Took tapped the point of the stake against his thigh. He could feel the point of it sharp through the worn-thin denim.
“No.”
“Then call back when you’re ready to do the right thing,” she said briskly. “If you do it yourself, Luke, we’ll bring you home.”
The point of the stake dug deeper into his leg. He tightened his grip on it and kept up the drumbeat rhythm against his thigh. It ached as a bruise formed, tried halfheartedly and half-fed to heal, and then bruised again.
“I need to speak to Gabriel.”
“He doesn’t want to speak to you.”
“Have you asked him?”
“Don’t need to.”
Jab. Jab. Jab.
“It’s important.”
“To the vampires. To you. Not to us.”
Took was vaguely surprised that she hadn’t resorted to a direct slur to get her point across. Not that she needed to. He understood exactly how she wanted to make him feel.
The point of the stake hit his thigh hard, and he felt the denim give way under the metal point. It gouged down into the meat—not deep enough to disable, but enough to sting. Blood welled up and wicked away into the denim, a patch of muddy crimson against faded cotton. He grimaced and gingerly pulled it out to wipe on his sleeve.
“Mom—”
“My son died. His corpse will realize it needs to follow suit soon,” she said. “Until then—”
“Do you still visit Granddad every Friday in that nursing home?” he asked. He didn’t need to put any threat in his voice. Like the unspoken slur she hadn’t quite spat out earlier, they both knew where they were. “Still go out of your way to get the lilies Grandma always liked before you go to visit her and your brothers in the graveyard?”
She was silent, so silent that he thought he could hear the blood in her ears shush down the line.
“You’d threaten your own grandfather?” she said skeptically. “My son might just be a bag of skin for you, but I don’t believe his soul has rotted out of his head so soon.”
“You’re right,” Took said. “That’s why I’m not threatening him, I’m threatening you. There are plenty of people who would cross state lines to get their hands on you, Mom. Last I checked, you still had a double handful of warrants on you in nearby states.”
“I’m not scared of the cops.”
“Good, because you should probably surrender to them before everyone else you conned, crossed, or condemned turns up for their pound of flesh. Unless you’ve put on weight, there won’t be much left of you once they’re done.”
A breath hissed between her teeth.
“I can get in contact with Gabriel. That doesn’t mean he’ll want to talk to you.”
“Like I said, this is important, so run the same logic past him,” Took said. “I’m the best profiler that VINE has. If I tell them everything I know, how long before someone puts a noose on both of you?”
“It won’t do you much good either,” she pointed out.
“I might not be quite ready to kill myself, Mom,” Took said. “But trust me, I haven’t got a whole lot left to lose here. I’m going to be at The Salt in Nevada in two days. Tell Gabriel to meet me there or I tell them everything I know about you both. Got it?”
She grunted her acknowledgment and scuffled about for a paper and pen. Took flexed his hand around the bloody stake as he waited. He finally gave her his number, reminded her that he would ruin them all, and was about to hang up, when she blurted, “Wait.”
It wasn’t kindness. There was no sentimentality in Took’s mom’s heart, no inch of her that would waver from her convictions. There came a point in life when you’ve committed too much to something to ever think you’ve been wrong. Forty years was a lot of investment to release as a sunk cost.
Yet he still felt that hitch in his throat, a child’s pointless faith that this time would be the storybook.
“What?” he asked.
