Something flickered in his eyes, and for a moment I thought I’d actually dented his pride. But the look disappeared as quickly as I’d seen it, and he shrugged, a patronizing smile on his thuggish face.
“I never figured you for one to believe in conspiracy theories, Sunaya. Guess it’s a good thing you’re finally getting put down, or I’d have to fire you myself. I look forward to seeing you at your hearing tomorrow, hybrid.”
Fury raced through me like wildfire, but I snapped my mouth shut as Talcon turned and walked back down the hall, wanting him gone more than I wanted to fight. The relief that coursed through me as I listened to his receding footsteps was quickly eclipsed by despair as I slumped back down onto my cot. What the fuck was I supposed to do now? Sit here and wait to die? I’d always imagined being taken out while I was on the job, protecting an innocent or bringing down a criminal. Death by execution, for something I was born with and couldn’t control, had never been part of the plan.
Before I allowed the bitterness coating my tongue to spread throughout the rest of me and sap my strength, I pulled off my clothes and used the bit of energy I’d gotten from Talcon’s sandwich to shift. A hot white light engulfed my body as it stretched and changed shape, and when it faded away I’d transformed from a tall, lean woman into a black panther. Only my bottle-green eyes remained constant, regardless of what shape I was in. I always figured the mages who created us did that on purpose, so shifters would be easily identifiable.
My claws scraped against the ground as I stretched, my sleek form rippling, and I let out a satisfied sigh as the last of my injuries knit themselves back together. Now that I was in beast form and the pain of my injuries had gone, some of the despair and anxiety began to lift from my heart. Curling up on the cold concrete, I rested my chin on top of my paws and allowed sleep to finally take hold of me. Once I got some rest I would focus my mind on getting out of this mess alive. After all, I was twenty-four and had my whole life ahead of me. Not to mention a series of murders to solve.
“Sunaya Baine?”
The sound of an unfamiliar male voice woke me from a fitful sleep. I cracked an eye open to see a man standing above me, his slim form draped in a long, khaki coat. Though it was dark in the jail at this time of night, my sharp eyes were able to pick out the porkpie hat clutched in his left hand, his slicked-back dirty blond hair, and his horn-rimmed glasses, the last of which sparked a memory.
You’re a reporter, I wanted to say, but then I remembered that I was in my panther form. Yawning, I stretched, my claws producing a scraping sound as they gouged into the concrete floor. The human took a nervous step back, clearly not a fan of my sharp implements. To amuse myself, I rose up on my hind legs, hooking my paws through the bars of my cell as I met his gaze. His eyes widened as his back clanged into the cell bars behind him.
“Y-you are Sunaya Baine, aren’t you?”
Satisfied at the tremor in the man’s voice – I never was much of a fan of reporters – I nosed my clothes into the shadowy portion of my cell and changed back into human form. His sigh of relief and the scent of fresh sweat rolling from his pores were telling – this man was afraid of shifters in general, not just me.
“I am Sunaya Baine,” I said once I’d pulled my clothes back on and stepped back into the dim light. I leaned against the bars and looped my hands through them lazily, affecting a pose of nonchalance. He eyed my hands warily, as if he expected me to claw him at any second, and I found myself annoyed at his skittishness. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yes,” he said, drawing his air of professionalism back around him. He pulled out a notepad and a pen from one of the pockets of his greatcoat and looked up at me with a polite smile over his glasses, his pen poised. “My name is Hanley Fintz, and I’m a journalist for the Herald. I heard about your unfortunate predicament, and would like to interview you.”
I arched a brow. “Bit late for interviews, don’t you think?” Not that I knew what time it was, since Brin and Nila had stripped my body of anything actually useful, such as my watch. The fuckers had even taken my Enforcer bracelet, the symbol of authority I’d worked so hard to earn. But judging by the fact that the lights down here were still dimmed, it must be night above ground.
The reporter shrugged. “From what my sources tell me, your hearing is set for early this morning. Since they’re likely to rule against you, I have to take what opportunities I can get to talk with you before it’s too late.”
In other words, this schmuck had bribed one of the guards upstairs to let him into the jail cell so he could interview me. Did absolutely no one understand the meaning of ‘work ethic’ anymore? Pressing my lips together, I eyed the reporter distastefully, not sure that he didn’t deserve a beating just as much as the guard upstairs, though unlike the guard he was just doing his job.
A long silence stretched. Eventually Fintz cleared his throat. “Come now, surely you can tell me something,” he coaxed. “I would like to paint you in the most positive light possible, which is not very hard. If you have to die, at least you can die a martyr in the fight against the oppressive mages who rule us.”
His voice was low and urgent, infused with passion. But the hungry way he eyed me seemed less sincere. Releasing the bars, I took a step back, holding my hands up defensively.
“Look,” I told him. “If you want to paint me as a martyr or a hero or whatever after I’m six feet under, that’s your business. But I’m not dead yet, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop looking at me like some vulture waiting for me to gasp my last breath, so you can swoop down and start feasting on me.”