Page 21 of The Raven

You Asked for This

The Cop

From sunup to sundown, we drove around Hadleigh Peak looking for any sign of Grim. Every so often, Raven’s eyes would glaze over as she focused on the bird flying with a damaged wing, attempting to look for Grim.

Nothing.

I called in favors with colleagues. Contacted sources. Threatened criminals who’d done business with Grim before. No one had seen or heard from the lowlife. It was like he’d vanished off the face of the earth.

With less than six hours to go until midnight, we returned to my apartment. Every minute that ticked by was a minute closer to our time together expiring, something the two of us were all too aware of.

I didn’t know what would happen when midnight came, and truthfully, I was trying not to think about it. But the deadline was there, lingering in the air, and serving as a constant reminder of what I was going to lose.

My mind churned with chaotic thoughts. I’d never said goodbye to Raven when I found her a year ago; I didn’t believe she was really gone. I held onto hope when I ripped the bag covering her face open and started CPR.

I had hope when the paramedics managed to get her heart beating again, even if her pulse was weak, and she had crashed several times before she even arrived at the hospital.

I held onto hope when the doctors wired her up to machines and told me that there was practically no chance she’d wake up.

I never gave up hoping, never said goodbye.

Until now.

She paced the length of my apartment, back and forth, back and forth, and all I could do was watch her helplessly. After the umpteenth time of pacing by where I sat brooding on the couch, I stood and pulled her into my arms.

“We’ll find him, Blackbird. He’s out there somewhere.” I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, pushing away the thought that it might have been the last time I got to do that.

“We’re running out of time. If I don’t-” she paused, her eyes glazing over like they’d done throughout the day.

“Raven?”

She didn’t reply, but her mouth dropped open. When her eyes cleared again, a long minute later, she pulled out of my grasp. “I… I know where he is.”

She turned and attempted to walk away, but I grabbed her again, stopping her from going anywhere. “Where?”

“He’s in the den. That’s where he’s been hiding. We should have checked earlier!”

“The den? As in-”

“Yeah, that den,” Raven replied, her voice shaking.

I cursed internally for not thinking about that location earlier. But Raven’s old childhood home was the last place I would have expected Grim to go; it had been condemned several years ago and was boarded up with thick metal fences around it.

“I’m coming with you,” I said, leaving no room for argument and looking around for my keys.

The den used to give Raven nightmares. When Grim and his dad moved in with Raven and her mom, he claimed the basement as his, turning it into his den. Before his father disowned him, Grim and the other Vipers used to hang out there, plotting ways to cause havoc and ruin lives.

Particularly Raven’s. Grim used to terrify her by threatening to take her down to the basement. He would tell her all the wickedly vile things he would do to her, which ranged from cutting her open to see what her insides looked like to letting his friends rape her.

Raven never told her mom or stepdad because she was too frightened. Instead, she’d cry in my arms as I tried to comfort her and promise Grim would never hurt her.

I failed to deliver on that promise, but I wouldn’t fail again.

“No, Mase, you’re not coming. It’s too dangerous,” she said, panic lacing her tone as she blocked my path to where my keys lay on the kitchen side.

“I’m not letting you go alone, Raven.” I side-stepped her, but she was too quick and blocked my path again. “Raven-”

“No. You really think I’m going to let you put yourself in harm’s way? Grim will kill you, but I’m already dead, Mason. You’re not. You still have your whole life ahead of you.”

Her cheeks reddened as anger swirled in her beautiful eyes. For as long as I’d known Raven, I couldn’t ever recall a time when she’d lost her temper at me. It was enough for my own temper to rise.

I opened my mouth to reply. To tell her that I didn’t care if Grim killed me because I didn’t want a life without her? To tell her I wasn’t ready to let her go? I wasn’t sure, but I never got the chance.

A heavy thump, thump, thump broke the tension when someone pounded on my front door, both Raven and I staring at it as if we expected someone to knock it down any second. “Roberts!” a familiar voice called. “Open up!”

My gaze snapped back to her. “That’s Brenner.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“Roberts!” he called again. “I’ve got a warrant for your arrest, Mason. We know you were involved in conspiring to murder the Vipers, so I suggest you open the door right now! Don’t make this worse for yourself.”

What. The. Fuck?

Raven gaped at me. “What? They think you were involved?”

“I know you’re in there, Roberts! You’ve got ten seconds to open this door before we smash it down and drag you out in cuffs!” Brenner shouted, his voice growing more impatient.

My brain clicked into gear. There was no way I was getting past Brenner. It wasn’t like I could go off the balcony and scale down my building, and I imagined he’d brought a whole battalion with him who were guarding the front door.

It was the sort of thing the prick would do.

“You need to go.” I grabbed Raven’s arm and marched her out onto the balcony.

“What? No! They’re going to arrest you for something you didn’t do,” she protested, ripping her arm out of my grasp.

“Don’t worry about me. Time is running out; you need to go and deal with Grim.”

“No-”

I slammed my mouth down on hers, preventing her from arguing, and knowing this would be the last time I got to kiss her. The pounding on the door broke us apart, Brenner’s angry shouts getting louder.

“Raven, you have to go. Trust that I know what I’m doing.”

Her whole body slumped. “I’m not ready,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.

I stroked a finger down her cheek before letting my hand drop. If I carried on touching her, I wouldn’t be able to stop. “I’ll see you soon, Blackbird.”

The crashing of the door being kicked open reverberated around my apartment. I twisted my head to look over my shoulder, watching as Brenner strolled in with my supposed partner, Nick Humphreys, by his side, while a bunch of uniformed cops filtered in behind him.

When I turned back to Raven, the space where she’d been standing not ten seconds ago was vacant.

My heart cracked straight down the middle.

“Roberts! Didn’t you hear us knocking?” Brenner barked from behind me.

Swallowing the lump of agony clogging my throat, I turned to face him, hoping like fuck he couldn’t see the heartbreak I was wearing on my face.

“I’m afraid I didn’t. I was out here getting some fresh air,” I replied as calmly as I could. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”

Brenner held up a piece of paper. “Mason Roberts, you have the right to remain silent…”

I blocked him out as he read my rights, my mind consumed with Raven. I didn’t give a fuck what happened to me; all I wanted, no, needed, to know was that she’d gotten to Grim in time. I couldn’t bear the thought of her not finding the peace she rightly deserved.

“Conspiracy to murder, huh?” I asked when Brenner was finished. “What evidence do you have for that, genius?”

Brenner’s nostrils flared. “We’ll discuss that back at the station, but I’m sure we’ll find plenty more evidence when we turn this place upside down,” he retorted as a triumphant smirk crept over his lips.

A muscle twitched in my jaw, my fists clenching with the overwhelming need to smack the motherfucker in the face. But where would that get me? I needed to keep a calm head.

“Can you at least give me the dignity to walk out of here without cuffs on? Bit embarrassing if my neighbors see me cuffed up,” I said, hoping to buy myself an opportunity to escape.

“Not a chance.”

Fuck.

“Boss, let me take Mason back to the station. I know him; he won’t try anything with me, and you can stay here to oversee the search,” Nick said, speaking for the first time, his tone completely neutral.

Brenner’s lips pursed as he looked between Nick and me. From the corner of my eye, I peeked at Nick, trying to get a read on him. Whose side was he on? But it was impossible to tell; his poker face was shit hot.

“Boss, you might want to come and see this,” a cop called from my spare bedroom, where they’d no doubt just discovered my evidence wall.

If Brenner didn’t have any evidence on me beforehand, he certainly did now.

Curiosity got the better of Brenner. “Fine. But I want him in cuffs for the entire journey. And he’s not to be interviewed until I’m there.”

With that, he stormed away, heading straight to the spare bedroom.

Nick didn’t say a word as he spun me around and slapped the cuffs on, my hands locked behind my back, and my chances of getting out of this mess and getting to Raven before it was too late rapidly declining.

He led me through the apartment, cops rifling through my belongings, pausing to glare at me, disgust written over each of their faces.

They thought I was a dirty cop.

As Nick led me past the room where flashes of a camera went off, Brenner appeared at the door, my wall of evidence behind him. “You couldn’t just let it go, could you, Roberts. This is your own fault, you know. You asked for this.”

Probably.

But I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Raven deserved her justice, and if I couldn’t get it for her, I hoped she could get it for herself.