“B-because she’s not well. She doesn’t… she doesn’t realise what she’s doing. It’s not her fault.”
DS Michaels frowned. “Doing what, exactly?”
Pember’s hands balled into even tighter fists. “Just inconvenient stuff. It’s not… Nothing crazy, just—you should check it now,” he said, tapping the table. “The instructions say a minute and a half, but it doesn’t take that long.”
Both of them looked down at the tests, then back up at him. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr McArthur. I’m sure you understand.”
Pember nodded, gripping the edge of the table. “Can I go now?”
The inspector smiled, but neither of them rose from their seats. “Yes, of course. But before you do, has anyone else witnessed the behaviour? From your mother, I mean?”
Pember’s mouth opened and closed several times, but he was already backing towards the door. “I-I… Well, yes. DS Oliver White and DS Blake Smith. But like I said, it’s not her fault. I don’t want?—”
DS Michaels cut him off, handing him a leaflet. He was mumbling something about injunctions and harassment orders, but the pounding in Pember’s ears was growing louder and louder.
“Yeah, okay. Thanks,” he said, barely comprehending the last five minutes of the conversation.
He all but bolted down the corridor, not caring about the odd looks as he headed back to the underground locker room. Stumbling into the omega changing rooms, he ripped off his uniform and threw it into an evidence bag.
He wasn’t going to cry. He wasnotgoing to cry.
Of course his mum would do this.Of courseshe’d stoop so fucking low as to come for his job. She’d done it to his sister when she first moved out—called the police and said she was dealing cannabis out of her tiny one-bedroom flat in London. Imogen had never touched drugs, let alone handled them.
The towels in the laundry cupboard were more like cardboard than actual fabric, the white linens washed and starched to within an inch of their lives. They were rough against his skin as he wrapped one around his waist, the other draped over his shoulders. The grey custody tracksuit was still folded on the bench where he’d left it, and he grimaced at the thought of wearing something that wasn’t his.
Anger—both his and his wolf’s—carried him through the changing rooms and into the shower block. Seven or eight light blue cubicles stood in a row, the partitions low enough that you could see someone’s head and shoulders as they showered. The white tiles were not enough to offset the beige floor, and the smell of cheap, bulk-buy shower gel clung to the walls as foam drifted into the plughole in the centre of the room. It made an obnoxiously loud sucking sound as it drained away.
Shoving open the nearest cubicle, he almost knocked it off its hinges in his and his wolf’s combined fury. For the first time in months, his wolf was at the forefront of his emotions, pacing and growling in the back of his mind. It was confusing, and liberating, and a little oppressive.
Aggressively flicking the rough towels over the top of the partition, he twisted the taps and turned on the water. The exposed copper pipes groaned as an icy jet shot out of the shower, making him yelp as it rained down over his head. He cried out again when the ice turned boiling hot, scalding his shoulders and making him swear. That’d been enough to knock him out of his rage, and after a few seconds the water calmed to an unpleasant lukewarm, which wasdefinitelya ploy to make sure the staff didn’t linger overlong.
“Don’t use the soap,” a voice called, making him jump.
Pember’s gaze snapped to the right, and he was met with a good portion of Blake’s wet chest four rows down. He was still washing his hair, the pink foam clinging to his shoulders.
“The shampoo’s fine, but the soap will give you a rash.” Blake kept his eyes forwards, not looking at Pember as he continued to wash. In his anger, Pember hadn’t even noticed that the shower block was still in use, and he’d just assumed that Blake would wash quickly and be done.
“Sorry,” he called over the noise of the running water. “I didn’t know you were still in here. I can go?—”
“It’s fine,” Blake called back. “I’ll be done in a second.”
They settled into awkward silence, neither looking at the other as they showered. The blood draining out of Blake’s hair just kept going and going, and it wasn’t until the third rinse that the water started to run clear.
Pember washed quickly, his breaths coming out in ragged bursts, and eventually Blake looked over.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Pember snapped, furiously scrubbing his knuckles through his hair. “I didn’t… I just… I just got called in by Professional Standards.”
Blake hummed, running his tongue over his teeth with a playful expression. “Did Wallace finally snap?”
“What? No! They wanted to seeme.My mum. My fucking mum, she?—”
Blake’s head jerked up, and he pushed his wet hair back from his forehead. “What did she do?”
“She… she reported me, Blake. She bloody reported me to Anti-Corruption. Told them I was taking drugs at work. They did a test! Took cheek swabs and then I spat on the table! It was so humiliating.”
Blake let out a sharp breath. “Did you tell them about the other day?”
