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As night fell so lawn that led up to a sprawling Tudor house and turned the ring the Orown up here, he thought Been raised and fed and tucked into bed here as a young When he was older, he&039;d stayed up to watch movies and read books with dirty shit in them, and surfed the Net and eaten junk food here

He&039;d gone through his transition and had sex for the first time up in his room on the third floor

"Y&039;all want some help?"

He turned and looked at the lesser as behind the wheel of the Ford Focus It was the little slayer, the one he&039;d drunk frouy had pale hair like Bo fro up around the cowboy hat he wore His eyes were a faded cornflower blue, suggesting that before he&039;d been inducted he&039;d been a real uy had survived the feeding, thanks to soa&039;s part, and Lash had to ad where he was at, and he wasn&039;t threatened by Mr D

"Hello?" the lesser said "Y&039;all okay there?"

"You stay in the car" It felt good to say that and know there wasn&039;t going to be any discussion "I won&039;t be long"

"Yes, suh"

Lash looked back up at the Tudor palace Lights glowed yellos lass, and the house was spotlit froe Inside, people moved around, and he kneho they were by the shapes of their bodies and where they were

On the left, in the sitting room, were the tho had raised him as their own The one with the broad shoulders was his father, and theup and down to his face as if he were drinking so His mother was on the couch, all bobble-head proportioned with her elaborate chignon and her slender neck She kept touching her hair, as if trying to h it was no doubt sprayed stiff as a boxwood shrub

To the right, in the kitchen wing, several doggen scurried around, erator to counter to stove

Lash could practically smell the dinner, and his eyes watered

By now, his parents must know about what had happened in the locker room and then at the clinic They ly, but they&039;d been home all day, and both appeared to be unsettled

He glanced at the third floor and the seven s thatin?" the slayer asked,him feel like a pussy

"Shut the fuck up before I cut your tongue out"

Lash unsheathed the hunting knife that hung frorass The laas soft under the new combat boots he had on

He&039;d had to have the little lesser get hi It was all froet Cheap

As he came up to the mansion&039;s front door, he put his hand to the security pad but paused before he entered the code

His dog had died a year ago Of old age

The thing had been a pedigreed rottweiler, and his parents had gotten it for him when he was eleven They hadn&039;t approved of the breed, but Lash had been adamant, so they&039;d adopted one that was about a year old First night in the house, Lash had tried to pierce the thing&039;s ear with a safety pin King had bitten his had punctured his arm and come out the other side

They&039;d been inseparable after that And when thathad kicked it, Lash had cried like a little bitch

He reached out and entered the pass code, then put his left hand on the door latch The light over the door flashed on his knife&039;s blade

He wished the dog were still alive He would have liked to have one thing from his old life to carry forward into his new one

He stepped into his house and headed for the sitting room

When John Matthew came up to the doors of Wrath&039;s study, he was about as relaxed as a golfer in a thunderstorbehind his delicate desk, frown on his face, fingers dru, stare locked on the phone like bad news had just coain

John tucked as in his hand under his arm and knocked quietly on the ja, son"

John waited for the king to glance across the way, and when he did, John signed with care Qhuinn got kicked out of his family

"Yeah, and I heard the beat-doas frouard courtesy of them" Wrath leaned back in his chair, the slender bones of the thing squeaking "That father of his typical glyested that was a co the lines of asswipe

He can&039;t stay at Blay&039;s forever, and he has nowhere to go

The king shook his head "Okay, I knohere you&039;re going with this, and it&039;s a no Even if this were a normal household, and it&039;s not, Qhuinn killed a trainee, and I don&039;t give a shit what you think Lash e and told hiraes" Wrath leaned to the side and looked around John "You get Phury out of bed yet?"

John looked over his shoulder Vishous was standing in the doorway

The Brother nodded "He&039;s getting dressed So is Z You sure you don&039;t want me to handle this?"

"The two of them were Lash&039;s teachers, and Z was a witness to the aftermath of ent down at the clinic Lash&039;s parents want to talk to them and only them, and I promised that they&039;d be over to that house ASAP"

"Okay Keep me posted"

The Brother took off, and Wrath put his elbows on the desk "Look, John, I know Qhuinn&039;s a buddy of yours, and I do feel bad about a lot of his circumstances I wish I were in a position to help hi he wouldn&039;t have to go to his last resort What about Safe Place?

"The feood reason Especially ones with violent histories"

But he&039;s ot no place to go, no job, noto matter, John" The words jail time hovered in the air"You said it yourself He took deadly force into as your basic arguht response was peeling you and Lash apart It was not popping a knife and slicing his first cousin&039;s throat open Did Lash come at you with a deadly weapon? No Could you honestly say that the kid was going to kill you? No It was an inappropriate use of force, and Lash&039;s parents are arguing assault with a deadly with intent to kill, and proximal murder under the old law"

Proximal murder?

"The medical staff swear Lash had been resuscitated when that raid took place His parents are assu he doesn&039;t survive his capture by the lessers and are going with but-for causation But for Qhuinn&039;s actions, Lash wouldn&039;t have been at the clinic and he wouldn&039;t have been abducted Therefore, it&039;s proximal murder"

But Lash worked there So he could have been in the clinic at any rate that night

"Except he wouldn&039;t have been in one of the beds as a patient, would he?" Wrath&039;s blunt fingers drummed on the delicate desk "This shit is heavy-duty, John Lash was the only son of his parents, both of whoo well for Qhuinn That honor guard is the least of his problems at this point"

In the silence that followed, John&039;s lungs got tight He&039;d known all along that they were going to reach this io far enough to save his friend And sure, he&039;d have done anything to avoid this, but he&039;d come prepared

John went back to the double doors and closed them, then approached the desk His hand shook as he took the file he had under his ar&039;s blotter

"What&039;s this?"

With John&039;s sto his pelvic cradle as a bouncy castle, he slowly pushed his

Me What you need to see is the first page

Wrath frowned and picked up thethe folder, he bent down over the report that detailed the therapy session John had had at Havers&039;s It was clear when the king got to the salient part, because the htened under his black T-shirt

Oh, God , John thought, he was so going to throw up

After a lass back down on the blotter In silence, he took care to arrange the two things so they were side by side and positioned perfectly, the ivory handle of the nifier in line with the bottom of the file

When Wrath finally looked up, John did not h he felt as if every inch of hi with filth That hy Qhuinn did it Lash read oing to spill it to everyone Everyone So it was hardly your basic argulasses and rubbed his eyes "Jesus Christ I can understand why you weren&039;t in a big hurry to come forith this" He shook his head "John I&039;m so sorry about what happ¡ª"

John sto&039;s head up I&039; you know for any other reason than Qhuinn&039;s situation I a about it