Unhinged by Onley James
Adam’s lip curled as he heaved the bloody corpse towards the drain in the middle of the floor. He’d thought he was in really good shape before he’d had to haul his brother’s latest victim—a six foot four, three hundred pound rapist—from said victim’s car to the center of the abandoned slaughterhouse. While Adam was fit, his brother…wasn’t.
Atticus was tall and fair with a gym body and ginger hair. He looked like a Mormon and a tax attorney had a baby with shitty eyesight. Even now, while they were attempting to dispose of his brother’s fuckup, he was wearing a pair of seersucker pants and a white button down shirt, though both were covered in blood.
“Seriously, dude? Wet work is not my thing. How could shit go this completely sideways? And what the fuck are you wearing?” Adam finally asked after they got the man where they wanted him.
Atticus gave him a pissy look, using the back of his hand to push his glasses up his nose. “I had a work thing.”
“A work thing?”
“Yeah, you know work? That shit you do and they pay you for it? Oh, wait. No, you still live on Dad’s dime.”
Adam snickered. “You need to let that go. You might have a medical degree, but you work in the sciences. Dad pays your bills, too. You can’t afford that luxury mom car you drive playing mad scientist at the research center.”
“Fuck you,” Atticus said, voice testy.
After a minute, Adam sighed. “What was your work thing?”
Atticus brightened a bit. “The research center threw me a party because I scored a grant that will fund our program for the next five years.”
“Congrats. But don’t forget our real job.”
Atticus bristled. “This isn’t our job.”
“What would you consider it then? A passion project? Community service?” Adam placed his foot on the dead man’s chest, grabbing the handle of the blade, which was embedded in the man’s head, pulling with all his might. “What the fuck is this thing? Excalibur?” Adam grunted, starting to sweat through his now ruined Armani t-shirt. He gave his brother a disgusted look. “Seriously, man. How did you fuck up this bad?”
Atticus’s eyes bulged behind his glasses, his face contorting. “My fucking gun jammed. I had to improvise.”
Adam gaped at him. “And your first thought was a hatchet?”
Atticus snorted, his voice full of derision when he said, “It’s a meat cleaver, you miscreant. We were in his kitchen. It was that or a butcher knife, and when you have three hundred pounds barreling towards you, you make a decision and you let it play out.”
“Well, now, it’s two in the morning and we’re stuck here, in Satan’s tiled asshole, trying to pry a cleaver out of this fucker’s skull.”
“I’m sorry to pull you away from the coke you were probably snorting off some rent boy’s ass.”
Adam scoffed. “Coke? What are you, eighty? Who the fuck does coke anymore?”
“Haven’t you heard, it's making a comeback. It's all about nineties fashion and eighties drugs. Kids today,” August said, pushing through the clear thick plastic sheets that separated one room from the other. They reminded Adam of the things you saw in an automatic car wash.
Adam’s head snapped around to glare at Atticus. Why was Adam there if Atticus had already called August? This was August’s raison d’être. He loved the blood and guts. He was the cleaner, the enforcer, the stone cold killer with an iron stomach. Ironic given he looked like a taller, more terrifying version of Harry Potter, minus the glasses. He was the second oldest and had the least magnetic personality of them all as far as Adam was concerned. The family nerd with a dark side who would terrify the most hardened criminal.
August held up an electric saw, giving a smile even Adam found unsettling. “Found this,” he said, unnaturally cheery given their surroundings. He pulled the trigger and the blade roared to life until he let it go. “It’s cordless.” His mouth turned down in an imagine that expression that probably would have sent most people screaming.
But that was August. He had taken to killing as easily as he’d taken to quantum mechanics. He had a way of compartmentalizing that was almost supernatural. Adam had once watched his brother torture a man for five hours, then strip off his gloves, change his clothes and go give a three hour talk on particle acceleration in magnetic fields.
“What are we supposed to do with that?” Adam asked.
August looked at him like he was stupid. “We have no idea how much of Atticus ended up on our friend here. So we’re going to dismember him, bleach him, package him up in nice little pieces and chuck him into the river with some cement blocks. By the time he floats to the surface, any and all trace evidence should be gone. And then we won’t have to tell Dad that his pride and joy fucked up.”
Atticus plopped his gloved hands on his apron covered hips. “You know, it's not my fault I excelled at everything growing up. Maybe if you had all tried a little harder, Dad could have doted on one of you instead.”
Adam rolled his eyes, crouching beside the body to start undressing their recently deceased serial rapist. “Oh, yes. Please tell us again how being Dad’s favorite is so hard.” Adam got some perverse pleasure out of knowing that the man who’d forced himself on others without their consent was now being stripped and dismembered against his will. Too bad he was already dead.
“It was!” Atticus cried, indignant. “He always expected me to be perfect and to make sure you guys were perfect, too, and we all see how well that turned out.”
Atticus and August looked down at Adam with their patented older sibling superiority. “Oh, fuck you both. I’m sorry I’m not a doctor or an egghead professor. Has it ever occurred to you that I did you all a favor by never applying myself?”
Atticus snorted. “How so?”
Adam grinned. “I half-ass everything and still rise to the top. Imagine if I was using my full potential. I’d leave both of you in the dust. I’m the black sheep by choice.”
August snorted, but Atticus looked like a fish out of water, mouth opening and closing before he sputtered, “You’re a fucking supermodel. What exactly did you intend to ace, Tyra? Smizing 101?” August gave Atticus a smug look. “What? Kendra liked America’s Next Top Model. I know some things.”
Adam wrinkled his nose at the mention of Atticus’s ex-girlfriend. She was a fucking nightmare. A total gold digger who’d descended on the Mulvaney household like a plague, her army of skanks doing their best to land the Mulvaney brothers one at a time like they thought they could clear the board in one shot.
They were definitely barking up the wrong family tree. Half of his brothers liked dick, two of them didn’t care about gender at all, and August…well, Adam was pretty sure he was a fucking android. He couldn’t imagine his brother sticking his dick in anything that didn’t require batteries.
“Look, I’m not saying modeling required the same amount of skill as brain surgery or gene splicing or whatever the fuck you do when you’re in mad scientist mode, but at least I didn’t get a hatchet stuck in the head of a three hundred pound rapist.”
“It’s a meat cleaver,” Atticus and August said in unison.
“Whatever. Can we please get this done? It’s hot as fuck in here and it smells like rotting meat and shit.”
“You’re such a baby,” Atticus muttered.
“You’re such a baby,” Adam mimicked. “Fine. Next time, call Archer. Or Asa and Avi. The murder twins are always down for a little slice and dice,” Adam reminded him with a grunt, straining as he tried to get the man’s shirt off. “A little help here?”
Atticus sighed and August dropped his new toy. Together, the three of them wrestled the man’s clothes off and into a burn bag. August pulled the hose with the spray nozzle from its home on the wall. At least they still had the deserted factory to use in a pinch. As August hosed down the man’s mottled body, Atticus left and went to the van, returning with two bottles of industrial strength bleach, handing them masks and goggles before they uncorked the chemicals.
He was a stickler for the rules.
It was likely overkill, but they couldn’t take any chances. If they got caught, the whole family went down. Mutually assured destruction was the glue that held their fucked up little family together.
“Next time, can we just acid bath a bitch?” Adam asked, dumping the bleach over the corpse, nose and eyes burning despite the proper personal protection equipment.
“Those chemicals leave a paper trail. Besides, remember when Archer tried that and the barrel spilled?”
Adam shuddered. “Yeah, enough said.”
The rest of the job took about three hours to complete. By the time they were done, they were all covered in blood and bone shards. They loaded the now clean pieces into the cooler in August’s car before loading a layer of fish over top. They stripped out of their bloody clothes and took turns blasting each other with the icy hose water. Once they were changed into fresh clothes, they gave the place one more scrub with the bleach and the hose and August dumped the electric saw in a bucket of bleach before closing the place back up.
“You know what to do?” Atticus asked Adam.
Adam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve only done this about a thousand times.” He pulled his phone out, threw an arm around his brother, and sent the picture to Calliope.
Adam: Photoshop that into some nondescript bar and post it on our socials.
Her response came back lightning fast. Is that how you ask for something?
Adam: Sorry. Long night. Can you please do it for me, beautiful?
She sent two kissy face emojis and one suspicious one followed by: Yeah, done.
Adam was about to put his phone away when he saw he had another text. It was just one word.Home.
Noah. A jolt of awareness shot through Adam. He’d told him to text when he’d gotten home and he’d listened. The sound that escaped his throat was almost a growl. There was something about Noah following his orders that went straight to his dick and ignited a primal instinct that had his mind delving into the gutter thinking about all the other things he’d like to make Noah do for him…and to him.
Adam fell into the front seat of his father’s Land Rover but made no move to start the car, too busy thinking about what had happened between them just a couple of hours ago. Noah had been so easy, had melted into Adam, had let him do as he pleased.
But Noah had also been high. Maybe that was why he’d given in so easily, had made those sounds each time their mouths met. What other noises could he bring out of Noah if he had the time? He turned over the car’s engine, tempted to throw it in drive and go find him.
He hadn’t been invited. But his cock was hard just thinking about Noah’s sweet face and his slight body. There was so much fire packed in such a little frame. He’d been so fierce the day they met and so willing just a few hours ago. He’d wanted Adam, there was no denying that. And he didn’t think it was the drugs. At least, not just the drugs.
That kind of power was dangerous for someone like Adam. He lacked the gauge needed to temper his wants with Noah’s needs. If Noah gave him permission, Adam didn’t know if he could stop himself from pushing him to the limits. Adam liked being in control, taking charge, forcing others to bend to his wants. It was something he’d accepted about himself long ago. And there was always somebody willing to play with him, but since that very first night with Noah, there’d been nobody but Noah.
Adam hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. No matter what he did, Noah was never far from his mind. At first, Adam thought it was the guilt. Adam had broken Noah’s heart to save himself. He’d shown him who his father was, the disgusting things he’d done, probably triggering repressed memories Noah hadn’t been ready to face.
But it wasn’t guilt, or rather, it wasn’t only guilt. He just wanted to be near him. Adam spent his life dwelling in darkness and Noah felt like the light. He felt like the sun on Adam’s face. Whenever he saw him, something unknotted deep inside him and he could breathe…even if Noah didn’t know he was there.
And that was the problem.
Adam didn’t understand boundaries. As a child, he’d broken a lot of toys trying to make them do things they weren’t meant for. He didn’t want Noah to be another broken toy. He was already popping mystery pills and making out with murderous strangers in abandoned buildings. When he’d found out Adam wasn’t there to kill him, he’d sounded disappointed.
Maybe Noah needed Adam? Maybe he needed somebody to take care of him, watch over him, show him what he was capable of. Adam snorted. He couldn’t be Noah’s guardian angel—not when every time he closed his eyes he pictured him on his knees, begging Adam to do increasingly dirty things to him.
He threw the car into drive, leaving the parking lot and pulling out onto the road with no real destination in mind. He should go out somewhere, make himself known, give himself an alibi. Adam crawled to a stop at the red light. He itched to make a left and head to The Landing Strip, the strip club by the airport. That was where Noah called home—a rusted out Airstream trailer parked in the lot. Noah worked there as a dishwasher.
An angel and devil were squabbling on Adam’s shoulder. Left brought him to Noah who he knew for a fact was home. Right took him to his studio apartment in the heart of the city. He needed to go home. He needed to leave Noah alone. He was vulnerable; small and sweet and so fucking malleable. Adam wanted to be the one who made him cry, who made him whimper and moan and sigh. Maybe even the one who made him scream.
When he’d asked Adam if he was going to hurt him, Adam hadn’t lied. If given the chance, he would hurt Noah. That was what he did. It was who he was. But Noah had smashed their mouths together only after Adam had said yes. Did he want Adam to hurt him? Or had he somehow convinced Noah he wasn’t the bad guy? Fuck, he hoped Noah didn’t somehow think he was a good person.
Adam was the worst, a bad guy who did bad things to bad people for good reasons. The scales of good and evil would never tip back in the right direction for him. He didn’t just kill people, he enjoyed it, and that wasn’t ever going to change. The world needed people like him and his brothers. His father called them a necessary evil.
Necessary or not, Noah deserved something good in his life, and that would never be Adam. The least he could do was stay away from him. But when the light turned green, Adam made a left.
Fuck.
