4. Lucas
FOUR
Lucas
When the doctor returns, I’m sitting with my back to the wall, as far away from the unconscious fighter as I can get without putting myself in a corner. I don’t want to get trapped.
I don’t know how much time has passed. Enough that my heart has stopped racing. Enough that I’ve returned to a state of numb acceptance. I’m not getting out of here.
A lot of people would probably still be in disbelief. They would probably beg and protest. Me? I feel dumb for having protested at all.
That doesn’t mean I’m not scared. That’s why I’m over here with my knees drawn up. That’s why I still haven’t really looked at the big, unconscious figure on the mattress at the other end of the cell.
I have looked around though. The rectangular cell is pretty big and obviously makes use of what existed in the building before its conversion. The mattress lies along one short wall. The long wall stretches behind me then ends at another short wall. A partial wall, actually, because there’s an opening to a bathroom. It’s just a toilet and sink, no door in the doorframe, but it’s better than nothing.
There’s a punching bag and a pull up bar.
They obviously want him healthy and fit. It makes sense. He’s worth money.
That’s why, even though he’s super lean, he’s not malnourished. That’s why he was tended by a doctor. That’s why I’m here.
That’s not the only reason I’m here. I’m also here because I was stupid enough to believe that Frank reached out to me because he … what, cared? Felt bad for the way he treated me? Was actually interested in me?
And all along it was because he planned to sell me. Fucking sell me. Would he still have done it if he’d won his bet? Would he have taken me up to the balcony, offered me to Crowley for some extra cash? Does it even matter? The fact that he was prepared to do it, even as a backup plan, is enough.
Enough for what? To tell me I’m not even a person to him? It’s not like I didn’t know that.
Growing up, whenever I’d get home from school, I had to stay in my room. Weekends too.
What are you complaining about? my mom would ask. He doesn’t hit you. You have books and a computer. Don’t you realize how lucky you are? Just read or play your games. Use your headphones. Be quiet.
Stay in your room.
Be quiet.
Let us pretend that you don’t exist.
That’s why I started wrestling. It gave me a reason not to be home, plus it was physical. On the mat, I did exist. The struggle made me feel, somehow, real.
I miss that. I haven’t come close to it since.
I’m still deep in my head, only half paying attention, when the door to the other room, a guardroom I guess, opens. Briggs emerges as the doctor descends the steps. They meet outside the cell.
Briggs crouches in front of the gate and fits a key to a section with a hinge. Eyeing the figure on the mattress, he opens the window. The doctor passes him a large first aid kit, which he shoves into the cell before locking the window.
“Come get the bag,” Briggs orders.
I hear the words, but they don’t really penetrate. I don’t move.
Briggs draws his gun and aims through the bars at me. My heart leaps, bringing me fully into the present.
I guess this is me getting a twisted version of what I’ve been missing. Because a gun, a cell, and me crawling across a cold concrete floor? All of this feels pretty fucking real.
And yet, I’m only able to half listen as the doctor starts giving me instructions. My mind keeps skipping away from the implications. I’ll have to touch him.
Maybe my inattention is obvious because Briggs warns, “He dies, you die.”
“What does it matter,” I mutter half to myself, “if he’s gonna kill me anyway?”
Briggs grins, clearly delighted to say, “Ah, but the Beast will do it fast. I’ll do it slow.”
I swallow hard against another twisted irony. I’ve thought so many times about how my life really isn’t worth living, but here I am in the worst circumstances I’ve ever been in, and everything in me is saying, No. I don’t want to die.
When Briggs and the doctor are gone, I look through the kit. What did the doctor say I need to do? Change the bandages if they bleed through. Something about the IV? There’s a new bag of fluids in the kit. Fuck, I don’t know.
Leaving the kit, I creep closer to the mattress. Before, I didn’t want to look at him, but now I feel compelled.
I stop outside of arm’s reach, not that he looks like he’s about to grab me. He’s lying on his back with his head tilted my way.
There’s no light in the cell itself, but there are lights outside of it, enough for me to see him pretty clearly. His eyes are shut, so instead of the predatory gaze I recall from the locker room, I see only long, thick lashes. His skin is darker than mine, and his hair is almost black. Even in the locker room, I noticed that he was handsome, and it’s even more obvious now that his face is relaxed, now that I can really look at him.
His face is broad with prominent cheekbones emphasizing his hollow cheeks. He has a strong jawline and nice lips. Below the bridge of his nose, there’s a bump that says it’s been broken.
Who the hell is he? Why is he here?
I didn’t buy the story they were spouting before the fight. That was clearly part of the entertainment.
They call him the Beast like he’s not even a person. I mean, I get where the name comes from. I haven’t forgotten how he fought in the cage. He was terrifying. He was so powerful and so fucking aggressive. And despite being drugged, which Briggs all but confirmed, he won against an even bigger opponent.
But right now, he looks very little like a predator and a lot like a prisoner. There are scars on his wrists. There are scars all over his body. Even in the locker room, I noticed the gnarly one on his chest, but there are more. Slashes. Stab wounds. Burns. I can’t see his back right now, but I haven’t forgotten the scars that can only be from whipping.
Bandages cover new wounds on his muscled abdomen and powerful arms. I look lower. From the corner of my eye, I see a white bandage high on his right thigh, but that’s not where my eyes settle.
I’ve glimpsed other men’s cocks in locker rooms and bathrooms, but I’ve never really looked at one other than my own.
His lies long and thick across his hip, and his balls hang low and full. He doesn’t have as much body hair as I would expect under his circumstances, but it still shadows his groin and makes a trail up his lower abdomen.
For some reason, I can’t stop staring. For some reason, heat starts moving through my body.
Embarrassment, no doubt. You’re not supposed to stare at someone’s cock, even if there’s no one to see you do it. It’s weird.
I make myself look away.
My gaze travels down to his ankles, which are also scarred. Jesus. This is so wrong. He’s scary as fuck, but it’s still wrong. He fought like he loved it, but it was still something he clearly had no choice about. He’s a prisoner, and not in any legal sense. He’s a captive.
Like me.
Fucking Frank. I should never have trusted him. Why am I so dumb?
My throat tightens up. My eyes prickle and tears drip to the concrete. I swipe at my face with my sweatshirt sleeve.
I don’t want to think about Frank, so I look at the fighter again. I refuse to think of him as the Beast. It’s not right. He’s not an animal, and even an animal shouldn’t be treated like this.
I’ve certainly never been treated like this. Beaten. Whipped. Drugged. It seems really pathetic, in light of that, to be feeling sorry for myself. Maybe my mom was right. Maybe I was lucky.
I’m cold in my jeans and hoodie, so the fighter probably shouldn’t be lying there uncovered. I can’t exactly pull the blanket out from under him though.
At the head of the mattress, wadded up by the IV pole, I find another blanket. I shake it out and lay it over him, watching closely to see if he stirs. He doesn’t.
I go back to my spot and settle and try not to think.
***
I must fall asleep because I find myself with my eyes closed and a vague sense of something being wrong.
I open my eyes.
“Ahhh!” I shriek at the sight of a huge figure crouched in front of me. I jolt to the right then to the left, but there’s nowhere to go. I put my hands up.
He just looks at me. The light is behind him, so I can’t see his face very well, but I can see that he’s scowling. He’s dragged the IV pole along with him and is holding onto it with one hand. His other is curled over his knee. He’s in something like a catcher’s stance. His cock hangs between his legs.
I gasp for breath, heart still pounding, but as the seconds pass and he doesn’t do anything, I start to calm down.
“You, um, you shouldn’t be up,” I say.
He huffs but doesn’t move.
I swallow hard, unsure what to do. “I’m … I’m Lucas.”
He doesn’t say anything. He still doesn’t move.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
At that, he reaches out. His huge, powerful hand grips my throat. There’s no point in fighting him, so I don’t. Besides, I’m the one intruding on his space. Not by my own choice, but still.
I swallow against the constriction.
I don’t know if he’s testing me or what, but when I don’t do anything, he takes his hand back with a grunt.
“You should get back in bed,” I tell him.
He grunts again, but I don’t know what it means. He just stays where he is, looking at me. I realize he probably has no idea why I’m here.
“I’m, um, supposed to … take care of you.”
He huffs again, and I wonder if he can’t speak. Or maybe he doesn’t understand me? He could be deaf, or maybe not an English speaker.
“Lucas,” I say again, putting a hand on my chest to make my meaning clear.
He exhales loudly through his nose like he’s annoyed. By my name? Or because I repeated it like he doesn’t understand?
It seems like he can actually hear, but I’m still not sure if he understands me.
“I’m here to take care of you,” I tell him again, testing the waters.
It’s weird to think that that’s the situation, but it is. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t kill me if he wanted to. Briggs said he would.
But at my statement, the fighter grunts again and moves to stand. He only makes it partway up before he falls on his ass. I launch away from the wall to catch the IV pole as it tips. I steady it then skitter back when he snarls at me.
He tries again to get up, but it’s even harder now that he’s on his ass. I’m sure he’s in pain, but he looks unsteady too. He’s probably still feeling the effects of whatever drug Briggs injected him with.
“Here,” I say as I get on all fours. “Use me.”
I’m surprised at myself. I’m not usually forward. I hang back so other people don’t tell me to get back. The only place I ever felt confident was on the wrestling mat. With the rules and structure, I could tap into a part of myself that doesn’t otherwise exist.
Outside of that space, I’m not someone to assert myself. But here I am, asserting myself with someone extremely dangerous.
He stills. I don’t look at him. Partly because he’s scary as fuck but also because I think he’ll be more likely to accept help without my eyes on him.
Maybe that’s why I’m putting myself forward. He does need help.
Of course, that doesn’t mean he can’t hurt me. It doesn’t mean that he won’t.
He rolls toward me. My skin tightens with goosebumps. Fuck, he’s so close. Oh my god, he really could kill me. Is he going to? Or hit me? Throw me?
His hand plants on my back. I sag momentarily with relief then brace as he starts levering himself up. His hip is close to me. His face is close. I can hear his little grunts of effort. I can feel him trembling. I’m trembling too because he weighs a fucking ton.
As his weight starts to lift, I get up. He tries to draw away but I follow him, and he finally puts his hand on my shoulder. His other grips the rolling IV pole. He’s unsteady as we make our way back to the mattress. When we get there, he tries to go down slowly, but he pretty much falls. I catch the IV pole again. As I maneuver it around to the head of the bed, he gets himself laid out.
I can see him better now that neither of us is blocking the light. His breathing is shallow. His muscled abdomen is contracted. He’s clearly in pain. I can see it in his face. Blood has seeped through some of his bandages.
I go to grab the first aid kit. When I kneel beside the mattress, he freezes. I belatedly realize that’s a bad sign, but I’m already there, already too close.
“I just want to—”
He lurches up and shoves me so hard that I fly backward and go sprawling on the concrete floor.
“Ow!” I shout as I gather myself up, rubbing my painful elbow. “I was just trying to help you.”
Lips drawn back from his teeth, he growls at me like an animal.
“Fine,” I tell him as I withdraw to where I was sitting before. “If that’s what you want.”
He grunts in what I take for satisfaction and settles on the mattress. He pulls the blanket partway over himself, though it’s mostly trapped under his ass. I am not, however, going near him again to help. He clearly doesn’t want me to.
I don’t know how long I stay in my spot because I have no sense of time in here, but after a while, I get up. I use the bathroom by feel because very little light trickles in from outside. My fumbling locates a bar of soap at the sink.
When I return to the main part of the cell, I walk cautiously toward to the mattress.
So much for my resolve to not go near him.
More blood has seeped through his bandages. He’s shivering. The bag of fluids is empty.
I tackle the fluids first because the task doesn’t require me to touch him. His eyes open when I pull the new bag out of the first aid kit. He watches me the whole time as I fumble with the thing like an idiot. It takes me a while to figure out how to hook it up, but I manage.
I crouch beside the mattress, ready to skitter back if he makes a move.
“Let me help you,” I say.
I don’t know why I’m so determined. I don’t think he’s actually in danger of dying. Maybe they thought he was because the drugs put him down so hard. But the he-dies-you-die threat doesn’t feel like the reason I’m crouching here anyway.
I want to help him.
I’ve never been in a position to help anyone before.
His eyes are narrowed, but he doesn’t snarl or lash out. I think he wants to though. He’s tense and not at all happy as I reach for the bandage on his abdomen. The one on his upper thigh is worse, but I’m not starting with that one.
His stomach contracts and he flinches away when I start peeling up the bandage. I don’t think it’s a pain response. I think he’s not used to being touched, not like this. I’m not used to touching people, so it’s weird for me too.
Maybe that’s why I’m hyperaware of his body. Or maybe it’s because he’s so damn big. And naked.
The wound is seeping blood and fluid around the line of stitches. Hands shaking, I dig through the first aid kit and try to figure out what to do. I jump when his hand reaches in, brushing mine. He grabs a bottle of saline wash. I take it from him and clean the wound, gently drying it with some gauze.
I try to make it easier on the next step, making my best guesses and holding up various items for approval. He obviously knows more about this than I do.
I start to decipher his sounds and expressions. He’s communicating decently, but I can’t help wondering why he doesn’t use words. He seems to understand mine.
I think back to what Briggs said about my word meaning as much as the Beast’s. I get it now. The Beast’s word—my fellow prisoner’s word—means nothing because he doesn’t talk at all.
Once I have a fresh bandage on his abdomen, I tell him, “I need to do your leg.” I don’t look at his face when I say it because mine is flaming. “I’ll … I’ll try to be careful.”
Careful not to touch his cock, I mean.
I don’t let myself stare at it, but it’s very much at the edge of my awareness. It’s lying bare across his hip, inches from my shaky hands as I start peeling away the bloody bandage.
He’s tense, but he doesn’t lash out, so I just try to focus on my work.
When the saline wash runs down his inner thigh, I have to chase after it with the gauze. I’m so close to his balls and something very weird is happening in my body. At first, I think it’s embarrassment like I felt earlier when I first looked at his cock. But the heat traveling through me is gathering, undeniably, in my groin.
Am I … oh my god, am I getting … turned on?
Jesus Christ, I think I am. But why ? I’m not gay. I’ve never reacted to another man. Of course, I barely react to women either. But I am definitely reacting now, and the more I try not to, the more heat spills into my groin. Into my cock .
I’m getting … fuck, I’m getting hard. Just a little, not enough that it would show, but I can feel it happening.
Oh my god, no . What is wrong with me? I never get hard around people. Sometimes I jerk off, of course, but that’s different. I mean, when I hooked up with Allie from the gym last fall, I didn’t—fuck, I hate admitting this even to myself—I didn’t come. And she definitely didn’t. It was so embarrassing, and I haven’t been able to look at her since.
I mean, I know I’m weird with people, but I wasn’t a virgin. I had a girlfriend, briefly, in high school. I’m not gonna say it was great or anything, but I didn’t lose my erection then like I did with Allie. And she was cute and everything. It was definitely not her fault. It was me and my dysfunctional dick.
Clearly dysfunctional—because why the fuck am I getting a chub now while I’m touching a thigh almost the size of my torso? Why am I having to force myself not to look at the heavy balls and thick cock so close to my hand?
All of that is disturbing enough. But add to it the fact that the owner of that cock is huge and violent and just killed a man in a brutal knife fight?
I’ve lost my goddamn mind.
Somehow, I get through it. But, horror of horrors, when I secure the new bandage over the line of stitches, my shaky hand brushes his balls. I yank back at the same time that he lets out a harsh sound.
“I’m sorry!” I yelp, hands in surrender, already scrambling because he’s up on one elbow. His dark eyes are burning on me. It’s not the predatory look he gave me in the locker room, but it’s still dangerous.
I had intended to pull the blanket over him, but I don’t dare attempt that now. Eyes on him just in case he comes after me, I retreat to my usual spot. There, I hold myself still and panic inwardly about the fact that I have a growing hard-on that I have absolutely no explanation for.