She waited for him to say he was kidding, but when he continued to look at her, she realized he was deadly serious. “Oh, hell no. I’m not cutting into you with a pocketknife. I’m not cutting into you at all. Remember, I’m the doctor who chose to work with dead people because the living ones scare me too much.”
The sound of sirens in the distance interrupted whatever Trey might have been about to say, and while the expression on his face suggested he hadn’t given up on that stupid idea, it was Kyson jerking upright suddenly, his face displaying pure panic, that grabbed all her attention.
“Ky, what’s wrong?” Shaylee asked, her voice betraying her own alarm as she tried to keep her grip on his arms even as he attempted to set her back down on the grass. “What are you doing?”
Kyson scrambled to his feet, his head snapping left and right in the dark, like he was trying to pinpoint exactly where the sirens were coming from and how far away they might be.
“I have to go,” he announced, his breath starting to come faster. “The cops will know I was out there when the doctor and Rogi dumped those body parts. All I ever did was carry the pieces, but with the doctor and Rogi dead, you know they’ll be looking for someone to pin all of this on. They’ll lock me in a cage just like the doctor did in his basement. I can’t live like that. Not again!”
Kyson was hyperventilating by the time he finished, and Samantha knew he was seconds from running, even if Shaylee was holding on to his arm like it was a life jacket. It occurred to Samantha then that Kyson was speaking normally, though she didn’t know if it was thanks to Trey’s werewolf blood coursing through his veins or the knowledge that he was finally free of Louis and his torture.
“Then I’m going with you,” Shaylee said, clearly about to lose control herself, tears starting to roll down her face. “I just got you back. I’m not giving you up!”
Kyson shook his head, trying to pull his arm out of Shaylee’s grasp. “No! They’ll be coming after me. I’ll have to go on the run forever. Mexico, maybe South America. I won’t let you ruin your life to be with me. You deserve better than that.”
Samantha thought Shaylee might smack him, and she wouldn’t have blamed the woman if she did. God save all women from men and their grand frigging sacrifices.
“You both deserve better,” Trey said firmly, tugging Samantha with him as he stood and moved closer to his friend. “Kyson, if you run now, you’ll be running for the rest of your life. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Kyson looked off into the darkness for a moment, his whole body tensing as the sirens got closer and closer, before he finally turned his attention on Trey. Samantha could see hope in his eyes warring with instincts that were almost certainly telling him to run. “What else can I do?”
“You can stay,” Trey said simply, reaching out to put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “The cops will understand that you were a victim in all of this, just like Shaylee.”
Kyson thought that over for all of a second before he shook his head and pointed at the faded lines crisscrossing his chest and stomach. “You know the cops will never believe that. They’ll take one look at me and all these scars and decide that I’m exactly the kind of psychopath who would kill all those people. I look like a monster. It will be easy to believe I am one.”
Shaylee was crying even harder now, but Trey simply squeezed Kyson’s shoulder and shook his head.
“The only people who know what happened in that basement are the four of us,” Trey said. “Once that fire in there is out, there won’t be anything left to go on but what we tell them. When the cops start asking the questions, you’re going to let Samantha and me do the talking, okay? We’re going to tell them that Louis Russo was a complete whack job who thought he could bring his dead son back to life by using parts he was getting from the bodies he stole from the morgue and the people he killed. Nadia Payne was helping him cover it up at the institute, and Rogi was the one who helped get rid of the bodies. You and Shaylee were simply his next victims, people Louis grabbed to experiment on.”
Kyson still seemed doubtful and he glanced toward the night sky that was already being lit up by all the approaching emergency vehicles. When he turned to Trey again, he looked like he was scared and he didn’t know what to do.
“Buddy, if you really want to run, I’ll help you,” Trey said, his voice low and rough. “You and Shaylee. But if you stay, I swear I can make the cops and everyone else believe what I just told you. I’m begging you to trust me, Kyson. Please. I won’t let you down.”
Kyson looked down at Samantha. “Why would you lie for us, too? You don’t even know us.”
Samantha smiled and reached out to take his hand in one of hers and Shaylee’s in the other. “I don’t know you two as well as I want to yet, but I know Trey. And for him, I’d say anything I have to. You two have gone through enough already.”
Kyson glanced questioningly at Shaylee, who was nodding urgently, her free hand latching on to his. “Okay, we’ll let you do the talking,” he said, finally agreeing. “But what happens after that? Shaylee and I can’t go back to living in the homeless camps. I couldn’t get a job before. You really think anyone is going to hire me now, looking like I do?”
“I’ll find a place where you and Shaylee can stay,” Trey said softly. “A place you and Shaylee can start over, with nobody looking at any scars. I don’t know where yet, but I’ll find a place, I promise.”
Kyson took a deep breath, then nodded. Reaching out, he pulled Trey and Samantha close, hugging them both. The move brought tears to Samantha’s eyes. Another minute and she was going to start crying like a baby.
“Okay, I’m trusting you,” Kyson said, pulling away. “But I do have a question.”
“What’s that, big guy?” Trey asked, his eyes a little misty, too.
“How are you going to explain why you’re naked?”
Trey exchanged looks with Samantha, then shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Chapter 25
“Is Connor actually having a conversation with that cat?” Samantha asked as she watched the black cat sitting atop one of the tables near the line of grills, nodding her head knowingly as the SWAT cop said something. Though whether the man was talking to the cat or the steaks and burgers he was busy flipping, she wasn’t sure.
“Kat is probably telling him exactly how she wants her burger cooked,” Trevor said casually as he munched on a chip covered in salsa.
Samantha was sure Trevor was kidding, but when several other people around the picnic table with them made sounds of agreement, she wondered if maybe talking cats weren’t as bizarre as they sounded. Truthfully, she didn’t know anymore. Discovering that werewolves, life-sucking vampires, and reanimated corpses were all real had a way of messing with a person’s fundamental understanding of the universe.