I rolled my eyes. “No, I mean why cut him loose at all?”
Jude and Dexter both looked at me, tilting their heads. Even the phone was quiet, no clacking of keys.
“I mean, I guess it isn’ttechnicallykilling him if we leave him tied up here to starve to death. Tobyhasbeen wondering how long that would take,” Dexter said.
Jude snorted. “I think thattechnicallystill counts as killing someone.”
Liam’s voice chimed in, “Plus, Q is always telling me how important consent is.”
Both Dexter and Jude nodded at that, looking somewhat relieved and acting like that made perfect sense.
“Consent?” I asked.
“Yup!” Dexter answered. “Like you can’t have video cameras in someone’s house to watch them.”
“Unless they consent,” Liam chimed in. “Then it’s okay.”
I looked back and forth between them. They all seemed serious.
“Just so everyone knows, I donotconsent to having video cameras anywhere in my home watching me,” I pointed out, because apparently it was important to set that boundary.
I heard Liam start clacking away on the computer, Jude rubbed the back of his neck, and Dexter looked off to the side. I cleared my throat.
“The grounds aren’ttechnicallythe house,” Jude said.
I sighed.
“And listening devices in public spaces are for the protection of everyone,” Liam added through the phone. “And they’re nottechnicallycameras.”
Motherfuckers.
Luckily for Liam, Rick groaned again.
“Okay, we’re off track here. I still don’t get it. What, you want me to get Rick’s consent to kill him?” I might have asked that a little loudly, because Rick moaned and started crying again.
The guys thought that was funny, though, because they all had a good chuckle.
“No. We mean Josh,” Liam finally answered. “It’s important to get consent if you’re going to kill his ex. Aside from that, though, wecan’tkill his ex. It’s physically impossible. We’re actually unable to kill souls that aren’t hellbound if we aren’t protecting ourselves or others from death. So, more torture, wipe him, or cut him loose?”
I still didn’t get it, but I finally muttered, “Cut him loose.”
Jude and Dexter got to work then. We all said goodbye to Liam, who promised to cover our tracks. They literally cut Rick loose, and Dexter knocked him out. He actually whistled as he draped the guy over his shoulder and hauled him out to his car. He’d offered to let me drop him off somewhere if I wanted to, but I was done with the night.
They cleaned up the cabin, and I barely had to do a thing with their hellhound flames all whooshing through the bloodand stuff. It was all nicely taken care of. No muss, no fuss. They really knew how to spoil someone, and despite the fact that they were pretty clueless sometimes, I was glad they were my sort-of-brothers.
Dexter cheerily waved goodbye as he drove off with Rick, and I sat for a minute in my car, Jude in the passenger seat.
“It’s sort of strange when it’s done, isn’t it?” Jude mused. “I don’t think the other guys really get it, because they weren’t raised human. I mean, Corbin was, but not totally. I don’t think it hits the same way, even for him.”
I looked over at him. He was looking out the front window at the cabin, his face thoughtful.
“Did you think you were a psychopath growing up?” I asked.
Jude shrugged. “I knew I wasn’t like everyone else. I knew there was something wrong with me. Something inside of me that wasn’t like everyone else.”
I breathed out, looking at the cabin, too. Yes, that was exactly it. That feeling of…wrong. We’d grown up feeling wrong somehow. Feeling like there was something inside us that shouldn’t be there.
“It was easy to pretend most of the time. I could seem just like everyone else. It’s still easy to pretend, just in different ways.” He looked over at me. “It’s the transitions that are the hardest.”
