Page 25 of Shrapnel

“You have the police investigating?”

Noah nodded. “They’re reporting to me, yes, but I haven’t seen much progress. I don’t think it’s a lack of trying there are just no leads.”

“Not legal ones.” There was a glint in Grant’s hazel eyes. “The problem with relying on the police is they are handicapped by the law. Their scope is limited.”

He huffed. “What? By little things like morals?”

Grant’s smile curved, a Cheshire grin if Noah had ever seen one. “I’m saying that your people are being killed. Someone is disrespecting you, Noah.” he tapped Noah’s cell phone with an elegant finger. “Doesn’t that make you angry?”

Noah bristled. “Of course it does—”

“Act like it.”

Truthfully, he wasn’t angry. Try as he might, Noah couldn’t find anything in him besides bitterness.

Exhaling, he looked up at the ceiling. “What would you do?”

Grant cocked his head, looking at Noah as if it was obvious.

“I would destroy everything. Drown the world in blood until I found those responsible, then I would annihilate them. Slowly. Publicly. And after they’d died, I would chase them to hell just so I could do it again.”

Noah felt a chill run down his spine. There was a darkness in Grant he couldn’t begin to understand. One that was so far removed from the pleasant, airy cottage they were sitting in, it felt surreal. Noah swallowed.

“You’re saying I should…”

“I’m not saying you should do anything.” The older man cut him off. “I can’t help you with this, Noah. I love your uncle, and I hold great affection for you, but at the end of the day you are an Elliott and I’m a Weaver.”

There was no cruelty in that truth. Grant could fix this. He would have the murderer in his torture cell before the week was up. Because he was good at this. Because he was angry.

No matter their connections, Grant was loyal to Weaver Syndicate. Would he have defied the Vegas to save Kurt if it hadn’t also benefitted his family? It was a question he would never ask.

Besides, if word got out that Weaver Syndicate had given Noah help, he would lose all credibility. His people would tear him apart.

“I won’t empathize with you, Noah. We all have our crosses to bear, and you cannot judge the weight of someone else’s burdens based on your own.”

His words were uncomfortably tender, and Noah found he missed Kurt’s abrasive tone.

“But if I can offer you some unsolicited advice…you cannot do this alone. Being a leader isn’t a solitary job. Surround yourself with people who are loyal to you. People who get the job done, and then let them do it.” He gestured to the cell phone on the table between them. “I know Elijah will always be in your corner.”

Noah glanced down at the phone. Elijah was in his corner; he just didn’t know the whole truth. While he shared his worries with his boyfriend, Noah glossed over the entirety of it all. He didn’t want Elijah to know what a failure he was. To know that despite the blood running through his veins, the blood he had killed for, he couldn’t do this.

Beyond that, Elijah had the same problem Grant did. He wasn’t the leader of the Weavers, and he’d made it clear he loved Noah and would do what he could for him. But the ties that bound a gang together were thicker than matters of the heart, and Elijah couldn’t ask him to choose.

“And I’m sure Jamie could be persuaded.”

“How exactly is that arsonist asshole going to help?” Noah asked skeptically. “Every day he takes a picture of a trash can and sends it to me saying ‘dats you’.”

Grant chuckled. “Jamie has his own way of doing things but there’s a lot more to him than he lets on.”

Noah very much doubted that. Jamie was a package deal with Elijah, one that Noah had begrudgingly accepted. And he couldn’t deny that he was skilled. Not one of White Sand Mesa’s snipers could compare to Jamie, and he was loyal. So long as you kept him away from anything flammable, he could be an asset.

One that Grant appeared to be willing to lend to Noah. It was a boon, one that would no doubt cost Noah in the future.

This far into the city, they didn’t use the position of the sun to tell time. They didn’t even need a watch. Those out on the streets used the streetlamps to tell time. During the day they remained dark—their white globes pocked with the carcasses of bugs unlucky enough to find their way in but not out. The tall lights went unnoticed, just another structure in a city filled with them.

But the moment they flared to life the streets went quiet. A shift change was beginning. Elementary aged children retreated to their homes, slamming the doors behind them, and locking out all the things that go bump in the night.

While the insects too foolish to heed their dead comrades as a warning buzzed around the halogen lights, bogeymen flooded the streets. The afternoon rain shower couldn’t quite cut through the smell of spray paint and the streets glowed with an iridescent slick. Most people in this part of town took one look outside their cracker box apartments and firmly closed the blinds. No one wanted to see the view out their window.