Page 28 of Rust of Control

"Every one of them got stamped runaway," Zain said. He was at the desk with his sleeves shoved up, a phone in his hand he wasn't using. His voice went flat when he said it, controlled, held-down, the voice he got when the job cost him something. "Runaway closes the file. No Amber Alert, no task force, no press after the first news cycle, if there's a news cycle. That's not a mistake the system makes. That's the system working how it's built. I spent a lot of years being the guy who typed the word in the box." He set the phone down. "I don't type it anymore. That's about the only thing I can tell you that's good."

"Why these kids?" Jude asked. His voice came out scraped. He already half-knew. He'd lived close enough to the edge of being one of them.

"Because nobody cares who can do anything about it," Ghost said. "They pick the ones the city's already decided not to look for. A kid with a mother like Davya's is a risk to them, and they took Davya anyway, which is one of the things telling us they've stopped being careful. They're moving faster than they were. Used to be one every few months. The last stretch it's been weeks." He didn't look at Jude when he said the next part. "Somebody's pushing it. Somebody on this side needs the money badly enough to feed it faster than it's safe to, and the kids are what the speed costs."

Jude stood in front of the board. The stutter came up the back of his throat, the old jam. He breathed through it and kept looking. His eyes moved from face to face and then to the dates underneath them, the venues listed in small type, and something started happening in his chest that wasn't grief, not yet, more like a key turning in a lock he didn't know was there.

"These venues," he said.

Ghost looked at him.

"Monarch. The Loft. The Shelter. Red Room. St. Andrew’s Hall…" Jude pointed, not touching the photos. "Hollow Bright played all of these. We played Monarch twice." He turned to look at the dates. His voice was coming out steadier than he felt. "These disappearances. The dates. We were there. Most of them, we were there the same night or the weekend before."

The room had gone very quiet.

"After I left," Jude said. He was doing the math out loud because he couldn't stop himself, because these were kids and if he knew something then that knowledge wasn't his to keep. "We haven't had a show since I left. Has there been another one? Since the start of November?"

Zain pulled up something on his phone. Shook his head once.

Jude turned back to the board. His eyes found the last photo, the one at the far end, added more recently than the others. He could tell by the tack, newer, the paper less curled. The kid was maybe eighteen, the kind of pretty that got you noticed at a show. Dark eyes. A smile performing for whoever was taking the picture.

Jude knew that smile. He'd seen it at the Lords clubhouse the night Nate came to get him. The kid had been near the bar. Rand had watched him from the stage.

The stutter hit him all at once, the full weight of it, and he put one hand on the edge of the corkboard and breathed.

"I-I-I know h-h-h-h-h-im," he said. "The l-l-l-l-ast one. I've seen him. He was at our show, the n-n-n-ight at the clubhouse. He was-" He stopped. Pressed his hand flat against the board, steadying himself. "Rand noticed him. I-I-I remember because I-I-I thought-" He stopped again. He knew what he'd thought. He'd thought Rand was going to cheat on him again. That was all he'd thought. That was the whole ceiling of what he'd been able to imagine. "I have to t-t-t-t-t-tell you everything I know about our shows. Every venue, every date I can remember, who was backstage. All of it."

"Yes," Ghost said, and his voice was very careful. Kind. "You do."

Nate hadn't moved from the doorway. Jude looked at him, and Nate's face gave up nothing, the trained calm, the steadiness, the man who had learned in desert theatres not to let anything surface. But his eyes… His eyes were doing something Jude didn't have a name for yet, something that looked like it hurt.

Jude filed it. He turned back to the board.

He still didn't have the name. It was there, he could feel the hole it left, a man on this side with access to the venues, the shows, the kids near the stage. But no one said it and Nate's face gave up nothing, and the math wasn't finished yet. Jude sat down at Zain's desk and started talking. Ghost wrote. Jack brought in food and Elijah paced. Seth made sure the coffee stayed warm. The ordinary evening dissolved before it had even started.

Jude’s fingers curled around the phantom weight of those seven faces as he moved through the day, each one pressing into his palms like bruises. The images clung to his skin—the sharp angles of Marisol’s cheekbones, Theo’s hollow stare, Pim’s trembling mouth, the sisters’ intertwined hands, Junior’s slack jaw, Davya’s wide eyes, and that final kid under the lights, his performing smile stretched thin while Rand’s gaze hunted him from the stage. Jude’s ribs ached with every breath, the river’s damp chill seeping through the practice space walls as he hauled amps and cables, sweat slicking his shirt to his back. The new drummer’s sticks cracked against the kit, the rhythm vibrating up Jude’s thighs, but the faces stayed, heavy and hot, their silent screams mixing with the tang of old beer and rosin in the air.

By the time the house settled into quiet, Jude’s chest felt scraped raw. He climbed the stairs, the wood groaning under his boots, and pushed into Nate’s room. Nate sat on the bed’s edge, elbows braced on his knees, the lamplight catching the dark stubble along his jaw and the slow rise of his broad chest. The river slid black past the window, carrying the faint rot of mud and distant traffic. Jude shut the door, the click loud in his ears, and leaned back against it, the cool wood grounding the heat building low in his gut.

“I keep seeing their faces,” Jude said, voice rough.

Nate’s eyes darkened, his hand lifting palm-up, fingers open and steady. “They don’t leave. You don’t want them to. That’s the hell of it.” No rush in his body, just that solid patience that made Jude’s cock twitch against his zipper.

Jude crossed the room, the floorboards creaking, and fitted himself against Nate’s side. Nate’s arm banded around him, careful over the bruised ribs, the heat of his palm seeping through fabric. Jude breathed in the clean sweat and cedar scent of Nate’s skin, the steady thud of his heart against Jude’s ear. The faces lingered in the shadows, but Nate’s thigh pressed solid against his, grounding him.

After a stretch of silence, Jude tilted his face up. Nate was already looking down, pupils blown, lips parted. Jude kissed him slowly, tasting salt and the faint bitterness of coffee, tongues sliding wet and deliberate. Heat coiled tighter in Jude’s belly, his dick hardening as Nate’s breath hitched.

“You don’t have to,” Nate murmured against his mouth, voice low and gravelly. “Tonight. If it’s too much.”

“I want to.” Jude pulled back, meeting Nate’s gaze head-on, his hand sliding down to cup the thick bulge in Nate’s jeans. “Not to forget them. I want this because you’re here, I’m here, and I need tonight to be more than just their ghosts. I want you, all the way. If you do.”

Nate’s exhale shuddered out. “I do.”

Jude shoved Nate back onto the mattress, the springs creaking under that big frame. Nate went willingly, arms loose at his sides, looking up like Jude held every key. Jude stripped them both, the cool air kissing their skin, Nate’s dark cock heavy and flushed against his stomach, already leaking. The sharp scent of arousal filled the room. Jude grabbed the lube from the nightstand, his hands trembling from the day’s weight, not fear.

“You’re sure,” Jude said, voice edged with command.

“I’m sure.” Nate’s fingers threaded gently into Jude’s hair. “You set the pace. Use me.”