Chapter 24
Nathan Price had hardly slept last night. Visions of Lucy kept flashing through his head, the look of hurt in her beautiful eyes as the wolf lady had gone in for the first lunge burning in the back of his eyes. His sandy coloured hair sticking up at different angles, Nathan rolled out of bed, resting for a moment on the edge before getting to his feet. The numbers on the Muggle alarm clock glowed green: it was barely morning. Would they have found the bodies yet?
As he made himself some coffee, he thought about what had happened. Lucy was dead. That made him angry. Or was he sad? Maybe confused? It wasn't meant to happen like that. That Amber, she had to die of course, the wolf lady had made that very clear. She'll give you away otherwise. He could still hear her grating voice. That was a shame; Amber had always been nice to him, so friendly, so flattered when he'd asked her to meet him that night. Nathan could be charming when he needed to be. It was a real shame, but the wolf lady was right, Amber would have told if she had lived. The practice had gone so well. Nathan had heard two people talking about the death on the street. They all thought it was werewolves.
But he hadn't meant to kill Lucy. Hurt her, yes, that had been the aim all along. She deserved that. She needed to see how much she had hurt him, how she had betrayed him. She was supposed to be protecting him against the bad people, but instead she had joined them. She had to know how it had hurt. Nathan had been so, so angry. It had fueled him as he had attacked her, each stab taking a little bit of the pain away. But he hadn't meant to go so far. Once she understood, Nathan could forgive her and then they could go back to being happy. But something had gone wrong and she had died. Nathan tried to put it out of his mind.
Later on in the morning, the same line of thought came back to him. What had happened? At first he had blamed the wolf lady. She must have gone too far, bit her too hard, not understood how vitally important it was that Lucy should live. Nathan's hands balled up as he saw his helpers smug, condescending face. You're as much to blame as I am, Sweetheart, don't give me that crap. His fault. That's what she had told him. No. No. It couldn't be. He would never do that to his sweet Lucy. You stabbed her, if you're willing to stab her, you'd be willing to kill her, that's all I'll say. That had struck a nerve. Nathan would never have wanted to kill her. Hurt her, she deserved to be hurt, but not kill her. Then it had floated back to him, as he had watched the wolf lady saunter away into the darkness: who was it who had convinced him Lucy deserved it in the first place? Who had been there the day he had yelled at Lucy at the meeting? Who hung around after that, asking him questions, trying to be his friend? It wasn't his fault at all. He had been made to do it. And in the darkness, he had come up behind the wolf lady and given her what she deserved. She wasn't expecting it and Nathan was strong. Her pathetic wand or her special powers did nothing to save her. She was truly responsible, Nathan reminded himself as he thought back to last night. That satisfied him.
Nathan went to work. He liked going to work. All he had to do was sweep and clean. Even without magic, it was easy. Today he was sweeping the foyer, tucked away in a corner behind the staircase. As he worked, he saw two women enter, both blonde, one young and one older. They were strangers and Nathan always took notice of strangers. As he listened to their conversation with the deputy manager, the young man felt his heart skip a beat. It couldn't be, it just couldn't be. They were asking about the wolf lady. Nathan began to panic. If they knew about her, did they know about him to? Were they looking for him? Was that why they had come? Nathan rushed away, made some excuse of illness and then went straight home.
At home, he paced back and forth. How much did they know, was the mantra that circled around him, how much do they know? He had already pulled up the floorboards in his room, hiding the wand fragments beneath them. But that wouldn't be enough to protect him. Going to a chest of drawers that sat by his back door, Nathan opened the first drawer and searched around in it. Lying beneath some old newspapers and a ragged sweater was a slightly dinted handgun. He had found it nestled in a bush down the street and had taken it home. He picked it up to check that it was still loaded, though he knew it would be for he had never used it. This was the closest thing to a wand he would ever have. And it could protect him when the time came.