13 Nights of Halloween NL #5 - The Game (Patreon)

Unedited/Unbeta'd/Just winging it as always.

Lucas’s stomach churned. Every time a sharp breeze cut across the space, it carried the copper tang of blood tangled with flop sweat and the sweet rot of overripe flowers, sucker-punching him anew. A portable floodlight buzzed faintly, cutting harsh light across the gravel path where Beverly sat tied to a wrought-iron chair dragged from the patio. Her ballgown hung in tatters around her knees, streaked with mud and the darker stain of her own blood. The pearls at her throat had broken, beads scattered like tiny teeth in the dirt. The knife she’d been waving like a badge of courage was now somewhere behind the hydrangeas, kicked there by Jericho when she’d lunged for him.

Now that Atticus had checked her pulse, ensuring this likely wouldn’t kill her, he stood off to one side, gloved hands folded behind his back, studying the woman as if she were a new species of parasite under a microscope. Jericho paced a circle around her, but Lucas didn’t know if it was nervous energy or intimidation. Maybe both.

August had his kit unrolled, laid out on a nearby bench, fingers dancing over the various instruments, seemingly vacillating between the scalpel and another wicked-looking tool, the metal glinting like a promise under the white light. Maybe this was an intimidation tactic too. If so, it was working. Though she’d never admit it, Beverly Scott was terrified.

Lucas didn’t need to touch her to know that. The ragged rattle of her panicked breathing drowned out the night noises of crickets and trilling frogs. He had to give her credit, she wasn’t fainting. She was terrified, yes, but there was something obstinate in it, too. That brittle pride clung to her like perfume and panic mixed. He wondered, distantly, if Zane had inherited that same stubborn defiance before it was beaten out of him.

Atticus stepped forward, crouching down to check the knots around her wrists, making sure to stay out of kicking range.

“Chair’s stable,” he said, voice brisk.

His Captain America costume looked ridiculous under the floodlights, but somehow the surgical precision in his movements canceled out any hint of humor. He pulled a disinfectant wipe from his kit and began cleaning her hands, not for mercy, but for efficiency. The smell of antiseptic cut through the floral sweetness, sharp and sterile. “If she goes into shock, she’ll crash fast. Keep her talking.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” August said, crouching in front of Bev with the slow, predatory smile of a man who enjoyed his work. His Batman cape fanned out behind him in the breeze. “She doesn’t strike me as the quiet type.”

Bev flinched when he said it. It spoke to his husband’s menace that it didn’t even occur to Beverly to attempt to lash out with her feet. Maybe she sensed that it would only expedite the start of the game. She’d gone silent for the first time since they caught her, but the silence was deceptive, her eyes darted between the four men, searching for one who might still see her as human.

“Please,” she rasped finally. “You don’t have to do this.”

“We don’t have to. We get to,” Jericho said, stepping into the light beside his husband. The contrast between them was almost mythic, August all sleek menace and theatrical cruelty; Jericho cold  with righteous inevitability. 

August cocked his head, studying her like he was trying to determine the right dosage of poison. “We’ve never been the type to pass up a teachable moment.”

Bev blinked, confusion flickering before realization set in. “You can’t–”

“Oh, but we can,” Jericho interrupted smoothly. “And we will.”

Lucas couldn’t stop himself from smiling at her disgruntled expression. “Oh, Bev. Why so serious?” he taunted. “You love games, don’t you? Or is it only the public kind? Interviews, talk shows, crocodile tears for the cameras?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped.

“But this one’s private. A little family fun,” Atticus added as if she hadn’t said a thing at all. His tone was conversational, but his eyes were cold steel. “Is that why you look so disappointed? No audience to manipulate? No one to let you play the victim?”

She lunged forward before getting jerked back like a dog running out of leash. “I am a victim!”

August’s slow smile would have had lava freezing in its tracks. “You are now.”

This time Lucas’s stomach clenched for a whole different reason. The quiet malice in his husband’s voice shouldn’t turn him on, but it always did. It made him feel…safe. August always made him feel safe. Whether he was killing the man who had made Lucas’s life hell or jerking him off in a tunnel to distract from his situational claustrophobia. August’s violence was never random, it was precision, protection, worship. He was the perfect man…so what if he killed people. They deserved what they got.

August pulled the sleek black knife from its sheath once more, the blade curved like a smile. The light crawled along its edge like mercury. Atticus readied a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and a stack of clean rags.

Lucas didn’t move. He didn’t have to. His gift did all the moving for him. The closer he was to Bev, the heavier the air felt, like static before a storm. Every heartbeat around them seemed to stutter in response. When he did touch her, her guilt tasted metallic at the back of his throat.

“Here are the rules,” August said, gesturing elegantly toward Lucas. “He asks you a question. You answer truthfully. If you lie…” He nodded toward the knife. “You lose a finger. Simple, really. Like a parlor game, except the stakes are higher than your pride.”

Bev’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

“Don’t look so frightened,” Atticus said mildly, as he finished taping gauze around her palm. “We’re medical professionals, technically. We’ll keep you alive.”

That drew a bark of laughter from Jericho, dark and humorless. “Alive enough.”

Bev’s composure cracked. “You’re monsters,” she hissed.

“Oh, you have no idea,” Jericho said. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Do you remember when you started babbling to the tabloids about Archer not being a reformed sinner but a…what was it, Calliope?”

“A deep cover black ops agent who kills Thomas’s enemies,” Calliope said into the comms, voice dripping with amusement.

Jericho nodded gravely. “Oh, right. A deep cover black ops agent Thomas uses to kill his enemies. Do you remember that?”

Bev’s eyes went wild. “I told you, I was just–”

“Right,” August said. “You were right. Archer is a deep cover black ops agent. He doesn’t kill Thomas’s enemies, though. And he’s not alone. We’re all killers. Every single one. Psychopaths. Thomas raised us to kill. Monsters who hunt and kill other monsters. Monsters like you. Does that make you feel better, Ms. Scott? Knowing that some of your wild ramblings weren’t lies but half-truths?”

“You’ll never get away with this, you freaks.”

“You’re wrong,” Atticus said. “We always get away with it. If you’d been properly invited instead of crashing the party, you might have met some of our guests. Not to brag, but there are sitting members of Congress, generals, members of private paramilitary organizations…”

“You’re lying…” she said faintly.

“Oh, come on, Bev. Sure, you’re going to die screaming in agony, but does that really overshadow the deep-seated satisfaction that comes from being right?” August asked, waving the knife as he spoke.

“I hate you all,” she snarled.

“And we’re just gutted about that,” Jericho said. “Oh, wait, no–that’s you.” He flashed perfectly white teeth at her. “Get it…gutted.”

Atticus bit down on his lower lip to keep from laughing. 

Lucas finally stepped forward, crouching so he could meet her gaze head-on. “You’re going to tell the truth tonight, Beverly. About Zane. About Gage. About yourself.”

Her chin trembled, her eyes flicking away, shaking her head. “You don’t understand–”

He touched her wrist. The contact was light, almost delicate, but the reaction was immediate. Her breath stuttered, and behind Lucas’s eyes flashed a cascade of images: a house soaked in grief, wallpaper yellowed by nicotine and resentment; a woman who looked much like Bev, holding a baby in a dress while staring down at another woman who clearly passed far too young; Zane at five, hiding behind a piano, shielded by a slightly larger boy while his mother screamed at a man offscreen; a Christmas tree tipped over, broken ornaments littered like tiny corpses; the metallic smell of vodka and blood, the echo of a child crying.

Lucas drew a slow breath and stood, his expression unchanging. “She’s already lied twice.”

“Twice?” August echoed, mock surprise curling his voice. “And we haven’t even asked the first question.”

August’s hand closed around the knife. He didn’t hesitate. The sound was small, a wet pop, a crack like breaking kindling, the soft whimper of tissue giving way. Bev’s scream tore through the maze and was swallowed by the night.

Lucas watched her body convulse, felt no pity, only a quiet, cold satisfaction. The air smelled of iron and ozone, the floodlight buzz drowning beneath her cries. It would rain soon. He could smell it. He turned to the others. “That’s your baseline. She lies easier than she breathes.”

Bev howled again, more a sound of anguish than pain.

August rolled his eyes. “Please don’t start with that caterwauling now. I forgot my headphones.”

“The screaming gives him a headache,” Lucas supplied. He might as well have been reading from a manual, calm, detached, clinical. Something like hope flared in Bev’s eyes a moment before Lucas reached into his pocket and produced August’s headphones. “I didn’t forget.”

Lucas gasped as August wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him into a kiss that was both sexy as hell and freakishly melodramatic. Still, he kissed back. Of course, he did. His husband was such a strange amalgamation of deeply disturbed and disgustingly romantic. Even covered in blood, August made madness look like devotion. He loved him so much.

When August released him, he stumbled a bit. Jericho reached out to steady him with a quiet huff of laughter.

August turned on Bev. “Now where were we?” he asked cheerfully, wiping a speck of blood off his cheek. He made a show of opening his headphone case and placing them into his ears. “Let’s see if we can teach this old dog some new tricks.”

He didn’t bother to wipe the smile off his face. “Round one,” he announced, with the bright patience of a game show host who’d run out of commercial breaks. “We’ll start easy. Did you ever love your son?”

Once more, she brightened, nodding vigorously.

“Be specific,” Lucas said. “She had two sons. She only hated one.”

“Did you ever love Zane?” August corrected. 

She sneered, then looked away, sweat dripping down her melted face like raindrops on a windowpane. Her mascara had long since surrendered, pooling beneath her eyes like bruises. When the silence stretched, August shrugged, steadying her other hand, preparing to take her other pinky.

“What are you doing?” she shouted, voice strangled.

“Oh, did we forget to mention that there was a penalty for failing to answer within the allotted timeframe?” Jericho asked. “Our mistake.”

“Wait!” she screamed as the blade pressed deep enough to draw blood.

“If we don’t follow through now, how will you learn?” Jericho asked.

“I loved my son. I–I did. Of course, I did,” she screamed.

“Loved? Past tense? Say love. Say Zane. ‘I love Zane.’ Be specific,” Lucas said again, getting in her face until they were almost nose to nose. “Nobody is falling for your bullshit.”

“I-I–” It was like even with her own flesh on the line, she couldn’t choke out the words.

“Let’s start with something slightly easier,” Atticus said. “Did you ever physically assault your son?”

The older woman had the audacity to roll her eyes. “Disciplining a disobedient child is a parent’s responsibility.” She gave them all another sneer. “One clearly Thomas should have utilized more often.”

Her scream ripped through the night air as another finger fell into the crisp green lawn. The grass glistened wetly, dew and blood indistinguishable under the floodlight.

“Oops,” August said. “My hand slipped.”

“It’s fine,” Lucas said. “I already know she lied. I saw it the first time I touched her.”

“Care to try again?” Atticus asked. “You still have eight perfectly good fingers left. We could always go back to question number one?”

“If you didn’t want him, why not just put him up for adoption?” Jericho asked. “Or did you just want him to be the cup you poured all your hatred into?”

“I already told you. My husband wouldn’t allow it,” she spat, whipping her head around to Lucas. “That’s the truth of it.”

“Why didn’t she love me?” Zane whispered over the comms. “Ask her that.”

“I doubt she’ll be honest,” Atticus murmured quietly.

“I’ll get the truth out of her,” Lucas said. “Even if I have to dig around in her brain with a psychic ice pick.”

“Zane wants to know why you didn’t love him like you did Gage,” August said.

A slithery smile spread across her face, similar to the slash that was Lucas’s joker smile. It looked equally ghoulish with her flaking, caked-on lipstick. She sat up a little straighter, like it hadn’t occurred to her that Zane could hear every word. “Oh, he’s listening?”

“Do you think he’d miss the opportunity to hear you scream for a change?” Atticus asked.

Bev’s chin tipped up, queenly reflex fighting the restraints. “He always was a little coward,” she said, “hiding in the shadows like a little mouse, letting Gage shield him.”

August’s green eyes looked pure black in the shadows. The wind stirred his cape, and for a breath, he looked carved out of the night itself. “Shield him from what, Beverly? You?”

“From life,” she spat. “He was always so pathetic, still is. Letting that husband of his abuse him.”

August didn’t give her the dignity of a warning. The knife was efficient; his grip was brick. The sound, again, was small. Wet and final. A punctuation mark carved into skin. Her scream wasn’t. Atticus had the rag ready this time, pressed down hard, his mouth a flat line that made him look like a saint in a terrible painting.

“Round two,” Jericho said, cheerful again. “Why the tabloids?”

Bev panted, face slick, eyes glassing with tears she’d probably practiced for years. “He forced my hand. He–he cut me off. He told lies about me to my friends. He–he’s vindictive. He wanted to ruin me.”

Lucas snatched her wrist. A flash, a glossy dining room, ten women at a luncheon leaning forward while Bev performed sorrow like a song–We don’t choose our children, do we?–and the way the table hummed with the delicious thrill of judgment. Another flash: Bev scrolling her phone at 3 a.m., trawling her own name, deleting the comments that didn’t worship her. The dopamine hit of attention. The empty pantry Zane stared into at fourteen because she’d forgotten to pick up groceries; her new designer handbag sitting like a trophy on the counter.

“Lie,” Lucas said softly.

“Oh, Bev,” August murmured.

The blade kissed bone. Her scream tore at the edges of the night. Bev jerked, sobbing, and the sound folded back on itself, a wail a little girl might have made fifty years ago in a kitchen where someone else didn’t come when she cried. Lucas felt the echo. He didn’t mistake it for innocence.

Atticus switched rags, worked quickly, then cut a packet of lidocaine and injected around the wound with a calm that was almost obscene. “You keep lying, you’re going to give yourself arrhythmia,” he said conversationally. “Drink.”

He tipped a bottle of water to her lips. She swallowed twice, almost choking, then coughed, spots of red blooming on the gauze. Once more Lucas caught the scent of copper, antiseptic, and wet roses hanging heavy and too sweet.

Jericho paced restlessly. “Round three. When Gage died, did you ever–at any point–wish it had been Zane instead?”

The night shifted. Even the hedge seemed to lean forward. Somewhere, a cicada wound down mid-song, the garden holding its breath.

Bev’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “No,” she said, too fast. “Never.”

Touch.

The funeral, too bright, too white, lilies and cameras. Bev clutching a handkerchief that didn’t catch any tears while she looked at Zane like he had stolen something. Zane at eighteen, crawling into his big brother’s empty bed just to try to reconnect. Bev yanking back the covers, her voice cold.

Don’t be morbid; it’s inappropriate. Get up.

A night years later, Bev drunk, mascara like claws, whispering, you should have been the one to die.

Lucas’s face didn’t move. “Lie.”

Bev’s denial collapsed into shrieking; it didn’t matter. Jericho’s hand stayed steady. The next finger went with a wet pop. A mist of blood caught the light, brief as breath before the wind carried it away.

Atticus worked again, gauze, pressure, an IV line now taped to the inside of her elbow. “We’ll keep you upright,” he said, matter-of-fact. “We’re not done.”

August tilted his head, almost tender. “Round four. Have you ever hit him?”

Bev’s nostrils flared. “I already answered this. I disciplined him. You people don’t understand boundaries. The world has gone soft.”

Lucas clenched her wrist tight.

A bathroom door locked. Zane on the other side, small fist banging while Bev counted backward from ten the way a yoga app had taught her, then realizing she could simply leave him there. A wooden spoon. The welt it left. The word she used–correction–because it sounded better than rage.

“Lie,” Lucas said.

The knife came down again. Bev’s head fell back; her voice ripped the dark. Somewhere in the maze, a night bird shrieked in alarm and vanished into the hedges. The echo faded like a memory refusing to die.

Atticus’s gloves were pink to the wrist now. He didn’t seem to notice. He looked at Lucas. “You getting what you need?”

Lucas didn’t answer the question. He glanced at August. “She’s saving something. There’s a pocket she hasn’t touched yet.”

“Good,” August said, delighted. “Round five. While he was a child–before Gage died–did you ever protect Zane? From anyone? Including yourself.”

Bev blinked, a weird little tremor passing through her. “Yes,” she whispered. “Of course.”

Lucas gripped her wrist once again.

A neighbor’s dog. Zane at six, laughing, hands outstretched, Bev jerking him back so hard his shoulder bruised while she smiled for the neighbor. Gage stepping between them on a later day, voice shaking, saying stop it, Mom, and Bev slapping him for the audacity. A parent-teacher conference: the teacher gentle as she said Zane seems tired, and possibly malnourished. Bev cutting her off, calling Zane manipulative and a picky eater while Zane folded in on himself like paper in rain.

Lucas let go. “Lie.”

August didn’t need the cue twice. The blade flashed; the bone yielded. The air trembled with her scream, raw, jagged. Bev slumped, almost sliding sideways, and Atticus’s hand shot out, palm flat to her sternum, pressing her upright with clinical efficiency.

Atticus spoke quietly into his mic. “Vitals holding. She’s not going into true shock yet. Hydration, sugar.” He glanced at August. “Layer your questions. Keep her talking. Rage actually helps.”

“Always does,” August said, almost fond. He tapped the knife against the table, a little metronome of malice. Each metallic tap cut through the garden’s hush like a ticking clock counting down to her confession.

Lucas closed his eyes, focusing not on the old woman’s skin beneath his palm but the wall she was trying to throw up to protect…something. “What is it? What are you not telling us?”

“Nothing,” she snapped, blinking rapidly, her lips parting as she began to suck in rattling breaths. “What do you want from me? No matter what I say, you’re going to kill me anyway. Just do it. I don’t care anymore. I’m not answering any more of your stupid questions.”

“Always the victim, huh, Bev?” Lucas said, huffing out a disgusted laugh. “All Zane wanted was a mother that loved him. You spewed your hate and vitriol all over him, yet somehow he’s one of the sweetest, gentlest people we know. In spite of you.”

“In spite of? I’m the reason he’s like this. Me. He was pathetic. Weak. Always crying, always whining, just like his fath–”

As soon as the words escaped, she clamped her lips shut, turning her head to look out over the shadows of the empty garden. The silence after hung thick.

“My dad wasn’t whiny,” Zane said faintly. “My dad was barely ever home. He was a ghost in our house, doing everything he could to avoid my mom…and us.”

Lucas’s breath hitched, stumbling slightly away from Bev as the pieces began to fall into place. Could it really be that simple? “Is that it?” he asked, almost to the universe, before turning on Bev. “Is that why you’ve spent his whole life tormenting him?”

“What?” Jericho asked. “Did you pick up something?”

“Not psychically, no. It’s more a theory than anything. But it’ll be easy enough to confirm. It just means searching her cesspool of a brain.”

“Meaning?” Atticus asked.

“Meaning Bev couldn’t take her anger and rage out on the person she wanted to punish, so she used Zane as a surrogate for that person. Isn’t that right, Bev?”

“Is this like a Daddy issues thing?” Jericho asked.

Lucas shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t think so.” He squatted down in front of her, forcing her to look him in the eye. Her pupils blew wide, a flash of panic before the fury returned. “You got caught having an affair, didn’t you?”

“Wh-What?” Bev stammered. “You’re just making that up.”

“Like I said, it was a theory. But you just confirmed it. Let me guess. Your husband didn’t know, thought it was his, and when you said you wanted an abortion, he did something to manipulate you into keeping the baby?”

Bev pressed her lips together, chest heaving, her rage burning a hole through Lucas’s skin. Her breath hitched on a sob she refused to give sound to, the first real fracture in her control.

August spun the knife around on his index finger. “Clock’s ticking, Beverly.”

When she hesitated, Jericho said, “You’re gonna die either way. Be a decent person for once in your life. Unburden yourself.”

The word unburden landed like a dare. For a moment, she looked almost small, just a woman sitting in a garden that smelled like blood and roses, realizing there was no one left to lie to.

It was clear she was fighting some inner war, like the admission itself was a monstrous thing she’d rather lose fingers than voice. Her fingernails clawed at the rope, knuckles whitening, as if the cords could strangle the confession back in.

When August stepped closer, she snarled, then, with a ragged inhale, spat, “Fine. Fine.” Her voice dropped into something smaller, brittle. “I was having an affair.”

Zane choked on a breath in Lucas’s ear. For a beat it felt like the entire garden held its breath. Crickets stopped; even the floodlight’s hum seemed to dull.

“With who?” Zane managed. “Who was he?”

Before any of them could press, Bev went on. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was going to quietly have an abortion and move on with my life, but Irv found the test in the trash and confronted me.” She shook her head as if dislodging memory. Her jaw clenched until the tendons stood out. “I tried to say it was his, but we both knew it wasn’t. We hadn’t touched each other since Gage was born.

He told me if I had an abortion he’d leave and take Gage with him.” 

The sentence landed like a blunt instrument.

“Why would he want you to keep a baby that wasn’t his?” Jericho asked, voice flat.

“He was punishing me for sleeping with…someone else.” Bev spat the words like they tasted sour.

Lucas’s gaze narrowed. “Who was it?”

“Why is that important?” she snapped, snapping back into the old feint, deflection.

“Because Zane deserves to know who his real father is,” Atticus said, sharp. “What if that man wanted to be part of his life? What if there are siblings out there?”

“He doesn’t,” she screeched, each syllable tearing at the night. She lurched forward as far as the ropes allowed. “Nobody wants him. Nobody ever wanted him, but I was forced to keep him. I’m the victim here.”

Rage flared up Lucas like gasoline. Who could do that to a child? Who could weaponize the most intimate betrayals into a life of emotional exile? He didn’t remember when he reached for the knife; his motion felt both animal and inevitable. August’s arms were suddenly an iron brace, keeping the blade from smashing into Beverly’s face.

“You’re a fucking monster,” Lucas barked, voice raw, still struggling in August’s arms. “You. You’re evil. You deserve every ounce of pain you get tonight. Every single bit of it. We’ll all laugh while you burn, you heinous bitch.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she wailed, a practiced stab at indignation.

August plucked the knife from Lucas’s hand and let him go. The second his wrists were free, Lucas’s palm flew, a hard, clean slap across her cheek that echoed and made the night jump. She jerked to the side; the slap opened some black drawer in him.

Memory unfurled like film. Cold tile underfoot. A child in footed pajamas. The kitchen light too bright. A woman laughing on the phone while a small body sobbed. He heard the old voice, the mantra Zane had been fed as a kid, the justification for cruelty: He cries to get his way. If I go to him every time, he’ll never learn.

A kitchen timer ticking down. A little hand–Zane’s–hovering near a hot oven door. The sudden hush that follows a slap. Bev and a man shouting at each other about someone named…Liam. The man calling Bev a whore, a terrible mother, the bane of his existence. Saying Gage dying was the punishment she deserved for betraying him.

“Who’s Liam?”

Bev’s eyes went wide, but then she shut down again, glowering at him as she made a show of clamping her lips together.

Lucas inhaled through his nose, let the air sit heavy, then released it slowly. “Take the rest of her fingers and her fucking tongue too. Every word out of her mouth is a lie.”

August shrugged. Jericho drew another blade from his own belt, both of them advancing with the lazy confidence of men who didn’t need to rush violence for it to be effective.

“Wait. Wait! I’ll–I’ll tell you who his father is if you just stop!” she screamed, eyes wild.

They both stopped.

“Is it this Liam person?” Atticus asked.

She gave a jerky nod.

“Go on then,” August said. “Speak while you still can.”

“It is…his name is Liam…Liam Scott. Irv’s brother.”

For a moment there was nothing, no sound but the high electric buzz of the floodlight and the soft drip of blood hitting gravel.

Then Zane whispered, “I didn’t even know my father had a brother. What the fuck?”

“It wasn’t about Zane,” Lucas said, calm, final. “It never has been. It was about you.”

Bev’s eyes glittered. “Everything is,” she snapped. Honest, at last.

August’s smile sharpened. “There it is.” He glanced toward Jericho, a silent acknowledgment that monsters recognized truth the same way they recognized blood. “Bonus point.”

The knife descended.

Atticus had the towel ready before the scream arrived. He fed her a sip of water, wiped her mouth, and tilted her chin so she had to look at Lucas again. “Last question,” he said, almost gentle. “Just for me.”

She blinked, glassy. “What?”

Atticus’s voice didn’t change. “Did you ever, at any time, try to get help? Therapy. Group. A twelve-step program for anything. Did you ever say I need to be different, and mean it?”

The garden went very quiet.

Bev worked her jaw, anger flickering, then faltering under something like confusion. “I…don’t need help,” she said, but the sentence fell apart, word by word, as if even her throat couldn’t stand to carry it.

Lucas didn’t need to touch her for that one. He did anyway, because it mattered. What he saw was nothing—long blank rooms where accountability should have lived, a calendar that never included anyone else’s appointment, a mirror she’d never looked into with honesty.

“Lie,” he said, and for the first time his voice held pity, not for her, but for the child in another house who had learned from her that love was a riddle with a knife at the end.

August didn’t hesitate but Atticus did. 

“Enough,” he said softly the moment the blade lifted. He set his palm to her forehead, checking her temperature, then glanced at August. “She’s still with us. For now.”

August rose, fluid, wiped the knife clean with a practical swipe, and slid it home. He leaned close, his voice dropping so only Bev and the three men beside her could hear. “You wanted to be seen, Beverly. Consider it done. Every monster in this family just looked you in the eye and found you wanting.”

“Bring her to me,” Felix said. “We’re in the shed. Avi and I want some alone time with her before we end it.”

Atticus’s gaze flicked to the woman. “I don’t think she has much fight left in her.”

“Don’t worry,” Felix said. “I don’t plan on physically hurting her. I just want to…play with her a bit.”

“Copy that,” Atticus said.

He looked to Jericho. “Care for a moonlight stroll through the garden to help me transport our prisoner to her final destination?”

“Sure, Freckles. Anything for you.”

If Lucas hadn’t watched Zane’s childhood unfold, piece by painful piece, watching Jericho hoist the old woman into a wheelbarrow might have been grotesquely funny. Instead he was still raw, the images of her cruelty not yet washed out of his mind.

Once they were alone, August wrapped his arms around him. “What was that about?”

“He endured so much at her hands. Beating him back then might have been kinder,” Lucas said. “His only safe space was Gage, and the universe ripped that away from him too. How can anyone treat their children like that?” August didn’t say anything, only rubbed his back, firm and steady. “I know we deal with monsters every day, but this was different. This was–”

“Zane?” August supplied.

Lucas nodded, chest tight. 

“Zane has never been anything but kind. We call Noah the heart of the family, and he is. But if Noah is the heart, Zane is the soul. He gives the world the benefit of the doubt. He blames himself first and everyone else later. He’s the first to help, the first to volunteer. No matter how much success he has, he attributes it to someone else–Thomas’s contacts, Felix’s celebrity, Asa’s money. It’s just–” Lucas’s voice tightened. “It hurts.”

“You sure this isn’t dredging up your own ghosts? Your grandfather–” August’s words hit with the precision of a scalpel.

Maybe that was part of it. Maybe Lucas had more in common with Zane than he’d wanted to admit.

“Maybe,” he said, then let out a long, shaky breath.

August led him to the wrought-iron bench beneath the gazebo and pulled Lucas onto his knee. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked. “You don’t have to stay. You can go upstairs, hug our babies, or go talk to Cricket’s belly until she begs you to stop.”

“Is it weird that I need to see her die?” Lucas whispered, laying his temple against August’s. “Maybe this is partly about me. My grandfather died of natural causes and I never got to tell him anything. I never got to say what I felt. Even though it would have fallen on deaf ears. At least Zane gets the final word tonight.”

“In that case,” August said, “how should we pass the time until they’re ready to end this hunt?”

Lucas cupped August’s cheek and turned his head, capturing his lips. The kiss was quick, then deeper. Moonlight glossed August’s lashes; the air around them smelling faintly of crushed lavender and the dampness in the air that told them rain would come before morning did.

“I could return the favor from earlier?” Lucas murmured when they broke, voice low.

August arched an eyebrow. “Right here?”

“We’ve never fooled around in the garden,” Lucas said.

“What if we get caught?” August teased, sounding more challenged than worried.

Lucas kissed him again, soft and bold. “Then we can scratch it off the list.”

“We have a list?” August asked, mock-scandalized.

Lucas tapped his temple. “It’s all right up here.”

“Your mind is a wild and untamed place,” August said, amusement curling his mouth.

Lucas slid to his knees between August’s legs, looking up at him. The world narrowed to the rasp of his own breath, the steady thrum of August’s pulse under his fingers, and the small, private conspiracy of two people who had learned, in all the wrong ways, how to make comfort and cruelty coexist. “You have no idea, Professor. You have no idea.”

August’s laugh was warm against the night. “I can’t wait for you to show me, Mr. Blackwell. Do your worst.”