Neon Rush {M/M} ❀

Ch. 13.2 Made Me a Vicious Man-eater

Zef whips his head around hard. He knows he didn't mishear, but he still says, "Hang on. Kill her?"

"Yep."

"Dead. Murdered."

"You got it."

Zef fumbles through his words. "You destroyed her data fort. She can't control you anymore. Just run."

"You think she can't build another? Won't quit hunting me? I'm the worst case of sunk-cost fallacy for her. She invested in me, and she wants a better return. Naw. I need her straight off that plane into my trap, before she comes up with a counter attack. I need her dead."

Zef has absolutely no love to lose for Rylan, but— "Gray, maybe that's easy for you, but don't involve me. I don't— I can't just help you kill her."

"Keep your kit in its caboodle, I'm not asking you to pull the trigger." With a sardonic twist to his mouth, he says, "Hell, you couldn't pay me to let someone else do the honours."

Zef's skin crawls. Maybe Gray killed remorselessly when those hunters came looking for him, but this is different. He looks eager.

"Gray, please. Let me out," Zef pleads. "I promise, you won't see hide nor hair of me again. Just don't make me a part of this."

A muscle in Gray's jaw flexes. Maybe Zef imagines the crack in his cold exterior because there's no warmth when he says, "Too late for that."

Zef aches. He thought he understood Gray a bit more after tonight. But this he doesn't get. Running into danger instead of running away from it. "I can't convince you there's another way?"

"No, 'cause there's not."

Gray's lips form a thin line, nearly swallowed between his teeth. Zef kissed those lips hours ago. He remembers the way Gray's voice sounded, low in the dark as he said things Zef wasn't meant to hear. Ain't no happily ever after for us.

Vulnerably unspoken and implied, but I wish there could be.

How could that Gray and this one be the same? It's a question Zef asked himself so many times as they got to know one another, and he feels like he's closing in on an answer, but too late for it to make a difference.

Gray is eerily silent the rest of the way. The rain turns torrential. The Vitali parts deep puddles like the Biblical red sea. Zef goes over his escape options and comes up with a handful of uselessly risky gambits that will invariably leave him maimed or dead. Anxiety makes his chest rattle like he's a maraca. He can't distract himself. All he can do is feel.

Hurt consumes him like a hungry animal.

It felt real. I wish it was real.

To Zef, it had been.

The night had opened up a world of possibility in which joy and freedom could be found. For Gray, had it really only been the closing act? A stolen bit of fun before curtain call?

The abandoned industrial quarter's familiar wreckage replaces the sprawling metropolis of the city proper. Gray parks in a lot peppered with the husks of cars rusting in obsolescence. Next to them, the Vitali looks like a princess forced to mingle with the peasantry.

"Why are we here?" Zef murmurs, only half expecting a direct answer.

"Need you to go ahead with the plan you had and tell Rylan you got me. Send her proof. Only way to get her guard down is if she thinks I'm good as got. You had a plan, right?" He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the EMP grenades. Tosses one to Zef. "These, the Net blocker, that cage thing in there." He gestures out the window to the husk of Nanosoft's warehouse. "All part of your plan, right?"