The Man Who Crossed Worlds (Miles Franco #1)

Chapter Seventeen

My head spun like a dancing girl around a pole, and it felt about as naked too. I looked from the gun to Todd and back to the gun again.

I was getting entirely sick of staring down the barrels of guns. If I had a union, I’d take it up with them, but as it was, I settled for staring at Todd dumbly.

“Wha…?” I said, the only sound my mouth could produce.

Todd stared at me, his eyes hard. The cigarette dangled from his lip, glowing like hellfire. “It’s a shame it had to go down like this. Hands where I can see them.”

I did as he said, but my legs started moving by themselves. I backed up until I hit the wall. The barrel of the gun was a black pit. My eyes never left it.

Without taking his eyes from me, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket, dialed a number, and pressed it to his ear. “Got him. Make the call.” He hung up and returned the phone to his pocket.

My brain was working so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if smoke was coming from my ears. Finally, I managed to speak. “What the hell are you doing?”

He stayed in the doorway. His face was a mask, and there was no way I was getting close enough to claw it off.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” he said. “Uniforms’ll be here in a sec. They’re gonna take you downtown, stick you in the box for a while. A confession will be written for you. You make your scribble on it.”

“A confession? You mean…Spencer?”

“You beat him to death with that little stick you’re carrying. Seems you didn’t take too kindly to him trying to destroy your Tunnel while you were still inside.”

Spencer’s arm had flopped out of the wardrobe, bloodied and gray. I ripped my gaze from it before the nausea building in my gut managed to spill over.

“It ain’t so bad,” he said. “Inside, I mean. They won’t go hard on you. You’ll be out before you’re fifty.”

“Take the rap for it yourself, then.”

“I can’t. I need more time. Just a little more.”

Todd didn’t say anything else. He just stared at me for a few more moments, smoke trailing from his cigarette. I stared back. A million questions buzzed in my head, but my throat was having other ideas.

Finally, Todd ground out the cigarette on the doorframe and slipped the butt into his pocket. “All right. Out of there.” He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and dangled them on his finger. “Time to go.”

I trudged toward him like a zombie. This was a messed up dream. It had to be. It didn’t make sense. “Walt.”

“Don’t give me that look, Miles. It was you that got that damn Vei all spooked in the first place. Coming round here, tossing the place like a goddamn cowboy. I did what I had to.”

“You’re sick.”

He slammed his fist into the doorframe, setting the whole room shuddering. “Don’t tell me things you don’t know a fucking thing about. This city is what’s sick, and I’m gonna be the one to fix it. Me, you hear?”

Jesus. The guy was off his rocker. He took a step toward me, and my collar started feeling awfully like a noose.

He brought himself nose-to-nose with me, nostrils flaring and lips peeled back. Then he exhaled sharply, blowing thick smoker’s breath into my face, and lowered the gun a little.

“You don’t understand,” he said, “not yet. But you will, when you see what I’ve done. You ain’t gonna like what I’ve done to you, I get that, but you’ll see. It’s for the best.”