SOMETHING WET slid down Silas’s cheek. That was what woke him up. Not a sound. Not a shake. But something hot and moist, something that didn’t belong, running down the side of his face until it dripped onto his chest. He opened his eyes, or rather tried. One didn’t seem to want to move. Interestingly enough, it was on the same side of his face.
“You’re awake again.” Scott’s voice sounded so kind and nurturing, soft like a lover’s voice. It confused Silas. Had he dreamed the breakup and the stalking?
He attempted to move his arms again, only to find they weren’t budging. Neither were his legs. He was still bound to the chair, still restrained so he couldn’t defend himself and couldn’t run for his life. Ironically this knowledge didn’t cause panic, as if he’d accepted his fate and was prepared to find out what truly happened when a person died.
“Thirsty,” Silas choked out. His throat felt like sandpaper, voice broken and weak. His lips burned from Scott violently ripping duct tape from his mouth. He must’ve done that while Silas was sleeping.
“I’ll get you some water. Don’t move.”
Ha!
A wet drop hit his chest again. He felt pretty certain he wasn’t crying or hadn’t been crying, and didn’t understand where the tiny droplets were coming from. He looked up. Only the ceiling and a light fixture that wasn’t turned on hung above his head. He looked down, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Tiny red spots dotted his chest. Blood. He was bleeding.
Things started coming back slowly. He remembered falling over in the chair and hitting his head. That explained the massive headache. He remembered waking up to Scott dragging him up from the floor by his hair. Scott had set him and the chair back up, and that was when the tape had been ripped off.
“I hate you,” Silas had mumbled. The words weren’t meant for Scott’s ears. They were an exercise in saving his sanity, like breathing to stay alive. He’d said that arrangement of syllables in hopes of feeling better. It didn’t work. In fact, Scott had heard every sound.
“What did you say?”
A smarter man would’ve bit his tongue. A saner man would’ve kept his thoughts to himself or at the very least, lied through his teeth. At that point, Silas claimed no brains or sanity. With all the anger in his soul and all the blood in his mouth, he’d spat those three words like venom. “I. Hate. You.”
Never in his life had Silas been hit so hard. Not for mouthing off at his mother. Not by the bullies who’d spewed homophobic slurs at him in high school. When Scott’s knuckles connected with Silas’s eye, Silas thought for sure he wouldn’t survive the hit. Yet, there he was. Busted and bleeding. Yes, the whole entire demeaning, antagonizing, horrific affair had come rolling right back, leaving Silas feeling as though he’d lived through it twice.
Through his one good eye, he saw Scott return. The urge to hurl hit almost as hard as his captor’s punch. His fight or flight response triggered violent jerking. But no matter how hard he tried, Silas knew he wasn’t getting away until Scott came to his senses and let him go.
“Stop that,” Scott said with a laugh. “You’re only going to hurt yourself.”
“Isn’t that what you want? Don’t you want me to be in pain?”
“No, baby.” Scott kneeled down at his feet, reaching up to stroke Silas’s cheek. Silas recoiled. Scott’s nostrils flared. His jaw flexed. Rage burned in his eyes. He grabbed Silas’s chin and gripped it hard, jerking forward so roughly Silas’s neck popped. He squeezed, painfully tight, wrenching Silas’s head up and elongating his throat. Scott held a water bottle to his lips. “Drink,” he barked.
Liquid poured down Silas’s throat so fast he thought he would choke. He tried to keep up, swallowing as quickly as he could, but it wasn’t fast enough. Water filled his mouth and leaked from the edges. He made the mistake of gasping for breath and the fluid gushed down into his lungs like hot lava.
“Slow down.” Scott pulled the bottle away, releasing Silas’s chin.
Banging at the door startled Silas so badly he thought his heart might jump out of his chest. Vicious pounding. Rattling the security door and quite possibly the entire front of the house. Scott’s head jerked in the direction of the noise. Silas silently prayed Ben was on the outside working hard to force his way in.
“GODDAMMIT,” BEN growled, kicking the metal security door as hard as he could. The impact rattled his bones. He’d tried his key, only to find out the lock had been sealed shut with something like liquid metal or whatever. That was when he knew beyond a shadow of doubt Scott Kramer had gotten in that house. He had Silas. And the shit really had hit the fan.
He leaned back against the door, slumping and fighting the urge to pound the metal with his bare fist. It took a hell of a lot of restraint, not only because there was a criminal within those walls doing God only knew what to one of Ben’s heroes, but because someone Ben cared deeply for was inside that house… having God only knew what done to him.
Pull it together, man. You can’t help Silas like this.
Headlights crossing his field of vision raised Ben from the bars. He kept his eyes glued to the car until he could make out the blue and gold bands of the MPD squad car and Bailey’s melon head behind the steering wheel.
A wave of relief washed over Ben. He knew he needed someone’s help. His head was all over the place—angry, afraid, ready to kick the living shit out of Kramer. Someone needed to make sure he kept his head on straight and didn’t catch a murder charge when they finally got inside that house.
Of their own volition, Ben’s feet shuffled forward. He all but stumbled down the steps. Everything felt like it was taking place outside his body, in this weird realm between reality and fantasy. This crazy shit couldn’t be his life.
“Hey. Hey.” Bailey had him by the arms, all up in his face. “What the fuck’s goin’ on? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Kramer.” Ben swallowed. “Silas.” He thumbed over his shoulder, back toward the door. The lump in his throat wrecked his speech. His racing mind destroyed his ability to form sentences.
“Ben?” Bailey frowned. He never used Ben’s first name. It was always Logan, or simply man. That was when Ben became alarmingly aware of the hot tracks dripping from his eyes.
Men don’t cry.
They stared in silence. Bailey clearly had a lot of questions he didn’t want to ask. Ben had answers he didn’t want to share. Did straight men cry for their heroes? Was that a valid excuse? Bailey was sharp as hell. Would he see through Ben’s attempt at a disguise?
“Brown is missing too,” Ben said in lieu of explaining his tears.
“Morgan Brown?”
Ben nodded.
“Okay. All right. I gotta call this in.”
Bailey keyed up the radio attached to his shoulder, keeping a curious eye on Ben. The speaker crackled and popped, and then the dispatcher’s voice came over the airwaves. Bailey called, “Possible hostage situation. One civilian. One officer. Suspect is believed to be Scott Allen Kramer. Address….”
Ben turned back to the house, spying for ways to break in. If he could somehow get through those stupid fucking bars he’d told Silas to have installed. He hated himself for doing that. They weren’t serving their intended purpose. Somehow, Kramer got in. He found a way and breached the perimeter. All Ben had to do was find out how the hell he got inside.
“I’m gonna check the house,” Ben said.
He was just about to walk away when Bailey pulled him back. “Wait. Don’t do that. Backup is on its way.”
“I can’t wait for them. What if he hurts Silas? What about Morgan?”
“What if he hears you trying to get in and kills them both?”
The thought of anyone dying over this shit made Ben weak in the knees. He honest to God felt himself going down before Bailey stopped his free fall.
“Look,” Bailey said, “you can be honest with me.”
“I know.” That was half-true anyway.
“So tell me what’s going on. The whole story.”
Ben floundered, hesitating on a truth so ready to be told it took a whole lot of effort to stop the words before his mouth blurted them.
“We’re friends.” Bailey put emphasis on the last word by saying it slowly and dragging out the one syllable. “That ain’t changin’.”
Blowing out a breath, Ben dragged his hand over his face and leaned his ass against the car. He had no plans of telling Bailey about Morgan. If Morgan wanted to come out to the guys on the force, that was his decision. The rest of it, well, Ben could only pray Bailey meant what he said.
“Silas is….” How to describe this? “He’s more than a friend. He’s…. We….”
Bailey nodded. “I get it.”
Thank God, because Ben swore if he had to spell it out, he was going to die right after.
“Do you love him?” Bailey asked.
No, man. No way. Not at all. “I care about him. A lot.” Ben choked on his words. Tears formed in his eyes. They burned almost as badly as the truth did. He sniffled and cleared his throat, then wiped his face. But the crying wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t torrential downpours, but enough to give away just how fucked-up this whole situation was.
Bailey pulled him into a hug—a much different hug than Ben had given Morgan or Silas—but just as meaningful and just as caring. It said without words that Bailey supported him and didn’t give a shit about his sexuality, and Bailey would be there, be his friend no matter what. Ben tightened both arms around Bailey’s waist and fell apart.
“YOUR BOYFRIEND brought his friends,” Scott said from the only window on the front porch. He’d pulled back the curtains so Silas could get a good look at the blue lights in front of his house. His vision was fuzzy at best, but the strobes on top of the cop cars were clear as day. “Maybe we’ll go out like Romeo and Juliet.”
“Romeo and Juliet were in love,” Silas countered.
In a rush so fast Scott turned into a blur, he came across the room. His hand collided with Silas’s face. Blood blossomed in Silas’s mouth and the chair spun on one leg. He tumbled to the floor without having any way to brace himself. His arm hit first, then his knee. His left cheek scraped across the hardwood, and he rolled one more time before finally coming to a stop on his back. He screamed bloody murder, screamed until his throat was raw, not giving a damn that all the noise in the world did no good.
“We’re in love,” Scott declared.
“Ha!” Silas faked a sarcastic laugh. Everything hurt, but he kept up the facade. “I could never love a lunatic like you.”
Grabbing Silas’s shirt with both hands, Scott wrenched him up from the floor but didn’t have the strength to get the chair totally upright. It tumbled forward, dropping Silas on his knees. Pain tore through Silas’s body—shooting, burning pain from his leg to his brain. His mouth flew open and another ungodly scream poured from his vocal chords. Scott jerked the chair again and put Silas on his side. Now would’ve been a good time to die.
“You keep smarting off,” Scott growled against Silas’s ear, spraying Silas’s wounds with saliva, “and I swear to God there’ll be nothing left of you but a bloody spot on the floor.”
“Scott, please.” Silas panted and sniffled. “Stop this. Just stop.”
“Not a chance, Silas. I’m going to make you feel every ounce of the pain you put me through, and a master is going to teach me how.”
“Who?”
“You.”