Page 103 of Drift

“What the—” Sucking in a hard breath, Jan took a step away from them both, fear crashing into his look over passing anything on to them. He started to check his own arm as Jack snarled with him being forced to stand alone and do it.

“No cuts,” said Jan, holding up his hands. “See?”

Light nodded. “We still need to get you cleaned because I don’t know how this is passed on. Can you strip down to your boxers?”

Jan groaned, but started to unbutton his shirt as George came on through with a few other armed night guards. Light sent quiet talk their way, asking them to get clean up material from the lab and give Jan privacy.

Giving a frown, Jack went to get a coat off the coat stand by the door for Jan, but Light shook his head, his eyes calling out limiting contact to material.

Fuck. Just what kind of shit were they dealing with here? What had Light so… off with needing to do a hard-and-fast cleanup? Gray had mentioned something about a drug, but it had gone over Jack’s head with everything else.

“George will bring down a foil blanket for you, Jan. You use that, okay?” Light said to him, and he got a nod back.

Shouting came from outside, and never more relieved, Jack briefly closed his eyes as Shelley bolted in, eyes wild, shirt bloodied as she looked around. A large bump the size of an egg made a home just above her right eye, blood crusted down her cheek, but she seemed oblivious to it as her look rested on Ray. She was down by his side a moment later, and no one stopped her.

“Baby… Jesus… What did you do? What did you do?”

Jack crouched down but kept his distance. Shelley was bleeding. It looked like she’d been in a fight, and if that fight had been with Ray, she was possibly already marked for isolation. It was probably why even Light hadn’t stepped in.

“Shell,” Jack said gently. “You okay?”

A look skirted his way, a nod. “It was like I wasn’t there,” she said quickly. “He came down after his shower, at first humming a song to himself, then muttering the potatoes were burning. They weren’t.”

Jack pointed at the vicious bump to her head. “How’d you get that?”

Shelley felt along it, then stayed quiet, too damn quiet. Jack knew the silence. How the walls demanded it around here.

“I fell.”

Fuck. Jack’s heart fell with it, and he shook his head. “I think Light’s right that he’s been given something.”

“A drug…?” A tear slipped her cheek, but relief hit her eyes. “He said there was maggots in the fruit, I tried to tell him there wasn’t, but then blood and hair. He said there was blood and hair on them.” She shrugged. “He grabbed me by the hair as he spoke, almost as if he needed blood and hair to be on them, and all I remember is hitting the corner of the table.”

Jack held two fingers up. “How many.”

“Tuh… two.”

“Good, but we’re gonna get him to the hospital. You need to go too, okay?” He looked up at Light and a nod came his way. “Just…” Jack frowned her way. “Just know I’m sorry, okay? This isn’t Ray or his fault.”

“Not your place to be sorry, Jack. Not his.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah it is mine,” he said softly, and he eased to his feet.

His look rested on Light, and after a moment, Jack rested a grip on the back of his neck and tugged him in closer. “Thank you,” he said roughly, and he glanced Jan’s way before finding Light again. There’d been no accusation in Jan’s eyes, but for a moment, one stupid moment, Jack had thought Ray was right, that he done something to Shelley and just couldn’t damn well remember. “And I mean that, whole-fucking-heartedly, kid.” He swiped at Light’s jaw, once… twice.

Light patted his arm, then crouched down next to Shelley. Nothing was said Jack’s way, but nothing needed to be said either. Light had read the scene and trusted the detail that he saw, not what he’d heard, and Jack had needed that… fast-lane intelligence. Like fuck had he.

Rubbing at his head, the throbbing that kicked in, Jack went to step back over to Jan, but Jan took a step back, shaking his head, hurt in his look with needing to remind Jack about contamination. He didn’t want to risk Jack, and that… that….

A trickle came from Jack’s nose, and he wiped across it. Blood stained the pads as he glanced down a moment later.

“Oh fuck. Yeah, it would be you now, wouldn’t it?”

Jan tried to come back in, but Light warned him off as he got slowly to his feet. “Don’t,” Jan whispered calmly Jack’s way. “Don’t fight it, baby. Time.” He nodded. “He’s asking for it now. Try and offer him a little trust, please.”

Jack held Jan’s look, the calmness that filtered through, how Jack made a promise to try and not push the fight and hurt everything over there in the process, and he nodded, just the once. “Time…,” he said gently. “I just wanted a little more to say sorry…”

“I know, baby…” Jan nodded as a tear slipped free, but he started to sound like he came from down a tunnel. “We both goddamn know, ba…”

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