Page 37 of Petrified

“I know.”

I wait, because if he is going to use something that happened before I ever worked for him as justification, he can say the whole fucking thing.

Gerald leans back in his chair. “You were already investigating the missing Omegas when Essence became aware of you. Vince had spent five years paying off his debt to Ginny through smaller jobs. When that stopped being enough, she told him she needed pure energy. She never told him to bring Omegas. That was his choice because he could threaten them, manipulate them, and move them with dark magic without drawing immediate attention.”

My jaw tightens at Vince’s name.

Gerald continues. “By the time you reached Ginny, several Omegas were dead. She was draining pure magic because she intended to use it in a resurrection ritual for the first Alpha. She captured you, bound you with dark magic, interfered with your voice, and began drawing from your magic as well.”

“I was there.”

“Yes, and you survived it while continuing to identify things most investigators missed. You separated Ginny’s magic from the Omegas she had used. You recognized that Vince was wrong long before you had proof he was delivering people to her, even while he was hiding behind a badge and suppressing what little wild magic he had. You tracked signatures through interference that should have muddied them beyond usefulness.”

“And then Cole called Essence after we got him out.”

Gerald nods. “That was when I had enough to justify looking into you directly.”

I remember Cole throwing himself at me before leaving with his Alpha. I remember Gerald’s card sitting on the counter afterward and being too exhausted to care that the owner of some supernatural PI agency had offered me work because his team apparently needed more brains.

“You didn’t choose Ginny,” I say. “You watched what I survived and decided I was interesting.”

“That is a simplified version, but yes.”

“Good. We’re getting somewhere.”

Gerald’s mouth tightens, but he lets me continue.

I step away from the desk and pace once before turning back. “Then you recruited me. You showed up while we were moving, disappeared in front of me, told me you were another Chameleon, and explained why being away from Rowan and Amand was making me sick. You told me Basilisk venom had become something my body needed and that separation could eventually kill me.”

“I told you because it was true.”

“You also told me you’d been waiting a long time for another Chameleon.” I look at him until his expression hardens. “What you forgot to mention was that I was already a research project by then.”

“I had begun documenting your abilities.”

“Without telling me.”

“Yes.”

Rowan’s fingers catch the back of my shirt and hold there. He isn’t restraining me so much as giving my body somewhere to put the urge to move.

I look down at Gerald’s desk, then back at him. “Now we get to this case.”

Gerald doesn't pretend he doesn’t know what I mean.

“Medusa walks in here because her gargoyle ex cut one of the snakes from her head and figured out how to keep it alive. By the time we get involved, he’s already experimenting. We find animals only partly petrified in that warehouse, then the shifter who cut off his own leg before the stone could spread farther. After that we get the wolf fully petrified in his house while he’s still conscious inside it, and then another victim where the effect is cleaner because the gargoyle’s magic is already starting to merge with Medusa’s.”

Gerald listens without interrupting.

“You knew the case involved stolen magic actively changing around another designation,” I say. “You knew it was getting stronger every time he used it. You also had a prediction sitting in your files that said threatening one of my mates might force my designation to develop some kind of countermeasure.”

“Yes.”

The word comes out as calmly as the first one.

Something cold settles in my stomach.

“You didn’t know Rowan was going to pick up a snake fragment.”