Page 104 of As The Shifter World Turns

104

NOT ALL LOVE IS EQUAL

Martin

On my way . I hit send and raced home from the grocery store, leaving my cart half full with an employee and giving them twenty bucks as an I’m sorry for being a shitty human and making you put my stuff away parting gift.

Someone had tried to break into Sunshine Manor and Ryder thwarted them. From what little Archer had texted me, I knew everyone was physically fine and no one was caught. That didn’t mean I wasn't needed there. If Archer contacted me, that meant that Neil was very much not okay.

I raced home as fast as I dared. Getting a speeding ticket would only slow me down.

Five minutes later I was parked and rushing into my old home. Neil had been filming and would’ve been there when the incident happened.

“We should call the police,” was the very first thing I heard as I walked in. Gods, they hadn’t even called the police yet, Daire just thinking now it would be a good idea.

Almost everyone was there, Archer and Nate the only two I didn’t see. It made sense they would be with the kids, including Charlie, and also made sense that they gave Archer the “task” of telling everyone so he didn’t feel helpless in the whole mess. Toby was at school so I didn’t have to worry about him as well.

“Neil.’ The one word had him rushing to my arms, his body trembling. He had jeans on under his robe. Poor guy had been in the middle of filming making him extra vulnerable.

“I quit.” Anthony said, his own voice quaking. “I can’t do this job if it means someone is going to come and murder me.”

“We don’t know that,” Micah said, a voice of reason. Although we also didn’t know it wasn’t that or worse because yes, there were some things worse than death.

“It’s not safe here.” Anthony wasn’t wrong. Not if someone was only stopped from entering because Ryder happened to be there. At least that was what I had pieced together as having happened. I still didn’t have the entire story.

I held Neil so tight, pressing kisses to his head. I needed to take care of him, but first we had to be sure everyone was safe.

“What did the cameras pick up on?” I asked. I’d insisted they be installed after the last incident and was I ever grateful.

“They show nothing.” Daire handed me his phone with a video on the screen. “It’s like they’re frozen.”

Which either meant they were complete shit, the guy got lucky, or he was dangerously good at technology.

“I’m not sure what’s wrong with them. I’ve put a call into the company.” Daire took the phone back. “Hopefully they have something on their end.”

“We need to call the police,” Neil said, his voice quaking.

We all agreed but the officer who showed up seemed very put out by us.

“This is probably just some teen skipping school and being bored,” he insisted, attempting to leave without even filing a report.

“They didn’t look like a kid,” Ryder insisted but when he was unable to tell the officer the color of the guy's eyes and hair, the officer just rolled his eyes.

Some help he was.

By the time he left we were all fit to be tied and I had to collect Toby.

“I need to get my son,” I apologized. “Rooftop meeting when I get back?”

“No. Let’s have it at our place. Then the kids can all stay with Archer and Nate, and everyone can attend.” Micah had a point.

Not wanting Neil alone, I called the school and asked if they could have Toby stay with the afterschool kids until I could get there and then helped Neil clean up and get ready to come with me. In the end Toby was only there for ten minutes which was enough time to get a snack.

Back at Archer and Micah’s we got the kids settled in and had our meeting. Anthony refused to come and that was his right, but the rest of us were there. We talked in circles for about an hour, but one thing we knew from the get go was that we needed to be the ones to catch the culprit. The police were not willing to help.

A few pizza deliveries later and we were packing up the dog, the kids, and both Archer and Ivor, and bringing them to the motel. They would stay there a couple of days while we worked on catching the guy. I had doubts that we’d catch the jackass, but two days sounded like a reasonable amount of time. We could always reassess afterward .

I worried initially that Toby would be upset leaving us to stay at the motel. I should've known better. He had the promise of fast food, a courtyard with his dog, and his choice of very weird rooms to stay in. That and I said he could skip school. He was living his best life.

The rest of us? Not so much. We all decided to camp out at Sunshine Manor with the hopes the guy would be back.

The first night, there was nothing. Not even a stray cat climbing on the porch. The cameras were still not up and running, the company finally getting back to us and citing an issue with the main server being down somewhere and messing up a lot of systems.

The next day we all worked from home, home being Sunshine Manor. We stayed on the first floor and were only half paying attention to our work. Anthony was still acting weird and I spent far too much time focusing on that. I wasn’t sure what the others were doing.

“Do you think Anthony knows something?” I finally asked Neil. He’d been such a trouper and I hated to drag him into my conspiracy theory garbage, yet there I was doing just that.

“He thinks it’s Len and I do, too.” He leaned into my side. “And if it's him, he might not come today and if he doesn’t, you should stay with Toby tonight. He needs you too.”

“I think he will?—”

I was cut off by a crash and shattering glass. Instead of racing to it, we tiptoed towards the direction of the noise, Ryder in the lead.

Ryder rounded the corner first and Neil froze, his hand holding mine like a vice grip. I hated extracting myself from his needy grasp, but it wasn’t safe for Ryder to not have as many of us by his side as possible. Finally free, I came around the corner to see the stag shifter on top of a guy, his hands on the back of his neck holding him to the ground and Daire calling the police.

They didn’t need me after all. I ran back to Neil who was still in the same spot and enveloped him in my arms, letting him know he was safe and that we were all going to be okay.

This time the police did do something about it. They called it simple trespassing until Len sealed his own fate, “But I love him. He has to see that. I even made him his own room.”

Him being Anthony and the room being a basement dungeon of sorts.

The more Len talked, the more I felt confident he was going to be put away. He was mentally unhealthy. There was no other explanation for a man seeing someone on a video live and deciding to make him his own at any cost. None.

As he left in cuffs, the policeman tried to explain to him that what he felt was not love and what he was doing was stalking with an attempt to do bodily harm.

“You’re wrong. It’s love,” he kept saying, calling out over his shoulder as they put him in the car, “Wait for me my love,” he yelled to Anthony who shuddered .

“Are you okay?” I asked Neil as he looked on.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I don’t know, but it's Anthony we have to worry about.”