Page 1 of Drift

PROLOGUE

Two years ago.

Noise came from around the maze, just soft footfalls on grass, and Jack levelled a look as Light and Andrews came around the corner, hazmat suits in hand.

“Right. You as well.” Jack got to his feet, and Gray reached to tug him back, but Jack again pulled out of it. Leaving him there, Jack went over to Light.

“Ask me.” Jack made sure Andrews took a step back as he went in close to Light. “Ask me why Martin really never let me meet you,” he said so softly, his breath shifting Light’s fringe off his brow.

Light frowned, the smallest offer, but he stayed quiet.

“He knew I’d call you for what you are,” Jack said to him. “And do you wanna know what you are?”

Light’s look hardened, so Jack went nose-to-nose close.

“You’re nothing but one hell of a stupid bastard. And as no one else around here seems to be able to do it, let me break it down for you,” Jack said flatly. “You spent so much time pissing into the wind, shouting you’re different, trying to justify everybreak of bone, you missed the simple fact—there’s no fucking semantic difference between a culler and a killer. Look them up in a fucking dictionary, if you have to. Stripped to the bones Ray told me you like to play with, they’re the same fucking thing, you cunt, making you a culler the moment you took someone’s life.” Jack stayed in so close. “And that’s why you can’t call Brin’s bloody name. You damn well know the culler that put him in that grave will be exactly the same one who sits beside it when you do finally grow the balls to see him.”

Now Light looked at him, and yeah… that was Gray’s son there, all the need to poison the bloodstream of anyone standing close enough to hurt.

“Fucking try it,” said Jack. “Because trust me, you and Gray won’t ever be as damn fucking terrifying as my own head. All that intelligence—you never once stepped outside of your own bloody head long enough to see that not being one of them simply meant to not… fucking… kill.”

Light went to say something, but Jack gripped his jaw, shutting him up.

“So when it comes to Martin,” he said so quietly, “my head, my body. My fucking heart behind it all, where if I walk, he walks at my side, never any of yours. I never once consented to any of the bullshit you think you were justified in taking.” He pulled him in close. “So when it comes to friend’s lists—remember now that I’ll always be the one holding your fucking hand in the background like I have done with your father all these years, forcing you down to Brin’s grave so he can really see the kind of bastard who put him there. We clear?”

Jack pushed him away in the next breath, not bothered with an answer as he pointed at Andrews and turned away. “Teach him how to bloody hold on to someone, because like his old man,it’s the only way he’ll learn about boundaries outside of his own fucking head.”

“Jack, wait.”

Jack came to a stop.

“For what it’s worth, I never meant to come between you and them.” Light nodded at Gray and Jan as Jack looked back. “I never meant to come between you and Martin….”

“Yeah you did.” Jack looked him up and down. “And this is where I call stop on your bullshit.”

Chapter 1

THE DRIFTER

“Why ’ere, the ass-end of nowhere, fur’fuck’s sake, bro?” Brighty shuffled from foot to foot, blowing warmth into his hands despite the ball-sweating warmth of the early November dusk. “I ’ate Wales, me.” He looked at his phone. “And it’s getting on for tea. I wants me some grub. Fuck. We godda drive back home yet.”

Stood next to him in the wreck of a backyard that even offered a thrown-out settee to kick back on, Drift snorted a smile, then nudged into him. “Shut it, asswipe.”

Brighty and his cockney-born twang couldn’t have stood out any worse, and the scowl that came their way over the garden fence from Mrs Old As God’s Dog next door earned her the V off him. Muttering, she turned away for her conservatory with all its hanging baskets lined in a neat row, no doubt on about noise, parties next door, and kids from out of town that looked too young to be pissing beer up the wall. Drift winced. He doubted she opted for that precise word choice: this part of the Welsh neighbourhood as a whole was pretty decent. But she was wrong. Mostly. At twelve years old, Brightywastoo young, but he wasn’t pissed up or peeing against a wall. That grief Drift didn’t need. It was hard enough to turn Brighty’s nose away from the back door that led into the house and how weed already had other kids on spin the smoking bong at four in the afternoon.

“I bet the cow comes over and tries to grass me up.” Brighty wiped at his nose and kept shifting about, not helping the whole image of him looking like he needed to piss up something as they stood by the back gate. “Or worse, she calls the rozzers.”

Pushing through the group of late teens by the patio door, a lad more Drift’s age at seventeen looked their way, then came over. “Wales,” Drift said under his breath before digging his hands in his jacket. “Coppers don’t stop frottin’ their bed sheets until twelve. Now shut it and stay sharp.”

The young lad stopped by them and offered a fist bump Drift’s way. “Dain’t mean to keep you waiting, lads. Name’s Pick, as in, well, lock pick.” A smug grin. “The best around here too.”

Yeah, Drift got it. A set of lock picks and a tension wrench didn’t hang too discretely from a chain at Pick’s side. Smart. Real smart naming himself via “profession”andcarrying tools of the trade around his neck. Drift buried a wince. What did that say about his own nickname…?

The redness going on around Pick’s nose and how he kept sniffing called out another bad habit altogether, though, and the offer of a roll up came his way after Drift returned the fist-bump, and Drift gave a sniff himself. Brighty grinned and went to grab the spliff, but Drift clipped him up the ear, then took the spliff and pocketed it.

“S’okay,” Drift said eventually. “Not exactly a normal piss-stop here anyway, mate.”

Pick smirked, looking Drift up and down. “Damn weird, y’know? I pictured Jackson’s London lot… older. Tougher. Less—” He pointed at Drift’s throat, the leather collar with a pentagram charm, his wrist and its matching rope bracelet, then ultimately, his face. “—dark emo with a slice of Kpop.” He tiltedhis head. “You male or female under all that lot, because… damn. It’s….” A frown. “It’s confusing the fuck out of my dick, and I don’t like it.”

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