10. Lynx
LYNX
Dear Diary,
I don’t need a murder squad. I need to get over her.
Grayson eyed me from across the circle of people who’d gathered in the high-ceilinged workshop.
The concrete floor was stained with oil, and we were surrounded by bikes and spare parts in various stages of repair.
Tools sat on workbenches, but in the middle, a squad of murderers sat on rickety fold-up chairs.
Murderers, plus, Dax, Nyah, and Luca.
I cracked my neck uncomfortably, hating they were here and that they joined Grayson in staring at me like I was an insect under a microscope.
Everyone was focused on me. Scythe or Vincent, I still couldn’t always tell them apart.
Reaper, his partner Whip, and the other guys in the Murder Squad—Trigger, Ace, and Torch.
I’d met them all before, they came regularly for these meetings, but this was the first time I’d ever joined them.
The only one who didn’t stare at me was X.
Who had gotten distracted trying to convince Grayson to teach him how to make balloon animals because he was a dad now, and all dads should know how.
Grayson ignored him and clapped his hands together. “Okay. So this is a bit different to normal.”
Trigger sat back and eyed Nyah. “You have a strong urge to murder and maim, sweetheart?”
“Don’t call her that,” I said protectively, without even thinking about why.
Trig glanced over at me and raised an eyebrow.
I could feel Dax and Luca and Nyah all staring at me too, so I added, “She isn’t your sweetheart.”
Dax folded his arms across his chest, studying me intently, though there was no malice in it. “I wasn’t aware she was yours either.”
She wasn’t, and we both knew it.
But while I could handle Dax laying claim on her, that had always been his right, and maybe I could even handle Luca doing the same, the thought of Trig looking at her in any way, shape, or form had anger swirling in my gut.
Grayson tried again. “I asked Nyah and Dax and Luca to come down here today because they were there when Lynx… Well, we know what Lynx did.”
X made chopping motions with his hands. “He sliced! He diced! He carved that guy up like it was a Thanksgiving turkey.”
I winced. I hated that everyone fucking knew. I gave Reaper a dirty look he didn’t deserve because what the hell else was he supposed to have done? He had to tell the others. People had to know what I was capable of.
They had to know I was fucking dangerous and that they shouldn’t be around me.
Grayson threw a lollipop at X, like he hoped it might shut him up for a minute, though I wasn’t sure giving him sugar was really the best idea.
“Lynx,” Gray said quietly. “Reaper says you might have blacked out?”
That caught everyone’s attention. They all stared in my direction, waiting for me to say something.
I shrugged. “It’s not like I passed out.
I just don’t have much recollection of what I was doing.
” I didn’t know how to explain any of it.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, forcing myself to be honest. “I see red, and then it’s like I’m not even in control of myself.
I get lost in my head, and by the time I come out of it, it’s too late. ”
“Blood everywhere!” X said excitedly. “Right?” he asked. “You come to and there’s just a blood bath around you? Ah. Sweet, sweet murder. How I miss you. Such a shame you can’t remember all the details. I’d really like to hear them all.” He peered over at Nyah. “Did you by any chance take photos?”
Luca squinted at him in the same way he did when X fumbled around the ice as our hockey team’s mascot. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a worry?”
“Regularly.”
Luca nodded. “Fair enough. Look, I don’t even know why I’m here. I think you’re all making a big deal over nothing. So he killed a guy. All of us here have.”
Dax turned to him. “I haven’t.”
Luca rolled his eyes. “Sorry, I forgot you were boring.”
Nyah glared at him. “He’s not boring.”
Luca ignored her and continued needling Dax. “Are you so boring you need her to stand up for you too?”
Dax seemed flabbergasted by Luca suddenly attacking him, and frankly, I was too. I kicked the toe of his shoe. “Why are you being an asshole all of a sudden? What did Dax do to you?” I could understand Luca being pissed with me and Nyah, but Dax hadn’t done shit.
Luca’s jaw clenched, and he shot a pissed-off glare in my direction. “Nothing. I’m tired. Whatever. Some of us were kept up all night by others.”
X glanced at him curiously. “Who kept you up all night? Oooh, were you fucking someone? Let’s all guess who!”
Ace raised a hand. “Ten on Amber.”
X pointed at him. “A solid bet, considering she’s the only single one up there. But I’m putting a hundred on Gunner.”
Luca squinted at him. “Gunner? That old biker dude with the grandkids?”
“Hey! Don’t be ageist. Gunner is a sexy man! And he’s only about the same age as Whip. They are not old.” X held his hand out to Whip for a fist bump.
Whip didn’t bump him back. “Gunner is at least seventy-two.”
X tilted his head in confusion. “Like I said, same age as you.”
Whip looked like he needed someone to save him from X’s ADHD. “I’m not even fifty, X. You know that.”
X grinned. “I know, but it’s so fun to tease you. I’m still putting my money on Gunner and Luca making sweet, sweet love all night long though.” He squinted to study Luca. “You definitely seem like you could have daddy issues.”
He probably wasn’t far off the mark. Luca had daddy issues coming out of his fucking ears. And even though I well knew who’d been having sex all night long, because I’d been kept up by it too, a hot flash of jealousy settled over me at the idea of Luca getting naked without me.
I’d watched him fuck Nyah without so much as a hint of jealousy, and yet the absurd idea he might have spent the night in the bed of another man had my toes clenching in my boots with pissed-off irritation.
Fuck my messed-up brain. I hated when I was like this. I felt everything too fucking deeply, and there was no escaping any of it.
“I wasn’t taking my daddy issues out on Gunner’s cock,” Luca assured X.
X’s face fell. “No? Shame for Gunner. Who then?”
Luca pressed his lips together.
Good of him to not lump Nyah and Dax in it.
“Can we get back to talking about me?” I asked.
It was the last thing I wanted to do, but Nyah shot me a grateful look.
Grayson nodded. “God, yes. Please.” He handed me a list of names and addresses.
Some of them had lines crossed through them, but there was a lot remaining on the neatly typed sheet.
“This is the list. Pre-approved targets that you can go after if you absolutely have to. They’re rapists or murderers or other people we’ve been watching who we know have or will reoffend.
If you need to get your hands bloody, do it on one of them. ”
I shook my head and pushed the paper back at him. “I don’t need this. It’s not going to be a problem. Until the other night, I’d been good for years.”
Reaper frowned at me and grabbed the paper out of Doc’s hand. He thrust it in my face. “Take the fucking paper. And call one of us if you need to use it. Nobody kills alone. It’s not safe.”
I laughed at the idea of needing to be safe when I was plunging a knife into someone’s chest.
Reaper gave me a look so stern he suddenly reminded me of my high school principal. “I’m serious, Lynx. Take the fucking paper. You might think you can just stop, but I saw you last time you were triggered. You took months to come out of it fully. You snapped that guy’s arm…”
I’d forgotten about that. It was barely there in my memory, a prison fight, one I’d started because the bloodlust inside me had been too strong to ignore. It was in the weeks after I’d lost it.
If I thought about it hard enough, there had been other incidents as well. Some I’d been punished for in solitary.
A lot I’d gotten away with.
Breaking bones. Blood. Fistfights. Threats and intimidation.
Me being an all-round horrible person to men who might have been criminals but really hadn’t deserved to be on the end of my wrath.
But I’d had no place else for the violence to go.
Grayson spoke to me softly. “You need something to keep you grounded until these feelings pass. If that’s killing people who deserve it, that’s okay. That’s what the list is for.”
Except that wasn’t what I needed. The more I let myself do that, the longer it would take until I felt like me again.
Grayson seemed to see or maybe sense the panic inside me, and maybe realized he was going down the wrong track. “Or you focus on what keeps you grounded. You say you black out when you have these urges. What brings you back?”
Nyah. I hadn’t had her inside the prison, and it had taken me a really long time to get back into some sort of regulated state.
But I’d had her at the castle. I’d been intent on murdering every man in that room.
Until she’d said my name. Until she’d been close enough to touch. Until I’d had my arms wrapped around her and could feel her breath on my too-hot skin.
I couldn’t use her as a crutch. My actions weren’t her responsibility. So I would never tell anyone the only reason I had stopped that night was because of her.
But she opened her mouth. “Me. I’m what grounds him.”
Everyone stared at her and then back at me.
Grayson’s jaw ticked. “That true, Lynx?”
I sighed. “I’m not her responsibility.”
Nyah leaned forward. “You’re my friend though. And tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you wouldn’t have murdered a dozen more men in that room if I hadn’t been there.”
I couldn’t.
I also couldn’t say that I wouldn’t have murdered a hundred if she’d asked me to. Or if they were a threat to her. I dropped my head into my hands.
I was so fucked. I didn’t need a murder squad.
I needed to get over this crush on a woman I couldn’t have and who only saw me as her friend.
And yet somehow we walked away from the meeting with the plan that I was not to be left alone.
And Nyah, since she was the one person who could keep me grounded, should be my babysitter.