Levi shoved at the man in front of him, his anger and fear blocking out all rational thought. “Let me go, Lucas.”
“Listen to me for two minutes and then I will let you go,” he said, a hand on Levi’s chest. “If you love him, you’ll listen.”
Levi stopped resisting, sucking in heaving breaths, nostrils flaring. “What?”
“That’s not his blood,” Lucas explained calmly.
Levi blinked at him. “What?”
Lucas grabbed Levi’s face, locking eyes with him. “I need you to hear everything I’m saying before you freak out. Are you paying attention?”
Paying attention?“No, I’m freaking the fuck out, Lucas.”
Lucas sighed. “Micah used your mother to lure Shiloh into opening the front door. He made entry into the house, cornered him in his room, and put a gun in his mouth. Mal put a gun to Micah’s head before it went any further and Nico knocked him out and got them all down to the basement. Shiloh was rattled, dissociating, but calm.”
Levi tried not to let his brain lock onto any one piece of information lest he fixate on it and miss something important. His fucking mother had helped Micah? Of course, she fucking had. Micah put a gun in Shiloh’s mouth. He must have been terrified. Fuck. But that still explained nothing.
“Why is my boyfriend catatonic and covered in fucking blood?” Levi snapped.
“You need to calm down.”
That didn’t come from Lucas but August who came to stand beside his husband, dropping his human mask and staring at Levi with dead eyes.
“Look at him,” Levi said, a sob welling in his chest.
“He’s in shock. Dissociating. Honestly, given the circumstances, it might be better if he just checks out for a bit. At least, until we finish with that one.” Lucas jerked his head towards Micah where he lay in a heap on the ground.
“What did he do to him?” Levi whispered.
“It’s not what Micah did to him,” Lucas said. “It’s what he did to Micah.”
Levi let Lucas’s words sink in. “Did he kill him?” He looked at the blanket-covered body. “Is he dead?”
As if on cue, Micah began to moan from somewhere beneath the blanket. Lucas grimaced. “Unfortunately, no. That’s why we’re all here. We need to finish what Shiloh started.”
“What does that mean?” Levi cried. “Someone just fucking tell me something.”
“It’s better to show you.” Lucas took his arm and led him to Micah. “Brace yourself.”
Levi rolled his eyes as August crouched down, but when he pulled back the blanket, he’d never been so grateful his stomach was empty. Levi stumbled back, his pulse skyrocketing. His eyes flitted around Micah’s face…well, what had once been Micah’s face, trying to even make sense of what he saw.
“Oh, my God…” Levi muttered, unable to stop the way his face contorted in horror. “How…”
Lucas shrugged, his expression pained. “Mal said Shiloh was already dissociating before they’d left the apartment. They dropped Micah on the floor to make the call to you, which went fine. But before they could get Micah back off the floor, he started taunting Shiloh. Laughing at him. Mal said Shiloh just…snapped.”
“Snapped?” Levi echoed, staring at the mess that was Micah.
Mal joined them. “Shiloh just attacked him,” he said, staring down at Micah grimly, but without pity.
“With what?” Levi asked, dumbstruck.
Mal shook his head, like he himself couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “His hands…his feet…his teeth. Once he was on him, we couldn’t stop him. He just kept screaming at him to stop laughing, even after he was no longer capable of doing any such thing. I had to put him in a sleeper hold just to get him to stop. He was going to kill him.”
“Why’d you stop him?” Levi asked dully, still trying to rationalize in his brain how that mangled mess was a human being.
“Because Shiloh couldn’t handle the guilt of knowing he killed someone, least of all our brother. No matter how much Micah deserves it. He’s not like me. Like…us,” he clarified.
Us as in him and Micah? Or us as in him and Levi and the other killers in the room? “Shiloh knows.”
