Page 34 of Five

“And fucking them up,” Hunter adds.

“Gabe? Fucking them up?” I sound incredulous to my own ears. He’s the embodiment of icy control when he takes care of a maggot.

“He’s relentless and unpredictable when he turns into B—” Rami cuts off whatever he was about to say.

“B?” I repeat.

“From C-3PO to…Terminator,” Rague interjects.

“Terminator? Unpredictable? Come on, Magnum P.I. here could stop Gabe with a punch to the face.”

Hunter shrugs with a grunt.

“Despite the fact that I’d pay to see that, no, not even my grizzly could halt…his thirst for revenge,” Rami insists.

Really? It must be a side of him I’ve never seen. The thought of not knowing him entirely bugs me for some weird reason. But at the same time, Gabe punishing those disgusting fuckers for me spreads a delicious warmth inside me. Still, I would have liked to be a part of it.

“It’s not fucking fair. Those are my kills! Mine!” I complain.

“Philip Bailey is still out there,” Rague reminds me.

“I want to tear the daft prick’s spinal column out and beat him to death with it,” I hiss.

“Lor, it’s not over until the fat lady sings!” Ollie quotes one of my gran’s sayings. It lifts and crashes my spirit at the same time. “When you get out of that bed we’ll get him.”

Michael enters the room, holding a tray with some food and a drink.

“Freshly squeezed orange juice, and I made you a sponge cake!” he announces, placing the tray on my lap. Rague shakes his head at me, while Ollie widens his eyes with horror.

“Looks like Rocky Balboa went a round with it.” The shapeless cake has cracks all over, burned edges, and an uncooked core. Michael is a terrible baker, and the worst part is that he doesn’t give up even though all of us have told him so.

“Why do you keep doing this to us?” Rami whines at him.

“He’s probably man-struating again. Are you a tipped down little Tabasco bottle, Bones?” I smirk at him, before taking a sip from the glass.

Everybody scrunches their noses, and I snort. Menstrual blood is a no, but seeing it spraying from a maggot’s carotid is fine. Figures.

Rami comes to my aid. “Didn’t he suffer enough?”

Michael heaves a sigh of sheer exasperation. “You didn’t even try it.”

“And I’m not going to. Save it to poison your husband. Also, when I’m indisposed, I follow the lovely tradition of dunking myself in a tub of frozen yogurt,” I tell Michael. He yanks the tray away and stomps out of the room. Thank God, I was holding the juice.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Ollie scolds me.

“I didn’t hear you offer to try that atrocity,” I retort. “None of you did!”

“I just got my taste back, thanks to Hunter’s magic dick. Don’t wish to lose it again.” Hunter grunts at his boyfriend’s words. But it's actually true. Rami had a condition called sensory numbness, which disappeared when he started dating Hunter. “Not to mention that at the sight of that cake, Gordon Ramsey would’ve thrown himself out of the window.” Rami shakes his head.

“Welcome to cynical island, population you!” Ollie taunts Rami.

“Calm down, Kitty,” Rague tries to soothe his husband, caressing his belly in small circles.

“Ollague has been sickeningly sweet since they got back,” Rami states.

“Ollague?”

“Ollie and Rague…Ollague!” Rami announces excitedly. After Miphael—Michael and Raphael—he had to make up more ship names.