Page 164 of The Rust in Her Hair

I pick it up, then turn my attention to the ceiling.

Right over Crispin’s dead body is a sprinkler head tucked up in the concrete.

Perfect.

Gripping the metal pipe, I climb up onto the hood of his car. My blood-soaked shoes slide on the paint, and it takes me a second to steady my feet. Then I swing the pipe at the sprinkler head over his body and it shears clean off on the second hit.

A trickle of water flows from the hole in the pipe, but it's not nearly enough. Glancing around, I look for the fire alarm.

Fuck, where is it?

It takes me a second to orient myself, but then I see it.

On the wall by the ramp, is the fire alarm pull, and next to it, bolted to the block, the fat vertical run of a standpipe with a valve wheel at chest height where the whole level is plumbed for sprinklers.

Moving as fast as I can, I rush to it and get both hands on the valve wheel. I lean into it with all my strength, but it fights me, stiff from years of nobody touching it. Then, it breaks loose and turns.

The squeak is horrible as I crank the damn thing as far as it will go.

Somewhere overhead the pipes shudder and start to fill, a deep groan running through the ceiling. Water drips from a few sprinklers, then I reach over and I haul down on the alarm pull.

The whole level comes alive at once.

Every sprinkler head in the ceiling opens up, and the water comes down in hard, hissing sheets, cold and loud, and an alarm starts hammering off the concrete somewhere up the ramp.

The broken pipe over Crispin's body dumps its whole load straight down in a solid, roaring column, landing dead center on his ruined face. The water pounds into his swollen face, and blows back off him in every direction.

It hammers his open mouth. It fills the collar of that perfect white shirt and runs off the ends of his fingers.

Within a few seconds I'm soaked through.

The water sluices across the floor, finding the low spots and starts carrying all that dangerous evidence straight to the drains.

Within a minute the water's rising fast around my shoes, climbing up the tires of that stupid car. It’s amazing how fast an underground lot can flood.

I make myself take one last look at what's left of Crispin Maleth, laid out in the rising water under his hundred-thousand-dollar car. I can’t count the number of times I stood like this over a man I was paid to kill.

Except I wasn't paid to kill this one.

I did it to protect my mates, and that’s when the fear finally catches me. I’m not scared of the police or the cameras or even getting caught.

I’m scared of Lyra.

If I mark her, if I let her that far into me, is this what she'll feel?

Will she know the monster I am?

Will she feel the murderous rage pumping in my veins right now?

Or will she only feel the good?

I’ve locked up so much pain and gore, and the last thing I want is to push that into a bond with my mate.

Maybe I'll get lucky and it won’t take, the way it didn’t with Owen, and then she’ll never know.

Maybe.

I turn my back on the asshole’s missing face, then I head for the stairwell, and I climb up out of the dark.