Page 98 of Forever Dark
For a second nothing happened.
Then the engine noise softened.Air brakes hissed.The folding door opened with a mechanical sigh.
Elias Croft stepped down first.
Hands raised.Coat neat.Silver at his temples untouched by the chase.His expression was composed enough to insult the effort it had taken to bring him here.
“Hello, children,” he said, voice carrying with practiced ease.“I want counsel immediately.You can contact my attorney at—”
“Save it,” Selena snapped, cutting him off.
His eyes came to her.Not startled.Almost gentle.
Connor moved to cover the interior of the bus.“Anyone else inside, show your hands!”
No one emerged.
Selena closed the distance until Croft stood a couple of feet away, hands still up, face calm in the late light.Close enough now to smell soap and road dust and something medicinal beneath it.
“You’re under arrest pending questioning in connection with three homicides,” she said.
Croft gave the smallest sigh, as though this was tiresome rather than dangerous.“Agent Raven, I told you already, I’ve done nothing but preach.”
“Not now.You ran.Turn around.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Turn around.”
This time he obeyed.
The cuffs clicked shut around his wrists.Metal on bone.Final.Selena had made hundreds of arrests.Plenty of liars.Plenty of narcissists.Plenty of men who thought performance could protect them.Yet as she secured his hands and stepped him back from the bus, a chill worked its way through her all the same.
Croft did not seem shocked.
Not angry enough.
Not even especially afraid.
He looked like a man who had been waiting for this exact moment and had decided long ago how he meant to stand when it came.
Thatmore than the chase, more than the empty revival grounds, more than the escort cars and the blocked road, unsettled her.
Because people surprised by the law usually behaved like it.
Elias Croft did not.
He turned his head just enough to look at her over one shoulder, eyes clear, mouth almost kind.
“I hope,” he said softly, “you’re not losing time on the real monster.”
Selena tightened her grip on his arm and looked toward the bus, its dark windows giving nothing back.
For the first time since the silo, certainty flickered.
Then it was gone again, and all that remained was the man in cuffs and the unnerving sense that he had expected them all along.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
