36. Thomas

CHAPTER 36

Thomas

My head fucking hurts.

For several long moments, this is all I'm aware of. The pounding pain in my temple, the pulsing behind my eyes. After a while, though, agony begins to bloom in other parts of my body. My stomach, my chest, my right arm. In waves of growing awareness and nausea, I remember just how many bullets my body armor absorbed. And just how many it didn't.

I've been shot before, both with body armor and without. It has never been a pleasant experience, and this time is no different. There were at least two bullets that hit me in the torso, and the bruises that are no doubt darkening over my stomach and back are making every inhale difficult. The bullet that went through my arm seems to have been a clean shot at least. That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like whiskey's being poured straight into the wound every time I flex a finger.

And last, the blinding pain in my head. Did I hit my head on the wall of the bar and knock myself out? No, I hit the wall with my left side. It's the right side of my head that feels like it's being soaked in lava .

Speaking of the bar… I'm not there anymore.

Someone picked me up off the sidewalk. And that someone took my jacket, took my body armor, bandaged my wounds, moved me to a room-

And handcuffed my hands together through the wooden slats on the back of a chair.

Against my better judgment, I open my eyes. The light that streams in is painful enough that I have to swallow the bile that surges up my throat. Helplessly, I close my eyes again, but the glimpse I got of the room around me was enough.

Unfortunately, I know exactly where I am.

"Can I get you some water, Mr. Warwick?"

Derrick Lindman's voice echoes from very far away, despite him sitting across his desk from me. I take a few measured breaths through my nose, and once I'm sure I won't throw up again, I grit out,

"Why the change of heart?"

I wish I could open my eyes to glare at him, but it would ruin the effect if I threw up on myself. Sooner rather than later, I'm going to have to move from this chair. When I do, I'll need to be quick, efficient, and- to my chagrin- just a little bit lucky. Until that moment, I'll focus on breathing evenly and listening intently, tracking Derrick's shifting movements on his side of the desk, and bracing my battered body for what's to come.

Luckily, it seems like we're alone. At least, if there are other people in the room, they're behind me and silent as ghosts.

Call it a hunch, but I don't think Derrick would want to have this heart-to-heart in front of witnesses who could report him later.

"To be honest, Mr. Warwick-"

"Thomas. Call me Thomas," I interrupt. "Let's not play any more games." Because if I have to listen to him mock me with my own surname one more time, I'll give up all pretense of a fight and puke on his shoes.

There's a considering pause, and then Derrick says, "Very well, Thomas. To tell you the truth, I've always enjoyed my work with you. And with your father. You're a straightforward man who doesn't take unnecessary risks, a good business partner to have any way you slice it."

"If this is you showing me your gratitude," I say dryly, "I'm afraid your methods are lacking."

Derrick laughs heartily, sounding genuinely amused. My head pounds in time with his mirth.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," he says. "That's the theme of the night, I suppose. But you see, Mr. Warwick- Thomas - the day I won my election, I realized I was going to have to start doing things differently if I wanted to move up. After all, I was put here by you, as you have never failed to remind me."

I listen to him stand and move away from the desk. He's heading in the direction of his sidebar, and I hear him pour some liquid into a glass.

Under the sound, I fish a finger into a hole in the bottom hem of my shirt and retrieve a handcuff key. There were other keys in the sleeves of my jacket, but with that gone, the one in this t-shirt, which I only wear on raids and when I need to be undercover, will do just fine. I have to shift it from one hand to the other, and then use it to blindly feel for the first keyhole, all while keeping the sound of Derrick's movements the very center of my attention.

"And if it were up to you, I would stay here, wouldn't I?" Derrick continues. "Sheriff of this little county, your carefully placed pawn who only exists to cover up your dirty work and facilitate your grudge matches? No no no."

He walks back toward me now, getting close enough that I can tell he's on my side of the desk. I've found the first keyhole, but I don't dare try to unlock it with him so close. "As fruitful as our partnership has been, I decided then- with a truly heavy heart- that I'd make my own name for myself."

A dull thunk on the desk. He's placed the full glass in front of me, knowing full well I can't grab it. "I invited Morgan to my banquet," he admits, and I'm actually glad I can't look him in the face. If I had to see the smug glimmer in his eye, I'd slam his head into the desk.

Derrick goes on. "If he caught wind of you trying to make greater alliances with me, I had no doubt you'd be shooting each other to death in seconds. The city's underworld would be turned inside out, and with a few well-planned raids based on intel I've gathered from both your families over the years, I would've single-handedly run your lot out for the rest of my term at least. Unfortunately, both of you survived the firefight but I did manage to shoot the D.A.. Crippled your political foothold a little, at least."

Lucky for him, he doesn't seem to expect a reaction to this revelation, because I don't give him one. The longer he monologues, the longer I have to silently open the lock on these handcuffs.

My nausea is easing thanks to my careful, steady breaths. Nothing but an ice pack and several ibuprofen will ease the pain in my head, but I'm hoping that adrenaline will get me through.

Just a few more minutes. I'll only have to listen to this bullshit for a few more minutes.

"I suppose I should thank you for forcing me to move up the raids," Derrick says. "It just means that all of this is finished sooner rather than later. Imagine it! The newest Sheriff in county history cleaning up the city in the first month of his first term. From there, the sky's the limit."

This is the first time I can think of that the joy I hear in Derrick's voice sounds genuine. What were once signs that he could be easily manipulated by his ambition are twisting themselves into warnings. How many of his own colleagues did he turn in for their ties to the mafia to gain clout as a young cop, all while taking money from my father himself? And now, he's just confessed to killing the District Attorney for the sole reason that he was an ally of mine.

I thought holding his career over him would incentivise him to be more loyal, or to at least reconsider betrayal. Little did I know that he was just using me as the stepping stone I believed him to be.

I'd be impressed if I weren't the one handcuffed to the chair.

Derrick shifts, pushing off the desk in front of me. From the sound of his footsteps and voice, he's heading back around to his side of the desk. I jiggle my key around until I feel the lock give, then carefully catch the opened half of the handcuff in my newly freed palm. It's only because Derrick's back is turned to me that he doesn't notice my wince. The hand I'm clenching now is my right one, and every flex of every muscle sends pain through my fresh bullet wound. Shifting the key to the same hand with care, I start feeling for the second lock as Derrick sits back down.

"But after your banquet failed, you allied with Morgan to take me out," I say, to cover the sound. "You'd rather deal with that psychopath than me?"

"Not at all," Derrick says, surprising me a little. "If I could choose to keep one or the other of you around, I'd pick you in a heartbeat. I've always felt like you and I were kindred spirits, despite our differing goals. But if I'm going to succeed, I need both of you gone. So, yes, I put in my lot with the Speare family first. And the simple reason for that is: you're the more dangerous target. If you had free reign of the city, it would be so much harder to uproot you. But with you gone, I'm confident Morgan won't last much longer himself.

"I'm sure you've noticed that his ability to strategize has been deteriorating greatly over the years? Not as though it was a refined skill to begin with. But right now, he works best when he has a target to lash out against. And he and his people have a simple, shared goal: win out over the Warwicks. Without that goal, without you as their common enemy, they'll eat themselves alive."

"I suppose you're right," I say. Unfortunately for him, he'll never know for sure whether his master plan would have worked or not. There are many similarities between Derrick and I, more than I ever realized until now. But there is one crucial difference too, and that will win me the day.

I don't waste time monologuing.

The second lock on my handcuffs clicks. I let them drop and throw myself blindly over the top of the desk. I slam into Derrick with enough force to send both us and his chair crashing to the ground. I land hard on my left side, sparing my wounded right arm. Finally, I open my eyes to see how Derrick landed.

The pain in my head and my eyes is an afterthought. My heart is pounding hard and my arms and legs are coursing with pent up fury. Derrick is dazed but struggling to sit up out of his overturned chair. I haul a leg over him, sitting on his chest and pinning both of his arms.

It gives me no small amount of satisfaction to punch him in his picture-perfect face.

Derrick tries to buck me off, but between me and the chair he's trapped completely. All he can do is take one blow after another after another.

I make sure to break his nose, so that there will be evidence of this night every time he sees his own face on the tv or in a goddamn mirror.

Finally, he stops crying out. His face is a mess of blood, mostly streaming from his nose and smeared by my knuckles. He's lost consciousness, which means it's time for me to stop. I could kill him- maybe I should kill him. But Derrick is too much like me for me to ever truly hate him, which means that I know the greater punishment for him wouldn't be death. It'll be living with the way he failed tonight, and will continue to fail because of me.

"Sleep well, pawn, and know that you will never be king," I say, and pick myself off of him. I'm not sure how I'm getting out of the police department without being spotted, but I have to try-

Footsteps pound up the hallway. Multiple footsteps. It was too much to hope that no one in the police department heard me tackle Derrick over his desk. I grab for his belt and the gun holstered there, and manage to raise it just as the door is kicked open.

Iris and five more of my men explode into the room, guns aimed and ready to fire. My right hand sees me, and we both immediately aim our guns to the ground.

"Oh my god- Thomas," she gasps, her eyes wide with shock. She crosses the room in four long strides and looks around the desk at Derrick, then back up at me. "You. Bastard . You disappeared- I thought you didn't make it! You ever scare me like that again and I am shooting you myself."

"You almost missed your chance," I say, trying to massage my temple and immediately pulling my hand back at the searing pain. Iris curses and smacks my hand away.

"A bullet grazed your head. Your head , Thomas."

I've never seen her so disheveled. Someone clearly came at her with a knife, because there's a cut down her left cheek, a shallow slice across her neck, and a whole chunk of her long white hair abruptly cut short at the shoulder. There's dirt on both white sleeves of her blouse, like she was wrestled to the ground. Worse, though, is the fear in her wide black eyes.

Iris doesn't get scared, not like this. Not even for my sake.

"Who's ‘mine'?" I ask .

She waves a hand impatiently. "My husband."

I balk. "You're- married?! Since when-"

"If you're not about to die on me," Iris interrupts, "then we have to go. Now."

"Iris-"

"The Speare house is burning," Iris urges, and any questions I have for her leave my mind.

The Speare house is burning, and Clara is still inside.