Finding Zach (19 page)

But when he ran out of tears and was hanging limply on David’s bare shoulder, wrung out and aching, he was still there, still in one piece, still hurting. David was stroking his hair gently, his other arm tight around Zach’s waist. Zach lifted his head from David’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he rasped, his voice almost gone. “I’m so fucking sorry. I should have never come here, shouldn’t have done this to you, should have never fucking come back from fucking Venezuela.
God
, I wish I’d died there like I wanted to instead of coming back to fuck up people’s lives.”

“Jesus, Zach, what the hell?” David drew back in shock. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Zach said hurriedly, realizing he’d spoken aloud. “Nothing. I’m just babbling.”

“No, no,” David said. “Do you really feel that way? That you’ve fucked up people’s lives—my life, your parents’ lives, just because you aren’t
dead
?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a
moron
.”

Zach choked out a laugh. “Thanks. You always make me feel so much better.”

“Just telling the truth.” David leaned forward and rested his forehead against Zach’s.

“Look, dweeb, just because you fuck up occasionally—or in your case, constantly—doesn’t mean that people don’t love you or that they wish you were dead. Although it’s not infrequently that people wish you weren’t born, like me just a few minutes ago, asshole. But it doesn’t mean we don’t love you or that our lives were fucked up because something, God or fate or just blessed luck, brought you back to us alive. Fucked up, but alive. So shut the fuck up, apologize for being a dick, and come back to bed.”

Zach raised his head and looked at him wonderingly. “Just like that? Just like that you’re going to forgive me for being a complete soulless bastard?”

“No. But I’m going to give you the chance to earn my forgiveness. Shit. You’re still full of blood. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” David stood and tugged Zach to his feet. “I hit you pretty hard. I’m sorry about that—I hope I didn’t break your nose.”

“You didn’t. And besides, I deserved it.”

“Grovel a little more and I’ll start to believe you mean it,” David said, and fisted Zach’s T-shirt. “Get this off; it’s all gory.”

“I can’t.”

David stopped and drew back. Evenly he said, “You think I’ll put up with you fucking me and then taking off, but that I’ll go all girly at seeing your manly chest?”

“No,” Zach said, pulling his shirt back into place. “It’s just—scars, you know.”

“Yeah. It’s just scars.”

Zach shook his head. “No. You don’t get it.”

“Not so far.” David sighed. “I know you were flogged, Zach, and you have scars on your back. I’ve felt them when I touched you, and for them to be that noticeable, I know they’re bad. But I can deal with it. It breaks my heart that you were hurt like that, but….”

“It’s not the back,” Zach said. “It’s….” Then he realized it wasn’t something he could explain. “Fine. You asked for it.” He reached for the hem of the t-shirt and pulled it over his head.

“F
UCK
…”
David breathed. He’d expected scars, but this… this was unexpected, an ugly mass of scarring that completely covered Zach’s right pectoral muscle. Where the nipple should have been was a palm-sized knot of twisted tissue, purple and red and painful-looking. Other scars radiated out from the center, equally deep and violent, looking like a combination of cuts and burns. David swallowed hard.

“Yeah,” Zach said bitterly. “Esteban kept trying to break me. He beat me, but I kept fighting him. So he whipped me. I kept fighting. He broke my fucking fingers, and wrist, and ribs, but I kept fighting. Then he did this.” He indicated the scarring. “He broke me. I stopped fighting.”

David reached up and touched the knot of scar tissue at the center. “Zach,” he whispered, horrified.

“He used a knife. Dug the nipple out. It’s amazing, the amount of pain a person can tolerate without passing out. I
wish
I’d passed out. But I didn’t.” Zach’s voice was wooden, as if he were reciting a tale told about someone else. “He said if I kept fighting, he’d do it to my other one, and then my balls, and then my dick. I stopped fighting.”

“Jesus,” David said.

“It got infected; that’s why the scarring is so bad. They did something with cauterizing it or something. I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly on top of things by that point. All I know is that it looks like shit. And that’s not all.” He turned around. His back was a mass of raised welts and slashes, still red and twisted and ugly. Over his shoulder, he said, “That wasn’t a particularly accurate picture you drew, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” David said.

“No. Nobody does. Dick and Jane saw some of this at the hospital, but I make a point of not letting them see anything I can hide.” He turned back around and David saw more scars on his abdomen, leading down beneath the waistband of his jeans. He saw David looking and said, “Yeah, he was pretty… thorough. And besides, every once in a while I’d try to rebel, hoping that maybe I could get him to kill me, but he was too good at what he did. He knew just how far he could go without killing me. I should have expected it; he liked to torture people. So. Seen enough?”

David ignored the harsh tone in his voice, and laid a hand on Zach’s left breast, which was unmarked except a thin surgical scar curving around the bottom of the muscle. “What’s that from?” he asked.

“From when they fixed my ribs. They’d healed wrong, but when I got back to the States they were able to go in and fix them so I could breathe right again.” Zach shrugged. “Eventually I’ll probably have plastic surgery to clean up what can be fixed, but not yet. I’m kind of tired of being cut up, you know? It’s not like these have an expiration date.”

“No,” David said. He leaned forward and laid his lips right where Zach’s right nipple should have been. Zach said roughly, “I don’t have any nerves left there, you know, so it’s not like it’s gonna turn me on or anything.”

“I don’t care,” David replied. He moved his mouth, exploring the scars; they were rough against his lips and tongue and fingers. “Not everything is about sex, Zach.”

He felt more than heard Zach’s sharp intake of breath and looked up to see a strangely vulnerable look on his face. “Seriously. Now come on and let me clean you up, then I’ll find a T-shirt for you so you don’t feel so exposed, if that’s what you want.”

Zach let David lead him into the bathroom and sat obediently on the closed toilet seat. David ran water on a washcloth and wiped the blood from his face, then said, “Do you want to take a shower?”

At Zach’s headshake, he said, “Do you mind if I do? You won’t sneak out while I’m in there?”

Again, Zach shook his head. David turned the shower on and climbed in for the fastest shower he’d ever taken, just sluicing the blood and sweat and come off. He heard Zach running the water and figured he was taking the opportunity to wash up without David watching, but when he turned off the shower and reached for a towel, Zach was back sitting on the toilet. His T-shirt was spread out on the tank, obviously rinsed and wrung out, and the scars on his chest and belly glittered water, testimony to his hasty cleanup. “I was tempted to flush just to hear you scream, but then I remembered your mom is sleeping,” Zach said solemnly.

“Wise decision, grasshopper,” David said, and toweled himself dry before tossing the towel to Zach for him to use. “Come on, let’s find you a clean T-shirt, and get some sleep.”

“Huh?” Zach frowned.

“Well, I’m too wrung out for sex again, and you look like you’re ready to drop, so I figured we can catch some shut-eye. Mom will wake us at six when she heads out; that’ll get you back to your Army buddy before breakfast. I take it our run will be cancelled this morning?”

Zach, still a little confused, followed him out of the bathroom. It was so easy to fall back into the way their relationship had been years ago, with David as the leader and Zach his adoring follower, despite David being shorter and slighter than Zach now, or having let Zach fuck him. Well, that was the difference, wasn’t it? David had
let
him fuck him. David was still in charge, would always be in charge. Zach didn’t know quite how he felt about that. For the last two years, he’d been something of a control freak—make that
totally
a control freak. Why was he so willing to give up control to David now?

Answers didn’t come to him, but he was tired, and took the T-shirt David handed him and pulled it on obediently; then David pulled off the damp quilt, and he crawled onto the warm sheets, laid his head on David’s abdomen, and went to sleep.

Chapter 14

A
NNIE
’
S
cell phone rang as she was making her bed; she glanced at the clock, frowning. It was five-thirty and she usually didn’t get to the main house until about six, but maybe Jane needed something. She picked up the phone. Yep, it was Jane. “Hey, Jenny, what’s—”

“Zach’s gone,” Jane gasped. “He’s not in his apartment, and Andrew says he hasn’t left the compound, but he’s not there and he’s not in the gym, and—”

“Calm down, Jenny,” Annie said. “Did you check with his guest?”

“Yes, Mike’s here, he’s up and in the pool, that’s why I went to see if Zach was up but he’s not there.”

“I got that,” Annie said. “David’s not down yet—he usually gets up before me—maybe he and Zach went running early. I’ll check and see if he’s gone, and if so, that’s where Zach is. Calm down, Jenny. He’s not going to do anything stupid.”

“I worry about him drinking when he’s on all those meds,” Jenny said frantically. “He’s not supposed to drink but he does anyway, and God knows what they can do to him and it makes me crazy.”

“Calm down,” Annie said again. “I’ll run up and see if David’s there. I’ll call you right back.” She closed the phone and went to the stairs, listening. It was true what she’d said about David getting up before her—he’d always been a morning person and it wasn’t unusual for him to be in the kitchen frying eggs and making coffee when she stumbled down the hall from the master bedroom. He was usually up by now, but maybe since Zach had company they’d gone running earlier. There was no sound from upstairs, so she went up and knocked lightly on David’s closed door. When he didn’t answer, she opened the door and peeked inside.

David was still asleep, propped up half-sitting on a stack of pillows, as was Zach, who was crammed in next to him on the narrow bed, his head on David’s stomach, one arm thrown over his hips. Zach was fully dressed in his usual jeans and t-shirt except for shoes; one of his white gym socks had a hole in the heel. David had on the Warner Brothers’ Marvin the Martian pajama bottoms his sister Alison had given him for Christmas.

Or at least she’d thought David was asleep until she saw his fingers gently stroking Zach’s hair. “Davey?” she whispered.

He turned his head to smile sleepily at her. “Hey, Mom. Sorry I overslept.”

“No, honey, that’s okay. Jane just called. Their guest is up and she went to look for Zach and panicked when he wasn’t in his apartment. I thought maybe you two had gone running early today, but thought I’d check.”

“It’s okay. Zach came by late last night and we got to talking. He fell asleep.”

“I see that. I’ll let Jane know, but have Zach call her when he wakes up. She’s so frightened for him, Davey.”

“I know. He’s kind of messed up. But he’s still Zach inside, you know?”

“I hope so, honey.” She hesitated a moment. There was a softness in his face that hadn’t been there yesterday, a dreaminess in his eyes that was more than just mere sleepiness. “Honey,” she said, her heart in her throat, “be careful with him.”

He said in surprise, “I’d never hurt him, Mom!”

“He’s not the one I’m worried about getting hurt, Davey.” She leaned on the doorframe and cocked her head quizzically. “I love him nearly as much as I love you and Alison and Sandy, but Davey, he’s still on the way back and has a long way to go. I don’t want to see your heart get trampled.”

“I know, Mom. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I know I want him to be happy at the end of it. That’ll be enough for me.”

“Will it, Davey?” she asked dryly. “It’s easy to say stuff like that at the beginning of a relationship, but a lot harder at the end.”

“I don’t know if this is a relationship or anything. It’s just—well, it’s just me and Zach. I’m not making any assumptions.” He looked down at Zach, his fingers moving over the dark velvety nap over his skull. “I’m not asking for anything.”

“I just want you to be careful,” Annie said.

“I’ll be as careful as I can be.”

“That’s not much of a promise.”

He shook his head. “It’s what I can give right now. We’ll see.”

“I suppose that will do. I’ll call Jane and tell her Zach’s here and that he’ll call her when he wakes up. I made coffee, and there are sweet rolls in the freezer if you want something to eat when you get around to it.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Hmm,” Annie said, and closed the door quietly behind her.