Page 110 of Natural-Born Cullers

Jack dipped his head.

Fuck.

Martin.

The back door came open, and Gray paused for a moment as Jan broke away. He went to whisper in Gray’s ear, but Gray roughly cupped Jan’s jaw, pulling him in for a rougher kiss. Jack should have cared enough to take a step back, ask why Gray reacted the way he did, why it stole Jan’s quiet for a moment, he just couldn’t chase any feeling to push through it, not as Jan leaned in and whispered quickly in Gray’s ear. He….

Whispering.

Jack tilted his ear.

Every goddamn stage in his life, someone always fucking whispered from close by.

A sharp look came Jack’s way, the photo’s, then Gray came over. But the moment he stepped in close, Jack shook his touch off and looked at him.

“Don’t….” Jack levelled a finger his way.

“Pick up the photo, Jack. It’s okay to fall…” Gray said gently, his face paling. “I swear to God it’s always goddamn okay to fall around me, stunner. I… I shouldn’t have come at you for all of this. I’m not Vince, even though it seems like it at times. I never once meant to throw you back into thinking you need to hide all the good that makes you… you.”

“Not hiding,” Jack said quietly, never feeling more… displaced. “Nowhere left to hide….”

Gray frowned and went to say something, but Jack reached back and picked the photo up, then let it fall.

No release came with letting it go, just this feeling of standing, of being, alone. “What the fuck do you think you’re trying to do, eh, asshole?” he mumbled.

“Jack?” Jan came a little closer, but the door eased open again, and Andrews came in, holding it for someone else.

“Fucking seriously?” Jan went to go for the door, but Gray stopped him as a young lad came through after Andrews.

“Lab furnace,” Gray said quickly to Jan. “Packaging used for his chemical mix are still at the summerhouse. Him and Simon are the best here to sterilize any potential biohazard waste found in that and the small apparatus Light pieced together. But no one touches them without a hazmat suit on. Light—”

Yeah. Jack looked over. That was Gray’s son there. Not in looks, but in Light’s quiet, how he took in chess pieces and placement before he rested against the unit close to Andrews, there in the background. He’d been in the background for so many years, just out of sight, so much more Gray’s son in that… distance.

A look came Jack’s way from rich chocolate eyes, only the look was too shared, too personal, talking in a way Jack didn’t understand, not fully.

“Martin.” Light offered a nod over. “You okay? You still don’t look too good.”

“No. Martin. Here,” Jack said flatly. It hadn’t sunk in with any of them what Jack tried to express, but then he couldn’t voice any of it properly anyway, so he backed away, took his cigarettes from a drawer and started for the hall, needing out.

Light gave a look down at his feet, the tense at his jaw calling out his awkwardness. “Apologies.” Then he looked up. “It’s good to finally meet you, Jack.”

“No it isn’t.” Smokes in hand, Jack levelled a look on Light. “It really fucking isn’t anymore.”

“Jack, wait,” said Gray. “I—”

“Don’t, and I mean fucking don’t.” Jack looked over at Gray. “Not your fault,” he said, and that seemed to confuse Gray more. “You never once made it a secret you were a psychopath. Neither did I with who I am.” Jack shrugged. “So it’s a little too late for any of us here to cry anger at the hurt knowing we both strike the matches to see the skin burn. I’m not pissed off. I’m not hiding. I just need to be left the fuck alone. You understand?”

He didn’t at the moment. Neither of them would yet because Jack didn’t know what had his breathing coming in so hard and fast. Why he needed to throw away this feeling of nothing that rebounded his inside, liquidising lungs, his heart, and leaving even his clothes smelling of blood and dust.

Turn. He felt like part of him was turning his head away from the fires, ones only Martin had been able to walk into, and it fucking killed every part of him, leaving him to run and chase where the hell he’d gone to.

No talk came from the kitchen as Jack bypassed the reception hall. The painting of Owen Glendower still dominated the main wall at the V of the staircase, and Jack gave it a long look over before making his way outside, then took the walk around the back of the manor, to the summerhouse.

The tent peg stayed deep in the grass, and Jack kept it in pure focus as he made his way over, heart pounding hard.

Sometimes the switch came with no warning signs. It was like flicking a light switch: here one minute, gone into the void the next. Sometimes he felt a shiver, a breath down the back of his neck that had terrorised him for most of his life, but as he reached the peg, kicked into it….

Nothing.

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