Page 65 of Heartless

Maybe it is.

“If you say so. Anyway…” He digs into his pocket, revealing his phone. “I’m going to call the cops now. Your kind of crazy is way above my pay grade. You don’t mind waiting, right Winnie?” He finally looks at me, and for a brief moment I swear his eyes flash past me, toward the stairs opposite from the hallway he’s in.

Unfortunately, whatever he’s trying to tell me goes right over my head.

“Don’t walk away from me!” But Reagan is too late, and Cass slips out of sight, his steps taking him toward the kitchen. Reagan doesn’t even look at me. Instead, she yanks the taser out of her pocket and follows him, more threats loud on her lips.

“Cass—!” A hand covers my mouth just as I start to yell, and I jerk back with a surprised yelp to look up at the unfamiliar face above me.

“Don’t scream.” The dark-haired man waits for a few seconds, then drops his hand from my mouth. “My name’s Virgil. I’m a friend of Cassian’s. Though I’ll admit, if I’m going to have to climb up drain pipes on my nights off on a regular basis, I might be rethinking that friendship.”

“You…climbed the drain pipe?” I ask belatedly, watching as he checks the zip ties on my wrists and ankles. “You should go help him. She has a taser, a knife and?—”

“And he would not thank me for it. Your boyfriend is aproblem,you know. If anyone needs help, it’s her.” From his pocket, Virgil pulls out a small utility knife that he flips open to saw through the plastic.

While he does, I look around, barely managing to sit still. “There’s a little girl that lives here,” I murmur, hoping she managed to get away. “I haven’t seen her since Reagan tased me, and I’m afraid?—”

“Sophie is just fine.” Virgil sounds three different kinds of exasperated as he says it, and frees my ankles from the chair just as a crash sounds from the kitchen. I jerk in my seat, terrified for Cass, but Virgil just glances at the hallway. “She’s up in her room with the door locked. Now, please don’t get up yet.” He slices through the last of the zip ties, and shoves me back down when I spring to my feet again, rolling his eyes at me in irritation.

“No, it’s fine…don’t listen to a word I say.” His voice is full of sarcasm as he leans over me, his dark eyes unamused. “My girlfriend made me go to first aid classes with her,” he adds, reaching out to push my hair back from my face and surveying my sore temple. “You probably need to get checked out in the hospital for this. It’s already bruising, and if you die in your sleep from an invisible brain bleed, he’s going to go on some fucked up spree that will end up with him in another psych ward.”

When he steps back I get to my feet, blinking a few times from dizziness and pain. “You seem very cavalier about this,” I point out, reaching out to grab the chair as a crutch to steady myself. Virgil just shrugs, watching me.

Finally I’m able to walk, and I take off quickly toward the kitchen at the sound of Reagan’s scream, rubbing my sore and rubbed-raw wrists. “Cass?!” I call, terrified of what I’ll find when I round the corner.

He could be dying.

He could be dead.

My heart takes offense to that and I slam to a stop in the doorway, my fingers curled around the frame as I try to brace myself for the worst possible outcome. I open my mouth to say his name again, ready to beg Reagan not to hurt him. But when I finally realize what I’m seeing, the words die in my throat.

“Stop!” I finally manage to gasp, lurching into the room. The table is on its side, the chairs scattered, and in the middle of the room Reagan is on her back. She’s yowling and scratching atCassian like some crazed feline while he holds her down with his hands wrapped around her throat.

“Cassian!” Dropping to my knees beside him, I reach out, trying to get him to let go as I hear Reagan start to choke and gasp from the lack of oxygen. Distantly, I hear the sound of sirens, and I briefly wonder who actually called the cops.

“She wants to kill me.” Cassian’s voice is flat and empty. Colder than I’ve ever heard it. “You know she would if she had the chance. Why shouldn’t I do the same to her?”

“Cass,look at me.” There’s no way to break his grip, not when it’s like iron around her neck. But slowly he gazes up at me, and I fight not to recoil from the frigid detached look in his eyes. “If you do this, you’ll go to prison. Halloween will suck again, and I amnotgoing to be your prison pen pal for the next fifty years. Plus, I’m pretty sure conjugal visits aren’t everything they’re cracked up to be.”

A small smirk flickers over his mouth, and his hands relax just enough for Reagan to take a breath. “I’d claim self defense,” he points out, the sirens growing louder as blue and red lights flash through the windows.

“Yeah, no one would believe you.”

“She’s right,” Virgil says and sighs from somewhere beside me. “Especially here. Stop strangling little miss insanity down there if you don’t want to end up in handcuffs tonight.” He doesn’t move or physically try to pull Cass off of her, and I can’t help but wonder why, if they’re friends like he says.

Cass slowly sits up, then surges to his feet and yanks Reagan up as well. “Here.” He shoves her at Virgil, who has her in his grip before she can do more than wail her protests. “You take her, then. If I’m the one holding her, someone might get a little trigger happy.”

I can hear voices now, but Cass doesn’t seem to care about them, or the following pounding on the door. “You okay?” he asks, reaching out to brush my hair back from my face.

“You know,” I say, grinning wryly as the front door slams open. “Not my worst Halloween so far.”

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

Within seconds, footsteps thunder down the hallway, and the roar of voices yelling similar statements rings in my ears. Cass’s hands go up as two officers round the corner, guns drawn. Virgil hangs onto Reagan, who’s doing a very good job of still being insane.

“She attacked me,” I tell the cops before they can get the wrong idea. “She was holding me here and told my boyfriend to come here so she could kill him.”

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