Page 41 of X's and O's

Justice served, or so you say,

But who decides who gets to stay?

You played your part, you had your fun.

Now it’s my turn.

Run.

I snapped my head up. “What the fuck is this?”

Doc shrugged. “You guys tell me.”

X leaned over my shoulder to read the letter, and I passed it his way, not needing him breathing down my neck. He squinted at it, then passed it around the circle so everyone knew what was going on.

The paper crumpled in Trig’s fingers. “Dumb kids being dumb, right?”

“That’s one possibility, I suppose.” Doc took the letter back and straightened it out.

I shook my head. “No. It’s too specific.”

Doc nodded. “Agreed.”

Ace let out a long, slow breath of air. “Okay, so what are you saying? Spell it out for those of us who aren’t the brightest crayons in the box.”

My brain ticked over the words, studying each line, but even though I tried to look at it some other way, I kept coming back to one interpretation of the riddle.

X beat me to it. “They’re talking about the list, aren’t they? The way we kill from it? Justice served…isn’t that exactly what we’re doing? Delivering justice because the legal system didn’t? We decide who gets to stay alive and who doesn’t.” He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “The rest seems pretty obvious.”

It was to me too. “Someone is turning the tables. Making us the targets.”

X squinted at me. “I was going to say they think we’re getting chubby and need to do more exercise, but sure. That could be it too.”

Doc’s leg had a nervous bounce, and like the rest of us, he ignored X and his incessant need to make light of every situation. “It doesn’t say anything aboutus. It was delivered to me.”

Something darkened inside me. Gray had a family. Two small girls. A woman he loved. And two other partners who made up his unconventional relationship.

He was happy.

I knew all too well how easily that happiness could be taken away.

Grayson wasn’t a killer. This wasn’t his fight. He’d only started this group because he wanted to help keep people safe, including the five of us sitting around him right now.

The fact he was being targeted felt all sorts of wrong. “Did you let Kara and the guys know about this?”

Gray nodded. “Everyone is at the house. We’re all going to lie low for a while, stay behind the gates.”

Grayson only kept his apartment for these meetings. One of his partners, Hawk, was the VP of the Saint View Slayers motorcycle club, and over the last year, they’d built a family home in the woods surrounding the clubhouse. It was bordered by high fences and video surveillance, and a lot of the single guys from the club lived on the grounds as well, never farther than a two-minute sprint away if they needed backup.

They’d be safe there.

Torch rolled his head, cracking his neck, an excitement in his eyes. “So, we’ll just kill everyone on the list, right? We’ve been taking it slow, using it only to feed the urge when it hits us. But now we just go after everyone. Wipe them all out over a couple of nights.”

X was practically salivating over the idea of a killing spree. Trig and Ace weren’t much better. All of them had a glint in their eyes that spoke of danger and destruction.

I wasn’t like them. I had a feeling if anyone had ever tested me to see if I was a true psychopath, then I probably would have failed. I didn’t have some inner voice telling me to kill the way X did.

I just wanted revenge. I wanted bad people who did bad things to never be allowed to do them again. I wanted to save families from pain they didn’t need to feel.