Page 43 of Sullied Saints

“I’ll show you.”

“What?”

“That’s the only way. I go with you.”

I let out a disbelieving laugh. “That’s never going to happen.”

“Nonetheless.” He turns away, carefully walking back to his bed, glancing over his shoulder at me to say. “That’s my offer.”

I know Dirk is in Tawill’s office, and that it’s not going well, even before I’ve reached the frosted glass door into her office.“…meant to get the people on our side with your gung-ho fucking force beating up everything they see?”

Cringing at Dirk’s raised voice—he’ll get himself suspended yet—I tap lightly on the door. Maybe I can divert the conversation, just slightly.

A pause. “Come in,” comes Tawill’s curt, sharp call.

She doesn’t look surprised to see me, and as I take a seat in the chair beside Dirk’s, facing her over a wide, mostly clear desk, Tawill’s attention turns back to him. “We have enough to deal with thanks to your little display to the media. Do you know how many people we’ve needed to bring into witness protection?”

I clear my throat as subtly as I can. “Is this about the Syr Evan show? It did get the rioters to clear the precinct…”

“I’m fully aware of what it achieved.”

Dirk tilts his head to me. “Our illustrious leader here wants me to lie about how I got this…” He points to the greenish bruise on his jaw. “Instead of telling the truth, which is that most of our officers can’t control their fists.” His voice hardens as he directs his words back to Tawill.

“It’s too damaging at this time,” she starts. “We can address the shortcomings of the force at a later time. The truth is we can’t do without them given the state of Tregam now.”

“The truth is they were laying into an unarmed man…”

“There’s a lot of truths we’d all best ignore, don’t you think,” Tawill says pointedly, glancing towards me. And that’s how we can be certain that she knows about us. I hide a grimace. As if she needed more reason not to like us in particular.

Dirk shuts his mouth, which is probably the first smart thing he’s done in this room. Before things can devolve again, I barrel into my own news. “I think Nee—Tristan, knows where his sister is.”

“Why do I feel that’s not as simple as it sounds?”

“Well… he won’t tell me.” Before Tawill can say anything, I add. “He’ll only show us. Going together, that is.”

Tawill stares at me. “Absolutely not.”

“I wasn’t trying to get permission. Of course, I know that’s insane!”

Tawill closes the binder on the desk in front of her. “It doesn’t matter. He’s leaving anyway.”

“What? For where?”

She looks at me like I’ve just admitted not knowing how the day-night cycle works. “Prison, detective. You do remember a time when putting him there was your goal?”

As she stands, Dirk and I stand too. “But how? If we try to move him out of here, there’s a high chance we’ll be swarmed. Besides, we need him…”

“You don’t need him,” she says, walking around the desk to her door. “If he was of any help, you’d have made more progress by now.”

“He has assisted in the arrest of a rapist,” Dirk puts in.

About to open her door and officially end this meeting, Tawill turns back to us. “Warm sentiments for Needler are, as one singlerayof a silver lining, at their all-time lowest right now. He’s a ticking bomb, and he’s already gone off on us once. We’re getting him out of here while we can.”

“We’d still risk losing him, anyway. If we’re going to do that, we might as well have him at least lead us to Cocooner!”

She stares at me. “Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“Of course not! But…”

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