scream, and my stomach tried to come up my throat. I swallowed that, too, and tried to think.
"What do you think?" Dolph said, and he pushed me, trapped between his big hands, towards the bed. "Pretty enough for you? Because one of your friends did this." He pressed me too close to the bed, and my legs squeezed against the gore-soaked bed clothes. The blood was cool to the touch, and it helped keep my beast from curling up my body. What good was blood if it wasn't hot and fresh?
"Dolph, stop this," I said, and my voice didn't sound like me.
"Lieutenant," a voice came from the open door.
Dolph turned with me still gripped between his hands. Detective Clive Perry stood in the doorway. He was a slender African American man, dressed conservatively, neatly, but well dressed. He was one of the most soft-spoken men I'd ever met, and themost soft-spoken policeman.
"What is it, Perry?"
Perry took a deep breath, that moved his shoulders and chest up and down. "Lieutenant, I think Ms. Blake has seen enough of the crime scene for now."
Dolph gave me a little shake that sent my head rattling and my stomach churning. "Not yet, she hasn't." He jerked me around to face back into the room. He dragged me towards the headboard, which was painted a lavender so close to the wall's color I hadn't seen it. He pushed me forward until my face was inches from it. There was a fresh claw mark like a pale scar in the wood and paint.
"What do you think did that, Anita?" He jerked me around until he was holding me facing him, his big hands still wrapped around my upper arms.
"Let go, Dolph." My voice still didn't sound like me. No one else could have done this to me. I'd have fought back by now, or been scared, or pissed. I still wasn't any of those things.
"What do you think did that?" And he gave me a little shake. It made my head rattle, my vision stream.
"Lieutenant Storr, I must insist that you let Ms. Blake go." Detective Perry was behind him, to one side, so I could see his face.
Dolph turned on him, and I think only the fact that his hands were already full kept him from grabbing Perry. "She knows. She knows what did this, because she knows every fucking monster in town."
"Let her go, Lieutenant, please."
I closed my eyes, which helped the dizziness. His hands on my arms let me know where his body was. I rammed the pointed heel of my shoe into his instep. He flinched, his hands loosened. I opened my eyes and did what I'd been trained to do. I brought my arms up between his and swept outward, downward. It broke his hold on me, and I drew my right arm back, and hit him a short uppercut into his gut. If he'd been shorter I'd have tried for the solar plexus, but the angle was bad, so I hit what I could get.
The air went out of him in a grunt, and he bent double, hands over his stomach. I still haven't quite come to terms with being more than human strong. I had a second where I hoped I hadn't hurt him more than I meant to, then I stepped back, away from him. The world was trembling, like I was looking at everything through wavy glass.
I kept backing up, and my heels hit something slick and thicker than just blood, and down I went. I landed hard on my ass, and blood spattered upwards. It soaked through my skirt and I struggled to my knees to keep it from soaking into my panties. The blood was cool to the touch, and then my knee smeared in something that wasn't blood.
I screamed and scrambled to my feet. If Perry hadn't caught me I'd have fallen again. But he was moving too slow for the door. I didn't want to throw up in here. I pushed away from him and half-staggered, half-ran through the doorway. When I hit the hallway I fell to all fours and threw up on the pale carpet. My head roared with pain, and my vision exploded with starbursts of white, white light.
I crawled towards the head of the stairs, not sure what I planned to do. The floor came up to smack into my body, and there was nothing but a soft, gray nothingness, then the world was black, and my head didn't