Page 104 of Drift

Gray stood outside the MC ICU hospital room, his quiet focused on the loss of fight on the bed. Ray had regained consciousness in the ambulance, and it had taken four MC staff to restrain him. He’d gone downhill from there, and the decline had been so fast once he’d been sedated. Now a ventilator kept him breathing, an IV prevented dehydration, and a constant stream of painkillers tried to ease the high temperature running his body as other medication tried to reduce his aggression. The main worry was the swelling in the brain.

Along with Jan, Shelley had showed no symptoms of a drug running her system, but both of them were being kept in isolation under obs to make sure. Shelley had fought to stay with Ray, Jan just as pissed off with being locked away, but even with partial toxicology reports from the UK Health Security Agency overseeing Ray’s care, the risk was too great without knowing exactly what ran riot in Ray’s system beyond an unknown drug causing swelling on the brain.

No one had survived this drug yet, and Ray’s rapid decline called he was left fighting for his life, so Jan? He wasn’t getting near it.

Gray gave a rough sigh, a long look at Ray, a deep regret that Ray’s history with Jack had pushed the madness found in the drug, and he turned away. Ray was more than staff, but Gray shut down any emotional ties to everyone from here on in.

A warning shot had been fired across their bow tonight. Someone knew Jude’s phone was being tracked with more specialist equipment. The signal had been cut to it from someone outside the manor this afternoon.

Gray had been taken out of the playing field not long after. He’d arrived an hour after the ambulance, and he was on his second round of checks up on Ray. A Conservative politician bythe name of Wright had stapled his mother’s mouth and eyes shut before sewingDisappointmentinto her stomach. Then he’d committed suicide. But there’d been no bone marrow syphoning from either, leaving behind a sense of a scene being rushed. Getting that call from Steve had shown why.

The Night-walkers had needed a distraction, one that would get the culler away from home shores so the warning could be given. But the mentality behind it was unstable. The play was vicious, spiteful, and it had the echo of it all being donebykids into stone-throwing to keep him away.

Had it come from Jude himself? Had he been the one to find Simon’s specialist tracking device?

His DNAhadbeen a match for the evidence taken from Wales.

With a long last look at Ray, the damage he’d taken, Gray took a coffee from the coffee machine and headed through to the lab down the corridor.

Like Gray, the UK Health Agency officers needed close access to Ray to run tests, so for now, the MC was their home, with the staff kept away from the lab and Ray’s room in ICU. Jan was in the next room down, Shelley opposite his, but with the late hour, quiet had finally settled with even Jan losing his fight and finding some peace in exhausted sleep.

Gray wanted him kept that way.

Towards the back of the lab and away from where Health Agency officers worked, Light stood looking out of the window. Raif and Simon worked at a laptop, and Simon’s look Light’s way said he wasn’t happy he’d been in the Oval with Raif when security had been breached, leaving Light out on his own in his lab on the first floor, handling neutralising Cal’s assignedchemical. The Oval was one of two safe rooms and automatically went on lockdown when Jack had triggered the alarm. So now, Simon fought the same that Light did, how he was driven to work, but if it came at the price of being cut off from Light, patience was pushed too far.

Good. Gray liked that aggressive look coming from Simon.

Stood by a whiteboard with Gray’s notes on the Nightwalkers written across it, Martin’s look was no different. Patience had been pushed to breaking, and all that left was… Martin. Yeah, a good portion of that was for the threat against Jan, against Jack, but there’d always be a cut off point for Martin where his own survival mattered most. How with the new threat of Jack pulling him back, it had left Martin open for being taken down too as he’d faced Ray. Drugs had kept Martin away from Vince, but there’d been none in his system with Ray.

Damage was being done on both sides of the trust fence, but for the moment it stayed buried with Martin’s focus on the whiteboard and details Gray had piece together over the past month. But Jack had kept to his word of allowing Martin his time.

Larry, one of the Health Agency officers stood back, watching the notes he made, and it was odd how Martin never even acknowledged he was there.

As Gray went over with his coffee and gave Larry a nod, Martin circled the pinpricks marks on each victim’s body.

“Ray’s wife.” No desexualisation came from Martin towards Ray now, but a look the board’s way came off Light as he spoke. Light looked torn, caught between keeping his distance and not, but Gray didn’t push either. It looked like he wanted in, but it had to be a step he took himself.

“We know she mentioned that he’d cut his mouth on the candid fruit,” added Martin. He’d already written it down on the board. “We also know that she bought them at a supermarket just a few hours prior to infection, and that she didn’t remember anyone having contact with her. But she did mention that she stopped at her mother’s for half an hour before coming home.” Martin added that detail. “The idiot breathing down my neck from the Health Agency has run tests and found glass shards in the fruit itself, so someonedidget access to them via an injection that planted the glass inside. But with how these assholes like to playhide and go freak, I doubt Larry here came up with anything on the samples.” He shook his head. “Even with the checks run on food supplies that are brought into the manor, glass wouldn’t have been traceable.”

“Hmm.” No it wouldn’t have been. Gray picked up his own marker and added PTSD next to Ray’s name, plus the medication he was taking for it. The politician came next along with ADHD.

Gray circled the list of mental disorders. “All looking to target these.” That was more than obvious now.

That took Larry’s attention as Martin stood reading them over, a frown crossing his brow.

“You see what’s missing on that list?” said Martin.

Gray tilted his head, then wrote one more word away from those he’d circled.

Psychopath.

Although today’s specialist talk leaned more towards cancelling the psychopath classification and bunching it under DID. Gray preferred psychopath, because that’s what he was.

Martin nodded, and he seemed to think for a moment before holding out his hand. “Phone.”

After eyeing him for a moment, Gray handed his over after unlocking it.

Martin searched through for something, then handed it over. “You know anything about that?”

---