Chapter 33 Mason
Mason
When I chose to stop running, I had no way of knowing the things that would be set into motion by my decision.
I’d flown back to Akron with Jarreau and his men, but I’d repeatedly assured them that Lee would be at the airport, since I obviously couldn’t be seen arriving at the convention with the cops without arousing suspicions.
It was just the universe laughing at our best laid plans when I realized that Bill had told the committee I had canceled.
I didn’t have Lee’s number on my new cell, so I found the number for the dojo and got a message to Mama K and Mama D. Lee arrived just in time to save the day, again. My hero!
Conyers and his two buddies were arrested at the convention, only a little worse for wear.
Conyers’ hand was going to require surgery where Tobi’s boot had crushed his fingers and he might need facial reconstruction after the massive damage he had taken, first from Weaver, then from Lee’s fists, but at least he was alive.
Law enforcement used the information Tobi and I provided and raided Dreyven’s hideouts. They found hundreds upon hundreds of files, including recordings and photographs of the children Ricky and Dreyven had trafficked through the years.
Over a hundred of the videos found were of children being tortured and killed while being sexually assaulted.
I’d sobbed for hours when I’d heard. Most of the victims identified had happened sometime after I'd escaped from Ricky.
All those children had died, because I'd been a coward.
If I'd stood up to him sooner, they might still be alive.
“Stop it,” I heard Lee say as I stared at the fire.
“Stop what?” I asked, though I knew exactly what he meant. Lee always knew when I started to spiral into guilt and depression for not reaching out sooner.
His eyes glittered in the firelight and he pressed a gentle kiss on the top of my head.
“Focus on the ones we saved,” he said. “Never forget the ones we lost but focus on the ones we saved.”
I nodded, knowing he was right, but the guilt stayed with me.
Jarreau’s team had found and rescued almost forty minors from Dreyven’s establishments, both girls and boys, ranging in age from seven to seventeen.
Fuck. Seven years old. Social services was still in the process of trying to reunite the kids with their families, but some of them didn’t even remember what their last names had been before Ricky took them.
We were hoping that DNA matches would help reconnect them with their loved ones.
Some of the children were incredibly fragile, emotionally speaking, and it would be a long time before they would be able to live anything approaching a normal life.
My heart broke as I looked at their pictures, one after the other.
I had to keep reminding myself that at least now they were safe, I was safe.
Dreyven would never hurt any of us again.
Dreyven had been extradited back to Milwaukee, but he hadn’t lived long enough to go to trial.
Inmates didn’t take kindly to cops to begin with, much less child molesters.
The day after his case hit the national news he was found beaten to death in his own cell.
It just so happened that the uncle of one of the Milwaukee kids had been doing time at the same prison.
While officials had their suspicions, no proof was found.
Frankly, I didn’t think anyone really cared. I knew I didn’t.
The other two men were being held at separate facilities and Conyers was being held in solitary, for his own protection.
The response I’d gotten from the fans at the con was not what I had expected.
We had been packing up the booth when a woman approached me.
She had been watching us for several minutes before she approached us and it was kind of beginning to weird me out.
I thought Lee sensed my unease, because he was sticking close to the booth.
We were just beginning to load up one of the carts with boxes of comics to take out to the Jeep when she finally approached me.
“Excuse me. Y-you’re Mason, right?” She asked. “Mason Cam-Malone?”
I felt myself tense. No one had called me “Malone” for almost ten years. I nodded at her and felt a sudden warmth at my back as Lee walked over and placed his arm around my waist. I shot him a smile then directed my gaze back at her.
“I’m Mason Malone,” I acknowledged.
She nodded. She was an older woman, late fifties, maybe? She looked soft and warm, her ash brown hair liberally streaked with gray and gentle blue eyes glanced around nervously.
“I… I’m sorry for interrupting your work…” she began, “But I wanted to say thank you for what you did today.”
I blushed. There’d been a lot of congratulations following the speech, more handshakes and fist bumps than I could count, but “thank you” was new.
“My name is Ella Greene,” she said at my obvious confusion. “I’m a friend of Addie’s… Adelaide Conyers.”
Adelaide Conyers was Bill’s wife. I paled at the name and went to step back, but she reached her hand toward me.
“I’m sorry, I’m not saying this well,” she said, twisting a tissue in her hands. “Please, Mr. Malone, I just wanted to say thank you for what you did today. Bill…he is an evil man,” she said, her voice taking on harsh overtones. “You… you weren’t the only one he hurt.”
I thought I understood what she meant.
“Addie…?” I asked.
Ella nodded. “Addie. Addie and… and others,” she continued, dropping her gaze, her cheeks flushing in shame.
Before I could think twice, I was reaching out, my arms were wrapped around the soft-looking woman who held more strength in her soul than Bill Conyers ever would. Conyers had held a reign of terror over his entire household, his wife included.
We talked for a long time, but the longer we talked, the more others showed up. Women. Men. Christ, even some young kids. I was so thankful that Lizzie had recommended that we have counselors available on site, because every single one of them was busy that night.
The outpouring of love and support from these people who emerged from the shadows had been soul wrenching.
Person after person came up to me, so many of them had their own stories of pain and abuse, yet they were brave enough to step up and share with me.
I thought I went through a whole year’s worth of tears that night and the next day.
Now, just a few weeks later, Dreyven’s church was shut down, sued by several of the businesses, including Twin Peeks, that had been targeted at the convention.
Tobi’s parents were under arrest and had been charged with child abuse.
Jeri had been helping him document his abuse, even though he couldn’t go to the hospital.
Mama K and Mama D had decided they needed a new addition to the Devereaux clan and were currently fostering him, but the plan was that eventually he would live with his aunt.
He had moved into the Den where he helped the moms take care of the twins as they recovered.
Both Sonny and Hicks were improving, but it was going to be a long road to recovery. Hicks was struggling to deal with his continuing memory problems and Sonny was in intensive physical therapy to help him recover the use of his leg.
I’d essentially moved in with Lee from the night of the convention. We no longer talked about me moving back to Seattle, and Lizzie and Everett were considering a move to the East coast.
Jarreau and his team had put me in contact with Zem at the safe house where she’d been moved.
She hadn’t known anything about my relationship with Lee, or that I’d even gone to Ohio, so the events all came as a surprise to her.
She was still giving me plenty of grief over not telling her about the new man in my life.
She was surprised that I'd agreed to even talk to the police, much less testify.
My newfound faith in the justice system was briefly put to the test when it came time for Conyers and his two buddies to have their bail hearing.
I’d stood watching the proceedings from a private conference room, too wired to sit in one of the plastic chairs provided by the District Attorney’s office.
I literally couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the defense team try to argue that the events of that night were consensual. I had to turn to Lee for confirmation that they were really trying to say I'd asked for it.
The defense argument was that that the rape had been staged, a fantasy, a sexy role play that I'd asked—no, begged—for. According to Conyers, it was all just an act.
They had come close to convincing the judge to release him on bail, until I remembered the clothes I’d stuffed under the sink in Lee’s bathroom.
The variety of bodily fluids on the clothes, along with my blood, was enough proof to convince the judge that the events hadn’t been consensual and he withheld bail.
We would still have to go to trial, but between the physical evidence, on top of the video, the prosecutor’s office was certain Conyers and his friends would be going to jail for a long, long time, if not for life.
I relaxed into the feel of Lee’s arms around me, enjoying a comfort that was more than physical.
Lee had been a rock throughout everything.
He had stood by my side the entire way. He supported me when my resolve wavered and my fear became too much to handle.
He comforted me when the tears came. He truly was my angel.
“You tired?” he asked, looking down at me.
I leaned my head back and looked up at him, the firelight playing across his face.
“Not really. Take me to bed anyway?” I asked, looking up at him flirtatiously. I licked my lips slowly and let him see the desire that was building inside me. I saw the heat kindle in his gaze as he understood the direction of my thoughts.
The world suddenly turned topsy-turvy as he quickly, shifted my weight up and over his shoulder.
“What— Hey!” I yelped, trying to brace myself against his body as he charged toward the bedroom.
“What, what?” He asked, turning in circles around the room. Each time he turned the room whirled around me and I had to close my eyes.
“You better knock that off, or I’m going to barf all over you,” I warned.
Laughing, I felt him upend me and flop me on my back onto the bed. I bounced once on the mattress, arms spread out to either side to absorb the impact, then felt him land on top of me.
I opened my eyes and glared at him.
“You are so losing points for that maneuver, bucko,” I complained. Lee didn’t seem worried as he leaned forward and brushed his lips across mine.
“You sure?” he purred, his hot breath teasing my ear. “I thought I was doing a good job of distracting you.”
“You’re not distracting me…” I reiterated, then felt his lips slide across my neck, down to my clavicle. “…so, sooo many points are going to be lost…” I continued, rapidly losing IQ points as all the blood in my body began rushing to my cock. “…uh…”
“What was that, sir?” Lee whispered in my ear. “Bonus points, you say?” he teased, grinding our hips together, sending delicious bolts of pleasure up and down my spine.
“…points…” I tried again, but Lee slipped his hands under my t-shirt and tugged it up and over my head. I took a breath to try and reorient myself, only to feel all the air in my lungs escape in a gasp as his lips centered around a nipple and sucked. “Gah!”
“Mmmm…” he hummed, alternating biting and sucking one nipple, then the other.
I groaned, feeling my balls draw up tight against my body. God, I wasn’t even naked yet. That thought reminded me of what I'd planned for this evening and the cold wash of nerves brought me back to myself.
“Hold up, cowboy,” I muttered, but Lee paused, then deliberately took another lick of my nipple, a weighted challenge clear in his eyes. He wants to be like that about it, does he?
Curling my arms around his shoulders, I took a moment to just enjoy the feel of the man pressed up against my chest. I’d had fewer and fewer panic episodes during sex, and my counselor in Seattle had agreed to continue our sessions via Skype for the time being.
I was nervous about what I’d planned for this evening, but she and I had talked through all the potential outcomes and I think I was as prepared as I was ever going to be.
In a move that would have made Mama K proud, I wrapped my legs around Lee’s waist and heaved, rolling our combined weight up and off the bed, only to twist and come back down with our positions reversed.
The hours I was spending in the dojo with the moms was paying off.
I wasn’t a superhero, but I was learning some cool moves.
I perched on top of Lee and grinned down at his surprised face. He looked utterly dumbfounded for a moment, then laughed in delight.
“I was so not expecting that!” he exclaimed. I grinned down at him in triumph. “Who taught you that?” he demanded.
“I may or may not have learned a thing or two from your parents,” I purred back into his ear, taking the opportunity to nibble on his earlobe.
“Ugh, Mason… You talk about my parents during sex?” he groaned and fell back against the bed. “Major boner killer,” he muttered at me in mock horror. I laughed at him, because I could feel the hardness of his cock through his jeans. He was still every bit as interested in sexy-naked-time as I was.
“Well, that’s really too bad,” I murmured, running my hands down his chest to the top of his jeans.
“Because I might have one or two more things planned for tonight that you weren’t expecting…
” I teased, waggling my eyebrows at him salaciously as I rocked my hips back and forth, taking time to grind our cocks together.
Lee’s eyes had turned a deep, mossy green, a color I was starting to equate with passion and heat. Who knew green could be so hot?
“Oh really?” he asked, his hands resting on my hips. “Like what?”
“I think that’s for me to know, and you to find out…” I grinned saucily at him.
“Oh! A game… I like games… Is this Twenty Questions?” he asked.
I smirked. We had turned just about every other game you could think of into sexy time fun. Why not Twenty Questions?
“Maybe. You won’t know until you ask,” I winked at him, then let my hands slide down his chest to rest at his waist.
“What are the rules?” he growled, running one of his hands up and down my naked chest. He’d wised up to my antics and started demanding to know the rules to any game we played.
My mind raced, but in a good way. I hadn’t really thought that far ahead for tonight, but it was Twenty Questions, for fuck’s sake.
How complicated did it have to be? Got it. Only as complicated as I wanted it.
“Straightforward. You get to ask twenty questions about what I’m planning for tonight,” I said. “If you get it right, you win!”
“And what happens if I lose—?” he asked, his voice dropping deeper.
I grinned.