Chapter Twenty-four
Victim of Fate
Shawn released the owl and watched it soar away from him. It was going to find Annie. He felt sick as he watched the dully grayish-brown bird flutter its wings to catch the wind. He didn't want to get her into trouble, but his jailers wanted her. Shawn knew that no matter what this Drew Edwards said, he was still a criminal and going to be punished. He had to make things easier on himself in any way he could. Helping them bring in Annie and John was the only thing that would prove he was cooperative. And Shawn really wanted to prove that.
He wasn't sure how he felt about what he'd done. He supposed he should feel bad, but he didn't think that was it. Maybe he just wished things could have been different. Maybe he wished he would have known all this a little sooner. If he had, maybe it wouldn't have been so fun to think up ways to get back at the people he didn't like. All he really knew was that he was ready for something to change. He'd felt it, when Edwards had stared at him and promised to help him. Like he was sitting there, floating in some moment that could change the rest of his life. All he had to do was open his mouth, accept what Edwards offered, and he could do something different, be something different.
Shawn had felt like a tool, or a toy, his whole life. Something that could be passed around, discarded, and used however the person in charge saw fit. What Edwards was offering was a way to change that. He'd said he would help Shawn find out what happened to his mother, and he was going to get Shawn into a real school. When he'd found out that Shawn liked animals, he'd acted like it was the best news he'd had in years. Apparently, Shawn would have the opportunity to work with real magical animals if he wanted to.
But to take all of that, he had to give them Annie. He hoped they got John, John scared the piss out of him, but Annie . . . she was just as badly used as Shawn was, or worse. He hoped they talked to her, the way they did to him. He knew they'd treated him differently, because he was a kid. Annie was thirty, she was an adult, they'd assume she knew better. Shawn didn't think she did. Shawn didn't know how long ago John had sunk his claws into her, but it had really messed her up.
"Ahem." Behind him, the sound of Peter clearing his throat.
He turned around to see "Peter" staring at him. He figured the guy's name really was Peter, because that's what the lady cop called him, but with no last name and the way he kept himself so aloof, Shawn treated it like an alias. Peter had been watching him like a hawk since they'd caught him yesterday. He didn't believe that Shawn wanted to go with Drew Edwards. He thought Shawn was just waiting for a chance to escape. Well, that was true enough. He was waiting for a chance to escape, and Edwards was it. He was getting out of here. Just one thing remained . . .
"When this Annie woman arrives, you need to act as normal as possible until we can subdue her, understand?" Peter said in his usual hard, gruff voice.
"After forty times, I think I got it," Shawn said stiffly. "I'm not stupid. I was the one who invented Red-Hot, you know."
"And proceeded to release it on an unsuspecting bunch of Muggles. Was that your smartest act to date?"
Shawn ignored him, and walked ahead of him back to huge, square building they were holding him in. The section for the wizard police and their jail had a separate entrance from the rest of the building. He'd been amazed to see this building, and he knew Annie would be, too. He wondered if she'd be as angry as he'd been upon seeing it for the first time. The evidence of just how immensely he'd been lied to was overwhelming. He never thought for a second that Annie had been the one doing the lying. John would have told her everything that she'd told him.
They kept trying to ask him about John, but Shawn wouldn't say anything. He'd only met him a couple of times, after all. That was enough. John scared him, and he scared Annie. Shawn could hear it in her voice whenever she talked about him or what he wanted done.
He lifted his chin in defiance when Peter held the door open into the building. Peter could follow him around and make snide remarks, but Shawn didn't have to allow him these little opportunities to make him feel like an escorted prisoner. They stood there in the doorway glaring at each other until Drew Edwards, who'd been waiting for them, walked forward and called out a greeting. And just like that, the situation became that Shawn was invited inside and Peter was holding the door for him. Shawn smiled at Peter mockingly and went inside.
When Annie went to the cabin Shawn used to meet with that girl, that Emma, she was on edge. Shawn's note said that he'd been forced to hide from some old friends and that he couldn't safely get out of town. Coming to see him here was better than coming to see him in town, but she was still angry. He was just a kid, and now he was bumbling along like this wasn't a serious situation. His note had been full of stupid little jokes, as if this was a game to him instead of hard work and risk.
With all her simmering anger at Shawn's ineptitude, no matter how she tried to make excuses about his age to John, she barely noticed that the door to the cabin had been nearly torn off. So when she walked inside and Shawn was sitting there with a worried look but not a scratch on him, the only thing she wanted to do was scream at him for worrying her and for getting himself into this.
"Who are you pretending to be, anyway? Why can't you just walk out of here?" she demanded when she saw him.
He walked forward, his hands raised in a gesture to calm her. "It's not like that, Annie. Listen, Annie, I found some wizards. It worked just like I said it would, it drew some other people with magic here."
"What kind of wizards?" she snapped.
Then she was tapped on the shoulder, and she spun around with her wand in hand and flung out a curse without thinking.
"Protego," was the lazy reply, and a tall and rangy man with a scruffy beard met her eyes with a dangerous look. "This kind of wizard," he said, and tried to put her in a Full-Body Bind. She threw it off quickly, but the man just smiled grimly and conjured ropes around her wrists, a spell she'd never seen before. "Accio wand," he added, and caught her wand neatly.
Annie's breath heaved as she stared at him, helpless and confused. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"As an agent of the New York Department of Magical Activity, it is my authority and discretion to arrest you and bind you under the Magical Legal Code of the United States of America," the man answered.
Annie blinked and gaped at him. "What?"
Shawn stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. "That's kind of what I said. I knew you didn't know, either."
Another man entered, another wizard, this one smooth-shaven and very trim-looking. He took the wand from Peter without comment so that Peter would be able to take hold of her. His eyes were trained on Shawn, still holding her shoulder.
"I'm not going to run," he mumbled.
Annie jerked away from the boy's grip. "What have you done?" she screamed at him. "You got caught, and now you've . . . you've . . ." She tried not to cry, but she couldn't help it. With her hands bound, she couldn't wipe away the tears, but she wouldn't let those make her seem weak. "You helped them trap me. Why would you do that?"
"They promised I could start over," Shawn mumbled, his eyes on his feet. "They said if I cooperated, I would get a chance to go to school and to—"
"So you turned me in, to save yourself. Great."
"Annie, listen, just tell them about John, and they'll—"
"You told them about John?!"
"Annie, they can help. Don't you know how many wizards there are? There's so many of them, and it means that John lied to us. I don't know why, but he lied to us. They have a government and schools and sports teams and everything. They're going to help me find my mom. Annie, if you cooperate with them, maybe they can help you, too."
The man holding her wand looked at her hopefully. "He's telling the truth, Annie. We know you've been victimized by this man, too, and we'd like to help you."
"That's Edwards," Shawn added helpfully. "He really does want to help."
Annie spat on the ground. "You've got a little brown there on your nose, Shawn. Need a tissue?"
He took a step back, and looked deeply wounded.
Annie should have known it would come to this eventually. Shawn knew so little, and that was the only way they could have done this. John had said to keep him in the dark as much as possible, and so she had. He was as eager to please as a puppy when she found him, and John had been thrilled to have such a malleable child to work with. All their plans began to advance much more quickly with an intelligent kid like Shawn on board. But John had warned her that Shawn might someday figure it out. Someday, he'd turn on her.
But when things had been going so well, it had never crossed her mind that it might be today.
After three hours in a cell, Annie was ready to talk. If John didn't hear from her soon, he'd freak out. She'd told him that Shawn was in trouble and she had to go rescue him. If she didn't keep him updated, he would get upset. He would get panicky. Who knew what he would do when he was like that?
It was this that convinced Peter to let her contact John. He was an extremely unsentimental man, but he was imminently logical. If she didn't stay in touch with John, they would never have so much as an opportunity to capture him. Not that she planned on giving them any help there. She'd tell them enough, with enough of a sob story, to make them think she was as innocent and naïve as Shawn was, and then they'd leave her alone. They'd probably spend the next twenty years looking for John, but they'd never find him.
She called John, and just said that she could handle Shawn's little problem, it would only take her a day and she'd get the boy back. He'd made the mistake of showing up as Landon when the real Landon was out of school sick, so he was having to wait around until the real Landon was well before he could show up for his meeting with Emma. He bought it. He had no reason not to trust her.
Once she convinced them she didn't know anything, they'd try to use her like they'd been using Shawn. They'd get her to set up a meeting with John they could ambush. She'd agree to it, and she'd let John know, she'd say something in just the right way, to let him know not to show up to that meeting. She'd slip them on the way there. John had taught her how to abort a Side-Along Apparation years ago. She just needed to come up with something to say to these police and government agents first.
Annie hated talking about herself. She didn't like to be angry, but thinking back on the earlier years of her life always made her feel vengeful and furious. It was a good thing, when she needed some motivation to keep working on their numerous plots and plans, but it was not great when she needed to keep her head and control her mouth.
She knew she was pretty, and she planned to use it. She'd already seen Peter, this official agent of the state, staring at her chest. She'd worn her lustrous and thick brown hair down long today, and he seemed to be the type of guy who appreciated the natural look rather than the heavily styled. Add a few tears, and he'd be hers. John had taught her how to control men with nothing more than some simple gestures. Well, all men but him, anyway. But, as the one who'd taught her everything, that was to be expected. Things with him were on his terms, but she'd never much minded it. She owed him her life in every sense of the word.
So she sat in their interrogation room, at a heavy wooden table on a stone floor, bare walls meant to intimidate but really just boring, and she began. With a little tremble in her voice, with a few fits and starts to make it more genuine.
"My name is Annie Bradshaw. When I was fifteen . . ." With tears gathered on her lashes, she looked up at Peter sadly. "I didn't know I was a witch. I didn't know anything about my power or how to control it. I had no idea." She squeezed a few more tears out. "I had no one to show me. What I did— it was an accident." That much was true. She had never meant to. "I killed my parents." She tried to make it just words, tried to make it just a line in a play, and keep herself apart from it. But she couldn't. She had never been able to separate her memories from the words, not in fifteen years. She could still see the bodies, still hear herself screaming at them to wake up. When she shuddered and moaned softly, it was the first real thing she did in front of Peter and Drew
Drew looked horrified and sad, she saw when she looked at them. Peter just looked calculating. He knew she was acting.
"I couldn't explain what I did, and they were going to send me to jail. They were talking about trying me as an adult. My magic—it did such terrible things to them. I just . . . I was just upset that they wouldn't let me go out. I didn't mean for it to happen. But they didn't believe me. The police, I mean. They thought I murdered them on purpose, because I couldn't tell them what really happened."
She covered her face with her hands, trying to shelter herself, the only way she could keep talking. This wouldn't be so hard if Drew wasn't looking at her that way. He looked so compassionate, and she hated that, she hated that.
"That's when John came. He did something to the police, so that they forgot who I was, and he took me away with him. He told me about magic, and he taught me how to use it. He just . . . he took care of me. I was too young to know any better, and it wasn't my fault. He told me that. He told me that someone should have been there for me when I was younger, to train me."
Annie could hear Peter whispering something, no doubt something disbelieving and hard-hearted, but somewhere along the way, this had ceased to be an act. She wasn't telling the whole truth, but everything she was saying was the truth, and it had taken on a life of its own. She couldn't make herself shut up. She was angry with the two of them, she was angry with herself, she was angry with Shawn for getting her into this, and she was practically shaking with emotion.
"That's all I do, now, is I'm his student. He says I'm his apprentice. But I never do anything he doesn't tell me to do. All I ever wanted was to be a good student, to make him happy." Still covering her face, her voice lowered to nearly a whisper. "He was so glad that Shawn wanted to get back at his school. Shawn is his new prodigy, and John loves Red-Hot so much. John told us to use it at the school, so we did."
"Where is John?"
"I don't really know. We move around a lot. I just bring Shawn here once a week to give that girl the drugs."
"When are you supposed to meet up with him again?"
"I'm supposed to be with him right now. I have to come up with something it you want to sit in on a meeting. I have to have a story for him."
Peter looked at her with cold, ugly eyes. "And you think I'm going to believe you mean to do it? You're going to cooperate with us?"
"I have to, don't I?" she said bitterly. "If I don't, you'll find some way to punish me even more than I was already going to be punished. I'm aware that I have no options, sir." She spat the word out as an insult. No, he was not a gentleman of any kind, and he knew it.
"Annie, listen," Drew spoke up. The good cop to Peter's bad cop, she supposed. Well, it wouldn't work on her. "You have options. Working with us only gives you more of them. I want to believe that you are ready to change your life."
Inside, Annie was sneering, but she responded as though Drew was really saying something worth listening to.
"I think I am," she said softly. "I just don't know how."
"That's okay. It'll take time, but we can show you."
God, she loved suckers like him.
Someone knocked on the door, and walked in without waiting for an invitation. It was a man that looked like he'd just passed through the seventh circle of hell. Every inch of skin that she could see was a mess of half-healed wounds, he was missing an eye, and he was leaning heavily on a cane. Annie shuddered. Ouch. Whatever had happened, ouch.
"I have a present for you," he sang out, looking at Drew.
Peter rolled his eyes. "You're not a cop, Jamie," he said back, his sing-song voice mocking the other man. "You can't be in here."
"Too late, I already am," he said. Annie was fascinated. This man was not even a little bit intimidated or put off by Peter. "Now listen. I have a plan for you guys. Prepackaged and ready to go. Just add a little Annie and stir."
Now Drew rolled his eyes. "What is it, Jamie?"
"A way to catch this John guy."
Annie sat up straight, rigid, instantly tense.
"Oh?" Peter asked with a tone of polite boredom.
"It will require the police to work with some rather shady characters and not develop a sudden need to arrest them," Jamie explained. Then he let out his breath in a whoosh. "But first I need to sit down."
He did so, with Drew's eyes looking at him sharply. Jamie looked sharply back.
"Are you okay?" Drew asked quietly.
"I'm fine, I'll make it, give it a rest. Now listen."
That, Annie thought with amusement, made them sound incredibly gay. But they were both wearing wedding rings. Well, maybe they were married to each other. Anyway, it suddenly lessened her fear. These were just men with people they loved, not automatons working for the system. And suddenly Annie realized that Drew wasn't just trying to play the good cop. This wasn't an act for him. He really did want to help her.
Huh.
"What we're going to do is sell more Red-Hot."
"Oh, that's a brilliant plan, Jamie," Drew said with a scowl.
"To another dealer."
"What?" Peter said, narrowing his eyes and looking almost vicious. If he wasn't just playing bad cop, then he was actually sort of a scary person. Well, not compared to John, but pretty frightening.
"The story we're going to give John is that word of Red-Hot is spreading, and another dealer is looking to start working for him. Expanding the empire, as it were. I assume he would like the opportunity to make more money and hurt more people?" he asked, looking at Annie. She nodded slowly. John probably would like that. "Of course, he'll need to meet the new buyer in person. They can negotiate, which will give us the opportunity to take measure of him and get in place to arrest him."
"Which might actually work," Peter said thoughtfully, "assuming we have someone who can play the part adequately. He'd have to be a complete idiot to believe it, so we would need to have, basically, an actual drug dealer on hand."
"We have something close enough," Jamie said with assurance.
"The funny thing here," Drew spoke up, "is that you keep saying 'we' like you're actually going to be involved. I'm pretty sure that I'm sending you back home to your wife. Today."
"I'm seeing this thing through. You're going to need my help on this one. Nor am I going to argue about it. I'm providing you with the actors for this."
"You are, are you?" Peter said doubtfully. "Who is it?"
Jamie's ridiculously gruesome face crinkled into a charming grin.