He almost wanted to turn around to see if someone else—someone not their boss, not…him—had just entered the room.He held his ground, outlined some of his reasoning.They listened.
Even Radulf looked derisive now.
This was Ben!
He fucking knew that, gritted his teeth on their incomprehension, and tried again.They weren’t having it.
This was Ben.
And then it hit him.They’d not been living withnewBen for a week.They’d not suffered the terrible revelation that new Ben wasoriginalBen—Ben Rider before the darkness of Nikolas Mikkelsen had descended upon him.And they hadn’t realised now that the Ben they knew would have worked this out for himself.
I will leave darkness behind me.
Indeed.
He was wasting his breath.What could he tell them to convince them?He certainly wasn’t going to share his innermost thoughts and feelings with anyone.He wasn’t going to tell them the monster he saw every day in the mirror when he shaved had finally been seen by Benjamin Rider.
They wanted to go to Grantham?He wanted to go to Grantham.Kill the man or help him, it came down to the same plan: find Doctor Fergus Atwell.
* * *
They had a more private meeting.Ben thought they would.They stood at the back of one of the sets, surrounded by props, and costumes hanging on rails, and the unreality of the whole situation only made it easier.Ben didn’t have to try and justify what he was doing with his real world or try to reconcile memory with reality, he just went with the flow of the now.This was all that mattered.
Atwell was incredibly anxious, all the confidence he’d portrayed as a doctor in the therapy course gone, but it was a bullying kind of nervousness Ben had seen in men before, those thrust into situations they’d sought but then found themselves unwilling or unable to face.Men in combat.Bluster and bluff can only take you so far.True courage has to come into play in the end, and Ben suspected this man was now running on empty.He’d set up that final scene and had been forced to live with the consequences of what had happened—perhaps worse, hedidn’tknow what had happened.
Ben remembered Squeezy being there, knew what Squeezy and Nikolas would have been able to achieve between them—the complete sanitization of the scene.Ben had done the same many times.It was better that way, more visceral, helped you cope and overcome.
Atwell hadn’t had that.No bodies.No information.
His fear was palpable.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I think you do.”
“You want…to join us?After everything that happened?”
Ben nodded.
“I don’t have any…targets planned.”
“You don’t have to.I have my own.”
“What?Who?”
Ben smiled.“Don’t you listen to the news?”
* * *
They arrived at the outskirts of Grantham by evening, Squeezy driving, Nikolas alongside, Tim and Kate in the back.
“Fuck.”
They all turned or twisted around to look at Kate who was working on her laptop.Nikolas diverted Squeezy’s face back to the road but asked, “What?”
“I’ve found him.He’s not a doctor.He was an actor—and not a very good one.Worked for something called Cazzo Film—”
All three men in the car said at the same time, “It’s a gay porn label.”
