Chapter 5
Cesar
I highly doubt the cops will look for us in a Santa’s Grotto on the grounds of the local school. The beauty of small towns is that there are few cameras around, but plenty of unlit alleyways a man can creep through, and police forces are more used to dealing with cattle theft than violent crime.
Sirens keep howling somewhere in the background, but we’re safe. For now.
I exhale and watch vapor form in the air.
The dark interior smells of the wood the cabin’s made of, and the artificial aroma of pine. There’s a fake fireplace on one of the walls, and plenty of decorated boxes piled up behind Eli’s tall armchair, but without heating, and laughing children, the grotto is rather depressing.
He’s taking off his shoe with a grunt of pain, and I’m eager to find out just how badly he’s hurt himself.
“We can only stay here so long. I still didn’t get your name. I’m Eli, but you probably already know that,” Eli pushes back his hood, revealing the ash and silver hair, and he leans back in the armchair. It feels like he’s in a throne, and I, his mere subject, sit on the floor.
“Are you cold?” I ask and remove my cowl before offering it to him. It’s the least I can do for the favor he’s unknowingly done for me.
Eli cocks his head, watching me as though I’m some curious animal, but takes the scarf. “I’ve not been warm in a long time. Thank you. I don’t think I’ve even taken in all you’ve already done for me tonight.”
I like his voice. It’s masculine, quite low, but there’s a softness to it, as if all its edges were wrapped in silk. “Let me look at your ankle?” I ask, shifting closer over the wooden floor, until I’m kneeling at his feet.
I’ve been forced to my knees in front of Sullivan many times, and this is nothing like that. Eli doesn’t threaten me, beat me, or punish me. I’m here because I want to. Because he deserves my help.
“Are you a doctor? You don’t look like one.” Eli’s pale cheeks gain a bit of color when I roll his jeans above the ankle.
I meet his gaze as my fingers touch his lower calf. He’s warmer than I expected, and his sparse body hair tickles my palms when I drown in his gray eyes. They’re attentive and bright like two ponds that have frozen over for the winter.
“I’m Cesar, and I know how to deal with minor injuries.”
My fingers have been broken or otherwise injured more times than I can remember.
One needs to know how to keep themselves mobile in my profession, whatever the situation.
Still, maybe I’m not as professional about this as I want to be, because a part of me itches to push my nose under the folded denim and inhale his essence straight from the warmed skin.
Eli leans forward. “How? You’re not telling me the full story. There’s a reason you’re helping me. Though… I guess I’d like to know what’s wrong with my ankle first. Can you tell?”
My tongue dries, and I lean forward, eager to tell him everything. How I was at the gala because I wanted to put pressure on Sullivan over a broken promise, but that Eli freed me from the bastard instead.
He freed me.
Of course I’d make sure he’s safe, healthy, and never suffers any adverse consequences of his actions. But now isn’t the time for difficult truths. He’d be scared of the real me, so I shrug, assessing the damage to the mildly swollen joint.
“I’m ex-Special Ops.” The lie rolls easily off my tongue, and before Eli can ask me a question, I adjust his joint with a decisive twist of my hands. My patient stifles a cry, but he will only get better from now on. “And this? Just a sprain. We should ice it with some snow.”
He takes deep, raspy breaths because of the pain I’ve caused, but in my mind they transform into the sounds he’d make under me—No.
That is not my objective. I wasn’t supposed to talk to him, let alone get involved.
It’s not even Friday. And he suggested he’s not gay, so I need to leave my feral instincts behind.
“Thank you,” Eli finally utters and opens his jacket. “Just so you know, I’m not… I don’t just go around killing people. I wasn’t even sure I’d pull the trigger until I did.”
“Neither do I,” I say without thinking, then stall when I see his eyes widen.
Fuck.
Why am I so flustered around this guy? I’m usually so confident. Maybe it’s because I’m still adrift after Sullivan’s death? I hated him, but he was still a compass to guide my life. Without him, every direction is fair game.
Or is Eli my new North Star?
Everything inside me shakes in protest, because I ought to want freedom and independence. But after a lifetime of service, do I even know how to live without someone as the center of my universe?
“I’ve knocked them all out,” I add, massaging his ankle. Maybe I don’t need to, but I want to.
“Oh. Oh, that’s good. They weren’t evil bastards like Sullivan. I can’t blame them for trying to arrest me. They don’t know the full picture.” Eli looks into my eyes, and I notice he has some freckles on his cheeks. I love freckles. “I didn’t think I’d meet someone who hated him as well.”
“Why?” I ask, shifting closer to pull my knuckles over the underside of his foot, attempting to loosen his stiff muscles. “The man was a scumbag.”
Eli laughs. “That tickles! But yeah, he was a scumbag. He bulldozed through people and no one dared stand up to him. Those who did probably ended up in body bags. I half expected to be in one last night. I counted my chances as fifty-fifty.”
Yet he still came to face him.
How sad.
But also brave. Admirable.
I take a deep breath, pushing my fingers up Eli’s calf, and while I started this as a way to promote healing, I can’t lie to myself and claim my intentions remain innocent. With the way he’s dressed, I can’t see whether he also has freckles on his neck, but I hope he does.
“What did he do to you?”
Eli goes quiet for a while, vulnerability painted all over his face, and I can almost see the pain Sullivan caused him. I need to know everything about it.
“I never told anyone. I couldn’t. Sullivan threatened me and my dad, so we kept the secret. It’s strange to be free to tell you about it. But I want to. Ready for a sob story?”
He’s trying to minimize whatever happened by joking, but I see him. A man pushed to his limits by fury and suffering. And I’m more than ready to shoulder the burden.
“Tell me,” I whisper and sit back on my haunches.
The scent of pine somehow feels more real now. As if we’re in a cabin in the woods, far away from any pursuit, and from other people. I like having him to myself.
Eli clears his throat, and I can almost smell his uncertainty, but he starts talking.
“My family used to own a Christmas tree farm. Five years ago, as I went out with my dad to survey a part of the land, we stumbled upon people trespassing. But when we got closer to confront them, we realized they were burying bodies on our land. That, of course, was Sullivan and several of his men. Once they saw us and knew what we witnessed, all hell broke loose. I thought we’d die.
They beat us up but didn’t kill us. I don’t know if our begging was enough, or if Sullivan’s later intentions for our farm were the reason, but we swore to remain silent about what we saw if they only let us go.
“But that was just the beginning. A week later, a letter arrived with an offer to buy our farm. A bad one, obviously, but it was still enough for the rest of my family to get greedy and start pressuring my dad to sell. He… he didn’t take any of that well.
He drank too much after my mom’s death and couldn’t handle the onslaught of lawyers at our door.
From family, and from Sullivan. Every day was hell, and he loved that farm, because Mom loved it, and he couldn’t let it go, just couldn’t—”
Eli gasps and covers his face. “Sorry. Give me a moment,” he mutters through deep breaths.
There’s something endearing in him being so emotionally fragile despite the murder he’s committed. I’ve not had access to such emotion since I was a child. As soon as I was handed over to Sullivan, to be forged into his obedient weapon, any frailties were torn out of me, since they were weaknesses.
It’s beautiful. So earnest. I want to lick those tears off his face and taste that pain.
To think that Sullivan and his men had driven Eli to such wrath…
And then it hits me that I recall this Christmas tree farm.
I've not seen Eli before. I have a great memory for faces, so I would have remembered those freckles. But I did bury a body or two on the land that used to belong to his father. Sullivan told me to treat it as his own property, that the owners knew what their land was used for, that they wouldn’t object as long as I stayed out of their sight.
I didn’t question him then.
I never dared question him after being punished for it once.
A deep shudder goes down my back as I remember the state of panic I stayed in for a length of time I’m still not sure of.
It was dark, and by the time Sullivan released me, his men had to rehydrate me with IVs.
An adult can only survive without water for three days tops, so my best guess is that I was locked up for a bit less than that.
I never disobeyed after my release, and this man freed me. There can be no greater kindness than that.
“I’m sorry.”
Eli takes another shuddery breath, but has to wipe away tears when he reveals his face again. I clench my fists on my thighs, fighting the urge to pull him into my arms. Maybe that’s what I get for being treated no better than an attack dog.