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F oxx drank his apple juice and eyed the map as Gavin talked. They were four hours away from their first target. Four hours and he would be able to kill at least some of the bastards who were responsible for all of the pain that had happened lately. And maybe…four hours away from feeling somewhat normal again… He could only hope.

While killing people wouldn’t bring Charity back, it would be some sort of justice for her, right?

To be honest, it had been a while since he’d mourned anyone, and Foxx didn’t like feeling sad. He also knew that him being sad made Harlow feel lost. He hadn’t been able to place the dhampir’s emotions about it before, always thinking the man was just angry or something similar… But no, it was clear to him now that what Harlow felt anytime Foxx was sad or crying was lost, because the man didn’t know what to do.

Sure, part of it was him not being able to feel the things he did, but Foxx could tell the other part was just because Harlow wanted to help him, but didn’t know how.

Which was sweet—very sweet. So much so that he was going to add it to his list of sweet things Harlow had done for him. Things he was going to use to prove to Alastair that his boyfriend was, in fact, sweet . He would be damned if he lost the next time he argued about it with the vampire.

Foxx shook his head, forcing himself to focus on what the dragon was saying .

“The building is thankfully out in the middle of fucking nowhere. I can tell you now, based on the leads I’m following, we will not be this lucky often.”

Harlow, who was standing and leaning over the table, asked, “How far out are we talking? As in, far enough away that the screams won’t carry to nearby roads, or…?”

“There is no road close enough for them to carry to.”

The dhampir smirked. “So, we don’t have to be quiet—good. What exactly is this place?”

Gavin pulled an odd-looking laptop from his messenger bag, the plastic frame looking mostly see-through, with all of the wires and circuit board visible. On opening it, the screen showed a set of blueprints, and as the man hit a key, the prints spun and a three-dimensional building floated out of them.

With white siding and a red gambrel roof, it looked like a very large farm building. There were two bay doors in front, a set of double doors right between them, and then a set of double doors on each side.

“Located in Briming, Alabama, and set on more than a thousand acres, this is all that is left of the large agricultural farm, Para Farms, that closed down about ten years ago. It’s only two floors, despite how tall it is, with the upper being about one fourth of the size of the lower. There's a set of stairs leading to the sort of observatory-type floor.”

The man hit another key and they saw inside, which was just a lot of empty space and the back stairs that led up to the first level which looked out over the ground floor.

“This, of course, is just a reconstruction of the building based on the original blueprints. I couldn’t find any recent photos, but it will likely look a bit aged at this point. The extensive acres, and all of the buildings, were bought up by the same person, a Mr. Luther Bright…who doesn’t exist.

“The picture used in the Human Registration database is of someone unrelated, and not in this country, but it is a rather good fake ass identity, as it did take a while before I found a dead end in his existence. It could be Maverick using the name, or one of his idiot culty followers, but as the sale was done in person, with no eyes around except the original seller and his lawyer, who both mysteriously died only days after the sale went through, there is no way to know. Either way, at the time the land was bought, I know, based on the demolition permits, all of the buildings were torn down except for this one.”

“Are we thinking it’s a lab?” Foxx asked.

“I think it’s going to be. It was only purchased two months ago. I found some transactions that, after following the convoluted trail, led me back to that fake name. They have been buying up various things, but also chemicals. The exact ones needed to build those…poisons, I suppose one would call them.

“To me, it seems as if they are trying to construct something. My guess, it's a large capacity poison production line, but a shit ton of parts they purchased were on backorder, so it won’t be set up yet.”

“How would you know what is in the…” Foxx trailed off as the dragon eyed him with a brow raised, an amused smile on his face.

Harlow suddenly smacked Gavin upside the head. The dragon huffed, but seemed unaffected by the hit. “Don’t be a smart ass to my boyfriend.”

He pinched Harlow’s side, which had the dhampir squirming away. “Don’t hit people when you just recently learned to control your strength.”

Gavin chuckled. “Thanks, cutie, but no worries, he can’t hurt me.”

“ Mine ,” Harlow growled.

The dragon rolled his eyes. “Moving on! As I was saying, they aren’t set up, but there are people there. I don’t know how many, as there aren’t really any cameras nearby. And it’s hard to track the roads in this backwoods redneck paradise.”

Foxx took a deep breath in and slowly let it out as he eyed the building on the screen. “So, we can be as loud and violent as we want, because it’s not like they’ll call the police for help. But even if the roads are far away, will it matter since it’s a farm? They do tend to be pretty visually open. As in, it'll be easy to see if shit’s going down from far away.”

Gavin hummed. “While I don’t have direct visuals on the building, I do—” The man clicked a key and photos came up on the screen of what looked like a forest. “—have pictures of the surroundings. Lots of trees in the way, as you can see.”

“Coverage and ability to be loud aside, the fact is, we still have to get rid of the bodies,” Harlow drawled.

He wrinkled his nose. Ugh, as fun as murder was, the aftermath was such a bloody pain in the ass. “Do we have to clean up the blood?”

The dhampir grimaced. “Somewhat.”

“How did you even handle it in the old days?!” Foxx groaned. “That’s so much extra work! Like, one body is one thing, but multiple? Dozens?! It’ll take hours!”

“We burned as much as we could, and we learned how to clean like experts.”

“Clean?!” he cried. “We are out in the middle of nowhere, let’s just burn it all!”

“Unfortunately, human bodies just don’t burn as well as paranormals, yet…” Harlow looked over to Gavin. “How hot does your fire burn?”

The dragon smirked. “Hot enough to burn a few human bodies, and the mess we're bound to make, to complete ash, with enough control to avoid burning the building down along with it all.”

Foxx beamed at the man, his wonderful ticket to avoid cleaning. “Then we’ll do that!”

Harlow sighed. “We can do it for this first one, but we can’t do anything that will leave a pattern. And odd scorch marks, along with piles of ashes, will definitely leave a trackable, memorable pattern behind, regardless of the distance between the places.”

He huffed, pouting. “Can’t we just burn the buildings down too?!”

“Tony wanted us to be quiet about this, but…” The dhampir pursed his lips, obviously thinking. “It would save us time if we could fake a simple but quiet electrical fire once the bodies themselves are burned. It would be hard to connect them together, especially if the distance is far enough.”

“Faking an electrical fire, no problem. And since the fire wouldn’t be hot enough to burn a human body to ash, they wouldn’t even test for remains. The people would just disappear!” Gavin said with a laugh, his eyes seeming to sparkle at the thought of it.

Harlow took in a deep breath and let it out, cracking his neck. “Fine, we will burn shit down. Just remember, we are going for electrical fires, and quiet. We don’t want the fire department showing up too fast. Something we will have to worry about more with locations closer to civilization.”

The dragon nodded. “Got it, quiet and electrical! Avoid drawing attention. Though, even if they do show up, I can just hide somewhere and urge the fire to keep burning as they try to put it out.”

The dhampir growled. “No, we need to be far away before anyone else gets there.”

“It just needs to be in sight, I don’t have to be close.”

Harlow’s eyes narrowed. “And if someone notices your ass on any of the street cameras?”

“Hah, that’s cute. You think the cameras will be working!”

“As that is his ‘I may strangle you’ face, let’s move on,” Foxx drawled with a sigh, before smiling viciously as he had a thought. “In my mind, since we can be as loud as we want, there is no reason to waste our bullets. Let them scream as loud as they want. In fact, the best thing we could do is take our damn time, and give a few people a chance to call for backup.”

“They could warn others about what’s happening,” Gavin pointed out. “Giving them a chance to scatter and move operations.”

“Let them,” Foxx hissed. “Let Maverick know we are coming for him. Let them scatter, so we can hunt them down one by one, until they are cowering in fear like the filthy vermin they are.

“They’re terrorists, they have no way of telling anyone of any importance without outing themselves. The hunters? You think anyone in the Guild, who isn’t already a traitor, will help them after what they’ve done? Even the traitors wouldn’t be able to say anything without bringing suspicion on themselves now.”

Harlow chuckled darkly. “He’s right. They can’t tell anyone. As much as Tony says it’s a risk, these people can’t tell a soul. Our only worry is someone on the outside finding out. But it doesn’t matter if they know we are coming for them. Because no matter who they tell, it’ll risk them outing themselves. And to tell a hunter after what they did?” The man laughed. “They’ll listen all right, and may even believe them, but they’ll kill them before stopping us. Likely even torture them first. Maverick thinks he can claim victory with this last action, but what he really did was back himself and his followers into a tight corner.”

Foxx’s smile widened as he met the dhampir’s volatile gaze. “Let’s make it tighter.”

“All that just equals more work for me.” Gavin sighed before laughing. “Fuck it, I’m in! Besides, I’m on vacation. It's the perfect time to terrorize some assholes and burn shit down!”

The dhampir scoffed. “Well, what do you know, we are on vacation too, technically.”

He frowned. “Is that how Tony is explaining our absence?”

“Fuck if I know. Let’s get on the road!”

“To murder!” Foxx cried.

“MURDER!” the dragon roared.

Foxx and Gavin eyed Harlow when the man didn’t say it too.

Harlow sighed, before saying with an amused smirk, “Murder.”