Page 73 of Drift

“Youshouldhave told me.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Light.” Still that calmness. “I’m guided by confidentiality as much as you are unless we walk the same path.”

Light levelled his look. “You told Simon.”

Gray cocked a brow. “His head is tuned to the game in different ways. He picked up on some signs, not all on the who and why. Allow him to work with the vibrations he picks up as you’re learning to master yours.”

“This you asking to have him collude with you on a culler level? Because I remember that side of my rule too.”

Gray shook his head. “I won’t break that. Only you can. He’s working security to keep family safe, nothing more. He’s also on lockdown himself until Ray’s happy. But take a warning from someone who knows what it’s like to have a lover who steps into our lane… listen to the vibrations he gives off around you. You won’t find peace until you let him find his, even if that means letting him step into the danger lane and you having to step back or step up to the protection.”

Light shivered, the echo oflet me burn with youstill far too close. Gray spoke sense, Simon… just as a lover wanting to be with a lover, but burn?

“I backed out of Afghanistan because he wanted to come with me.” Not knowing where that came from, Light wrapped a tighter hold around his leg and rested his chin to knee-cap.

Gray said nothing, and Light frowned into the quiet. “I didn’t feel good enough at my job where I know he is at his, andI think sometimes the way I look at him gives off the wrong signals when I’m trying not to. I’m not pissed off at him for being around me. I’m pissed off at myself for knowing I can fuck up. I did with Lee and Brin.” He briefly closed his eyes. “Fucking chlorine trifluoride. I really hate that stuff.” Light screwed his face a touch. “But I feel like it sometimes: burning through anything I touch, like I’m missing a few vital chemicals to stop it.” He looked Gray’s way. “Do you think the textbooks are right? Do you think we’re incapable of loving, and the whole reason I’m fucking up is because it’s something I’m not qualified to mess with? I mean, for Christ’s sake: I didn’t give him any choicebutto stay here with me.”

Gray’s eyes softened as he dipped his head a little, getting a closer look that almost called out:that you admitting he needs some freedom, huh?Light ignored it as best he could as a rub came at the arm across his knees.

“Everyone’s born with the capacity to learn, Light. Some of that you’ll get from books, some from older bones like mine, but the rest is learned through experience. Don’t regret the decisions you make in the heat of the moment, regret the ones you don’t change when that moment’s passed and you’ve gained the experience.” He gave a long sigh. “As for the wholeare psychopaths capable of lovedebate? Psychopaths kill in anger, in lust, frustration, sometimes just for the thrill of the kill,” Gray said gently. “They are all feelingsactivated by specific neuronal populations, so to say we’re incapable of experiencing the good: love, empathy… guilt it contradicts that original analysis of how we supposedly kill in anger, lust, coldness, brutality. Our obsession just distorts the neurological vibrations until we bury one beneath the other. So take no notice of the textbooks. I know it would kill me to lose Jack, Jan… it has over Martin…” Gray looked Light over. “You.” He offered a smile. “So in that sense,I canunderstandwhat other people feel over losing someone.” He rubbed at Light’s shoulder. “You’ve lost those closest to you, and it’s jousting with how you… feel around Simon, confusing the signals, blending them until you can’t sort needing to sit here alone from needing to be over there with Simon. That’s love, no matter how extreme it comes. You need to come to terms with that because I think the easy option for you is to think you’re not capable of reading it. You are.”

Light creased his face, and Gray sighed again. “I’m thinking your grandfather has it right about both of us.”

Light looked at him.

“When you love obsessively, you deserve to be loved as obsessively in return.” Gray offered a smile. “And Simon’s still here, with you. When you’re struggling to read other people, take what you’re feeling now and view this from his point of view.” Gray eased back. “It’s one thing I envy about living inside the pen: effortless projection into someone else’s shoes. It’s not that we can’t do it, we just fall so obsessively when we don’t.”

“That obsession got in the way of you and Jack?” Light looked down at his hands. “Is that why you’re warning me off now? Why the vibe feels… off around you?” He looked up. “Because of what happened between you and Martin and Jack’s reaction to it?”

Nothing came for a moment, then—“Yeah. Because of that.” A frown. “In ways I didn’t realise it would knock Jack down.”

“Kind of wish Martin was here to reason it, huh?” Light sighed. “Christ knows I wouldn’t mind having him here.”

Gray fell quiet. A shake of head came eventually. “I need Jack to keep talking to me. Martin will let us know when Jack’shisconcern.”

Light nodded and went to say something, preferring talk in the dark. Yeah, Simonhadtaught him that. But the red light flickering on the wall stopped, and Gray’s phone hummed into life a moment later, making Light ease back and check his watch.

Ten minutes. They’d been here for ten minutes.

A flick at the door lock came a moment later, and Ray pushed through.

“All clear externally,” he said, shifting his Bluetooth earplug into a more comfortable position. His breathing wasn’t heavy, and he looked like he’d been out for a midnight walk around, nothing more.

Gray slipped his phone away. That was no doubt Simon sending the all-clear outside too.

“The fence was hit a few times by two fast runners, but nothing more,” Ray said moving over to Gray. “Secondary external CCTV caught this.”

The touch on the fence was innovated, or ballsy as Jack would say. Itwasdone to look like a fault, one that would see the perimeter fence turned off in theory to get it checked out. And it was there how Simon was playing cat and mouse by allowing someone to get in.

Light leaned in. One image showed a blurred shot of a young boy wearing a cap. The other caught a hooded young woman in a face mask, long, straight hair in a ponytail down her shoulder, and a Witch’s necklace loose around her slender neck. Light didn’t know either girl or boy, but as Gray nodded at Ray and eased back, he seemed to.

“The redhead got away?” said Gray, and Ray nodded.

Yeah, that confirmed it. Colour of hair wasn’t discernible in the photo.

Gray seemed a little angered. “Simon said three,” he said eventually. “The possibility of another?”

Ray put his phone away. “Yeah. His thermal sensors caught movement through the trees, above ground and inside the perimeter fence.” He looked up towards the kitchen ceiling.

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