Page 126 of Torn In Two

A curse, one a lot louder than the one I’d uttered, floated back, but then Whip’s heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway.

The door opened a crack, but to my surprise, it wasn’t Whip’s sharp blue eyes staring back at me.

“X?”

He smirked. “Doc. Fancy seeing you here.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you hang out at Whip’s place?”

He shrugged with a fake nonchalance that wasn’t fooling anybody, let alone me, the man who’d studied all his odd behaviors and quirks for years. “Just dropped around for a cup of tea.”

Another muffled scream filtered back.

I gave X a pointed look. “Are you boiling Whip in the kettle along with the tea bags? Because it sounds like someone back there is in pain.”

He rolled his eyes, flinging the door open dramatically. “Fine! You busted us. You better come in.”

I followed him inside the run-down shack of a house, made oddly homey by knick-knacks and photos on the wall. If I’d had more time, I would have liked to stop and take a poke around, see what those items told me about the man who’d been in my group for longer than either of us could remember.

It had started with him, me, and Trigger. We were the originals.

“Whip! Doc is here.”

I paused in the living room, taking in the big man sprawled out across it. “You’re here too?” I asked Torch.

“Apparently.” He took a long draw on a smoke, the end burning red in the dim light, all the blinds drawn and the sunlight only peeping around the corners. “Ace is getting some food together in the kitchen if you want a sandwich or something.”

With the blood-curdling screaming coming from one of the bedrooms, eating was the last thing I felt like doing.

Whip appeared from a room somewhere down the hallway, wiping his hands off on a grubby cloth. A plastic apron with flowers all over it covered his clothes.

It also happened to be covered in blood, not that anybody but me seemed fazed by that.

“That’s…” I pointed to his chest.

Whip glanced down, his eyebrows rising like he hadn’t even noticed the blood spray. “My granny’s apron. Don’t give me shit about it. It does the job.”

Right. Got it. Not exactly what I’d been hoping for an explanation on, but okay then. I cleared my throat, ignoring the moans from the back room and the way X picked at dried blood from beneath his fingernails.

I perched on the arm of the couch. “I guess you all got too tied up to attend the meeting.”

X sniggered. “We ain’t the one’s tied up, Doc.”

I cringed as the person who was being held in a room down the hallway let out a helpless scream that didn’t even register on the expressions of the other men. So I tried to school my features into the same blank stare, even though my heart beat too fast.

I knew them. Knew what they did. I’d heard all their stories. All their secrets.

I just hadn’t seen it in person. Heard it. Smelled it. God, there was a stench I related to torture. Piss. Shit. Vomit. Blood. Fear. All of it combined together to produce a smell I had spent years in therapy attempting to forget.

I swallowed thickly, trying to focus on the reason I was here. And not the pure evidence right in front of me that these men were dangerous.

“What meeting?” Whip asked.

I frowned. “One of you called for a meeting. Twice. But then didn’t show. I got worried when none of you answered your phones…”

Torch leaned over and picked up his phone from the coffee table. “We were…busy.” He turned the phone around so I could see the screen. “I didn’t get a call for a meeting though. Only the call from you about fifteen minutes ago.”

Whip went into the kitchen and pulled his phone off the charging cable. “Nothing on mine either.”

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