The Bone Collector - The Watch #1 - ch. 4 (Patreon)

These next two chapters I'm uploading are raw. Unbeta'd unedited, could change if I decide the suck or whatever. LOL. Hope you enjoy.ParkFor the second time in two days Park barged into Boone’s office without knocking, not waiting for him to acknowledge him before he said, “I want Gift moved to another dorm room immediately.”Boone didn’t look up from his paperwork, tone bored as he drawled, “No.”Park was already half turned and prepared to leave, a ‘thank-you’ on his lips when Boone’s refusal sank in. He whipped back around. “Wait, what?”Boone shifted one stack of papers to the side and grabbed the next. What the hell did he even do at the Watch?“No,” he said again.No? Why no? Why was Boone being so unreasonable about this? Did he want the students…fraternizing with each other? How could that be good for the program? Things got dangerous when feelings got involved. At least that’s what Park had heard anyway. Look at Kendrick and Anchali. He’d practically ruined her life because she’d rejected him.The memory of Payton caressing Gift’s cheek floated back into Park’s head and another wave of fury hit him like a truck, hands balling into fists. The audacity of that little…shithead. Gift was his. His to protect, anyway. And he doubted Anchali would think he had succeeded if her precious baby boy ended up losing his virginity to a psychopath.Just the thought had a thousand images barging into his brain, popping up like tiles on a computer screen. Payton on top of Gift. Gift on his knees. Payton on his knees. The two of them kissing. His stomach lurched like his body was rejecting the idea. There was no way someone like Payton would be patient or gentle or care for Gift…not like Park—No.Fuck.Park squeezed his eyes shut like it might wipe away the intrusive thoughts. But thoughts of Payton and Gift were replaced with him and Gift. Gift under him, Gift’s fingers digging into his arms as he slowly pushed his way into his body for the first time. The soft, sweet sounds he’d make.What was wrong with him? He was a terrible person. A monster. No better than Payton. Nobody was touching Gift. Not Park and certainly not that little shithead with his wild hair and zero sense of style. He just had to get Boone on board.“You haven’t even heard my reasoning,” Park said, feeling uncharacteristically huffy about Boone’s dismissal.“Your reasoning anything other than Payton touching something you’ve decided belongs to you even though you don't have the balls to do anything about it?”God, he hated this guy. “What?”Boone sighed. “Is your reasoning for this room change for any reason other than Payton and Gift being…close?”Close? Is that what Boone would call Payton holding Gift’s hand, caressing his cheek, eye-fucking him in a classroom full of people? Just thinking about it made Park want to smash something…like Payton’s perfect fucking nose.Park snorted. “If you saw the way your boy was feeling up Gift right in front of Kendrick, you’d say they were more than close.”“Answer’s still no,” Boone said, tone almost sing-song as if this was funny.There was nothing funny about it. Gift was sweet and pure and lovely. He didn’t understand the way the world worked. He didn’t know that psychopaths like Payton were incapable of love, of caring, of giving Gift what he needed, what he deserved. He would fully buy into the idea that all the attention and affection Payton lavished on him was real and then he’d have his fragile heart broken.“Gift has been…sheltered his whole life. He isn’t ready to be with someone like Payton. Not now. Probably not ever. He’s going to get his heart broken and what happens then? What happens when handlers and assets cross that line? Should we really be encouraging this? What about the program?” Park asked, stopping abruptly when he realized he was shouting.Boone eyed him, baleful. “You done?” he asked, his drawl more infuriating than usual.That brought Park up short. He crossed his arms, giving Boone a pissy look. “I am starting to have serious concerns about you being in charge of this program.”Boone rolled his eyes. “Noted. Now sit down.”It was on the tip of Park’s tongue to tell Boone to fuck all the way off, but instead he flopped down in the chair across from him just as he’d done the night before.Boone opened his top drawer, handing him the half empty bottle of booze from the night before. “Have a drink and pull yourself together before the students see you.” He shook his head, giving Park a thorough once over. “I swear that boy has your balls in a jar next to his bed. When did you get so whipped?”Park blinked at him. “Wow,” he said, drawing the word out. “And I thought we were friends.”“Did you?” Boone asked, hooking a brow at him.Not really. But at the very least he thought they were colleagues. He didn’t answer, instead saying, “Then can you tell your pet psychopath to keep his hands off Gift? It’s making him uncomfortable.”At that, Boone did finally give Park his full attention, leaning back to study him. “It’s making him uncomfortable or you uncomfortable, princess?”“Him.”Boone snorted. “It didn’t appear to make him uncomfortable when I saw them snuggling on the gym mats two days ago. Or when he was sitting in his lap in study hall. Are you sure it’s Gift who’s uncomfortable with Payton’s attention?”Park huffed out a breath. “I don’t like your tone.”“I don’t like you turning my school into some goddamn reality tv show,” Boone countered.“Your school?” Park parroted, before realizing that antagonizing Boone wasn’t going to get him what he needed. “Doesn’t it bother you that Payton is all over Gift? I know you have a hard-on for that boy. I’ve seen the way you look at him. And the way he looks at you.”The corner of Boone’s mouth twitched. “I admit I find the boy…intriguing. But it stops there. He looks at me like a mountain he’s yet to conquer. You’ve seen the way he has everyone else wrapped around his finger. He’s a master manipulator, mimics human behavior better than any others I’ve seen like him and he’s already proven several times over that he can take out a target without getting caught. If I can just break down his ego, he’s going to make a great asset.”“Right…that’s what you think when you look at him, that he’s a great…asset.”Boone sighed. “If you spent more time teaching and less time picking fights with me, maybe you’d be too distracted to worry about what Gift is doing. Shouldn’t you be in the classroom by now?”“It’s my free period,” Park said, tipping the bottle to his lips, wincing as it burned its way down his esophagus.Boone studied him. “The year is only halfway over. You need to get your shit together. I cannot have you living in my office whining about Gift every day. Maybe you should send him back to his mama.”A sharp pain stabbed through his heart at that. “I can’t. It’s…not safe.”“You get how absurd that sounds, right? You think the boy is safer here, surrounded by psychopaths than he is at home surrounded by bodyguards? Or do you just want to keep him close?”Park clenched his jaw, trying to find his patience. “Of course, he’s safer here. With me. On a military base surrounded by armed guards. This is the safest place for him until Anchali neutralizes the threat against her family. Then he can go home.”“What if he doesn’t want to go?” Boone said.“He doesn’t have a choice,” Park said. “His mother won’t allow him to follow in her footsteps. He’s not built for this life. She protected him too much. He’s…soft.”Boone said nothing for a long moment. “You understand he’s an adult, right? You can’t force him to leave the program. You may have been the reason he was accepted, but he’s more than pulling his weight. According to Pike and Brogan, he’s their top student next to Payton. The two of them are practically a dream team. Safe or no, you’re not going to get him to go home, so you might want to shift gears and think about how you can help him toughen up and protect himself.”Boone didn’t get it. He didn’t understand how malleable Gift was, how easily managed, so much so that Park second guessed everything he said to the boy, leaving their conversations stunted and awkward. What did a has-been killer like him have in common with someone like Gift? Nothing.This life—the danger, the loneliness, the bloodshed—would be too much for his soft boy. It would just end up breaking his heart in the long run. “Gift is very smart. He’s been moved around a great deal, but he’s excellent in any academic environment. That doesn’t mean he is meant for this lifestyle. This is just temporary.”“If it’s just temporary, what do you care if he and Payton are fucking?”Park felt like he’d been kicked in the face. “What? I didn’t say that were-that he-they’re not,” he stuttered. “I’d-I’d know. This—whatever it is—is new. Payton is pressuring Gift and he doesn’t like it.”“Christ, man. Just fuck the kid already. He’s not gonna stay a virgin forever, if you’re so concerned about Payton deflowering him, do it yourself. Do something, because you’re making the rest of us nuts.”“Do it myself?” Park muttered, hating the way his cock twitched at the idea. “That’s not an option.” Park shook his head. When had this conversation gone so far off the rails? “Are you really okay with Payton and Gift being…intimate?”“Intimate?” Boone echoed, amused. “This boy has you fit to be tied. When did the great Park Chen become such a prude?”“I’m not a prude,” Park said. “I just have an obligation to his—”“Save it,” Boone said, cutting him off. “I’m not moving Payton or Gift. That’s final. You’re going to have to put on your big boy pants and find a way to deal with your little crush that doesn’t involve turning my whole school upside down. I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded how much is riding on this”As far as Park was concerned, this school shutting down was the best case scenario. The entire idea was ludicrous, a bunch of wealthy spoiled psychopathic brats being deep cover operatives? It would never work. It couldn’t.Psychopaths couldn’t be managed or controlled—he should know. He was one. At least according to the psychiatric evaluation they gave him just before Kendrick had him retired. How many times had Park gone off-script? Taken out people who weren’t green-lit? Acted of his own accord? How many times had Anchali pulled his ass from the fire and covered for him?That was why he protected Gift and that was why he would keep his dick to himself. Like Payton, he was incapable of love or empathy or remorse. But he wasn’t incapable of loyalty or commitment. He was loyal to Anchali. He’d never betray her trust, not because he loved her, but because he respected her.As for the school, Park was almost certain this program was a powder keg about to explode.“What’s the worst case scenario? They shut down?”Boone tapped his pen on the desk for a few minutes like he was contemplating something. Finally, he said, “Let me ask you. What do you think happens to these kids if this program is dissolved?”Park shrugged. “They go back to being the spoiled progeny of some of the world’s richest and most influential families? Hardly seems like a hardship.”Boone sighed. “I know they all seem painfully normal to you. I know you identify with them.” Park’s gaze shot to Boone, startled. “Yeah, I’ve seen your psych eval. For the record, I’m not convinced. But that’s neither here nor there. These kids aren’t just psychopaths.”“What does that mean?”Boone shook his head like he wasn’t sure he should be having this conversation with Park. “Project Watchtower isn’t just about taking psychopaths and turning them into operatives. They didn’t just graduate college and get recruited into the FBI. This isn’t Quantico.”“I know that.”“Do you?” Boone asked. “These kids, these neurodivergent students, they weren’t just found, they were created.”“Created?” Park parroted. “What does that mean?”“It means they scoured the fucking world to find children who were exhibiting psychopathic traits at a young age and then they took them from their parents and placed them—not adopted, but placed them—with prominent families, families who were given very specific guidelines, specific rules, specific promises. They told those children they were special, different, that the rules of society didn’t apply to them.”“How is that different from any other rich kid?”“These kids were told that if they could just quell their murderous impulses into adulthood, they would be let off their leashes, given a license to torture, maim and kill without consequence. Tell me what you think would happen if the government suddenly disavowed them?”Park blinked at Boone. “Are you telling me you believe that if this program fails, the government will merc the children of some of the wealthiest and most influential people on the planet? Because they might kill someone?”“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. And we’re not safe either. Anyone who knows anything about this program could easily meet with an accident.”“Taking out this many targets without tipping off someone of a much larger conspiracy is impossible.”Boone snorted. “You think it’s a coincidence that they’ve set this school out in the middle of the fucking desert? You think it's a coincidence that the public thinks this is some kind of elite graduate program for children of some of the world’s biggest global thinkers?”“Are you saying…”“I’m saying that creating a school like this, filling it with high value targets, gives them plausible deniability if and or when this school gets blown off the fucking map.”Park barked out a laugh. “That’s absurd. There’s no way they’d dare take out a whole school. Nobody would ever believe it was a terrorist attack, no matter how many famous kids are inside.”“No?” Boone asked, then waited.“No…Their families would never agree to this? How would they keep them from going to the press, from spilling everything?” Park asked.“You know the answer. The same reason these people agreed to house a monster in their home and call it their child. Money. Power. Fame. Maybe some of them might have formed a minor attachment to the children, but not enough of one to blow up their whole lives. There’s a reason the children aren’t left with their actual parents. They’d never agree to the failsafe if the program proves…unsuccessful.”“But the handlers…they’re not like the assets. Are they really willing to murder them too?” Park asked, knowing the answer before he asked the question.It wouldn’t be the first time the government staged an international incident to further their own agenda. While the project, on its face, seemed insane, deep down the logic was sound. People without conscience were just better killers. He should know. But it also made them more likely to betray their country for monetary gain.“We both know the answer to that,” Boone said. “They’ve been groomed for this as well. But unlike the assets, most of them have no idea their parents aren’t their real parents. And it needs to stay that way.”Park nodded absently. He’d long since made peace with the fact that he didn’t find any sanctity in human life. In all his years of killing, he’d never felt even a little bad, regardless of the target’s age or gender. Not that they’d ever asked him to take out a child. At least not yet, it seemed.The idea of the school being the target of an attack would have filled most people with sorrow or anger, Park felt nothing. Until he thought of Gift. Park didn’t understand his connection with this boy. He just…stirred something in him, this sort of fierce need to protect him. And it went far beyond his debt to Anchali.Most of his life Park had felt nothing, maybe he was born that way, but he didn’t think so. Life had made him this way, had burned him again and again until the scarring had just left him impervious to feelings of any kind. He didn’t care about anyone else in the world, couldn’t even. But he somehow cared about Gift, this boy he barely knew.Park frowned as something occurred to him. “Wait, all of the assets are adopted?”“Yeah,” Boone said, frowning.“Kendrick knows this?” Park asked.“I would assume so, yes,” Boone said. “What’s your point?”Park shook his head. “It’s just something he said to me when he told me to bring Gift with me. He said Gift was a prime candidate for the project and he was surprised he hadn’t been flagged beforehand. But he wouldn’t have been. Because all the assets were adopted and placed with their families. Right?”Boone shrugged. “Maybe he just misspoke. You know Anchali had a baby. We all saw her pregnant. We all saw the way Kendrick punished her and had her benched.”Park nodded. “Yeah. I guess.”“Great. Now get out of my office and go do what we pay you to do.”Park nodded. “Yeah, yeah.”“And Park?”Park turned back, hand on the doorknob. “Yeah?”Boone looked almost embarrassed as he said, “I’ll…have a talk with Payton about Gift.” Park smirked. Boone pointed a finger at his chest. “But I can’t promise he’ll listen. And it’s really none of our business.”Gift was one hundred percent Park’s business. But he didn’t tell Boone that. Actions spoke louder than words anyway. And if Payton didn’t keep his hands to himself, Park would show him that, by removing those hands and shoving them right up his skinny little ass.