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CHAPTER 8

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IF THERE WAS ONE THING Asbjorn couldn’t stand, it was being coddled. Mothered. Taken care of. Pampered. Babied. Cosseted. November 22rd – Thanksgiving was tomorrow. Didn’t Sean have to pack? Wasn’t he going home for Thanksgiving break? A growl of discontent broke through his controlled demeanor, and the tension of the past nine days threatened to break through like hot steam.

“What is it, Asbjorn?” Sean’s voice was neutral. By now he had learned to rein in his expressions of concern, and Asbjorn saw him bite back his sympathetic winces and reign in his solicitous care.

“Nothing.” Asbjorn growled again, transfixing his particle physics text with an icy glare. He had to focus. Had to find a way to ignore that overbearing pest. Soft, caring hands taping up his ribs. Easy humor lightening his ponderous mood. Smells of food – real, home-cooked food – emanating from his tiny kitchen. And the graceful, languid movements of Sean, dressed in jeans and a hoodie over a long-sleeve shirt, were enough to distract him from the most riveting paper, the most fascinating lecture, or the most important problems to solve.

A cup of jasmine-scented green tea landed by Asbjorn’s right hand and strong, slender fingers started their endless work on his perennially tight shoulders. “You feel so tense.”

Yeah. No shit, Sherlock – and you ain’t helpin’.

“Don’t forget your appointment with Dr. Verbosa this afternoon.”

Yeeees, Mother. Fuck. Can’t believe he dragged me in for X-rays. Can’t believe Dr. Verbosa is actually Ken Swift’s wife. Can’t believe she had already treated Don. She’s like the Warehouse personal physician.

“Do you need me to tape up your ribs for the day before I go get your laundry?”

Asbjorn rose from his chair. He glared down at Sean, irritated by the warm solicitude in his molten, chocolate eyes. Sean’s hair was spiky and disheveled and backlit by the sun streaming into Asbjorn’s dining room window.

My sunshine.

Asbjorn suppressed the smile that threatened to manifest and grasped Sean by his shoulders. “Sean.” His voice had a dangerous edge to it. “I appreciate all the fucking care you took with me. I appreciate you staying over and doing the cooking and shopping and straightenin’ up, and dragging me to the emergency room and doing my laundry and emailing my professors for assignments and... there’s more, I’m sure. You’ve been great, but you’re driving me fucking crazy!”

The last words were shouted out loud. Sean stiffened with hurt and surprise just as Asbjorn suppressed a gasp of pain – but he’d tape his own ribs up, and he would do it later. He was never patient with his injuries and didn’t see why he should start now.

“You ain’t my mother. I don’t want another mother. I left my mother half the world away for a good reason. So don’t. Even. Go. There. I’m a grown man and have been for some time. Now, if you don’t mind, you have stuff other than me to worry about. Please pack your stuff and go.”

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CONFUSION REIGNED. Words and equations swam on the blackboard. Sean knew the problem was elementary, and he knew he’d seen the material before, but for the life of him, he just couldn’t focus. Asbjorn’s infuriated voice resounded in his mind, and Asbjorn’s startling blue eyes stared at him, devoid of humor or pain. Sean felt as though the sand, teased by a faraway riptide, was shifting under his feet.

When Sean got hurt, his older sister took care of him. His father checked his injuries and decided whether they would need further care – they had all fussed. Even his younger sister and two kid brothers fussed a little in their endearing, obstinate way.

Popsicles. Cups of tea. Crayon drawings.

That’s how it was done, and ever since their mother died all those years ago, they all worked hard to fill the void she had left behind. When somebody you loved got hurt, you took care of them until you were sure they were okay on their own. What was so wrong with that? What did Asbjorn not understand? There was no doubt in Sean’s mind that if he, Sean, got hurt, Asbjorn would be there like the good friend he was and he would do a lot to help him out.

Maybe not his laundry.... Sean thought it might have been the laundry that drove Asbjorn over the edge.

Or maybe it was the closeness they shared once the lights were out. The long talks about nothing and everything. The way they would wake up with Asbjorn’s arm pillowed under Sean’s neck. It shocked them the first time, but they didn’t fight it. Once Asbjorn’s ribs were taped up and he had resigned himself to taking his painkillers, he could sleep again. He had a curious tendency to wander in his sleep, traversing the width of the generously proportioned queen-size bed to wake up pressed against Sean’s backside, his muscular leg pinning Sean’s, his arm pulling Sean into a close embrace.

He might have gotten himself kicked out for doing Asbjorn’s laundry, but his eyes still glazed over at the memory of Asbjorn’s breath against his ear, his lips brushing his neck absently in the wee hours of the morning. Then Sean had been the first to rise and shower and take care of his needs, always wondering whether Asbjorn remembered anything at all.

“Mr. Gallaway.” The professor’s deep voice roused Sean, transporting him back to the optics problem on the Smart Board. “Mr. Gallaway. How will these results, obtained with a helium-neon laser, differ if we use an excimer argon-fluoride laser?” Dr. Behrend’s glasses shimmered under the fluorescent lights of the classroom. He dressed like a bum and graded like a real hardass. His five decades hardened him to the lazy way of sleepy students. “C’mon Mr. Gallaway. You’ve seen this before. What wavelength would you expect from an argon-fluoride laser?”

“Somewhere in the UV spectrum?”

“Yes!” The older man vibrated with excitement. “One hundred and ninety-three nanometers, to be exact. Now, considering the grating size....”

Sean focused, the words and the schematic familiar to his distracted, tired mind. This was elementary. He had solved similar problems years ago.

“Mr. Gallaway, see me during office hours, please.” The professor sighed with exasperation. “Mr. Hartney. Would you shed some light onto the situation?”

Sean’s other classes didn’t go much better, the net result being a long cram session that stretched over several days and nights. The pre-holiday tests were looming, and he could hardly wait for the rest and relaxation associated with Thanksgiving. He even skipped one aikido practice, letting Val O’Connell take the class. As a brown belt, it was a good time for her to assume responsibilities other than paperwork.

Bent over a circuit diagram, Sean tried with all his might to focus on calculating the resistance of the transistor, powering through visions of blue eyes and soft lips with nothing but brute force.

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ASBJORN’S THIRD EXAM was coming up, and he gritted his teeth and began to review his notes once again. When he was done, he planned to grab a bite to eat and then go visit his karate class. Dud and Nell were teaching during his absence, but both his jaw and rib were starting to feel better and Asbjorn was becoming proportionately restless. He would do only the kata, pushing just until it started to hurt.

As he packed his gym bag, he noted he was on his last pair of underwear. A guilty feeling rose in his chest. It had been almost a week since he told Sean off, and he had not seen his friend since.

Asbjorn’s body felt better, but his mind felt tired.

Exhausted.

Every meal, every cup of coffee or the jasmine tea Sean left behind, every night in his empty bed reminded him of the sunny cheer the aikido instructor spread around. He wanted to feel that slender body against his again, falling asleep, waking up. He wanted to pretend he was still asleep as he nuzzled Sean’s slim neck in the morning.

His feelings confused him. He couldn’t stand the closeness, yet he missed it. He wanted to spar with Sean, throw him, follow up, and immobilize him with one of those wicked ju-jitsu pins Sean didn’t know yet. Then he wanted to teach it back to him, one step at a time, their limbs touching and tangling and their bodies supporting one another’s weight without complaint. He wanted to kiss those soft, full lips.

Wait. What?

Asbjorn frowned, halting his train of thought. There it was again. He was thinking of Sean that way again. It was bad enough to have to release his tension in the shower every morning, making his sharply indrawn breaths expand his ribcage as Asbjorn ignored the pain, focusing his mind on the residual feeling of that muscled, lithe body against him. He wanted to press against him, inside him.

Inside him?

But that was while Sean had been there physically. Asbjorn had no reason to think this way now that he was gone. He gathered his resources and did his best to focus on the task at hand.

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SEAN’S WORK PACE WAS frantic. Tests were over, but he couldn’t relax yet – tomorrow was Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and he still had a physics lab to finish and hand in, and already he was losing one grade point for it being late. Late because he got distracted by taking care of Asbjorn. He took care of Asbjorn and became personally involved just a bit too much. Became personally involved, and Asbjorn kicked him out.

He had lost a friend. No doubt about it. Him and his nosy ways, always trying to help a little too much, never knowing just how to act – either too friendly or too aloof. Well, never mind then. He’d cut his losses and move on. He had work to do.

The lab report was almost done. One hour past midnight, yet he was so wound up he couldn’t quite go to sleep. Most of his housemates had left for Thanksgiving already. Sean couldn’t justify the expense of transcontinental airfare for the sake of a long weekend. He was one of only three who planned to stay for the holiday. He left the warm cave of his room and walked upstairs to the kitchen. A cup of chamomile tea would help him wind down while he was packing to visit Gino in Providence. Already he was looking forward to training with Gino’s dojo, hanging out with his family, and helping Gino’s aunt in the kitchen while Gino was being chased out for burning water.

Sean lifted the cup of tea to his nose and inhaled the soothing steam. The fragrance was evocative of summer sunshine and cloudless skies. And, out of nowhere, that feeling was back again. The stressed-out, “alone” feeling where he felt like a target was painted on his back. He turned around. Josh and Ann were upstairs – he heard their laughter. The house was locked up.

It was just in his mind. The stress of periodic tests was intense at MIT. Everyone was good and everyone was smart and nobody earned a good grade just by coasting along. He knew the last two weeks had cost him his impeccable grade-point average. He was probably just nervous about the extent of the damage.

Sudden, bone-deep fatigue crashed down on him as he finished his tea. Not feeling entirely functional, he decided to pack in the morning. He slipped into his oversize T-shirt and boxers and went to sleep.

Something woke him – a sound from the outside, or a mouse in the closet. Perhaps a creak of old wood, or was it a knock in the steam heating pipes? Sean turned his reading light on and got out of bed. Sudden unease permeated his being. Something wasn’t right. He picked up his cell phone, thinking to dial and talk to someone – anyone – but it was almost two in the morning and people were asleep. There was nothing to report to the police, nor to the campus security. He’d have felt foolish to call and report a sense of unease.

Silently berating himself, he went back to bed. He crawled under his gray comforter, seeking the warmth of the fuzzy cocoon. As much as he tried, however, he didn’t have it in him to turn off his little reading light. The warm, incandescent glow brought him comfort in the night.

He woke to the sound of a crash against the never-used garden door to the outside.

Glass spilled from the Victorian panes. The tinkling of shards falling to the ground lent the scene a surreal, slow-motion feeling.

A huge figure filled the frame – and hurled itself at Sean, a massive arm shattering the reading lamp with one easy blow.

Sean screamed.

The air was ripped out of his lungs by the heavy body landing on top of him. He had to stand up – stand up – stand up! to do what he did best.

“Shaddap.” A gloved fist in his face.

He turned his head, catching the blow on the cheekbone. He wouldn’t shut up – his screams continued as he punched up from his prone position. He made contact once, twice. His attacker seemed unaffected.

Asbjorn’s lessons flashed through his mind.

Palm strikes – not close enough.

Elbow strikes – even worse.

The throat– covered by a heavy parka.

The eyes and ears – covered by a ski mask. Too far to reach.

The black terror of the night had no name, no face. He had mass, though, and leverage and strength, and the reach of his longer arms rendered Sean’s defenses useless.

He could feel his eye and lip swell under the rain of blows.

He struggled to get out from underneath the larger man. He might have had a chance, having learned at least some basics from Asbjorn and Dud, if it hadn’t been for the damn comforter pinning him to his own bed.

“Stop screaming and hitting, and I’ll stop hittin’ yea.” The voice from behind the mask was muffled.

Sean felt the strong, gloved hands squeeze around his neck.

Air became scarce.

He struggled, trying to at least bend the attacker’s elbow and break his grip, but leverage and the laws of physics were against him.

A gray darkness invaded Sean’s sight and he stilled. When his vision came back, he saw  moonlight fall upon them through the window.

The man’s voice sounded... recognizable. Sean had heard that voice before and frantically tried to place it.

“Now, I came here to teach ya a lesson, pup. You’re gonna take a nice, long vacation. You’re gonna leave town, and you’re gonna miss that grand jury you’re scheduled to testify at.” Dark eyes flashed from the eyeholes of the ski mask, his massive body pinning Sean to his own mattress like an etymological specimen. “And just so we unnerstan’ each other... You call the cops, I come back and kill ya. You tell anyone, I kill ya. Got it?”

Sean nodded, the large hand still over his mouth. His attacker now rolled to the side, prone yet alert. As soon as Sean could stand up, he’d destroy this fucker.

But he had to make it to his feet first, do it while the adrenaline was still coursing through his veins. It was a curious feeling, a feeling he had never experienced until now. All of his confrontations had happened on his own terms so far.

Three years ago – being chased by a dusted, hallucinating man down the street, and throwing him hard before the police could be called. One year ago – being accosted by wanna-be pickpockets while delivering pizza. Even the alley incident a few weeks ago wasn’t so bad – at least he was standing.

But this – this was different. He’d left his comfort zone light-years behind.

His attacker rolled off the bed, stripped off his gloves, and stuffed them in the pockets of his parka. His wrist was caught in the man’s larger, beefier hand, and in the pale glow, it appeared as though Sean’s skin was somewhat lighter.

Sean filed the information away.

“Let’s see what you look like under all that... pretty boy.”

Sean kicked the covers out of the way, struggling up – only to have the man grab his hair and yank him back down to the mattress. Another blow landed on his face, renewing the pain formerly obscured by his adrenaline spike.

How long has it been? Thirty seconds? Ten minutes? An eternity?

“You try to run, and I’ll shoot ya in the back.” Sean could place the familiar voice now. It was cold with resolve.

Prone and helpless, Sean looked up. He had to stand. Without getting shot. Somehow.

“You’re gonna be a good boy and get me off, an’ if ya do a good enough job, I’ll let you live. And if you give me any trouble, I won’t let you live. And if you call the cops, I’ll make sure I come back and remind you why you shouldn’t have done that, and then I’ll kill you. Unnerstan’?”

“And then you’ll leave?” Sean barely recognized his own voice.

“Do a good job, don’t testify, take a little vacation. Then I’ll leave ya alone.”

Sean nodded, his eyes wide. He’d jerk the guy off and then pull the Samson and Delilah trick and kill him when he felt weak. Slowly, Sean crawled up to his knees.

“Now just so you don’t get any funny ideas, I have a little incentive fer ya. Don’t think of doing anythin’ stupid, kid.” The larger man moved.

It happened so fast. One moment, Sean had a kernel of a viable plan, and just a second later, a cold barrel of a gun was pressed to his temple. The metal muzzle was cold and round. Sean felt the rough front sight push through his hair, and the cold touch just about drained his previous initiative.

He briefly considered making a move to take the gun away when the voice prodded him on.

“Don’ jus’ freeze there, asshole. If you wanna live, get on with it!”

Sean nodded again and reached for the man’s buckle. His parka was already unzipped and splayed to the sides. His movements seemed impossibly slow – or perhaps it was just his perception of time that had changed.

Maintain one point.

Extend ki.

Don’t panic.

The guiding principles he lived by for so many years allowed Sean to settle his heart rate to a bearable range, and he crawled to his opponent’s form. He leaned over the man. Their eyes met. The cold muzzle was still pressed against Sean’s skull. Sean wanted to twist and grab the gun – after all, every technique done standing could be executed from the knees. From seiza.

He tried to send a command from his brain to the muscles in his legs, but they failed to obey him, his arms like lead. Refusing to rise. Hands unwilling to grasp the weapon.

Go. Go. GO!

To his horror, he felt a tremor pass through the strong, formerly capable muscles of his legs. His hands, reaching out for the man’s fly opening, shook like leaves in the wind.

His attacker unfastened his pants with impatience, unconcerned with Sean’s state. “Get goin’, kid. Jus’ like I said.”

If his hands shook and his legs trembled, and his body moved like molasses and only under his most conscious command, there was little to do but survive. The weight of the realization fell on Sean’s shoulders with such crushing force, he almost fell to his mattress again, and only the irritated growl of the masked gunman stopped him.

The stranger pulled his erect penis out of his pants, and Sean, having run out of options upon his body’s betrayal, reached out to touch it.

It felt like forever, stroking the man’s length and hoping he’d come. His mind wasn’t on the task. He tried to stop shaking.

If he stopped shaking, he could move.

If he could move, he could stand up.

And get shot.

No, maybe not.

Maybe he could run into the dark, cold night. He didn’t even feel the freezing air coming in through the broken garden door.

“Use yer mouth.”

It was a command, not a request, and Sean bent over the man’s groin. Almost gagging, he thought of stories of men being bitten off and wondered if this would incapacitate his opponent or infuriate him and cause him to pull the trigger.

He almost did it – almost, for he feared his body’s betrayal.

Suppose he failed to bite hard enough? He let his eyes wander around instead while he focused on his one point and regulated his breathing as best he could. He took note of the man’s Reeboks and their approximate size. They seemed white and navy blue in the dim moonlit night, almost new. He measured the man’s height as compared to the length of the mattress, estimating his height and weight. The clothing was either black or navy blue, and the odor unrevealing of pertinent detail. The only clue as to the man’s identity was his voice.

Of course. The mention of the grand jury hearing linked it all together.

When his mouth filled with the man’s seminal fluid, he recoiled at its bitter froth. A flash of a memory brought back the beach, his surfboard a shield from prying eyes as a girl had done the very same thing for him. He remembered the scrunched expression on her face as she had attempted to spit it all out, and her tearing eyes, and her smile.

If she had been tough enough for this, Sean resolved to live up to her example as he scanned the area for a good place to save the DNA evidence. His searching gaze earned him a whack on the head. The cold metal felt dense and foreboding upon impact.

“Here. Spit it on my sleeve.”

Still seeing stars from being hit, Sean complied. Never before did he think he’d purposefully try to retain a fragment of a stranger’s disgusting, bitter, musky ejaculate in his mouth, but he did his best.

“It’s time for you to go.” Sean’s croaking voice held resolve despite his internal tremors.

“But I’m having such a good time,” the other said.

“You promised. A deal’s a deal.”

The tall, broad man pulled his ski mask off and pushed Sean down. “Before I go, I wanna see what I’m leaving behind for next time... don’t stare at me!”

A fist landed on Sean’s face. Before he flinched, he caught a glimpse of a gold hoop earring glimmering in the moonlight. The patch of blue-white luminescence described by the window frame had moved, signifying the passage of time.

Sean didn’t resist as he felt his shirt being raised and his boxers pulled down. His legs were clenched together as much as his distressed, fatigued body allowed while his attacker took him in his mouth.

It doesn’t feel good. It feels bad. Very bad.

Think of disgusting foods. Vomit. Scary roller-coasters. Mean third grade teachers.

It doesn’t feel good.

“Won’tcha get hard for me? Eh? I ain’t good enough for ya? Mebbe yer other side will be more satisfying.”

Sean felt a hand search between his legs, going where no man had ever gone before. He stiffened, pressed his legs together. “What you’re doing is wrong.” Sean’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “This is no different from rape. I want you to stop. Stop now.”

The attacker continued his groping efforts. For a moment or two, Sean felt the familiar, soothing heat pool in his groin and he suppressed it ruthlessly, fighting as hard as though he were using his fists.

The dark shape lifted his head. Now that his ski mask was off, Sean could see his hair was tied in a bandanna, and his earring was a little dangling beacon in the night.

“I’ll be back when we can spend more time together, and then you can appreciate me better, eh?”

The thought of this menacing man coming back and taking what Sean was unwilling to give, at gunpoint, chilled him. “I’d kill myself first.”

“Nah, you’ll do no such thing. You’ll take a little vacation, forget all about testifying, get it? And if you screw it up, I’ll come back and fuck you up your ass before I kill you. But if you do as I say, I’ll come back later and make you actually enjoy it, pretty boy.”

The stranger loomed over Sean, menacing and invincible. Sean thought hard. Nobody wants to be bad, not really. People want to be thought of as good. The words spilled out of his mouth. “I can’t live with that. I will kill myself because of what you forced me to do, and what you’ve done to me, and then I’ll come to haunt you.” His mind flitted to his last online gaming session. “I’ll cast magics you have no understanding of just before I die. Then you will die too, and you will go to hell. I have Irish blood – I can do that. My mother was a woman of great power. I will join her spirit, and we will make your life so miserable, you’ll be begging to die.”

Sean didn’t know where all this came from, this desperate drive to connect with his attacker. If he could stay in touch, he could have him caught and punished.

Plan A: Survive.

Plan B: Lose the battle but win the war.

The larger man halted, and a disturbed look passed across his brow. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“It’s a druid thing.... My family will cast me out. I have nothing to lose,” Sean lied. “My life and death will be on your conscience.”

The man paused uncertainly. “I don’t believe in any of that shit. I don’t believe your mother does voodoo and shit like that, Irish or not. Just don’t testify so I don’t have to kill ya.” Sean felt him waver – something had changed in his attacker’s inner balance. “Here, I’ll call ya later,” the man said as he picked up Sean’s cell phone and fussed around for a bit until he found his phone number. He pulled a ball-point pen out of his pocket and wrote the number on his hand. “I’ll call ya after the break. As I said. No cops, okay?”

“Okay.” Sean’s voice was small.

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

The attacker collected his ski mask and gloves and quickly dressed himself. He cast another heavy look at Sean before he vanished through the shattered antique door.

Sean realized he was freezing. The door. Of course. He found his sneakers in the dark and crunched over the broken glass to open his other door, the regular one that led into the basement, and slipped out quietly.

Unwilling to smudge the fingerprints on his cell phone, he stumbled up the upstairs to the antiquated payphone in the foyer. The light was on and Sean was suddenly aware of the tall, unshaded windows of the large Victorian house. The beautiful, airy space he enjoyed so much before made him feel exposed and vulnerable.

He crouched low by the floor to dial 911, hoping to be invisible from the outside. It briefly occurred to him that he was an oathbreaker. He was also a fighter, though, and even though giving in to his attacker’s threats would have made him less so, the idea of obeying the violent stranger brought the taste of bile to his throat. He’d be an oathbreaker, then, and he’d make that scum of the earth pay.

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THE TALL POLICEMAN was a lot older than Sean, and lean and wiry. He looked around – Sean’s room was a crime scene now – with observant eyes. His partner stayed by the basement door, listening to Sean’s halting description of what had occurred. The officer crouched, almost touching the broken lamp in an absentminded effort to right it.

“I am so sorry,” Sean heard himself say. “I tried to stop him. I did. It was just... impossible.” Prickles of tears threatened their appearance, and Sean sucked in some air and let it out in a long, ragged exhalation.

“Nobody could do nothing in a situation like that, son,” the officer said, his eyes taking in the trashed room. “How about you get dressed and we’ll take you to the hospital and then downtown to give a statement, all right?”

“I... I don’t need to go to the hospital. I am not hurt, not really.” Sean didn’t want to see anyone. Burning up in a toxic mixture of rage and shame, he just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Well, maybe not die – just sleep for three years, until all of this blew over.

“We need to check you for evidence, son. You might have the perp’s DNA on you, right? The hospital staff will collect it and make sure you’re unhurt, then you can come over to the station and tell us all you know. Then you can stay with friends.” The policeman’s keen eye took in the contents of Sean’s room. “I see you do some martial arts. Can you stay with your teacher?”

At the mention of his teacher, a sob wracked Sean’s body and he turned away, ashamed at his lapse of control. Burrows-sensei was in San Diego. Hell, Burrows-sensei was likely to be embarrassed for Sean’s failure to defend himself adequately. Had this happened to Burrows-sensei, there would’ve been a dead body on the floor, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be his teacher’s.

“I am the teacher,” he choked out. “I... I cannot stay with any of my students.” His students who looked up to him, who did everything he said, who almost idolized him. How would they feel when they found out about his fall from grace? “All these years of martial arts, y’know?” His words were barely discernible from an involuntary sob. “All for... for nothing.”

“Not for nothing,” the man in the uniform said. “You kept your head about you, didn’t you? You observed, you survived, and now you’ll help us get this sonovabitch. You stayed as calm as possible – you did everything you could have. Nobody could ask anything more of ya.”

Sean lifted his eyes to him as they both rose. “You think?” he asked, uncertain and eager at the same time.

“I see a lot in this line of work. You did good. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.”

The two residents on the third floor were roused, removed from their respective rooms, and interviewed. They had heard nothing. The cops crawled over the whole house. Sean’s room was now black with fingerprint powder, darkening his doorjambs and doorknobs. His cell phone was confiscated for fingerprinting.

The school’s security force arrived a lot slower than the police did, all mighty sore at Sean for calling the police over what was, according to them, “an internal matter.”

An older lady from the Dean’s Office – who could hardly keep the car going straight, not being accustomed to being woken up under such conditions – drove him to the hospital. “Terrible. Just terrible. And imagine what could have happened to you if you were a girl!”

“Yeah... I guess,” Sean answered automatically. Something about the statement did not sit right with him. He’d figure it out later.

“You weren’t doing anything provocative, were you? Were you standing by the window in your underwear?” Mrs. Curry seemed to have her own ideas on how other people got into “situations like these” and she wasn’t afraid to voice them.

He was mortified when the emergency room physician ordered a rape kit.

Dr. Verbosa was short and plump. Her hair was bound in a ponytail festooned with a silk scarf, and her dark eyes were kind and sympathetic as she examined his bruises and lacerations. “Here’s my card, Sean. Call me if you need to talk. This is difficult. Don’t let anyone talk you into believing this is your fault. Not anyone. Not ever.”

“But the woman from the dean’s office, Mrs. Curry, she said....”

“What did she say, Sean?” Dr. Verbosa asked mildly.

Sean told her.

“Don’t worry about Mrs. Curry. I’ll take care of her. Now, the technician, Alicia, will do the fingernail scraping and swab your mouth for DNA samples, and the police will take you to the station to take a statement from you. Then you’ll need to go somewhere safe for the rest of the night.” She looked at him, her gaze penetrating. “Do you have anywhere to go, Sean?”

He thought real hard. Most of his friends and classmates were gone for the Thanksgiving break. Asbjorn... he didn’t want to bother Asbjorn. Nell and Dud and little Stella were crowded into that tiny apartment of Nell’s, and he didn’t want to impose. Gino was a long drive off, and he’d never tell Casey what happened, even if she lived next door.

He cast his eyes to the floor, finding his shoes suddenly very interesting.

“I thought so. Sean, my husband is my best friend and a very, very good man. If I vouch for him and our daughter, would you feel comfortable accepting our hospitality?”

Sean paused, then nodded. “Thank you.”

Exhaustion fell on him as rage and humiliation fought his pride over the control of his tear ducts. He wanted to scream, to hit something, to cry. He’d never felt this utterly helpless, forced to do things, forced to accept the charity of strangers.

He felt quite insignificant.

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HE WAS DRESSED IN ILL-fitting clothes donated to the hospital because his night clothes entered chain of evidence along with his phone and his bedding.

The black-haired man with a weathered face who picked him up introduced himself as Ken Swift and looked vaguely familiar. Sean’s mind felt stressed and a bit fuzzy around the edges, and he was unsure whether the familiarity was real or just a figment of his imagination. Regardless, Dr. Verbosa’s husband drove him from the hospital back to his room. The police were gone now, and only the yellow crime scene tape that sealed his room bore evidence to their activity. 

“Just get what you’ll need. Your prints are all over the place anyway.”

“How do you know that, Ken?” He used the man’s first name, as instructed.

“I quit the police force a few years back. Don’t worry – I won’t let you get into too much trouble.”

After he got his duffel and backpack ready, Ken Swift drove him to the police station. They sat in a small interrogation room for maybe fifteen minutes, not talking. Two plain-clothes cops showed up – a short, blond guy chewing on an unlit cigar, followed in by an older, graying man with a swagger to his gait.

Their eyes met as recognition dawned along with astonishment. “Aren’t you Sean Gallaway?” the short guy asked, his eyes alight.

“Mark? From the Warehouse, right?” Sean hazarded a guess.

“Wait. Aren’t you that new kid with Asbjorn and Nell?” Ken asked. “Small world.”

Sean looked at his host again. “I thought you looked familiar.”

“Yeah. Think two weeks ago.”

Mark produced a cup of sweet coffee with creamer in it and two donuts. “Here. It’s not much – but it’s my standard treatment for recalcitrant witnesses such as yourself.”

Sean felt oddly touched by the offering, obediently tasting the cloying coffee and the fried, sugar-covered dough.

The graying detective coughed to get their attention. “I’m detective Hastings and this is sergeant Falwell’s first case as a plainclothes detective, so let’s get to work here. I’ll expect a regular statement from you guys. We can catch up on our extracurricular activities later.”

Sean stirred, hoping to wake up. If he just woke up and took his shower now, all of this would turn out to be just one very bad, very embarrassing dream.