He was standing in front of the sink. I could relax a little now. He must have been the one who tucked me under the blankets and folded one under my head. But had he gotten me dressed? I feared that was Breath. That those vile, repulsive fingers had grazed my skin while he slipped my clothes back on. I was worried his fingers weren’t the only things that had touched me…or dropped on me.
“What happened to you?” I asked Garin, waiting for him to finish so that I could wash my body. “Where did they take you? How long have we been back?”
He said nothing. He didn’t even look in my direction. He just moved his hands under the water.
“Garin?”
He still didn’t answer, so I rushed over to him and grabbed his shoulders, trying to turn him around. The burns and cuts on my wrists stung, but I ignored the pain. I needed to find out what was wrong with him. He wouldn’t budge.
“Show me your face.”
“Why don’t you go lie back down? They gave you some heavy drugs and—”
“Show me!”
“Kyle, I don’t want to scare you.”
“It’s way too late for that.” He still didn’t move, so I dipped underneath his arm and squeezed myself into the tiny space between his body and the sink. “Oh my God.” I did everything I could not to cringe at the sight of him.
He had bruises everywhere. There wasn’t a section of skin that wasn’t darkened to some shade of purple. I couldn’t tell if the imprints on his cheeks were from someone’s fist or the sole of a boot. There were open cuts around his eyes and forehead, dried blood surrounding every one. There was a scrape by his lip. Gashes ran the length of his throat. The wound by his ear looked like it was becoming infected.
“What did they do to you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re right. You’re alive, but…” I remembered the fear that had crippled me when Breath made me listen to Garin’s whispers. “I thought…” My voice trailed off, unable to finish.
“You thought they killed me?”
I nodded.
“They wanted to.”
I touched the sides of his face gently. “How could they hurt this?”
I brushed my fingers over the bruises, staying clear of the cuts so that I wouldn’t dirty them. There were more than I thought. Some were even hidden in the thickness of his beard, which had grown so much since we’d been in here. He didn’t make a sound the whole time. He didn’t even wince.
“Let me clean it for you.”
“You don’t have to.”
The guilt was almost unbearable. All of this had happened because of me. I owed him much more than just the cleaning of his skin.
“I want to.”
I grabbed several squares of toilet paper, soaked them under the faucet, and gently rubbed the clump across his chin. I was only able to get off a tiny bit of blood before he grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“Stop. Just leave it.”
I could tell how much pain he was in. He just didn’t want to admit it. And even though I was trying to be so careful, I was hurting him. So, I got up and flushed the toilet paper, watching it swirl around the rusty bowl before it disappeared down the hole.
The next time we were taken, would he return to the cell at all? Would I?
I hadn’t asked Breath the correct question. What if I was only given so many chances to get it right?
“What did they do to you?” he asked, holding my hands, palm up, rubbing his thumbs across each mark.
There wasn’t any blood on my wrists. I suspected that was because Garin had cleaned them while I slept.
What if this was our last moment together? The last time he’d ever touch me?
When I didn’t answer, he picked me up and rushed me over to our bed, covering me in a blanket. “You’re shaking.”
He was right. My entire body was convulsing, my teeth chattering. I didn’t know how the fear would ever leave me, how I would ever stop trembling with these thoughts in my head.
“Tell me what happened to you, Kyle.”
As I tucked the blanket under my chin, he found his way underneath it and ran his hands over my legs to try and warm them. He never stopped touching me, not even when my shaking calmed a little or when I described everything that had happened—at least the bits I could remember before Breath had stuck a needle in my arm.
“He didn’t rape you,” he said through gritted teeth. “Are you sure?”
I crossed my legs, squeezing my thighs together. Once again, I searched for that familiar soreness that came after sex. “Yes. I’m positive.”
The relief was in his face and in his touch. “They’re prepping you.”
“For what?”
“So, when they ask you, you’ll give them what they want. It’s a mind game. They’re trying to break you, weaken you through fear.” As he paused, it felt like he was looking through my eyes, straight into my soul. “They’re getting to you. I can feel it.”
Every tremor in my body told me Garin was right.
Breath knew I cared about Garin. I had to believe that was why he was in here with me. Now, those feelings were being used against me.
Garin’s whispers,
“Kyle…Kyle…Kyle…”
were all I could hear.
His bruises were all I could see.
Breath was torturing me. Again.
“Was it Beard who hurt you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “There were two guys. I didn’t recognize either of them.”
That meant there were at least four men holding us captive. The more men, the less chance we had of escaping this prison.
“Did they ask you anything?”
It took him a minute to answer. “No.”
I couldn’t tell if he was being honest or telling me what he thought I could handle. Garin was a protector, so it didn’t surprise me that I was getting very few details.
“Then, why did they hurt you? Just because?”
“They can beat me and torture me all they want. I can take it. They’re not going to break me, Kyle.”
I stared at his cuts, at the bruises, at the gash on his throat. He was trying to hide the pain he was in by acting unfazed by it all. Dealing drugs on the streets, running the casino in Vegas, working with the bosses—it had all prepared him for this…whatever
this
was.
I wasn’t used to this at all—not the torture or the threats. Not the uninvited touching.
Not someone coming on me.
My whole body shook as I thought about Breath’s cum.
“What is it that they want?” I had asked him that so many times before. I doubted this would be the last time either.
“I don’t know.”
I looked up at the window, wondering what I would see on the other side of it. Was there such a thing as normal beyond the bars of this cell? What was my brother doing right now? My employees?
“What’s the date?”
I was sure Beard or Breath or some other bastard had our cell phones and had texted a lie to our employees, so they wouldn’t be worried and call the police. They’d probably sent the same message to my mom and Anthony. My mom and I weren’t close at all. She lived on the other side of Tampa, and we barely saw each other. That was just the way things had worked out after she’d gone to rehab and moved to Florida. But Anthony called me every day. I really wondered how he was handling my absence and who he was trying to strangle to find where I was.
“The funeral was on the twelfth,” he said. “So, maybe it’s the fifteenth or sixteenth. I don’t know how long we’ve been in here.”
On the first, Anthony would be making his drive down to Florida. If I wasn’t home, if he didn’t talk to me before then, he’d start looking for me, if he hadn’t already. And he wouldn’t stop until he found me.
“We just have to hang on a little longer,” I said.
“You’ve got a plan?”
“They have until the first. Then, things will get interesting.”
Twelve
Garin
T
welve Years Ago
I waited for Kyle in the alley. She didn’t know I was here, but I knew she’d pass me because this was the route she took to get home from school. I used to walk it with her every day. But since Paulie’s death, she walked home without me. She’d run right out of that fucking schoolyard before I even got a chance to get to her locker.
But not today. Today, she was going to walk with me. I’d skipped my last few periods, so I’d be here when she strolled by. So, I could join her, and things could go back to the way they used to be because things were all fucked-up now. I’d bang on her front door; she wouldn’t answer. I’d call her place; she wouldn’t pick up. I’d wait outside her class; she’d walk the other way.
Something was wrong, and I was going to find out what it was.
I heard her humming as she came down the street. She hummed when she drew, and she hummed in the shower. I’d hear her from outside the bathroom when I’d wait for her in her room. I’d poke my head out of the doorway just so I could hear her. And I’d hope she’d open the door just a crack to let out some of the steam, and by chance, I’d catch a glimpse of her in her towel. It had happened a few times but not enough.
At least now I knew what her body felt like since we’d hooked up in my room the other night. Shit, that needed to happen again real soon. Maybe even tonight, and I wouldn’t make her go home. I didn’t know if I could have her spend the whole night without getting her naked, but I’d try.
Her humming got louder the closer she got, and when I finally saw her foot step across the entrance of the alley, I grabbed her waist and pulled her inside, pushing her back against the building.
“Ow!” she screamed, flailing her arms, her legs trying to kick me in the shins.
“Kyle, it’s me.” I grabbed her hands, and she stilled.
“Garin? What the hell? What are you doing? I thought—oh God, I thought you were going to hurt me.”
“Sorry.” I should have planned this better, and I probably shouldn’t have scared her. I was just afraid she’d run the other way if she saw me. “But you wouldn’t talk to me, so you gave me no other choice.”
“Let me go.”
“No, Kyle. Not until you talk to me.”
Her chest pumped real hard, as though she were trying to catch her breath, but she was breathing just fine. Her eyes were just a little watery. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know why you’ve been avoiding me and why you haven’t been answering your door and why you’ve been acting so different since Paulie was killed.”
Her eyes started to really fill up, and her chin was quivering. “I can’t do this. Let me go.”
She tried wiggling out of my grip, and it only made me hold her tighter.
“What is wrong with you?”
“I need time.”
She was crying now, tears running down her cheeks. I just wanted to wipe them away, brush all the hair out of her face, straighten her jacket, and tuck it up under her chin, so she’d stop shaking. But if I let her go, I feared she’d take off running.
“I need time,” she repeated. “You need to give me that.”
“Time? Are you upset about Paulie? What is this about?”
When Paulie was killed, Kyle and I had both lost a friend. We’d known Paulie as long as we’d known each other. We’d grown up with him. At times, we hung out with him as much as we hung out with Billy. I knew Paulie meant a lot to Kyle. Shit, he meant a lot to all of us.
But she needed time? For what?
Nah, I didn’t believe that. Something else was going on here. She just wasn’t telling me what it was.
“It’s too much,” she said. “All of this is too much.”
She stopped looking at me, and her head now pointed toward the ground. I saw the tears dripping down the front of her jacket. She was pushing her back against the wall, holding herself as far away from me as she could.
“Kyle?” I softened my voice, hoping it would make a difference. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
She finally looked up, but her expression had changed. She looked pissed off and irritated—a look I didn’t see from her all that often. And, even though her cheeks were wet, she had stopped crying. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Us. This. All of it. You need to give me a break, Garin.” The tone of her voice was the same one she used when she spoke about her ma, and she and her ma didn’t get along at all.
“Kyle, what the fuck are you saying? You’re done with me?”
“I’m asking you to get your hands off me and respect the space I need.”
I kept my hands on her wrists, waiting for her to change her mind, for the look on her face to lighten, for the tears to return.
None of that happened.
She wanted nothing to do with me?
She’d change her mind. The second I let her go, she’d take it all back, and we’d walk home together. She’d ask me to kiss her like I had the other night, and all would be good again.
I lifted my hands and waited.
With her eyes still pointed toward the ground, she pushed herself off the brick wall and said, “Good-bye, Garin,” as she passed me.
My mouth opened, and not one fucking thing came out of it. I watched her walk out of the alley, turn at the sidewalk, and head toward her place in The Heart.
I didn’t move because she was going to come back. She was going to rush into my arms and kiss me, and this whole thing would be behind us.
She was going to come any second.
So, I waited.
I waited until it turned dark. I waited until the streetlamps flickered on.
I waited until I knew she wasn’t coming back.
And then I ran to Billy’s apartment. I didn’t talk about Kyle to anyone. She wasn’t just some girl I fucked in the bathroom behind the gym or some chick who gave me a blow job in between English and Trig. Kyle was my best friend. She was the girl I’d cared about my whole life. The one I wanted to take things slow with when I’d never taken things slow with anyone before.
“Quit the racket, will ya?” Billy’s ma shouted when I banged on their front door. “He’s upstairs, for fuck’s sake.”
I took the stairs two at a time and burst through Billy’s bedroom door without knocking. He was on his bed, his shirt off, lying in just a pair of ripped boxers. His belt was tied around his bicep, and there was a tarred-up spoon and needle right next to him. His head was leaning back against the wall, a line of drool coming out of the corner of his mouth.
“Billy,” I said, standing beside the bed. I shouted his name again when he didn’t answer, shaking the arm that wasn’t being squeezed by the belt.