Page 74 of Dropping Like Flies

Flynn didn’t move, determination glittering in his eyes and looking nothing like the amiable bartender who’d befriended me. He turned back to Ben, and I knew he’d kill him right in front of me, that me being here changed nothing. Then what? Would he kill me, too? I’d thought our connection was genuine. Had that all been an act? So many questions and I didn’t have answers for any of them.

I didn’t care that I had no weapon. I’d use nails, teeth, whatever it took. Poised to throw myself on him and to hell with the consequences, I remembered the thing Asher had given me—the thing I hadn’t even looked at. I pulled it out of my pocket and almost laughed when I saw what it was.

Bulky. Yellow. Like a gun, but not a gun. A taser. A police one, by the looks of it. I aimed it at Flynn’s back and pulled the trigger without a moment’s thought. The reaction was instantaneous, as however many volts entered Flynn’s system. His muscles going into spasm not only dislodged him from Ben but sent him tumbling to the floor to lie prone. Keeping one eye on Flynn to make sure he didn’t rally, I went to Ben, relieved to see his chest rising and falling as I clambered on the bed next to him.

He wasn’t in a good state, his hair matted with blood from an obvious head wound and his face drawn with pain. Once I’d extracted the makeshift gag, I pulled his head onto my lap and stroked his hair, muttering nonsensical things about being here now and not letting anyone hurt him. At least with him being naked, it was easy to inspect the rest of him, most of him seeming to have escaped unscathed, apart from some abrasions to his back and shoulders. A shout of “police” from below had me pulling the covers over him. Ben might not care about colleagues seeing him naked now, but he would later.

After a shouted response of “in here,” I continued with my inspection. There was a cut across Ben’s fingers, but all the digits were intact. To celebrate that fact, I interlocked my fingers with his and held on tight. Ben’s eyelids flickered, and he opened his eyes. “Hi,” I said.

He tried for a smile, but it didn’t quite come off. “Head’s sore.”

“Yeah, I bet.” I didn’t have time to say more before the room filled with uniformed police, two handcuffing Flynn as he regained muscle control, and heaving him to his feet. Even knowing I’d get flak from Ben later for outing our relationship, I couldn’t let go of him. Not when I’d nearly lost him for a second time. I needed to hold him and feel him breathe, to feel his heartbeat beneath my palm.

Only when a paramedic appeared did I loosen my grip. I still held his hand, though, Ben not seeming to want to let go either as the paramedic checked him over.

“Did they get him?” he finally asked.

I smiled at him, love no doubt shining from my eyes like a beacon. “Yeah, they got him.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Ben

Griffin stopped me with a hand on my arm before we could step inside the station. “You should be in bed recuperating. No one would think less of you. Not when you’ve been through such a harrowing experience.”

I lifted my hand to the thick dressing covering the right side of my temple. No fractured skull, thankfully. Just a few stitches and a bad case of concussion that still had me suffering occasional bouts of dizziness two days later. “I’m fine.”

The obvious lie earned me a disapproving look. Taking a blow to the head from a baseball bat had also left me with the black eye to end all black eyes, Griff not finding it at all funny when I’d joked that I was going to claim I’d been in the boxing ring with Tyson Fury.

Despite his lack of amusement, Griffin had been steadfast in his care of me in the last couple of days, revealing nursing skills I hadn’t known he possessed. He seemed more shaken up about everything that had happened than I was. Maybe because he was the one who’d brought Flynn into our lives. Although, I suspected that he’d have found his way into it one way or another. I might have been hunting him, but he’d also been hunting me, and I didn’t quite buy—no matter how much in love with the man I was myself—that Flynn’s assault on me was solely about having Griff to himself. It might have been his primary motive, but I was sure that my role as investigating detective of the murders he’d committed played at least a small part.

“Okay… I’m not fine,” I admitted, the honesty lessening Griff’s glare. “But I’ve been away too long already. I need to know what he’s saying.” Which wasn’t much if the reports that had gotten back to me were anything to go by. Flynn might not be hiding that he was Satanic Romeo, but when it came to his reasons for wanting to summon a demon, he’d clammed up completely and was refusing to be drawn on it, even going so far as to deny it completely.

Griff let out a sigh, but seemed to realize that arguing was pointless as we entered the station, the air conditioning a relief after the unseasonably warm weather outside. I changed the subject as we passed the reception desk and traversed the corridor, neither of us having talked much about the case in the past couple of days. “Did you hear from Cade?”

The face Griffin pulled said it all. “I did. In stereo. A thirty-minute tirade with copious amounts of swearing, where he pointed out at least ten times that he’s only just gotten John’s license back and he has neither the time nor the energy to be arsing around and doing the same for me.”

“Ouch! Thank God you’re friends. Imagine how much worse it might have been if you weren’t.”

“Yeah.” Griffin sighed and ran a hand through his hair, the simple gesture making me want to reach up and run my fingers through it. “Anyway, he called back an hour later to say that he and Baros had chatted, and that Baros agreed not to notify the council about my actions.”

“That’s good.” I thought about it some more. “Uncharacteristically charitable of the DCS, but good, nevertheless.”

“Yeah, I thought the same. Either Cade has something on him, or he owes Baros one hell of a favor.” He shrugged. “Either way, I’m not about to argue when it takes my neck off the chopping block.”

We stepped into the incident room and I winced as everyone stood and started applauding. For fuck’s sake. If I’d known they were going to make a fuss, I’d have stayed in bed. Grinning, Paul White stepped forward to give me a slap on the back. “Good job, Benito. You showed that bastard what for.”

“I didn’t really…”

“Hey! Take it easy,” Griffin growled as someone else congratulated me too roughly for his liking, and to mine, if I was honest. “He’s still got a concussion.”

It took a few minutes to navigate the room, most people keeping their distance after Griffin’s protective bear act and choosing to offer their congratulations orally rather than physically.

Once we were out of there and had rounded the corner, I leaned back against the wall and dragged a lungful of air in. “Well, that was fucking ridiculous.”

“Why?” Griffin stepped close. Close enough that I could smell the cologne he wore. I would have told him to step back, but the ship of pretending we weren’t an item had long since sailed after him refusing to let go of me in Flynn’s bedroom. There’d even been a point where I thought he might punch the paramedic tending to me simply for the crime of touching me. He’d never been possessive before. But then he’d never found me at the mercy of a serial killer before. Besides, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that had liked him turning into a caveman.

I laughed, the action managing not to exacerbate the faint pounding in my skull that no amount of pain medication seemed to shift. “It’ll take time,” was what the doctor had said. Well, I’d never been a patient man and all I wanted was to get back to normal. “Because… I didn’t really catch him, did I? I didn’t have a fucking clue who he was despite having met him.” A muscle twitched in Griffin’s cheek and I knew what he was thinking. He hadn’t just met him. He’d been intimate with him, and he hadn’t known either. I hadn’t pushed on how far they’d gone, but it helped somewhat to know they hadn’t been close enough for Griff to know about the tattoo on Flynn’s chest. Although, the irony didn’t escape me that if he had known, I could have skipped the concussion and simply gone round and arrested him.

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