Page 9 of Torn In Two

My understanding came from years of study.

Theirs did too. Only none of them had cracked a book or attended a lecture. Everything they knew came from the way they studied people.

Psychopaths were good at that. Watching. Waiting. Learning all sorts of things about their victims before they attacked.

I found them endlessly interesting.

“I’ve shared as much as I want to share for today.” I set the boundary firmly. “Whip, how about you?”

The big man cracked his neck and then rubbed at the spot with his thick fingers. “Working on a new target. Haven’t decided if he’s the one yet.”

“Straight off the prison release list?” X took the question out of my mouth.

Whip shrugged.

I squinted at him. “If you’re going rogue, you need to tell me. Let me run some checks on whoever it is.”

Whip stared at me. “They ain’t good people, Gray. I promise.”

“Even still, I want a name. You want someone added to the list, then we all have to agree. That’s how this works.”

Torch chuckled and flicked his cigarette lighter. “Whip wants to keep his new toy all to himself.”

Whip flipped him the bird. “Can you blame me? If I put his name on the list you’ll probably set his fucking house on fire.”

“Come on, Dad!” Torch mocked, ribbing Whip for being the oldest of the group. “Just a little blaze. Nothing crazy.”

We all knew he hadn’t chosen Torch as his group name for no reason. The man was a complete pyromaniac and thought nothing of setting fire to a house while his victim slept inside.

Though he’d admitted many a time that he preferred to block off the exits and hear them scream.

Whip turned to me. “I’ll tell you, but you keep him off the list so fire fingers over there doesn’t get to him before I do.”

I nodded, passing my notepad and pen to the older man and watching him scribble a name across it.

X leaned over to try to sneak a peek, his chair legs lifting off the floor.

Whip shot out one hand so fast X didn’t even see it coming until he’d fallen off his chair.

I hid a laugh as he grumbled and got back up, shooting Whip a dirty look in the process.

Whip just rolled his eyes at me as he handed me back my notepad. He was probably only in his early forties, but he was the unofficial father figure of the group. Anyone else shoving X off a chair like that probably would have ended in a murder, but X, Ace, and Torch all tolerated Whip’s grumpy old-man moves.

He’d earned the right to put them in their place, and we all knew it.

I focused on the younger man with the snake tattoos covering his entire body. Even with a sweatshirt on, they were visible creeping up his neck and across his knuckles. “X, you want to talk?”

“About my bruised ass?” he snarked.

“Or about how you’ve been lately?”

He pulled out a cigarette and leaned over so Torch could light it.

Any excuse for the man to create flame.

X inhaled and then blew out the smoke in a long plume. “Got my hands dirty last night.” He glanced at me. “Thirty-seven on the list, by the way.”

I noted that down, not remembering the name of the person in that slot, or the reason they were there, but I felt no remorse. If they were on the list, they were on it for a reason. They were either a rapist, a child molester, a granny basher, a prostitute killer, or had committed some other crime that had landed them in our sights.

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