Page 75 of Beyond Hate

And honestly… when this was all over and done with, I was going to take London and leave.

I was going to buy us new identities, and we were going to disappear. I was through with all of this. I was through with the weight of this place.

I just wanted London… and as soon as I killed whoever thought they could hurt him, I’d take him far enough away from here that I was the only thing he knew.

Like I’d summoned him up just by thinking about him, my phone vibrated. I pulled it to my ear with a sigh. “Is everything okay, London?”

“I’m getting a ride back to the house. Everything’s fine, Otto. They just found the man who tried to attack me at the club. He’s dead—his throat was slit. They wanted to know if I knew anything about it.” The implication was there, heavy in the air… but…

The man who tried to attack him at the club? My eyes narrowed.

“London, who are you with?”

I’d neverfoundthe man who attacked him at the club. It was on my list to hunt him down, but I hadn’t been able to tearmyself away from London long enough to figure out who he was, let alone where he lived.

That man should have still been breathing.

“What? I told you, I’m getting a ride back to the apartment.”

“Withwho?”

“Officer Renn, he—” I didn’t have time to tell him to get out of the car before the line went dead.

Dead… fuck. The word sounded more ominous than it should have.

I had a moment where my body wanted to panic, where a part of me felt wild and desperate, furious that something like this had happened to begin with. I hadn’twantedto let London go with the bastard when he showed up at the door. I’d distracted myself by killing some poor asshole who didn’t even need to die…

Because it was obvious that the person who deserved my knife at their throat was the man who had London in his car right now.

Thankfully, he wasn’t so far out of reach that I couldn’t find him. I pulled out the phone I’d kept after I dumped Hudson’s body, and carefully navigated to the same application he’d used to track London down when we’d been together. I was going to tell him I’d kept it, but it hadn’t seemed all that important.

Now it was stopping the soft streak of fury and panic trying to rise in my chest. I didn’tknowwhat was happening to London right now, but the little circle that was his face was still moving. His phone was still on, even if he couldn’t use it.

I just needed to catch up to him.

I stuffed the bloody gloves I’d been wearing into my pocket, and silently berated myself for parking so far away from the scene I’d made.

Fuck, if someonefoundthe body, would it alertOfficer Rennthat something was going on?

There was no reason for him to take London. There was no reason for him toknowhow I’d killed Hudson.

I had no ideawhy, but he had to be the person who’d sent the note. It wouldn’t surprise me if Nathaniel West had his fingers dipped into the local police station. I just didn’t knowwhatit could possibly benefit.

I didn’t understand.

It was a good thing that I didn’t need to have a reason to kill someone… because the man who had London in the car and was currently driving in the opposite direction from the house we’d been staying in was a dead man walking and he just didn’t know it.

I’d starttomorrow, trying to keep London from seeing me kill people.

I drove faster than I should have once I got into the car, but it didn’t seem to matter. The little dot of London’s face was moving just as quickly, and I didn’t realize I was biting the inside of my cheek hard enough that my mouth was flooded with the taste of blood until it was already happening.

I had to tell myself that while they were moving it was probably hard for anything to behappeningto him… but I also knew I’d made plenty of things happen to people while we’d been moving when I was alive before. Nowhere was actually safe if a person was determined enough.

And I didn’t know if London had the knife I’d given him—I’d definitely not done enough to teach him how to use it. The memories that tried to overtake me, the one that had led me to put my hands around his throat… the ones that had made him open up to me… they were coming back now to make the situation worse.

London knew to put the knife somewhere that bled a lot, and London knew what it looked like when I came. I wasn’t a verygood teacher, because neither of those things would be helpful if he was stuck with a police officer who had training and a gun.

The wordgunmade me step on the gas. I knew what it felt like to have a gun pressed to the back of your head. I knew that blinding, hot moment of fear when it went off before everything went blank.

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