37. Grayson
37
GRAYSON
M y burner phone buzzed incessantly from my briefcase, sitting on the passenger seat. I fumbled one handed with the locks while I drove, cursing beneath my breath when I couldn’t get them open in time to answer the call.
Like it always was, the number was blocked and I had no way of knowing who’d been the one to call an emergency meeting. Only that calling twice meant something big was going down, and I was sure I wasn’t going to like what.
By the time I got back to my apartment, I half expected the four of them to be sitting in the hallway outside my door, but it was empty of any and all psychopaths, unless I included myself.
Which I did not, despite one doctor’s ill-thought-out diagnosis in my early twenties.
The guy was a quack and had no idea what he was talking about.
I got to work, giving my apartment a quick tidy up, though it was pretty clean to begin with. I pushed the couch to one side and pulled the dining room chairs from beneath the table, setting them up in a circle.
I didn’t expect to have time to worry about food. I’d taken too long to get out of the hospital, and the first call had come in at least an hour ago now. Though nobody had shown up yet, so clearly I wasn’t the only one who’d been in the middle of something.
They’d all come eventually, they always did. We were a family more than ever after Trigger’s disappearance. We showed up when one of us needed the others.
Despite the fact I didn’t kill the way they did, I still included myself in the family we’d built here.
It was the only one I’d had after my wife had died.
I listened for the door while I rummaged through the refrigerator, searching for anything to feed four fully grown men. There were some cold cuts and cheese. I always had a loaf of bread in the freezer for toast, since these meetings were generally held in the early hours of the morning.
It was odd for one to be called at this time of day, which only made me more nervous about whatever was going on.
As did the fact nobody had turned up yet.
I sat, eating a ham and cheese sandwich like the sad kid at school, who invited the whole class to their birthday party only to have no one show up. The clock ticked, but nobody came to the door. I didn’t understand. I hadn’t imagined those calls. I’d checked the log on the phone twice to be sure.
I’d been gone from the hospital maybe an hour when I decided I couldn’t wait any longer.
And that something was very wrong.
They never didn’t show. If they weren’t here now, there had to be a reason.
I called the numbers I had saved for each of them, not bothering to check my caller ID was turned off because this wasn’t me calling a meeting. There was no need to respect our anonymity code when I was calling to make sure they were all alive.
If they were all breathing, I wanted those return phone calls.
But something churned in my gut, a deep-set knowledge I wasn’t going to receive them.
“Fuck it,” I said to the empty apartment, picking up the keys and shoving them into my pocket. I dragged the door shut behind me and ran down the stairs, making my way into the garage where I’d left my car.
Preoccupied with worry, I slid behind the wheel and drove deep into Saint View.
Whip’s house was at the rounded top of a dead-end road. The street in the worst part of Saint View only had a dozen houses still standing, the rest in various states of demolition, either by an actual wrecking crew or by bored street thugs with nothing better to do than be destructive in an area where everyone turned a blind eye.
Whip’s place was probably the nicest on the street, but that didn’t make it nice. It was a shithole by anyone’s standards. The porch steps creaked beneath my weight as I pushed myself up them to the front door that didn’t quite close properly. Moisture had swollen the wood until it no longer fit.
It left gaps big enough for bugs to crawl through.
And for a muffled scream to filter out.
“Well, that’s not fucking great.” I slammed my fist against the door. “Whip! Stop whatever the fuck you’re doing in there and open up.”
A curse, one a lot louder than the one I’d uttered, floated back, but then Whip’s heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway.
The door opened a crack, but to my surprise, it wasn’t Whip’s sharp blue eyes staring back at me.
“X?”
He smirked. “Doc. Fancy seeing you here.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you hang out at Whip’s place?”
He shrugged with a fake nonchalance that wasn’t fooling anybody, let alone me, the man who’d studied all his odd behaviors and quirks for years. “Just dropped around for a cup of tea.”
Another muffled scream filtered back.
I gave X a pointed look. “Are you boiling Whip in the kettle along with the tea bags? Because it sounds like someone back there is in pain.”
He rolled his eyes, flinging the door open dramatically. “Fine! You busted us. You better come in.”
I followed him inside the run-down shack of a house, made oddly homey by knick-knacks and photos on the wall. If I’d had more time, I would have liked to stop and take a poke around, see what those items told me about the man who’d been in my group for longer than either of us could remember.
It had started with him, me, and Trigger. We were the originals.
“Whip! Doc is here.”
I paused in the living room, taking in the big man sprawled out across it. “You’re here too?” I asked Torch.
“Apparently.” He took a long draw on a smoke, the end burning red in the dim light, all the blinds drawn and the sunlight only peeping around the corners. “Ace is getting some food together in the kitchen if you want a sandwich or something.”
With the blood-curdling screaming coming from one of the bedrooms, eating was the last thing I felt like doing.
Whip appeared from a room somewhere down the hallway, wiping his hands off on a grubby cloth. A plastic apron with flowers all over it covered his clothes.
It also happened to be covered in blood, not that anybody but me seemed fazed by that.
“That’s…” I pointed to his chest.
Whip glanced down, his eyebrows rising like he hadn’t even noticed the blood spray. “My granny’s apron. Don’t give me shit about it. It does the job.”
Right. Got it. Not exactly what I’d been hoping for an explanation on, but okay then. I cleared my throat, ignoring the moans from the back room and the way X picked at dried blood from beneath his fingernails.
I perched on the arm of the couch. “I guess you all got too tied up to attend the meeting.”
X sniggered. “We ain’t the one’s tied up, Doc.”
I cringed as the person who was being held in a room down the hallway let out a helpless scream that didn’t even register on the expressions of the other men. So I tried to school my features into the same blank stare, even though my heart beat too fast.
I knew them. Knew what they did. I’d heard all their stories. All their secrets.
I just hadn’t seen it in person. Heard it. Smelled it. God, there was a stench I related to torture. Piss. Shit. Vomit. Blood. Fear. All of it combined together to produce a smell I had spent years in therapy attempting to forget.
I swallowed thickly, trying to focus on the reason I was here. And not the pure evidence right in front of me that these men were dangerous.
“What meeting?” Whip asked.
I frowned. “One of you called for a meeting. Twice. But then didn’t show. I got worried when none of you answered your phones…”
Torch leaned over and picked up his phone from the coffee table. “We were…busy.” He turned the phone around so I could see the screen. “I didn’t get a call for a meeting though. Only the call from you about fifteen minutes ago.”
Whip went into the kitchen and pulled his phone off the charging cable. “Nothing on mine either.”
Ace called back that he had nothing either.
We all looked at X.
He was tossing Froot Loops into his mouth one by one, stopping only when he realized we were all staring at him. “What? I don’t even know where my phone is right now. Wasn’t me who called for a meeting. I’m good. Real good. Got my friends. Got sugar. Got a guy tied up in Whip’s spare room that we’re thoroughly enjoying messing with. Who needs a meeting?” He wandered to my side and slung his arm around my neck. “Do you want to come meet Jones? He’s number forty-seven on the list. Fresh outta jail for beating his grandmother nearly to death for the measly three grand she kept under her floorboards.”
“I needed the money for drugs, and the old bitch wouldn’t give it to me! It wasn’t my fault!” Jones shouted from the bedroom. Then tacked on. “Help me, please! Call the police!”
X snorted on his laughter, yelling back something I didn’t catch because my mind had only just caught on to something else.
“Wait.” I held up a hand, interrupting X tormenting his victim. “Are you honestly saying none of you called me for a meeting?”
Whip clapped me on the shoulder, his hand heavy and reassuring. “We’ve all been here since last night when we picked Jones up off the street. Nobody’s had time to call a meeting. Though we’ll probably all need one when we’re done here.” He glanced at X. “Some of us are having a little too much fun.”
As the oldest of the group, he was the unofficial leader. The others followed his lead during group times, and it was clear to me now it was the same when they were “working.”
“But if none of you called the meeting…” My words were quiet, catching all of their attention. I jerked my head up in horror.
Whip said the words all of us were thinking. “Only one other person has that number.”
X chuckled like the maniac he was. “Trig’s back!”