Page 37 of Psycho
August said he and Kohn were nothing alike, but that wasn’t exactly true. They were mirror images of each other, yin and yang, dark and light, fire and ice…the very best and worst of what could happen to a person who couldn’t feel guilt or remorse. A person who reveled in the pain of others.
Lucas dug his palms into his eyes, trying to shake off the morning. He had a full class and, by now, they were likely watching the clock, tempted to dip out before he arrived.
Kohn was future Lucas’s problem. Right now, he just had to get through his day.
Alive.
“You want us to babysit your new boyfriend? The former FBI agent?”
August glowered at his brother, but before he could justify his statement, Noah blurted, “We’d love to.”
The look on Adam’s face told August the ‘we’ in the statement was subjective. He had no doubt Noah wanted to get a look at Lucas, to see what exactly it was about him that drew August to him. If he could’ve just sent Noah, he would have, but that wasn’t an option.
Adam would never let Noah go alone, no matter how capable he was of taking care of himself. It was like Adam was sure Noah would make a run for it if they didn’t spend every waking moment together. No matter how obvious it was that Noah was just as cow-eyed over Adam.
It didn’t escape August’s attention that Lucas was also capable of defending himself, but—unlike Noah—Lucas had a very obvious Achilles heel. Just touching that Post-it note had crippled him and left him in agony. If that had happened in Kohn’s presence, he could have done anything to Lucas. Anything.
Just the thought set August’s blood on fire. Seeing Lucas like that had made August feel helpless and enraged. He was going to take his time with Kohn. He wanted him to suffer in every conceivable way and had spent the entire day fantasizing about Kohn’s face contorting in agony. August might even make an exception with him, leaving his headphones out just to hear him scream.
Logically, August understood Kohn had only managed to get to Lucas because he’d caught him off guard. But emotionally, it infuriated August to think this Kohn could come for Lucas. August’s Lucas. But August didn’t mind making an example of Laurence Kohn. He’d put his insides on the outside and leave him hanging for all the world to see what happened when they came for someone who belonged to him.
Kohn was testing Lucas, playing with him before he killed him. It didn’t matter. Kohn wasn’t long for this world. But, in the meantime, August had to keep Lucas safe until he was finished with tonight’s assignment.
August usually looked forward to his kills. He’d been looking forward to ridding the world of this particular fucking menace for a long while. It had taken months to vet them and, now that they had, Thomas wanted it handled immediately—wanted August to handle it immediately—before they hurt somebody else.
His father wasn’t like August and his brothers. He was the beating heart of their family. Archer said he was thebleedingheart of their family, the one who had a personal stake in every kill, who somehow needed to heal himself with each kill. None of them knew what had happened to Thomas to make him the way he was, but they all knew there had to have been some kind of…incident that had prompted it, prompted him to adopt a bunch of mentally unstable children and train them before turning them loose on the worst of humanity. Nobody just woke up one day and decided to create their own Avengers squad without provocation.
“You’re really into him, huh?” Noah asked, dragging August from his thoughts.
“He’s…perfect,” August said.
Adam flopped back on the couch, body curling with laughter. “Who are you right now?”
“I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question.”
Adam scoffed. “Yeah, nobody’s perfect, bro, not even Noah.”
August cut his eyes to his brother, jaw muscle throbbing. “He’s perfect for me.”
“Stop teasing him,” Noah warned, giving Adam a hard look that had him going from laughing to sulking in six seconds flat.
“Why does everybody baby you?” Adam asked August, as if it was his doing. “Like, you’re smarter and meaner than all of us and they all act like you’re one insult away from crying yourself to sleep listening to, like…Celine Dion or something.”
August sniffed, feeling a little huffy himself. “There’s nothing wrong with Celine Dion.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “You and your pop divas, dude. It’s pathological.”
“Can you watch him or not?” August said, anger edging into his tone.
Adam’s mouth curled into a sly smile. “Yeah, okay, we’ll watch himifyou acknowledge that it’s weird that you want us to watch your cop boyfriend. Like, I need you to acknowledge that…out loud.”
August shook his head. “You don’t get it.”
“Then explain it to us,” Noah said gently.
Adam was right—the whole family did talk to him like they were hostage negotiators attempting to talk him into releasing hostages. Why had he never noticed that before? Was he really that…scary? He knew some people found him jarring and blunt. The way people hid their thoughts and feelings behind a blanket of politeness had always seemed far worse than whatever brutal truth they could tell.
But Thomas had assured him it wasn’t true, that his Aspergers and psychopathy blunted him from the damage his words and actions caused others. August could only trust that Thomas told the truth.
