Page 109 of Natural-Born Cullers

“A few days.” Gray focused back on his phone. “She’s in Corsica. Nothing calls her back from there.”

Martin snorted. “Here’s to hoping they keep her.” He glanced at Gray. “What will she do, do you think?”

“Nothing she really can do. They’re dead. She won’t risk being exposed with having none.”

“Andifshe calls for more?”

Gray snorted a smile. “Then he better be bigger, meaner, and move damn faster to take me down. She’ll call stalemate until someone is found.”

Martin nodded, content. Egos didn’t survive too long in their world, only facts. And the fact was itwouldtake someone bigger, meaner… faster when it came to Gray. That didn’t mean he or she wasn’t out there. They just hadn’t crossed Gray’s path yet.

Martin eased out of the Merc and gave a stretch.

Gray didn’t look set to follow just yet, and Martin stayed quiet over why. He had a look about him that said he checked up on König’s girls, how they’d be waking up to a missing father in a few hours. Gray would take care of them from a financial standpoint, although his quiet said he knew first-hand how it didn’t replace family. This side was what Light needed to face and learn: the consequences when feeling was impossible for a psychopath outside of family. Although anyone outside of the manor really bored the shit out of Martin.

“Mart?”

He leaned in the window as Gray set it down.

“When you’re ready,” Gray said quietly, “I really need to talk to Jack.”

Martin nodded, then smiled down to his feet. “Yeah… me too.”

He shut the door, then headed over to the manor, keeping his head down as he worked his way through into the kitchen. Rowdy talking from the wild in the form of peacocks drifted over the green, and Martin shut the back door, keeping out the morning mist that made talk hollow.

Then he made his way over to the kettle, to where the photo sat close by.

Strange. Out of all the games he’d played in the past, he’d never once disturbed Jack’s photo. It felt wrong, too close to the edge that bridged both worlds, much like the tent pegs.

Martin let out a shaky sigh, the clock on the microwave oven ticking just past seven in the morning. After a moment, he plucked out his phone and thumbed in a message. Then after setting an alarm to repeat every fifteen minutes and slipping it back in his pocket, he reached for the photo.

“Your time, our kid.” A wave of sickness hit his stomach, but it was how his focus stayed fixed on one point in time—counting stones around a Merc tyre—that started to take all light from the morning. “Some paths you just have to walk alone….”

Jack blinked at the photo, and for a moment nothing made sense—not the picture he was caught reaching for, not the unit, the kitchen, how the clock ticked past 7:20 a.m. He tried to force chess pieces into place, mainly his own, then the scent of freshly cut grass drifted in, taking the walk to a house in summer….

No. A summerhouse. He’d been walking to a summerhouse, he’d—

For once, in your goddamn life, take responsibility for your fucking disorders….

Jack eased his touch away from his photo.

“Christ, baby.” It came so quietly as a fevered hold off Jan slipped around him from behind. “Go on, please. Bloody straighten it.” Jan rested his head down on Jack’s shoulder. “Don’t fight it. Not again. I… we….”

Pebbles around tyre…. How many times had he counted them over the years…? How many times had he needed to…? How many more times had he fought not to?

He shivered, then took a hold of Jan’s hands and loosened his grip, making him step back.

“Jack?”

Wiping a hand over his face, Jack ignored everything about the photo as an alarm from his phone kicked in. He took it out and frowned at the timer set for every fifteen minutes, then thumbed it off. As he did, a reminder of something new scrawled itself into the notes.

I didn’t mean for you to get caught in all of this, our kid. So this is me fixing it. Fixing us.

Always just a concept, just deus ex machina, but… but, fuck. Jack—we were bloody perfection, right? You and me? So you…?

Just know I wouldn’t walk away for anyone else, although it’s scaring the fuck out of me doing it.

Because Gray’s right. Your head’s so much damn stronger than you think. So straighten the fucking photo. Own every part of you, especially the side that scares you a little. You’re alive then. We both always will be.

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