Page 92 of Natural-Born Cullers

“Not yours either…mate.”

A dragging sound filtered through, and Cherry was pulled away into some bushes just as Simon blacked out.

Gray made his way to his Merc, and after glancing around the empty road, content with how quiet the landscape back to the grand house played the early morning, he climbed in.

Elbow on the window rest, Simon sat with a cloth pressed to his head, stopping the flow of blood running down the right side of his face.

“You okay?” Gray put his key in the ignition.

“Yeah.” Simon didn’t sound it. But the guard who’d stood watch over him was gone, and that was all that mattered on this side of the fence.

“Wasn’t me.”

Gray frowned over to him.

Simon picked up his laptop. A touch to the keys brought up Myers’ CCTV, and it zoomed in on some undergrowth over in the run of trees.

A leg jutted out of a bush, and just beyond that, Slim’s neck twisted at a vicious angle. Quick, effective, but with how Slim’s face was smashed in with a rock….

“By the time I came round, I caught the back of Light’s anger over being cockblocked with Myers.” He sounded out of it, a little… disturbed, and the flick open of the clasp to his trousers cried out why. “I found this by the guard’s body.”

He tugged something from his pocket and offered a note over. Gray took it.

You both choose to fucking protect him?

Gray turned the note over.

Not your streets. Not the fucking cullers’. Not anymore.

You had enough yet…Dad?

Because you’re about to. I fucking promise.

“Fuck.” Gray dropped his head back into the headrest and briefly closed his eyes. He hadn’t been able to stop Light killing Seth, but he’d damn well needed to try and stop him tainting his hands over touching a culler. Yet Light, he’d still gone for a kill here. He’d…. “Get a call through to Cal. Get housecleaning in.”

“Already done, but… Christ.” Simon’s hands shook. “All this has just pissed him off more. Only he’s running blind now, with no laptop with him to track where he’s going, what he’s got planned this time and—”

“Too well fucking planned.” Gray frowned ahead as he thought it over. “Everything. From the manor, summerhouse, chemicals, getting his ankle tag off, to the timing with finding a car, getting clothes, his fucking phone—”

Simon looked up from his laptop. “What?”

“Light’s damn good, but he’s notthisgood.” Gray shook his head. “He’s not doing all this alone. He damn well can’t be, so….”

Every ounce of quiet forced its way into the corners of Gray’s world as—

That offer of a friend, you ready for it…

… yet?

“Don’t….” Gray floored the accelerator, jolting Simon back into his seat, and he breathed, “Don’t be fucking you….”

Chapter 27

Crash… Burn

Engine still burning, Gray sat outside of his manor, head down, eyes screwed shut. For safety’s sake, he’d dropped Simon off at the main gatehouse, needing him away from here. No noise played around the courtyard, and the unease of it kept tugging at the safe walls he tried to build around the people inside, pushing him into the shadows, where everything inside him cried… don’t react.

It was all he needed to do.

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