8.7
“My name is Austin Jones.” Austin’s mouth is dry. He swallows. How much do I say? How little? “I’m a DPR agent. We’re here looking for Abbott Kilgannon - he used to use this place, the part of it that was Department labs. He hurt my brother, and we think, uh, he came down here to hide.”
Finn is quiet, and has a pensive look on his face as he listens, like he’s taking time to digest the information. Dallas sinks to his knees on the floor and begins to laugh.
“What are you laughing about?” Finn asks him. “You owe me a twenty.”
“I didn’t think you were going to take the safety off,” Dallas gasps. He reaches a hand up to try and wipe the blood off his face, but only manages to smear it around more. “You really had me going for a second.”
“Wouldn’t have been convincing otherwise,” Finn mutters. He circles back behind the chair and starts fumbling with Austin’s handcuffs.
“Wait,” Austin says, “what’s going on?”
“Just messing with you, kid.” Dallas picks himself up off the floor, touching his hair gingerly, slicking a few wayward strands back into place. He grins, a few of his teeth stained pink with blood. “Finn’s gonna help us out.”
“You -” Austin begins, unsure of what he wants to ask first.
“Your brother and I are friends,” Finn says, from behind him. “I know what happened to him. But it wouldn’t look good if I just let a bunch of DPR agents waltz in here without giving them a hard time, yeah?”
A key pops in the lock of the handcuffs, and Austin feels them open around his wrists. His heart is still hammering in his chest, his body still jittery and buzzing with panic. He forces himself to breathe deeply, blinking hard, trying to push away the misplaced adrenaline.
“Where’s Rainer?” he asks, stretching his arms out in front of him and massaging his wrists.
“Holed up in another room, like I said. I wasn’t about to try and mess with a vampire.” Finn crosses the small room and leans up against the door, folding his arms over his chest. He eyes Austin with much less malice than before, more curiously than anything. “You know, you and your brother don’t look much alike. I wouldn’t have known it was you if I hadn’t checked your wallet.”
“So?” Austin asks, tipping his chin up defiantly. What was I supposed to do, announce myself in a den full of criminals? How was I supposed to know he and Jacob were friends? Jacob shouldn’t be friends with the most wanted man in town.
“So nothing.” Finn shrugs. “I guess I was just imagining you differently. Jacob talks a lot about you.”
“You’re lying,” Austin says.
Finn looks surprised - puzzled, even. “No, he really misses you.”
“Not about that.” Austin wants to stand, to at least be at his full height while Finn looms over him, but his legs feel like they might give out if he tries. He clutches the sides of the chair, trying to focus on the words he needs to get out. “You don’t know my brother. You’re just trying to hold up our investigation.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Finn asks. “I want the guy who stabbed Jacob dead just as badly as you do, I’m sure.”
“I don’t want him dead,” Austin says, spitting dead through his teeth like a curse word. “I want him thrown in a cell to rot.”
“Hey,” Dallas says, “I wouldn’t knock dead until you try it. Dead solves a lot of problems.”
Austin stands from the chair, finally, and gives Dallas a sidelong glance. “I thought you were supposed to be reformed.”
Dallas winks. “Oh, you know. Old habits.”
As the adrenaline starts to ebb out of his body, taking some of the panic and confusion with it, Austin finds himself suddenly furious. The wink only adds fuel to the fire, a tiny reminder of exactly how seriously Dallas and Finn are taking the entire scenario. We’re running a time-sensitive investigation, and these two decide to handcuff me, to make me think I’m about to watch someone get shot right in front of me? If we don’t catch Abbott before he gets the chance to skip town, the DPR gets caught in a mess of red tape, trying to spread out the search into other towns. And while they’re focusing on that, he could come back and try to kill Jacob again. This isn’t the time to be coming up with practical fucking jokes.
“Get out of my way,” he growls at Finn, taking a step towards the door. Finn arches an eyebrow.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To do my fucking job,” Austin says. He stops just an inch or so away from Finn, tilting his face up to make eye contact. “And if you cared about Jacob at all - if you even know him - you would -”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, instead cutting himself off with a choked noise as his feet suddenly leave the ground. It takes Austin half a second to realize that it isn’t telekinesis - that Finn has grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and lifted him bodily into the air, so that the two of them are practically nose-to-nose.
“Watch yourself,” Finn says. His voice is even, but his eyes are suddenly dark in a way that they weren’t when he and Dallas were play-acting, just minutes ago.
“Fuck you,” Austin spits.
“If I were you,” Finn says, “I would be very careful what you say next.” He stops, giving Austin room to respond, but continues fairly quickly once Austin does nothing but glare. “You are here, in my Underground, because I promised Jacob that I would do anything I could to help track down the bastard who stabbed him. But I’ve heard a lot about the shit you put your brother through, and if I think about that too hard, I might just let you wander off and get lost in an access tunnel for a couple of weeks.”
“So what,” Austin says, his voice barely above a wheeze, “you’re my boss now or something?”
“No, but I am your chaperone.” Finn lowers him back to the ground, letting go of Austin’s collar. “You and your agent friend aren’t going anywhere in the Underground without me.”
“And him?” Austin darts his eyes meaningfully towards Dallas.
“What about him?” Finn asks.
“He’s a traitor, isn’t he?” Austin asks. “He turned himself in to the DPR.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘traitor.’” Finn chuckles. “If he turned himself in, it’s probably because the DPR had something he wanted. Hell, he probably did it because they pay better than most of the people down here.”
“Hey,” Dallas says, looking wounded. Austin can’t tell if he’s exaggerating or not. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but I like to think I come off as more than just greedy, thank you very much.”
He flashes Austin a smile, and another wink, and it doesn’t make Austin quite so mad this time around.
“So you trust him down here,” Austin says, gesturing incredulously, “but not two government agents?”
“The people down here are going to be skittish about having agents running around - they’ll be a little more willing to get on with being questioned if I’m there to keep you and your friend in line.” Finn turns to open the door, effectively making himself unreadable to Austin. “And, yeah, I trust Dallas with my life.”
“Hey,” Dallas says, clapping him on the non-metal shoulder. “Let’s not get sappy, now. We’ve got scientists to interrogate.”
“Right.” Finn glances backwards, towards Austin, and raises his eyebrows. “You coming?”
“Do I have a choice?” Austin asks under his breath.
Neither Finn nor Dallas answers, but Finn holds the door open until all three of them are out of the room, Austin skulking at the back of the group as they make their way down the hall.