Assumed Dead by Becky Black

Author:Becky Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, erotic romance, mm romance, scifi romance
Publisher: Becky Black

* * * *

Matt found Peter brooding on his bed after the weapons training session. R.J. had called it firearms, but that had only been part of it. They’d moved on to axes and cleavers later. He was still getting over seeing Chandra run screaming at the dummy he’d named Bert and taking its head clean off with a long-handled ax. The weight of the ax spun her around, and he was surprised she could lift it, never mind swing it. But he remembered what Peter had said about her being stronger than she looked. When they went ashore, Matt thought he’d stick close to her.

“You okay?” he asked Peter, who barely acknowledged him when he came in.

Peter sighed and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Just…thinking.”

Matt came over and sat by him on the edge of the bed.

“The firearms stuff upset you. I could tell. I guess you’ve seen so many victims in your work. Kids and everything.”

“Yeah, that upset me. You even made kid-sized dummies.”

Matt grimaced. “I know. But it’s what we’ll see. Children won’t have been spared. I think…I think we have to see it as mercy killing. They’re not people anymore. I know I wouldn’t want to be left that way. I wouldn’t want to see anyone I cared about left that way. It’s mercy.”

Peter took his hand. “I don’t know if that’s true. Are they suffering? The person inside is dead. Gone. There’s no personality or consciousness there. Mercy killing is to end suffering. All doctors, with a dying patient, someone terminally ill, in pain…” He trailed off, then swallowed hard and spoke again. “Sometimes they even ask for it. Sometimes the doctor gives a higher dose of morphine than is needed. To…ease the path. That’s mercy.”

Matt squeezed his hand. “We can’t know that no part of the person’s mind survives. It’s their brain, and bits of it must still be working if they’re walking around. We can’t know if some part of them that knows who they are and what’s happening to them isn’t still in there. In which case, yes, it’s mercy to put them out of their misery.”

“I keep thinking about what would happen if I found Harrison…like that.” He shuddered. “Could I pull the trigger on him? Or if it happened to you. If that one at the Norwegian station had bitten you.”

“Peter, I promise that if I’m still capable of it, I’d do it myself. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Harrison, though. He was talking about finding Harrison. Since they were unlikely to run into the guy in Moosonee, then it had at least crossed Peter’s mind to go looking for him. Matt couldn’t blame him for that, could he? If Matt somehow got back in New Zealand, he knew he would go looking for his parents. Only the impossibility of ever getting there made him accept he’d never see them again. In a way that was for the best, because in his mind, his little fantasy world, they

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