Page 94 of Natural-Born Cullers

A glance came Gray’s way. Dark rings played around Martin’s eyes, his face so bloody pale. He’d been unconscious when Gray had left, and it seemed he’d struggled with coming around. But poison did that to you, maybe a conscience as well. Did Martin even have one…?

A shrug came Gray’s way, a longer search of his eyes, but it seemed so tired with it. “Truths?”

Gray went over, shaking out of Cal’s grip when Cal tried to stop him again. Cal knew nothing, and Gray couldn’t find a way to voice it all. All he had now was Jan. Was….

He went in so close and rested his head down on Martin’s, body on body.

“What the fuck have you done, eh?” he said softly, slipping a touch to Martin’s hips. “Because you can’t tell me anything I don’t know already.” He briefly screwed his eyes shut. “How when Light was given brief alone time without surveillance for an hour, sometimes you took over the hot chocolate he asked for, and you’d leave Jack’s phone less ‘accidently’ there in the bathroom for you and him to send messages. How Light came to know about the Blood Eagle killer because you had full access to the manor and audio where he didn’t. How every spoken word between me and Simon, the private notes on laptops, how I sat looking at culler files in my bedroom: you knew everything.” Gray shifted as a tear fell. “He really took up your offer of a friend along the way, hm?”

Martin snorted, the tone carrying such a bittersweetness. “Heaskedfor that offer of a friend a long time ago. Huge difference, Gray. You need to step back and think why that’s important here.”

Gray shook his head. “You’ve been filtering in small supplies for the carfentanyl and halothane mix in with your Japanese tea order. Did you order in some basic lab equipment too, piece by piece, and Light whispered in your ear on what to do with it, or did he find a way to mix the composition in his own hour’s free time away from the cameras? And you, when the lab was being set up, you took some small pieces of lead panelling to hide everything in, away from surveillance searches? That included ordering in small items for the remote control of the cannisters. Either way, doesn’t really matter. The change of colour to Light’s hair…? That was just the code for you to kick all your plans into gear and get the cannisters into place under the guise of helping Ray check for black spots with the cameras over the past few days. You created a few of your own. When Light actually applied the silver dye, that was the sign of when he’d execute.”

“Wait—what?” The snap in Jan came just as quickly, and Cal stepped in, pulling him back once, twice. “You didwhat, Mart?”

Gray tried to bury so much here. “You sat in our bedroom, and you watched. You fucking waited, knowing the poison would kick in and take me and Jan down, take everyone here down, including you. That’s why you didn’t want Jan drinking, how that would add to the mix we took into our systems. You’re the only one who could have planted them for him.”

Someone came skidding into the reception hall behind him—Simon? Gray didn’t really care—but a cry came their way just before Cal shifted over, stopping him from breaking them up.

“Fuckingyou?”

Yeah, seemed Simon had worked it out too.

“Get him out of here,” snapped Jan to Cal, then a hand rested on Gray’s arm a moment later. “Ease back, okay. I don’t… don’t know what’s going on, but—”

Gray shook his head and screwed his eyes shut. “One question, just one question, Mart. One answer. Please….” Another tear slipped free. “Why? After seeing I’d walk into hell with you, why Jan? Why Jack? Why Light? Why step in to see mine do all that? Why… why fucking risk us all like that?”

A hand came up to Gray’s hip, gently pushing him away, and Martin forced Gray a hair’s breadth distance, then he gave a shake of head. “Just walk away for a minute, Gray. You’re not ready for answers at the moment. You—”

“My fucking boy.” Gray went in, flattening his body against Martin’s, pushing him back into the wall, pinning him there with forehead pressed so hard into forehead. But he kept his hands held wide, never hitting out—trying not to hit out when it was all he needed—wanted—to do.

Martin blinked at the heat hitting his face, but he still stood there, shaking his head. “Not safe,” he said so quietly. “Not for me, not for Jac—”

“Don’t. Don’t fucking hide behindhim.” Gray shifted, slamming a fist into the plaster, or trying to at least as Jan came in, pushing him back, so much bloody balls there with it as he came between him and Martin. Gray saw the danger of having Jan caught in the mix, the stress he sent his way, and again he tried so hard to call stop.

“Take time out to think,” Jan said so quickly, face paling. “Back off. Both of you.”

Martin wiped at his nose, didn’t speak, just nodded, went to walk away, calm it down like the responsible adult he… never… fucking was, like—

Gray tugged Jan out of the way and grabbed Martin by the collar, shoving him back up against the wall. “Light… he’s just sat and stripped the skin off a man’s back, pulled out his fucking ribs and—”

“Gray—”

“No,” Gray growled back at Jan. “You didn’t fucking see it, Jan. You didn’t seehim.” Gray was all Martin’s as he shoved him back into the wall again. “But fuckingyou—”

Martin jolted, eyes startling, then—

“Whoa, whoa.” Martin instantly came into Gray, shaking so bloody badly as hands snaked his waist, his hard beat of heart matching Gray’s and calling every need to hide from him in the next breath as—

“What… what the fuck’s wrong, old mukka?”

Gray suddenly groaned and wiped his mouth—then shoved Jack away, back into the wall. “Not you…. Not fucking you, not now.”

Jack hit the wall hard, wind knocked from him, and he frowned.

Everything felt… wrong inside, but mostly with Jan’s look back at him as well as Gray’s. Floors and walls shivered and shifted out of place, driving in such a deep headache that tore through his cells, and it put him off balance, only like fuck could he shift boxes fast enough to figure out what was wrong. Why life sped headfirst into a wall he hadn’t seen coming.

So he stayed with his back to the wall, watching Gray, how he roughly swiped at his eyes, the grief there.

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