Psycho, page 10
Lucas gave her a smile but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. He’d known this would happen. It was only a matter of time. Still, some part of him had hoped Kohn would be too afraid to try it. Hoped they would have at least taken some of Lucas’s visions seriously.
Had Kohn taken a break from stalking and killing women to chase down Lucas? Was his partner picking up the slack while he was gone? The thought of women being hurt because Lucas couldn’t convince the right people he wasn’t crazy made him feel like he’d swallowed battery acid. If he could have just found one solid piece of evidence, anything that could have backed up his vision…
But Kohn was too good for that and had used his position to create a safety net between the authorities and his victims. Unlike most serial killers, he was cunning as well as sadistic. Lucas knew if Kohn had a partner, that partner was much less likely to be the ringleader. They would have a lower IQ, defer to Kohn. They were basically a subordinate or acolyte. Somebody who almost worshipped Kohn.
But then there was the mask. Was that who Kohn was truly hiding from? Maybe his partner didn’t know who he really was? That would afford him a level of safety. Still, Lucas’s vision never showed a third party when he was in that room with his victims. Maybe he was filming himself? But even then, why hide? Most serial killers were notoriously proud of their kills. It wasn’t like he was sending the videos to the police. No, Lucas was his sole focus.
August was right. Lucas needed help. He was no closer to unraveling this mystery and he no longer had the FBI’s resources. Whoever this Calliope was, she had to have better access than Lucas currently had. He’d ask August tonight. The thought of seeing August sent a bolt of lightning through his dick. He tried not to think about August and his insanely talented tongue or the way he’d held Lucas’s wrist as he’d sucked him off.
“Morning.”
Lucas pulled himself from his dirty thoughts to look around for the voice. It was the woman whose office was across from his. Belinda? Bianca? Something with a B. She was locking up her office, bag thrown over her shoulder, probably heading to her morning class. She studied him with an eerie intensity that made him want to cover his crotch, like she could see his dirty thoughts about August.
“Morning,” he managed.
She gave him a tight smile and a curt nod before taking off down the hall, her low heels clicking as she walked. Lucas listened until the sound faded away entirely before fishing for the key to his office door. When he turned the key in the lock, he realized there was no click. His door was unlocked.
He frowned, pushing open the door. Everything was as he’d left it, not a thing out of place. He hung his bag on the coat rack behind his door, doing one more sweep across his office, before finally dropping into his leather chair, gaze falling to a message scrawled on a yellow sticky note.
I MISS YOU.
Lucas rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop smiling. Of course, August had broken into his office. It was entirely something he would do. He left the sticky note as it was, opening the bag from the coffee shop and taking a bite of the huge muffin. He was suddenly starving. He was about halfway through his breakfast when he saw it: August’s scrawled message on his cup.
Lucas’s gaze fell to the note, then back to the cup. The handwriting was not the same. Not even remotely. The sticky note was written all in caps, with a heavy hand. August’s writing was as chaotic as he was, words slanting, letters crowded. The ink on the cup wasn’t Cricket’s either. She wrote in funky block letters, nothing like either of the notes before him.
Lucas couldn’t tear his gaze from the note. He stared at the yellow sticky like it was a venomous snake, poised to strike. He wanted to crumple it up and toss it in the trash, forget about Kohn and his crimes. Nobody believed Lucas anyway. Maybe he should just let August do what he did? But that wouldn’t stop Kohn’s partner or rescue any possible victims they might be holding—hurting—even as he sat there. He couldn’t sacrifice them out of some sense of greater good.
As Lucas gazed at the Post-it, he wondered...could he pull anything from it if he dropped his shields? If Kohn’s feelings or emotions were strong enough, even if he’d only held it for a moment, it might be enough for him to see something. He glanced at his closed office door. Nobody was likely to disturb him.
After another bite of his muffin and a sip of his lukewarm coffee, Lucas dropped his shields, opening himself, taking a few deep breaths so he was relaxed enough to see even the slightest shred of evidence left on the Post-it. He hated how badly his hands shook as he reached for the stupid piece of paper.
The moment he touched it, a gasp ripped from his lungs. Screaming. Terror. Pain. So much pain. Blood. The buzzing of something electrical. That weird fucking red glow. A girl strapped to a chair, leather binding her wrists and across her forehead. Letters carved into her skin. Three letters. I-C-U.
I see you.
“Lucas? Lucas!”
Lucas’s eyes snapped open to see August on his knees before him. They were both on the floor. How had he gotten on the floor? August’s hands were cupping his face, and they felt cold against his heated skin. Pain flooded Lucas’s senses, making him feel dizzy and feverish. It hurt so bad. Everything hurt. His muscles, his skin, his insides. But more than that, his heart hurt. The girl had been filled with this overwhelming sense of dread and despair. Resigned to the rest of her short life being filled with agony.
“He set me up,” Lucas managed between chattering teeth.
“What? Who did? Kohn? He was here?”
Lucas couldn’t answer. When August sat beside him, Lucas curled against him, tucking himself under August’s arm. His mouth was so dry, his lips cracked and bleeding. His eyes hurt. Why did his eyes hurt? He couldn’t feel his hands. It was the straps. The ones across his forearms… They were cutting off his circulation. There was so much pain, his brain tried to reject it, losing consciousness, only to drag him to the surface of that pain once more.
August squeezed him against him. The pain began to fade, his hammering heart slowing as the dingy box of torture was replaced with a frozen lake and silence. Blissful silence. He could feel the frigid air on his face, the stillness of the space. It was vast and isolated, nothing around for miles, except for the occasional whistle of the wind through the empty branches of the trees.
“What did you do?” Lucas mumbled.
“Is it working?”
“Yes,” Lucas said, still looking out over desolate wilderness. August was there, standing behind him, arms around him, chin hooked over his shoulder. “This shouldn’t be possible.”
“Why?” August asked, his breath hot against Lucas’s ear. “If you receive impressions from the things you touch, there’s no reason why I can’t control what you see when you’re touching me. It’s just science.”
Just science. Not according to anybody who knew what Lucas could do. They didn’t think it was science. They thought he was crazy. A liar. Only August seemed to truly embrace Lucas’s gift. Even though that gift had revealed August’s biggest secret. A secret that seemed smaller with each passing day.
If Kohn had taught Lucas anything, it was that some people didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as others. That the world would be a safer place with them gone. August and his family provided a service. They kept people safe. Maybe he was rationalizing. Maybe he just wanted August so bad he was willing to do whatever mental gymnastics allowed him to keep the other man, but he didn’t care.
Life was short. Kohn was determined to make Lucas’s life hell—to torture him until he tired of their game—and then kill him. Maybe August would save him, maybe not. Lucas had no doubt August could save himself, but he wasn’t sure he could save them both. Lucas was determined to soak up whatever time with August he could. Time didn’t mean much when it was borrowed. They were living their lives on some kind of accelerated timeline, hurtling through every milestone at light speed.
Lips pressed against the top of his head. “Do you feel better now?”
Lucas closed his eyes, leaning against August’s weight. “Yes. I think so.”
“Do you want to stay here another minute?”
Lucas studied the icicles hanging from the barren branches. “Yes. Please.”
As time ticked by, Lucas’s pulse slowed, his body temperature returning to normal, the pain and sadness seeping away. When he finally blinked his eyes open to his dimly lit office, it was disorienting, like tripping and falling down a hole, finding himself in an unexpected place.
August stood, pulling Lucas to his feet and leading him to the sofa, the same sofa they’d made out on just yesterday. Had it only been yesterday?
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Kohn’s fucking with me,” Lucas managed, voice raw.
August grimaced. “I gathered, but how?”
Lucas recounted his conversation with Cricket as well as the sticky note incident, relieved when August just accepted him at his word. No matter how accepting August was of Lucas’s talents, there was always the underlying fear he’d stop believing.
“I’m canceling my plans for the night.”
Lucas shook his head. “No, you’re not. You can’t spend your whole life as my bodyguard. We have classes, you have your…volunteer work. I can’t hide away or Kohn wins anyway.”
August’s mouth was a hard line, his breath blowing out through his nose like an angry bull. “I’m going to kill this man, slowly and with as much pain as I can manage. I need you to know that. When it’s all over and we get to the bottom of his serial killing duo, I’m going to skin him alive.”
Lucas should have been repulsed by the venom in August’s words, but they soothed his frayed nerves. “I’ll watch. I just want to make sure those girls are safe. The things he was doing…”
“I’m not like him,” August said.
Lucas’s head jerked up. “What?”
August scanned Lucas’s face. “I need you to know that. I need you to know that I’m not like him.”
Lucas cupped August’s face. “I do know that. The day I met you, I might have panicked, but even when you broke into my home, some part of me knew you weren’t the same.”
August leaned forward, his lips fitting with Lucas’s in a kiss that lingered. Lucas opened his mouth, moaning when August’s tongue dipped inside. He tasted like coffee. “I’m still making sure somebody is there to look out for you tonight,” August said against his lips.
“Somebody like who?” Lucas asked, dreading the idea of another stranger traipsing through his home.
“I’ll figure it out.”
Lucas looked at his watch; he didn’t have time to argue. “We’re both very late for our first class.”
August hesitated. “If anything happens, you text me right away. I don’t care if I’m teaching or not.” Lucas nodded, but that didn’t seem enough. “I need you to promise me.”
“I promise,” Lucas said. “Can we go do our jobs now?”
August slanted his mouth across Lucas’s in a kiss that curled his toes before standing. “Text me. Even if nothing happens. Just…text me.”
Lucas smiled. “I will. Now, go to class.”
August seemed torn but then finally left, leaving Lucas sprawled on the couch. What would have happened if August hadn’t decided to visit him that morning? Kohn had left that note for him like a dirty bomb, knowing Lucas would try to use it to get into his head. Fuck. Why was it that the only two people who believed he could do what he did were two psychopaths?
August said he and Kohn were nothing alike, but that wasn’t exactly true. They were mirror images of each other, yin and yang, dark and light, fire and ice…the very best and worst of what could happen to a person who couldn’t feel guilt or remorse. A person who reveled in the pain of others.
Lucas dug his palms into his eyes, trying to shake off the morning. He had a full class and, by now, they were likely watching the clock, tempted to dip out before he arrived.
Kohn was future Lucas’s problem. Right now, he just had to get through his day.
Alive.
“You want us to babysit your new boyfriend? The former FBI agent?”
August glowered at his brother, but before he could justify his statement, Noah blurted, “We’d love to.”
The look on Adam’s face told August the ‘we’ in the statement was subjective. He had no doubt Noah wanted to get a look at Lucas, to see what exactly it was about him that drew August to him. If he could’ve just sent Noah, he would have, but that wasn’t an option.
Adam would never let Noah go alone, no matter how capable he was of taking care of himself. It was like Adam was sure Noah would make a run for it if they didn’t spend every waking moment together. No matter how obvious it was that Noah was just as cow-eyed over Adam.
It didn’t escape August’s attention that Lucas was also capable of defending himself, but—unlike Noah—Lucas had a very obvious Achilles heel. Just touching that Post-it note had crippled him and left him in agony. If that had happened in Kohn’s presence, he could have done anything to Lucas. Anything.
Just the thought set August’s blood on fire. Seeing Lucas like that had made August feel helpless and enraged. He was going to take his time with Kohn. He wanted him to suffer in every conceivable way and had spent the entire day fantasizing about Kohn’s face contorting in agony. August might even make an exception with him, leaving his headphones out just to hear him scream.
Logically, August understood Kohn had only managed to get to Lucas because he’d caught him off guard. But emotionally, it infuriated August to think this Kohn could come for Lucas. August’s Lucas. But August didn’t mind making an example of Laurence Kohn. He’d put his insides on the outside and leave him hanging for all the world to see what happened when they came for someone who belonged to him.
Kohn was testing Lucas, playing with him before he killed him. It didn’t matter. Kohn wasn’t long for this world. But, in the meantime, August had to keep Lucas safe until he was finished with tonight’s assignment.
August usually looked forward to his kills. He’d been looking forward to ridding the world of this particular fucking menace for a long while. It had taken months to vet them and, now that they had, Thomas wanted it handled immediately—wanted August to handle it immediately—before they hurt somebody else.
His father wasn’t like August and his brothers. He was the beating heart of their family. Archer said he was the bleeding heart of their family, the one who had a personal stake in every kill, who somehow needed to heal himself with each kill. None of them knew what had happened to Thomas to make him the way he was, but they all knew there had to have been some kind of…incident that had prompted it, prompted him to adopt a bunch of mentally unstable children and train them before turning them loose on the worst of humanity. Nobody just woke up one day and decided to create their own Avengers squad without provocation.
“You’re really into him, huh?” Noah asked, dragging August from his thoughts.
“He’s…perfect,” August said.
Adam flopped back on the couch, body curling with laughter. “Who are you right now?”
“I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical question.”
Adam scoffed. “Yeah, nobody’s perfect, bro, not even Noah.”
August cut his eyes to his brother, jaw muscle throbbing. “He’s perfect for me.”
“Stop teasing him,” Noah warned, giving Adam a hard look that had him going from laughing to sulking in six seconds flat.
“Why does everybody baby you?” Adam asked August, as if it was his doing. “Like, you’re smarter and meaner than all of us and they all act like you’re one insult away from crying yourself to sleep listening to, like…Celine Dion or something.”
August sniffed, feeling a little huffy himself. “There’s nothing wrong with Celine Dion.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “You and your pop divas, dude. It’s pathological.”
“Can you watch him or not?” August said, anger edging into his tone.
Adam’s mouth curled into a sly smile. “Yeah, okay, we’ll watch him if you acknowledge that it’s weird that you want us to watch your cop boyfriend. Like, I need you to acknowledge that…out loud.”
August shook his head. “You don’t get it.”
“Then explain it to us,” Noah said gently.
Adam was right—the whole family did talk to him like they were hostage negotiators attempting to talk him into releasing hostages. Why had he never noticed that before? Was he really that…scary? He knew some people found him jarring and blunt. The way people hid their thoughts and feelings behind a blanket of politeness had always seemed far worse than whatever brutal truth they could tell.
But Thomas had assured him it wasn’t true, that his autism and psychopathy blunted him from the damage his words and actions caused others. August could only trust that Thomas told the truth.
August dropped onto the opposite end of the sofa. “The man who’s after him, he knows about Lucas’s…gift. He’s using it to hurt him.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “The psychic thing? Again? Do you really believe in that shit?” Adam asked.
“It’s not psychic shit. It’s psychometry. He has to touch things to pick up impressions. And I know he’s telling the truth because I’ve tested him. I’ve also seen what happens when his gifts take him by surprise. Kohn has learned to…manipulate Lucas’s talents, imprinting feelings and images on items and leaving them for Lucas to find accidentally. He’s playing with him.”
Adam scoffed. “Sounds like your boyfriend has a type.”
“I would never do that,” August snapped.
“We know you wouldn’t,” Noah soothed, glaring daggers at Adam. “Your brother is just being a dick for no fucking reason. We’ll go hang out with Lucas until you get there, just in case something unexpected happens. You don’t have to worry.”
August felt the knot in his chest ease. “Thank you. He leaves work at four. If you could maybe follow him home, but don’t let him know you’re there.”
