Page 124 of Don't Shoot Me Santa
And he sat there with him in his dressing gown, nothing underneath it, because Aaron had demanded it. Not for any sexual reason. No.Want to bestripped bare,he’d said,becausewe’re never leaving the house again.
So Kenny wrapped himself around him, locked his arms around his waist, tangled their legs together, and ignored the heat from the fire, the smothering weight of blanket and body, dealing with the sweat running down his spine, to stay right there.
With Aaron.
The television flickered with the glow of some saccharine Christmas romcom, all snow-touched kisses and artificial cheer. The Hallmark Channel didn’t rest. And for once,Kenny didn’t feel the need to analyse the characters’ deep-seated trauma. Not when his own real-life trauma was melting gingerbread in his mouth, slowly chewing theJellytotdoorknob off the house they’d meant to decorate properly but instead had attacked to distract themselves between interviews and bruised silences.
The wine on the table might be breathing. But they weren’t.
Kenny hadn’t let go of him since they got home. And as much as Aaron had used the Grinch Grinch, Kenny hadn’t been able to obey it immediately. Because there was all that other stuff they had to get through first.
Notably, Aaron’s injuries. He’d been moments from unconsciousness, maybe worse, by Jonathon’s hands and his lanyard cord closed around his throat, pulled taut enough to kill. But Aaron hadn’t wanted to go to hospital, so Kenny had done everything himself: wound care, soft food, water with a straw, cold cloths. Aftercare so tender, Aaron had cried.
Chaos had to be checked over, too. The vet at the shelter confirmed it was a sedative. Enough to drop a dog but not kill him. He’d slept for hours at Aaron’s feet, twitching in dreams, until Aaron finally curled on the rug beside him and breathed into his fur. He hadn’t left Aaron’s side since. Which was where he was then. Tucked somewhere beneath the duvet and him. As was Lucky. The vet had given the lurcher the all-clear too and Aaron had insisted she come home with them.
Kenny doubted Aaron would ever take her back.
Which was fine with him. What was one more rescue among his horde?
The dart had been handmade, the compound traced back to veterinary supplies. Something Jonathon had access to through his volunteer work. It explained how he’d subdued both animals and people alike. The same sedative, crushed and concealed in peppermint sweets, had been his method of control. Enough to make his victims compliant, disoriented, unable to fight. Blackwell had got off lightly, all things considered. He was spending Christmas in a hospital bed. Alone.
But at least he was alive.
They’d given their statements, too. Hours of painful, meticulous unravelling, piecing together who did what, when, and why. The laborious drip-feed of truth to the police, each word weighted, every omission considered.
Margaret Harrow had been arrested before sunset.
As an accomplice.
Though Kenny would’ve called her something else. Enabler fit better. He doubted she’d ever dirtied her hands, but falsifying alibis, withholding evidence, knowingly turning her back while blood was shed? That was enough. Legally, it was punishable. Morally? That was for her God to decide.
And if He did judge her, Margaret would find out what that cost was when she found herself at the gates. Or wherever.
She went quietly, though. Gracefully. As if it were part of some divine choreography. As if she’d known the ending from the start. Maybe even wanted it. Invited it. Maybe,and this was the kicker, she’d asked Kenny to teach at her college not in spite of what he was, butbecauseof it. Because he could be another spoke in the wheel she and Roisin had been turning for decades. A way of bringing Aaron back into their orbit.
If he were still researching, he might’ve tried to unpick that. Looked into how connected the Harrows and the Howells were. Whether there was any contact between them. Roisin and Margaret particularly. And how their shared upbringing manifested the way it did and why. Always the why.Why here. Why now. Why them.
But he wasn’t in the lecture hall anymore.
He was here. With Aaron.
And what mattered now wasn’t the pathology. It was honouring his safeword. Because some things were more important than answers. Like staying. Keeping a promise. Choosing tostopdigging and start healing.
Jonathon Harrow, however, would take a long time to recover, if he ever truly did. Physically, he was unscathed.But mentally? The damage was layered. Calcified. A tangle of grief, delusion, and devotion warped into violence. Kenny could’ve written a list of diagnoses. He almost had. And it started when Jonathon wept as they led him from the kennel. Not for the dead. Not for those he’d stalked and staged like penitent angels. Not even for the ones he’d nearly destroyed.
He cried for his mother.
For the judgment he believed he hadn’t delivered well enough.
For the voice inside him that still mistook obedience for love.
But it was over.
The ritual complete. The myth undone. And all that remained was a boy who’d never learned how to live without instruction. Kenny wouldn’t be surprised if Jonathon ended his own life. As one final offering. A self-imposed reckoning. Or maybe just because he wasn’t built for prison. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.
He was made for cages of a different kind.
Outside, snow dusted the lane in soft, uneven strokes, turning the world to quiet. Chaos stirred at the foot of the sofa, letting out a deep sigh, chasing something in sleep. Lucky trembled nearby, her thin frame all ribs and bone, too light to hold warmth, too raw to believe she was safe. Not even curled between Aaron and Kenny beneath a mound of duvets. But she would get there. She’d fatten up. Soften. Learn to trust the hands that fed her.
