He was clearly on high alert as we walked. He also seemed to think we'd be less likely to be attacked on foot, which didn't entirely make sense to me. Maybe this Fang guy had a reputation and he wanted it to be obvious we were together? But if that was the case, I would've imagined he'd seem more grateful to have his help.
Either way, I found Riggs' paranoia rubbing off on me. I was studying rooftops and darkened windows as we walked, waiting for pale, monstrous faces to appear with glinting red eyes.
Once, I thought I saw a figure on a rooftop, but when I looked again, there was nothing.
I knew we were close to my apartment when I saw the police lights. The whole front of the building was taped off and at least fifty people in uniforms from various departments were standing around. Some had pads out and appeared to be collecting interviews from witnesses. Others were wearing hazmat style suits and heading inside with complicated equipment.
"How are we supposed to get in?" I asked.
Riggs made an annoyed noise—he had a lot of those, I noted. There was the standard-issue heavy breath of annoyance. He also had a grunt of displeasure. There was even a groan for the most highly annoying annoyances. "You wait here. I'll climb in through the window."
I chuckled. Then I realized he was serious. "What? Like parkour? I mean, I love that episode of The Office as much as anybody else, but I don't see how-"
I trailed off. Riggs was already loping across the street toward our building.
"Get her medicine!" Maisey yelled.
Riggs threw a thumbs up over his shoulder, then jogged to the left side of the building. It was a good twenty or thirty yards from the main police activity. It was also in a dark patch between two streetlights.
He paused for a moment at the base of the building, looked both ways, then did a jump that seemed just barely too high to be possible.
I blinked, watching in confusion. I expected him to scrabble for a handhold and fall back down, but when he spread his arms out like a rock climber, they seemed to find firm purchase. He didn't fall, and in an instant, he was reaching hand over hand across the brick, climbing effortlessly.
"How..." I whispered.
Maisey was beside me, holding to my shoulders tight.
Fang grinned at us, wiggling his fingers. "Werewolf claws," he said. "Trade secret."
“At least it was until you blabbed about it,” Maisey said.
I nodded absently, still staring at Riggs who had reached our third-floor window in just a few seconds. He peered inside, then pushed the window up and climbed through.
"What's he going to do about the people inside?" I asked.
"Riggs is a legend," Fang whispered.
"That doesn't answer the question," Maisey said.
Fang shook his head. "Riggs is the guy you get when the thing you need done is impossible." He was still whispering, like he was repeating some kind of urban legend that was meant to be told around darkened campfires.
"Him?" I asked, gesturing to the window. "He seems more like the grumpy jerk you tell kids to leave alone."
"Nah. There’s not a werewolf in the states who doesn’t know about Riggs. That dude has done some shit. But he came here to disappear. Course a guy like him can't really disappear, but he's trying. That guy," Fang said, pointing to the window, where the darkened silhouette of a large man just appeared. "He's what any werewolf on the up and up wants to be. He's-"
Riggs swung one long leg out over the window ledge, appeared to lose his balance, and fell three stories. It all happened so fast.
One minute he was climbing out the window with something tucked under his arm, the next he was falling.
I only had enough time to realize he was holding Gravy Boat III up in the air as he fell like a guy might hold his girlfriend's purse while she tried on clothes.
He hit the ground with an audible thud. Gravy Boat was jolted from his grasp and landed lightly on Riggs' chest. As if he hadn't just plummeted from the third floor, Gravy Boat casually crossed the street, glared at me, then meowed.
I ignored him and stared at the motionless form of Riggs on the ground. "Oh my God," I whispered. I wasn't exactly sure how to feel. The man was kidnapping my sister and I—or something close enough to it that I didn't think the distinction mattered a great deal. But it didn't mean I wanted him to die.
"He'll be fine," Fang said. He cleared his throat. "Maybe just a little rusty from retirement. But he'll heal right up. Give him a sec."
Sure enough, Riggs sat up, shook his head, then got to his feet and limped toward us. After a few shaky steps, he was moving normally again.
"Fuck," he grumbled once he got near us. He knelt down and pointed a finger at Gravy boat, making eye contact with the cat. "If you ever do that again, I will make sure I land on you instead of saving your ugly ass. Got it?"
I smiled. Riggs was talking to the cat like he actually expected him to understand every word. "What did he do?"
"He licked me." Riggs visibly shuddered. "He fucking licked my ear right when I was carrying him out the window."
I laughed.
Gravy Boat's only response to the threat was to weave around Rigg's legs and let out a dignified yowl.
"How did you do that without getting caught?" I asked.
Riggs started walking back the way we'd come and our whole unlikely group followed after him. I had to jog to catch up to him. I noticed Maisey stuck close by me, as if she was worried Riggs was going to bite. Maybe that wasn't the most ridiculous thing to worry about, actually.
"Crime scenes are chaotic places. People from different departments all doing different jobs. If you act like you know what you're doing, chances are, you get left alone."
"Nobody thought it was weird when you grabbed a cat and a bunch of pill bottles?"
Riggs shrugged. "A woman asked what I was doing. Nobody else cared."
"What'd you tell her?"
"I said he was a suspect,” Riggs shrugged, pointing to Gravy Boat. “Then I fell out the window."
"Right," I said slowly, grinning at the mental image of that.
Riggs kept looking down in disgust at Gravy Boat, who was stalking along beside him like a wrinkly, hairless shadow. "I was kind of hoping he'd run away."
"For some reason, he seems to like you."
"Bad instincts," Riggs guessed.
I studied Riggs. He was easily the most attractive man I'd ever interacted with. Granted, that carried about as much weight as a t-rex's arms, coming from me. But still, I'd seen movies. And I’d creepily stared at people from my window.
Riggs was in a class all of his own. Tall, athletic, rugged with stubble running across his jaw and dusting his upper lip. He had nice lips, too. I didn't know if it was just knowing he was a werewolf, but I thought I could see wolf-like qualities in his features now. There was a kind of angular edge to his eyes and a sharpness to his eyebrows that made me think of a hunter. There was a sharpness to his canines—just subtle, but now that I was looking for it, I saw it. He even moved with a kind of deadly grace.
"Fang said you are a legend. What was he talking about?"
"He's full of shit, is what."
"Fang hears everything," Fang said, raising his voice from a little ways behind us as we walked.