looking up at him through her eyelashes. "Especially since he insists he was wearing his seatbelt."
"Maybe he was in a daze. Maybe he undid his seatbelt and wandered away without remembering any of it," the cop suggested, resting his elbow on the high counter and smiling down at her.
"Maybe," the receptionist mused as she held his gaze. "But he's still sticking to his story."
"Well, miracles happen," the cop allowed. "In our line of business, we've all seen them before."
"Yeah, but it might be the first miracle that involved an angel," she noted with a dry burst of laughter.
The policeman chuckled. "I wouldn't mind meeting one of those angels."
"Even if it was a guy?" she challenged him with another laugh. "With black wings?"
"A guy angel with black wings? Sounds more like the caped crusader to me, but I guess you can't be picky when you're getting your life saved."
An angel with black wings.
Rocked by the statement, I leaned forward in my seat and exchanged a careful look with the others.
"What?" MacKenzie whispered while Mim questioned me with her gaze. "What's going on?"
While Valor quietly told Mim and MacKenzie what we'd overheard, a young doctor appeared behind the counter. After he'd shared his report with the cop, the officer seemed satisfied that no crime had been committed. He set his hat back on his head and told us we were free to leave.
"Good night, Tessa," he said, his deep voice echoing in the empty room as he pushed away from the counter and backed toward the exit.
"G'nite," she called out wistfully, as if she was going to miss his company in the quiet emergency room.
As the glass doors closed behind the police officer, Defiance got up and strolled over to talk to the receptionist. The lonely young woman seemed more than happy to tell him the entire story of the van driver who'd escaped a bad wreck with nothing more than a few deep scratches. Evidently, he claimed that an angel—complete with wide black wings—had plucked him from the burning vehicle and carried him to safety.
It was obviously one of our missing gargoyles. We didn't know which one, and we didn't know where he was. But at least we knew that one of our kin had survived the accident. And if one of them had survived, there was reason to think the others were alive too.
While we whispered among ourselves, the receptionist got a hold of Mim's mom. Of course, she couldn't drive out to Hugo to pick up her daughter because Mim had her car, so she gave the hospital permission to let her leave with MacKenzie.
Outside in the hospital's dark parking lot, I just wanted to get out of town right away. But Defiance made sure both the girls had as much protection as possible for the trip back home. He assigned Havoc to drive with Mim and me while he went with Valor and Mac in the Jeep.
"Are you guys hungry?" Defiance asked. "Do you want to stop for something to eat?"
The very idea of food made my stomach lurch. I shook my head and looked at Mim.
"I just want to get back home," she said softly.
"Keep him talking," Defiance told my brother as his gaze flicked in my direction.
"Don't worry," Havoc assured him while I got Mim settled in the back seat. "We'll be okay."
The hospital had given Mim something for pain and she dozed all the way back to Pine Grove. As we traveled toward the foothills, Havoc tried to keep me talking about random stuff but my mind kept returning to what had happened in the barn. "Could I have done anything differently?" I asked him. "Could I have saved Mim's fingers?"
Havoc shook his head and gave up trying to control the conversation. "I don't know," he answered. "Did you kill the harpy?"
I thought of the harpy back in the barn, turned permanen
tly to solid granite with my short dagger fixed in her throat forever. "She pushed Mim from the loft. If I hadn't caught her, she'd have broken her neck in the fall. Aye, I killed her."
"Good," he muttered darkly. After a few quiet moments, he added, "I hope the farm belongs to the waitress from the restaurant."
"Why's that?"
"Because, if she finds the statue, she'll know she wasn't crazy when she saw the harpy on her way home that night."
"That's about all she'll know," I pointed out soberly. "If she tries to show the statue to anyone else, she'll never convince them that she didn't have it made to prove her story."
"Did you see any sign of Chaos and the others before you had to turn back?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I hadn't searched more than a half mile around the crash site when I realized we were in trouble. Did I tell you there were more?"
"More?" he asked apprehensively, as I followed Valor's red taillights down the highway. "More what?"
"More harpies. Nitschka claimed she wasn't alone when she followed the shipping van from St. Louis."
"That blows," he muttered.
"You're telling me," I grunted. "I hope our cousins are okay."
"I hope so, too," he agreed in a low voice.
We pulled off the highway at Pine Grove and drove another half mile to Mim's house. The headlights were still burning on the garage doors when her mother burst through the front door. She swooped down on us as I was helping Mim from the car. I was just about sick with apprehension as I held her elbow and supported her weight. I wished I could have met her mother under better circumstances. But I'd just cut off her daughter's fingers. As far as first impressions go, it was pretty much an epic fail.
"What happened?" she demanded as she pulled her daughter into a careful hug. Her accusatory stare burned up at me. Despite the painful tension, I couldn't help but notice how much Mim looked like her mother. Her mom was taller and slimmer but she had the same loose, dark curls and the same pretty violet eyes.
"Mom, don't freak," Mim insisted as MacKenzie and Valor reached us after parking on the street a few yards away. "I can explain everything."
"Let's get you inside," her mother cut in without even saying hello to MacKenzie. "And let these kids go home. It's late."
MacKenzie's expression was troubled as she watched Mim herded toward the front door.
"She's just worried about Mim," Valor soothed, making excuses for the way Mim's mom had acted.
"I know," MacKenzie answered but she still looked worried.
I was worried too. I was worried about Mim and if she'd be okay and if she'd ever want to see me again. And if her mother would ever let me see her again. I wondered if Mim had shared her earlier suspicions about us with her mother. If so, then her mom had to be in high-distrust mode at this point. Not that we didn't deserve her mother's bad opinion. In the end, Mim had been right. I was dangerous. I'd almost killed her.
Sadly, I thought it was safe to assume that Mim's mom wouldn't want us as renters. At least, not anytime soon. And that meant we were back to having-no-place-to-go when Mac's mother returned home in a week's time.
It was almost midnight when we drove up to MacKenzie's place. Havoc fixed some quick sandwiches while we brought Victor up to date on the mission and what we'd learned from the receptionist at the hospital. As Defiance cleared away the plates, Havoc told the pack about the harpy's claim that she wasn't alone when she first reached Limon.
"She had sisters?" Victor questioned uneasily. "Any idea…how many?"
Havoc checked my face and shook his head. "Nay, but I think we have to assume there were at least two. Maybe more. And that Nitschka's sisters followed Chaos, Force and Courage."
And that meant my cousins were in danger.
At the end of the day, I felt like we hadn't made much progress, despite our work and our plans. I had seriously wounded Mim. Reason was still trapped in his stone form. Chaos, Force and Courage were still missing and—to top it all off—they probably had harpies on their trail.
Chapter Sixteen
I managed to keep it together until the last of my family went up to bed. Then the shock of what I'd done hit me like a bridge falling on me. I kept reliving the moment when I cut off Mim's fingers, the feel of the knife as it hacked through flesh and bone. The sound. The bright color of her blood as it dripped from her hand to the wooden floor of the hayloft. I thought I was going to hurl.
Alone in the living room, I stared at the television for an hour before I realized it wasn't even turned on. Then I moped on the couch, playing nasty birds or pissed off birds—or whatever the damn game is called—on Valor's phone. Anything to block out the memory of my blade slashing through Mim's fingers. And when I got tired of the birds, I played Tetris. I didn't fall asleep until the sky lightened in another overcast dawn.
I woke to the sound of bacon frying. Someone had thrown a blanket over me so I tugged it up over my ears and went back to sleep. When voices woke me a second time, I pulled the blanket over my head and tried to ignore the fact that it was late morning.
It didn't work. 'Course it didn't help that Hooligan stuck his nose under the blanket and tried to lick my chin. "I'm fine," I grumbled. "Leave me alone." Apparently satisfied that I didn't need my face washed, Hooli disappeared.
I closed my eyes again but MacKenzie's hushed voice reached my sensitive ears. "Her mother won't let her have the car. She's taking her to see Dr. Anders."
My brain kicked in and started paying attention. Dr. Anders is Whitney's dad and he has a medical practice in Pine Grove. It sounded like MacKenzie was talking about Mim. I wanted to be part of the conversation in the kitchen—right now—but when I tried to roll off the couch, a sharp pain ripped across my side.
"Crap," I muttered, and sucked in a sharp breath. The T-shirt I'd wadded against my wound had dried to my skin. Every time I moved, it tore at the flesh that was trying to heal. "Crap," I groaned again as my wound opened up and started bleeding for real.
I dragged myself off the couch and pressed my hand against my side. Hunched over, I crabbed my way to the entry. Before joining the quiet crowd in the kitchen, I stopped and forced my spine straight then cleared my expression as if I was Defiance and Whitney had just walked into the room. It seemed to work. At least, Havoc put a cup of hot tea in my hand without making any suspicious comments.
I took a burning swallow before I asked, "Did you hear from Mim? Is she alright?"
"Valor drove me down to see her this morning," MacKenzie reported. "She's okay. But her mother won't let her leave the house."
Havoc slid a plate toward me on the counter. I gave him a nod but ignored the buttered toast. "If she calls, I want to talk to her."
"Are you okay?" Havoc asked. He checked my face as if he could sense the strain behind the mask I was wearing.
"I…just need a shower," I answered, and turned stiffly in the direction of the entry.
I got up the stairs as quickly as possible and into the bathroom. In the shower, I opened my wings and peeled the wad of cloth away from my skin as it softened under the warm spray of water. The wound wasn't too deep but it was at least five inches long and awkwardly positioned. It was probably going to pull open every time I moved.
Back in the bedroom, I held my hand against my side while I searched my drawers for something I could make into bandages. Blood leaked from between my fingers and I knew I had to make a decision before I made a mess but I hated to rip up another T-shirt. Five shirts had seemed like plenty a week ago; now I was down to four and looking at three.
As I hesitated over which of my shirts I should tear up, I heard someone bounding up the stairs. Probably Havoc. Nobody else in the house bounded. I angled my wing to hide my side just before the door swung open.
"Can I fix some eggs for you?" Havoc started then broke off. "What's that?"
"Nothing," I grunted, wondering what had given me away. My gaze darted around guiltily and stopped when it reached a dark red spot on th
e carpet. Damn. I hoped the stain would come out.
"Let's see," Havoc insisted then let out a low whistle as he moved closer and got a good look at my ribs. "Does it hurt?"
"It stings a bit," I admitted. "Mostly, it's messy. I was just looking for something to bind it with."
He grabbed my elbow. "Let's see if MacKenzie has something."
"I was hoping we could leave her out of this," I muttered, dragging my feet and almost succeeding in standing my ground.
But Havoc wasn't having it. He steered me forcibly toward the bedroom door. "Let's go," he commanded, and herded me into the hallway.
"What happened?" MacKenzie cried when we reached the kitchen with blood streaming down my side and Havoc escorting me like I was his prisoner.
I frowned down at the leaky wound that was causing all the fuss. "It happened yesterday. I was aiming for the harpy and I missed."
MacKenzie's mouth dropped open as she set her cup on the counter and hurried over to me in short, thumping steps. "How do you aim for someone else and hit yourself?"
"It's not hard when the someone else is climbing on your back and you're trying to stab behind you," I answered a little defensively.
"Do you have anything like bandages?" Havoc asked her.
MacKenzie took a quick survey of my wound then spun on the heel of her cast and returned behind the counter. Standing on tiptoe, she reached for the high cupboard over the fridge.
"Here, let me," Valor insisted helpfully. But instead of opening the cupboard door for her, he clamped his hands on her hips and lifted her six inches. She was surprised but it worked…and Val had succeeded in finding another reason to pick her up. You had to admire his ingenuity.
MacKenzie dug a box from the back of the cupboard then Valor lowered her to the floor again. Back on her feet, she opened the thin, cardboard box and started to unwind a wide roll of gauzy material. "You need stitches," she complained. "You need a doctor. I wish we could take you down to Dr. Anders."
"Stitches?" I echoed, hating that she was making a big deal about it. "I don't need the damn thing sewn up. I just need Defiance to bind it for me."
The Greystone Bundle (Books 1-4) Page 35
