Chapter 13
MASON
The house quiets once Claude leaves, everyone settling into their own corners. There seems to be an unspoken rule that shit’s about to hit the fan, and everyone wants to spend the final evening minding their own wounds.
Once upon a time I would’ve hated my house being full of people, especially people who I don’t know as well as Reid, but it oddly settles me in a way to have them all here.
The small noises they make, the fact they all wash their hands when they come in and out, their shoes stacked by the front door.
Sure, they could have an illness that drops me to my knees, but maybe life is made up of more moments than being afraid of a cold that incapacitates me.
I think my therapist will be very proud of my recent developments.
Can’t tell her my growth is from my recent escapade as a murderer though.
After a scalding hot shower to settle my nerves, I pace in front of the bed, waiting for Parker to join me. It’s been thirty minutes since he disappeared into a guest room with Jacob and Hayden, Dante and Reid downstairs blowing off steam outside.
The door finally creaks open to reveal an exhausted-looking Parker. I smile at him, hoping to ease his nerves, and wouldn’t you know, it works? His shoulders lower a little and his eyes get that glint in them that makes me feel like the only person on the planet.
“How is he? Did they talk?”
Parker shakes his head furiously. “Hayden refuses to speak to Jacob. Jacob spoke at Hayden for a few minutes, but then Hayden left to go to your study, and Jacob and I just caught up.” Parker runs a hand through his hair.
My eyes get caught on the movement, wanting again to touch him in a way to comfort him, the feeling still foreign but nice.
“I feel like the team is falling apart when we need to be the most together. I don’t know how to fix it. ”
I take a few careful steps closer, close enough so he can feel my warmth, but we aren’t touching. “You’re doing your best. It’s not your responsibility… I don’t want to misstep, but I think some of this is Robin’s fault.”
“I… I kind of think you’re right.” Parker reaches out slowly, and I let him take my hand.
We sit down side by side at the edge of my bed.
My heart beats wildly when he tilts his head to rest it on my shoulder.
“I’ve spent all these years thinking I was so cool, trying to be the best that I can be, to earn approval, make us the best, but I’m starting to wonder for what.
This whole plan… What’s the purpose? We’ve never been told.
Hayden has this blind belief that it’s for the greater good.
If we just keep going, we’ll find out. But we all graduate this spring and still don’t know anything.
I don’t know anymore, Mason. I can’t let Jacob be the fall guy.
And now Robin’s brought Claude into the ring… I don’t understand anything anymore.”
I turn my head and press a kiss to Parker’s forehead. “Maybe we feel things out, play from the inside.”
“What?”
“Well, when Claude kidnapped Reid, he wanted to know who else was working for Robin. There are more of you. More of us. Maybe we need to connect with them to figure this all out, and maybe we need to consider that Robin isn’t as altruistic with their motives as you’ve been led to believe.”
Parker lets out a pained sigh. “I can’t entertain the thought we’ve been doing all of this for bad for the past three years. The entire point was for good.”
“I know, but this is the first step. We can figure out the rest as we go. Right?”
Parker tilts his head to kiss my chin, making me shiver. “You’re so smart.”
Oh. I can tell where this is going. “Parker…”
“Distract me. I don’t want to think about this anymore. I want to think about you for a little while.”
“Me?”
Parker nods against my neck. “Always you.”
He slips his hand under my shirt at the same time that I fall back on the bed, letting his bodyweight fall on top of me.
The room is dark, sun set a while ago, but it’s easy to see Parker even in the shrouded darkness of my room.
He lights everything up, the darkness never that dark when I’m in a room with him.
This love inside me could threaten to make me burst into a million little supernovas until maybe we become one.
“Hey,” I whisper, trying to get his distracted attention.
Parker lifts his head from where he’d been kissing my throat, eyes dark and needy. “Yeah?”
I trace my fingers over his eyebrows, settling them in his hair to tug a little. “We’ll figure all this out. I promise. But for now, I’ll let you take me apart and put me back together, if that’s what you need. It’s okay for us to need each other, I think.”
Parker smiles softly, tilting his head to nuzzle his cheek against my wrist. “You’re so soft, but not when I give you a gun.”
I snort with laughter. “That’s my tagline. Soft, except when he has a gun.”
“Not always soft,” Parker murmurs lowly before crawling down my body to take me apart.
+
A gentle knock at the door wakes me up from a deep sleep. Parker is still sound asleep on his side of the bed. His side. My brain does a little happy dance at the idea of that before remembering someone at the door woke me. I maneuver myself out of the bed as best I can without disturbing Parker.
Hayden stands at the door, illuminated only by the nightlight in the hallway. His breaths are coming heavy and his eyes are haunted.
“Hayden?”
Hayden lifts his hand to clutch at his chest. “I can’t breathe.”
“Come here,” I murmur, opening the door until Hayden gets the clue to walk through.
Parker stays asleep despite the clumsy steps Hayden takes into the room.
I scurry into the bathroom, rifling through my cabinets until I find one of my emergency antianxiety meds.
Is this legal? No, but Hayden is hurting, and he won’t help himself, and it looks like I’m the one who is going to end up ensuring all of these guys don’t fall apart at the seams mentally.
Hayden collapses onto the floor of the bathroom beside me, eyelashes wet with tears, chest moving rapidly in the way I know intimately—his brain is telling him too many things at once.
I tip out two pills and fill a glass with water, then kneel beside him. “Take them.”
Hayden does it without any further prompting. I sit beside him on the bathroom floor, only the darkness and the quiet between us, until Hayden’s breathing slows and he tips his head back against the wall.
“I’ve failed them all,” Hayden whispers brokenly.
“How so?”
Hayden shakes his head. “I’ve known for a while.
Robin isn’t one person, but many. I figured it out one day, you see, when the emails started to look different.
One formats with a size smaller text, the other likes to use hyphens for no discriminate reason.
I don’t think Robin is bad, but I’m starting to think…
” Hayden tilts his head to the side to pierce me with another haunted look.
“I’m not sure what we’re fighting for anymore. And Jacob… Jake…”
“Yeah,” I urge him.
“I won’t let anyone make Jake the fall guy. Anyone else but him.”
“Why?”
Hayden snorts. “Oh, Mason, you’re smarter than that. If you have to ask, you haven’t been paying attention.”
He’s right, but I think he needs to say it, instead of me guessing. “Maybe you’ll feel better saying it out loud.”
“No,” Hayden firmly denies, sounding more tired as the moment goes on. “Jacob can’t love someone like me, no one can.”
“Why?”
Hayden lets out a pained puff of air. “Nobody can love me. I killed my own brother.”
The air grows thick with tension, then immediately falls as Hayden slumps in exhaustion against the wall, effectively knocked out. It’s at that moment that a sleepy Parker pushes through the bathroom door, hand rubbing his slightly stubbled cheek.
“Oh,” Parker says in shock.
“He had a panic attack,” I tell him.
Parker wakes up immediately at my words. “Hayden did?”
“Let’s get him into our bed.”
Parker and I work together to get Hayden up, but maneuvering a large Greek god into the bed isn’t easy, despite our own size. But we get him into the center of the bed, both of us lying down beside him, our hands tangled over Hayden’s body.
“He told me something,” I whisper into the room.
Parker closes his eyes. “Keep it between you two. He wouldn’t want me to know. If he wanted me to know… I’d know already.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I love you, Mason, but we need sleep. I think a war is coming. Don’t you feel it?”
I squeeze Parker’s hand but don’t answer him, just waiting for him to fall asleep on the other side of his best friend.
The air is electric, and the hair on my neck stands on end.
I do feel it. In my bones. Something or someone is after us, and Claude is a stopgap until we can figure out where to go from here.
But it’s not just the four of them anymore—they’ve got Reid and me as well.
I’ve ached to have a family for so many years, never feeling enough for Reid, or even for myself, and I can’t help but find it a little ironic that I found family among these murderers filled with honor.
After all, I’m one of them now too. If one of them goes down, we all do. That’s the rule now.
My brain is quiet and happy as I fall asleep with Parker’s hand in mine, seeking out that one more touch that’ll do the trick. Quiet and lovely, that’s what Parker’s love is to me. And then we sleep.