Chapter 17 #2
Duncan shot him a warm look, drenched in the certainty that Spencer wouldn’t die on his knees in his own blood and piss. “I’ll get you out of here, ok? I promise.”
“Right…” Bitter.
“Can you believe in it? Just to hold. Not to collapse.”
Spencer sighed, drained. He scooted closer to the wall and leant against it. “Yes…”
Duncan’s eyes roamed him, his clothes, his hair, that mismatched haircut he had now with the right side all but gone. The hairpins hanging on some rogue threads…
“Can you scoot closer to me?”
Spencer looked at him. “Maybe…” Pushing on his knees, he scooted closer whilst Duncan did the same. Almost. The cuffs biting into their wrists when they got close.
Duncan smiled, leaning into his cuffs. “Closer…”
“I’m trying…”
Spencer pulled too, leaning towards him. A sigh of relief when Duncan just caught his lips in a soft kiss. Trembling, his tears spilling, he kissed him back, that wide kiss enough to give him some courage, some respite, his warm mouth haven after the room’s cold.
Duncan whispered against his lips. “Lean your head a bit forward.”
Spencer obeyed, and he felt his lips glide to his hair. Nibbling. Pulling away. Spencer looked at him, relaxing that pull on his wrists.
Duncan had one of his hair pins pinched between his lips. One pull of his tongue, and it disappeared in his mouth. A wink. “Sit back now and we wait a bit…”
Spencer nodded, sitting back, but being so far, even if just a few steps apart, was killing him.
Waiting, slumbering maybe, he could not tell, when the door opening jolted him awake. The man walked back in, holding two plates.
He put them down next to them. “Figure it out how you’ll eat without hands.
” Laughing a bit. “And here’s some water.
” He put two buckets down. “I hope you won’t make a mess.
As for your other needs, well, you can just shit and piss where you’re sitting.
I mean, that never killed anybody.” Laughing again.
“Well, see you in a few hours, I guess, with maybe good news? Who knows.” He left then, banging the door shut.
Spencer glanced at that bread roll with a piece of cheese on the plate, and that bucket of water. “How…”
Duncan pushed on his knees, lowering his head to the plate. “Like this…” Nibbling at the roll with his teeth, he bit chunks of it off, same with the cheese. Drinking then straight from the bucket like a horse. Heaven.
Spencer protested, revolted. “No way. I’m not an animal.”
“Technically you are though… Eat and drink. This is vital. More so when you’ll need to run.”
“Run... right… we’re going to die here. They’ll kill us!” Trembling again.
Duncan looked at him. “Hey! We won’t die. And they won’t kill us. Ok? Eat, please.”
Spencer obeyed, drenched in that mounting panic that he would die no matter what. Eating what he could, drinking, he felt better even if his shoulder was killing him now. He leant back, pale, weak, on the verge of fainting.
Duncan’s voice, soft. “You have to stay awake. Tune out the pain as much as you can.”
Spencer smiled, his eyes closed. “I’m not an ex-soldier like you… just a rich, spoiled brat.”
“Well, this self-confession could have come at a better time but I’ll take it.”
Spencer looked at him, at his grin. “If we ever get out of here, I’m stopping… the drinking… the…”
“Hold on to that thought, ok? Don’t make promises now on adrenaline and fear.”
“You made a promise too.”
“And I’ll make good on it, don’t worry.” Duncan softened his voice. “What you’ll see me do… I might do stuff you won’t ever forget in your life, and maybe, by the time we’re out of here, you won’t even want to be near me.”
Spencer’s heart raced. “Kill…”
Duncan flinched. “Yeah… I’m sure I’ll have to…”
“You killed before, so…”
“Not in front of you. Knowing that I did it won’t be the same as seeing me do it.” A small sadness in him that he would lose a piece of Spencer, no matter what. Maybe Spencer too.
“I don’t give a shit if it gets us out of here.”
Duncan just gave him a bitter smile, musing a bit, the food finding his blood.
He felt better, more focused, even if his shoulder was killing him, he pushed it back.
Not life-threatening, so it didn’t matter.
He fished the hair pin he had stashed near his lower gum out with his tongue, and spat it softly near his hands.
He couldn’t look back but searched with his fingers until he found it.
Straightening it, even if his wrists had rubbed raw and his fingers were numb, he managed to twist it into a make-shift lock pick.
“Now… If I manage to free us, you still have to pretend we’re tied up, ok?”
Spencer nodded, wild with fear. Watching Duncan twist his wrists around with great pain, trying to open his cuffs.
An eternity, until Spencer saw him pry them open, shake his wrists out as he brought his hands to the front. Those wrists lined with blood as he had cut them open trying to wriggle them free.
Grinning above that fatigue and pain. “Perfect…” He listened but there was silence on the other side of the door, so he slid to Spencer, leaning above him to open his cuffs too.
Spencer just leant on his shoulder, soaking in his scent, his warmth. Clutching at him when he felt his wrists being free.
Duncan laced his arms around that trembling body.
His lips on Spencer’s soaked neck. “We don’t have time.
Sit back and put your hands behind your back.
Don’t let them see that you’re free.” He pushed him away but still cupped his face, kissing him, wide.
Trying to soothe him, feeling him sob in his mouth.
Duncan wiped his tears off. “Please… it will be fine. I promised you.”
Spencer nodded, unable to talk and sat back, putting his hands behind his back whilst Duncan did the same. Closing his eyes too, Spencer wondered if he was catching some sleep.
He drifted off too, without the cuffs biting into his wrists.
The door.
Spencer jolted awake, watching the man step in. His heart had started pounding so hard he feared it could be heard in that small room.
Watching the man stand over Duncan. “How is everything?”
The rest, like a dream, or a nightmare. Spencer watched Duncan shoot to his feet, like a silent shadow, grabbing the man, his hands around the man’s head. A soft crack. Barely audible as that lifeless body collapsed on the ground.
Duncan took the knife off the man’s belt and stabbed it between his eyes. “Told you, pal…” Yanking the knife out, he found some keys on the man and a gun. He took them, and stepped to Spencer, pulling him up, that trembling body.
Spencer could barely breathe, in shock. Feeling Duncan’s heat, that soft whisper. “Follow me. Never stop, ok?”
Trying to process what he had seen, he felt faint and sick, that corpse at their feet. Wincing at the pain when Duncan grabbed his arm.
“Focus… ok? Just follow me.” Tugging him, hoping that the pain would jolt Spencer out of his trans.
A corridor outside, some sort of underground, maybe.
Duncan had no clue, hoping there were no cameras.
Hurrying down in it, under a few neon lights to a door.
Closed. He took the keyring, trying some keys.
Voices then as he opened it. Gun shots. He flung Spencer in front of him as the door opened onto dark woods.
Fortunately, the moon shone, and that birthing dawn light, so they could see somewhat. He pushed Spencer in the back.
“Run! Run, don’t look back!”
Spencer obeyed, gunshots tearing the night apart. Duncan firing back, maybe, but he could not see, drenched in panic.
Running into the woods, stumbling more than once as his clothes tore on branches and tree trunks.
Heaving, as he was not used to running at all, feeling Duncan behind him, pushing him in the back to help him.
More shots. Their labored breaths. Run, run.
Spencer was trying but his body was giving up. He sobbed, falling to his knees.
Duncan yanked him up, holding him tight. “Run! Don’t stop!”
“I… I can’t…”
A blast, but Duncan was behind him. Spencer fell with that weight ramming into his back.
Struggling under that warm body, he felt the blood in his neck before he realized it was Duncan on top of him.
No! No, no, no! Pushing at him, he flipped on his back, just to see Duncan roll on his back, ash white.
A large blood stain near his shoulder on top of his right chest. Shit! Spencer scrambled to sit, watching Duncan’s chest rise. Alive. That relief killed by a man stepping out from between the trees with a pistol.
“Give the fuck up, rich boy. Now that your dog is dead.”
Spencer’s eyes, wide on that man, on his gun. On what he had to do. He grabbed the gun from Duncan’s limp hand and aimed it at the man, his arms trembling.
A smirk as he walked closer. “You won’t kill me, you little useless shit…” A blast. His eyes wide as he staggered back.
Spencer scrambled to his feet, emptying the gun into that man on the ground. Squeezing the trigger until the gun clicked empty, over and over again. Going to his knees then to throw up, over and over again. Howling.
He flung the gun away, dead scared that Duncan had died.
Scrambling to him on all fours, he shook him as best as he could, slapping his face. “Wake up! Wake the fuck up!” Terror. That others would show. He grabbed Duncan’s shirt, hauling him up, shouting in his face as he sobbed. “Wake up! Please, please….”
Duncan blinked, sucking in air. He opened his eyes, straight into Spencer’s. Wild eyes, on the brink of losing it. He managed a few words. “It’s ok… let me go…”
Spencer laid him back down.
Duncan moaned at the pain in his shoulder. Shit. His lips trembling. “Take my shirt off, and lace it around the wound… tie it hard…”
Spencer obeyed, and Duncan whined softly as Spencer tied his shirt around his shoulder and arm, pulling hard. Duncan helped as Spencer’s strength wasn’t enough and sat up, trying to clear that nausea and reeling head.
“You… nobody came?” Blinking at Spencer’s face, his trembling lips, he looked around and spotted the corpse. Sitting up straighter, but Spencer grabbed his shoulder.
“He’s dead, that guy…”
Duncan looked at him, into those eyes haunted with a light he knew too well. Not Spencer’s cocky, mocking one filled with that insolent light. The one he had seen once when he had killed for the first time. Fuck…
He pulled Spencer close, hearing him break down crying. “You did great, ok? You saved our life…” Stroking his back, worried that they were wasting time, he pushed at him after a while. “We have to leave. Now.”
Spencer nodded, in a daze, and pulled him to his feet. Wobbling, holding on to each other, they could hear cars on a road invisible from the trees. Keeping that direction, they could climb up to a road.
Spencer made Duncan sit and started waving his hands around.
Bloodied, in his torn clothes, nobody stopped, the cars speeding past them in that waking morning traffic.
Until a larger truck took that climbing road, hauling logs.
A honk as the driver saw Spencer, his turning light blinking as he took the side of the road to stop the truck.
Spencer had started crying, but he pulled Duncan to his feet, limping to the truck. The driver had jumped out, hurrying to them. A large man in a lumberjack shirt and a large greying moustache.
“Hey… you’re hurt?”
Duncan grimaced, on the verge of fainting. “Call 911… and if you could ask them to pick us up. Is there… a kidnapping in the news?”
“Yeah, man,, it’s all over…” Looking at Spencer. “Oh! This is the young guy they’re looking for!”
Duncan smiled, bitter. “Alright… just make the call and drive us where they can pick us up.”
Spencer held him tight. “My family will be grateful… to you…”
“No need, young man. I’m happy to help.” He helped them climb up, driving away then.
Duncan leant against Spencer, closing his eyes, the adrenaline rush gone, that will to survive too as the pain flooded his body.
Feeling Spencer hold his hand tight, he wished he could comfort him, but his mouth had turned to ash, and he was drifting.
Clinging to his hand, still, to his breathing.
To his scent, his face buried in that soft hair.