Chapter Thirteen

Breaking News

“TILT IT DOWN a little.” Vincent sat on the floor in the hallway. The image on his phone shifted from the wall across from their apartment door to James, who stood on a chair in the doorway, staring up at the camera he held in place. His eyes glowed white in the footage. Like some sort of phantom or ghost.

“I think that’s good.” Vincent pocketed his phone and handed James a screwdriver. His ribs whimpered from the movement. They’d been even sorer since his fall. He gritted his teeth and passed the screws up to James as he needed them. After three sleepless nights, momentary pain was well worth the relief of having a security camera that streamed a live feed of the front door to his phone.

Soon, he wouldn’t need to wonder whether the sound he heard in the dead of night was or wasn’t anything; he could just check the feed and go back to sleep. Hopefully, James would get some sleep too. Between Vincent’s drive home from the store and their catastrophic reunion with Sam and Tyler, they’d both spent most nights lying awake in bed, too stubborn to get up and put on the coffee until the morning light came in through the bedroom windows.

James finished turning the last screw and got off the chair. An alert appeared on Vincent’s phone to inform him that motion was detected in the range of the camera. He opened the app that came with the camera, and a still image of James, pulling the chair inside, appeared on his screen. He went to the live feed, where there was nothing except their welcome mat.

He could be lying in bed right now and know for sure that the commotion was nothing more than James. The relief was so immediate he might have kissed the camera if he could reach it. For the longest time, they’d been reacting to what happened to them, but for once, they were being proactive. Whether or not they were home, they’d have a set of eyes on the only door in or out of their apartment.

Vincent shut and locked the door behind them before he followed James into the kitchen. “Want to see the fruits of your labor?”

James pushed the chair in at the kitchen table. “Okay.”

He sounded about as enthused as the welcome mat.

Vincent presented his phone to James. No “oh?” or “nice” or anything of the sort. There wasn’t even a flicker of relief in his eyes. He just mumbled something along the lines of “hm” and went back to adjusting the chair.

For an awful moment, Vincent wanted to grab James and shake him until he broke free from whatever had taken hold of him. Scream. Cry. Do something to snap him out of it. He’d give anything to see those eyes focus on him. See that stone face move. James’s best friend refused to believe he was alive, and her boyfriend had pulled a gun on him, and James hadn’t done more than bat an eye. Not even staring down the barrel of a gun had jolted him awake. He just walked toward the gun like he was some sort of superhero. Like he couldn’t care less whether he died and left Vincent alone in the world.

Vincent rested his chin on James’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” James said distantly.

In some dark recess of Vincent’s mind where he’d tried and failed to stash them away, Tyler’s words resurfaced: Something’s wrong with him or it or whatever that is.

Vincent didn’t know why. His words were so clearly bullshit, spoken by an asshole who’d sooner pull a gun on a friend than celebrate that he was alive. James might have lifted him into the air and dropped him, but he’d thought that Tyler had attacked Vincent, and after what they’d been through in that tunnel, you could hardly blame James for being overprotective. And people were capable of all sorts of miraculous strength when they feared for the lives of their loved ones. Mothers pulled cars off their children and whatnot. No, Tyler’s words were nothing more than a reminder of how little he and Sam cared about James.

There was no denying James was different from the man who’d jogged into Schenley Park, but that wasn’t because of some nefarious plot. James had faced death. He’d spent three weeks alone during which who knew what did and didn’t happen to him. James wasn’t gone. He was just lost somewhere inside himself.

And those three weeks are the key to getting him back.

Vincent hadn’t gone near the subject in days—trying to give James some time to process everything that had happened with Sam and Tyler—but the longer he avoided it, the longer James would suffer.

Vincent stepped back from him. “You hungry?”

“Are you?”

“I could eat. How about I whip us up some sandwiches for dinner, you find something to watch on TV, and we can just cuddle and talk?”

Hardly a subtle proposition, but James didn’t seem to find it all that strange. He just said, “Okay,” and headed into the living room.

Vincent made two turkey sandwiches. He went light on the meat and cheese in the hope of stretching their supplies a little further. Once he’d smashed the halves of each sandwich together, he cut them in fours—like his mother used to when he was a child. He remembered asking her why she did it at one point or another, and she just laughed and explained, “They’re much fancier looking, aren’t they?”

They are, he supposed.

He didn’t know why he could remember stupid shit like that while the sound of her voice and the smell of her favorite perfume were lost to the endless march of time. He stopped himself. Now was not the time to fall down that rabbit hole. Not while James was in this state.

They sat down on the couch to eat as the evening news came on. James hadn’t changed the channel since last night. Apparently, it had been a slow news day. The first story concerned the red stars on school bus taillights and how some Christian organizations thought they were inappropriate and satanic in nature.

Vincent turned his attention to James. He’d hardly touched his sandwich. Not that he ate much of anything these days. With the curtains drawn shut, the lights from the TV gave his eyes that same ghostly look as before. Vincent set his plate down and curled up next to him. “Whatcha thinking about?”

James tore his gaze away from the TV. “Nothing. Why?”

Something about his blank expression and parted lips seemed so innocent and childlike that Vincent felt the sudden urge to shield him from the horrors they’d experienced. Hug him and kiss him and never go near the dreadful few weeks they’d spent apart.

But, he reminded himself, this isn’t James.

Right now, he was little more than a shell. And the silence that had filled the apartment since their reunion had already become unbearable. He couldn’t keep creating excuses. It was time to rip off the Band-Aid and hope the wound beneath it wasn’t as bad as he thought.

He took James’s hand and interlocked their fingers. “You know what I’ve been wondering?”

James watched their hands. “Hm?

“Well, when I was in the hospital—and when I went back to Butler. What were you up to? I know you said everything was hazy, but don’t you remember anything more specific? I mean, I thought I saw you in the hospital lobby when I was leaving, and I don’t even know if I did or if I was just seeing things.”

James’s grip tightened.

Silence.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay,” Vincent said without thinking. Shit. He’d given James an out before he’d even given him a chance to respond. Quickly, he added, “I just think it might help you. Help us. To talk about it.”

James sat there for some time. Just when Vincent expected him to shut down again, he said, “I was…trying to get back to you.”

James pulled him into a hug. He shook in Vincent’s arms like he was silently crying.

Vincent rubbed his back. He wished he could do something to help him, but James wasn’t ready to broach the subject. And forcing him to talk about what had happened before that time came would only hurt him more. All Vincent could do was be there for him.

Vincent breathed through the stinging pressure of James on his chest. With each short, pained breath, a faint, unpleasant smell infiltrated his nostrils. Soon, he recognized it as one of decay. They’d already scrubbed the apartment down twice, and yet, it lingered. They’d have to comb through the fridge and cabinets again, and, if nothing else, hope that a third round of cleaning would rid them of the stench.

On TV, the devilish school buses had given way to a story about a kitten who’d protected a sleeping woman from an intruder. Then, the picture faded to blue and “Breaking News” flashed on the screen in silver lettering. A video of the Allegheny River appeared with a line of text across it that read, “Breaking News: Missing Student Found.”

Vincent grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.

The screen cut to a news anchor who had his hands folded on a desk. “Missing undergraduate student from the University of Pittsburgh, twenty-three-year-old Damien Wright, was found in the Allegheny River earlier this afternoon. Wright, last seen at Cruze Bar, was missing for over a month. This afternoon, Pittsburgh Police Assistant Chief Laura Anderson held a press conference to discuss the case and the ongoing investigation.”

Vincent dropped the remote. It clattered on the hardwood. James got off him to see what was going on, but the weight on his chest remained. Damien Wright. He’d been missing for a week before his talk with Dr. Cowart. And during that meeting, his professor had asked him about Damien missing class. With everything else going on, he’d forgotten all about it, but—oh God—Damien had been gone all this time. And now, he was found floating in the Allegheny River.

Vincent tried to focus on the TV. A Black woman with angular features stood at a podium in front of a sea of reporters. In a controlled monotone, she said, “The person recovered from the water was identified as Damien Wright by way of physical evidence by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office. Until their examination is completed, additional information concerning this death investigation cannot be released. I would like to express my sincere condolences to the Wright family. At this time, I can open up to questions. Keep in mind that what we can tell you is limited at the moment.”

“Can you comment on whether or not there was any sort of trauma to the body?” asked a reporter off-screen.

“Not at this time.”

A reporter directly in front of the podium waved his hand. “Do you suspect that alcohol was involved in what happened?”

The police assistant chief sighed. “Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office is examining Damien, and we will get additional information after that examination has concluded.”

“Is there any reason to believe this is related to the attack in Schenley Park a week after his disappearance?” another reporter asked.

“Not at this time, no.”

Someone off-screen thanked everyone and informed them they wouldn’t be taking any more questions at this time. The news anchor returned. He said something about the story—Vincent heard him, but the words turned to garbled sounds in his mind—before transitioning to the local weather report.

Vincent stared at the TV, trying to manage all the new information that attacked his mind. Damien Wright, another gay Pitt student, a nerdy kid who Vincent had slept with a few times freshman year, dead in the Allegheny River. He’d disappeared a week before they’d been attacked. They hadn’t examined his body yet, but there were too many details aligning for mere coincidence.

Vincent felt dizzy. The meteorologist spoke too loud and too fast for Vincent to understand him. The Doppler weather radar map behind him looked more like a terrifying impressionistic painting, yellow and green tentacles squirming across the screen.

James grabbed his unsteady hand. “You okay?”

Vincent had almost forgotten he was beside him. “I don’t know. I just…don’t know.”

James scooted closer. “What can I do to help?”

“It’s too similar, isn’t it?” Their attackers had wanted to cleanse the world of people like them, and Damien Wright was dead.

James fell silent, perhaps trying to think of another explanation that wasn’t so terrible. Finally, he admitted, “It is.”

“If Damien Wright was murdered…” Vincent’s thoughts raced too fast for his mouth to keep up. Then, well, they probably weren’t the first victims to look down the barrel of the tall man’s gun. They were just the only ones lucky enough to survive these fuckers. And with the police tying the crimes to Pitt students and their attackers evading discovery… “We aren’t the only ones in danger.”

He didn’t know what to do, but he felt like he needed to do something. He couldn’t just sit there. And yet, he was pretty sure that if he tried to stand up now, he’d faint. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He answered it without even thinking.

“Vincent?” said a familiar voice he couldn’t place.

“Yeah?”

“This is Detective Ralbovsky. We’d like you to come in to take a look at some more photographs tomorrow if you can. Say around two or three?”

Vincent straightened up on the couch. “Ah. Okay. Two works for me.”

“See you then.” Ralbovsky hung up.

“Who was it?” James asked.

Vincent set his phone down. “The police.”

The call had been so short he hadn’t even thought of asking Ralbovsky about Damien Wright until now. Surely, the detectives couldn’t chalk all of this up to them being Pitt students any longer. Not when another gay man had disappeared two days before they’d been attacked.

Then again, they were all Pitt students, and he wouldn’t put it past Ralbovsky and Tillman to cling to that idiotic theory like a drowning man grasping at straws. The thought that they’d dismiss what had happened to him and James, what had happened to Damien—sweet, goofy Damien—was too infuriating to even consider.

No, they had to be smarter than that. He needed to relax. As far as he knew, the detectives might’ve narrowed down the suspect list based on something relating to Damien, and that’s why they wanted him to come in to look at photographs. A perfectly reasonable possibility that, given his previous interactions with the detectives, was unlikely.

For better or worse, he’d know by tomorrow afternoon.