CHAPTER 14 A FLEETING REPRIEVE
The darkness coiled around him, squeezing, forcing the air from his lungs…
yet he continued to breathe… each breath a molten blade piercing his chest. Still, he breathed—each inhale an agonizing reminder that he couldn’t go back there, to that nightmare where Maddy was gone, ripped from the world with a violence Angel had tried so hard to protect him from.
But he hadn’t been strong enough to save him, not this time.
Angel succumbed to the darkness, feeling a kind of relief in letting it take him. Somewhere outside the dark void, he could still hear voices, but no longer make out the words. He felt hands touching him, but couldn’t respond if he’d wanted to.
Dane held him; he sensed it from across the vast void separating them. His heart cried for his husband, for his comfort, his love—for his pain—but he couldn’t go back to him, couldn’t return to that place of horror.
I’m sorry, Dane… I’m so sorry…
He felt Dane’s arms around him again, holding tighter this time, his breath warm on his ear as he spoke to him in muffled, broken words, indecipherable from Angel’s side of the void.
Maddy. The name floated across the expanse, barely audible, and Angel recoiled, drawing further away as if the name itself carried with it a destructive force, a deadly explosive that, upon contact, would detonate and blow Angel to smithereens.
Maddy.
Angel curled into himself, the anguish gripping his body, mind, and soul—pulling him apart, fiber by fiber. Please stop, his tortured soul wailed into the abyss. Please stop saying his name… please… it hurts too much… please…
For a fleeting moment, there was silence, as if his husband had heard his anguished plea and granted him mercy. Then…
Maddy…
Angel cried and tried to close his ears.
… isn’t gone.
His soul stilled… then shuddered.
That isn’t his body.
Angel trembled.
The bodies… it isn’t Maddy and Savannah.
It was an evil hoax, the sadistic nightmare forging a cruel joke, menacingly luring him back. Angel resisted the pull, fighting the unmerciful lie, until he was crying out loud, physically struggling against hands grabbing at him.
“ Angel! Baby!” Dane’s desperate voice cut through the panic and terror, and suddenly Angel was caught in a vice—his husband’s arms— held tightly against the man’s warm, strong body.
“No…” Angel whimpered, sobbing, trying to pull free, but the arms held him, unrelenting. “No… let me go… I don’t want to be here… please… just let me… disappear…”
“No,” Dane cried against his hair. “No, I’ll never let you go.” His arms loosened, and he cupped Angel’s face. “Look at me, baby. Open your eyes and look at me.”
Angel shook his head; if he opened his eyes, he would be back there… and he couldn’t escape again.
“Come on, baby, come back to me.” Devlin stroked Abel’s tear-streaked face as the boy stared vacantly through him.
“Please, baby… come back… Savannah needs you. I need you.” He kissed his face and pressed his head to Abel’s brow.
“She isn’t gone, baby. That young girl’s body…
it wasn’t Savannah. She’s still here, Abel. Come back to us, baby, please.”
Cole approached, shock still etched across his face. Devlin broke down, trembling and sobbing. Cole sank next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
“I can’t get to him,” Devlin whispered, shaking. “I-I can’t…”
Cole hugged him, kissing his head. “Let me try.” He took Abel’s hands. “Abel, baby, it’s Cole. You need to hear me. Savannah, she… she isn’t dead. That wasn’t her body. You need to come back to us.”
Tears formed fresh in the boy’s eyes and spilled down his face, but his eyes remained fixed on some distant point neither of the men could see.
“Abel,” Cole spoke more firmly and gripped the boy’s shoulder. “ Abel.” He shook him once, with just enough force to jolt the young man’s body.
A shudder rippled through Abel, and his eyelids fluttered, his eyes slowly focusing on the men. For a moment, he still didn’t seem to be there , staring at them as if they were total strangers.
“Abel.” Cole stroked his thumb over the boy’s cheek.
Abel blinked slowly, then again, as recognition seeped into his eyes. His chin trembled, and he sagged into Cole’s arms, breaking into sobs. Devlin stroked his hair and kissed his head.
“Baby,” Devlin whispered, his voice shaking. “Baby… those bodies… they weren’t Savannah and Maddy.”
Abel trembled and went still. He raised his head slowly and looked at Devlin. “What…?”
“It’s true,” Cole murmured, kissing his face. “It isn’t them.”
Abel’s face crumpled, tears flooding. “Are you… are you… sure?”
“Yes.” Devlin swallowed, nodding. Abel grabbed onto him, clinging with all his might, and broke down, his young body straining beneath the force of his sobs.
Angel squeezed his eyes shut, his body shaking with sobs, refusing to look at Dane, refusing to come back fully—too terrified of what was waiting for him.
“Angel,” Dane pleaded as he held his husband’s face. “Baby, open your eyes, look at me… Maddy isn’t gone… that wasn’t his body.” He gripped Angel’s head and cried, “ Maddy isn’t dead.”
A small spasm jerked through Angel… and his eyes slowly opened, releasing a torrent of tears. He stared at Dane, slightly disoriented, fear resonating through his stare. “Dane…” he whispered with a tremor. “What… Maddy…”
Dane shuddered with relief and hugged the young man, sobbing against his shoulder. “Baby,” he choked. “Maddy… it wasn’t him… it-it wasn’t Savannah.”
“What…?” Angel trembled hard as he struggled to comprehend his words. “That…” His watery eyes darted to the tree. “That isn’t… Maddy?”
“No.” Dane swallowed, his breath coming quick. “It isn’t, baby.”
Shaking badly, Angel crawled around him and stumbled onto the frozen grass.
Angel stood unmoving, quiet terror on his face as he looked across the park.
He turned his head slowly and looked at Abel, huddled between Cole and Devlin.
When Abel saw him, he moved away from the car, Devlin’s jacket slipping from his shoulders.
The two boys started across the park, their steps hesitant at first, then breaking into a run. The three men followed as the young men reached the bodies, stood staring for a shocked moment, then fell to their knees and grabbed onto one another— clutching —their cries shattering the night.
Devlin brought a blanket from the ambulance and wrapped it around Abel’s bare body as the two boys continued to cling to one another, sobbing.
Cole finally picked up Abel and carried him back across the park.
Dane lifted Angel to his feet and wrapped him in his arms, leading him to the car once more.
Back by the vehicles, the boys huddled together, holding onto each other, their heads touching.
The relief of discovering the truth about the bodies was overshadowed by the terrifying reality that the Mangler still had the kids…
and the fate of the two dead teens was a preview—a sneak peek— of “coming attractions” for Savannah and Maddy’s story.
Angel rode in the ambulance with Abel and Devlin, while Cole and Dane stayed behind at the park.
Neither said much as they leaned against Dane’s car and watched the coroner and the cops across the park at the crime scene.
Both men were suffering the aftershocks of the recent events, like tiny, horrific vibrations rattling through their system.
Cole’s take-charge persona with Abel—reflecting a glimpse of his old self—had already begun to recede as the nightmare crept back in. “If it is the kids next time,” Cole whispered. “The boys won’t make it.” He lowered his head. “I don’t think they would have come back this time… if not…”
“We can’t think about that,” Dane said. “What matters, right here, right now, is that those bodies aren’t our kids. Maddy and Savannah are still alive—and that means we have hope of getting them back.” He touched Cole’s shoulder. “And Gabe, too.”
Cole shook his head slowly. “He won’t let Gabe go. He knows how much I love him.”
“I wasn’t talking about him letting them go,” Dane said. “I meant, us getting them back.”
“How?” Cole whispered.
“By not giving up hope.”
Detective Jordan crossed the park and approached the men, a look of distress on his face.
“Do you know who they are?” Dane asked.
Jordan rubbed his mouth, quiet despair in his eyes.
“The male body matches the description of a boy who disappeared from a homeless shelter a few days ago. His mother has come to the station every day to see if we have any new information.” He sighed as the weight of the world settled on his shoulders.
“We never had anything for her. Now…” He glanced back toward the bodies, the burden of his responsibilities as a cop drawing tension into his face.
Dane wiped tears from his eyes. “I can’t be sorry that those aren’t our kids,” he said thickly. “But I’m sorry for the mother.” He sniffed. “And the girl… do you know who she is?”
“No, not yet. We’ll try to match her to the missing reports, probably recent.” He rubbed his eyes. “There seems to be no limit to human depravity.”
Cole pushed away from the car and walked over to Devlin’s vehicle, which he was to drive to the hospital for the doctor.
“I can’t imagine what he’s going through,” Jordan murmured. “Does he blame himself for all this?”
“Yeah,” Dane whispered. “He does.”
Nausea rose in Cole’s gut like a tidal wave.
He leaned on the car, his head in his hands, fighting the need to vomit.
A cold sweat broke out all over his body, causing a prickling in his scalp, heightening the sick feeling.
If he stepped away from the vehicle, tried to stand on his own, he was sure he would pass out.
He used these kids as pawns. Two innocent children who had nothing to do with this, taken, desecrated, butchered… just to play a twisted, cruel joke on Cole and his friends.
Their blood is on your hands, too.
Cole lowered his head to the roof of the car, the cold metal chilling his brow, seeping into his skull.
He gripped the back of his head as the tears came, running down onto the car.
Angel and Abel’s screams ricocheted inside his head, the devastation of those cries ripping him apart still.
How soon until they were screaming again—with no reprieve, this time?
Dane struggled to hold onto hope… but Cole had lived the nightmare with the madman.
He would kill them all, one by one, keeping Cole alive until everyone he loved was dead.
Even then, maybe he would leave him alive still…
knowing the torture was in trying to live a desolate life alone, aware that his loved ones were gone because of him.
“Hey.” Dane approached and wrapped an arm around him. “Are you okay to drive? If not, I can—”
“I can drive,” Cole rasped and raised his head. He wiped his eyes and straightened. “Are we done here?”
Dane nodded. “If Jordan needs anything else, he knows how to reach us.”
Looking at his friend, Cole asked thickly, “Where are Clint and Cochise? Did they follow Gabe?”
“Yeah,” Dane murmured. “But they were tagged.”
Everything inside Cole dropped like a stone. What hope he might have had rested in the gangsters.
“They’ll find him,” Dane whispered. “Gabe is their brother. They won’t stop looking until they find him. And when they find him… they’ll find the kids.”
But will they find them in time?