Chapter 17
Gavin
I was tired, because I hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night. I checked my phone shortly before leaving Jeff’s. There were no new messages, so Collin must not have heard anything else. I was pretty sure he’d tell me if they left town. He would surely know, and I would at least get a heads up if they were on the way.
I clicked on his profile. He’d posted a picture of his wife and kid at some restaurant the day before. That meant they must still be in North Carolina. Maybe they were still trying to figure out why I was in Florida and hadn’t yet made the connection . I had more time . When they figured it out, I’d have to lead them away, but I let myself relax a little. I could still have more time with Nick. I’d take all I could get, and I’d make it better than that morning. No more crying. Just happy.
Jeff was acting a little weird. He walked me out to the parking lot talking to me about work, but stuff that didn’t really matter or that I already knew. He just waved when I got on the bus. I wasn’t sure what that was about, but I found a seat near the back and settled in for the ride home. I finally got so tired I leaned my head against the window and let my eyes slip closed even though by then I was only two stops away from mine. I wasn’t going to sleep, I just needed to rest.
I felt the bus stop and heard people getting on, but all I wanted was to get home, so I didn’t bother opening my eyes. I just wanted to get back to Nick, to hug him again, to make pizza. I wanted to savor all of it until I couldn’t anymore. I wouldn’t scare him again. I wanted him to remember good times and happiness, not me sobbing like a baby while he was making love to me. If I had to leave him, I could at least give him that.
I felt someone sit down next to me. The bus had been fairly crowded when I got on, so I didn’t think much of it until a male voice said, “Hello, Gavin.” My blood turned to ice. No. Fucking no. Not yet. I’d just upset Nick, and that couldn’t be the last memory he had of me. Not fucking yet.
I refused to open my eyes for a minute. I was dreaming. I was hallucinating. It wasn’t real. I was going to open my eyes alone in the seat at the stop I needed. We were going to make pizza for dinner. I wanted that pizza, more than anything. I wanted it with Nick.
“Open your damn eyes and stop ignoring me. You’ve been ignoring me for six years. But that’s over.”
I opened my eyes slowly but stared out the window for a moment. I could see his reflection beside mine. The only sensations I felt looking at him were pain. Ice. Heat. Shock. Fear. Terror. Sadness. Hatred. Despair. How could someone have given me something that felt so good, then turn around and do things that were so terrible? He’d scrambled my brain back then, and it had never really been unscrambled.
I slowly lifted my head from the window and turned to face Kolders. He was still attractive, even though I knew who he really was. But the devil always was the most beautiful angel, and I understood that now. He grinned at me, but there was nothing friendly in it. “Time to go home.”
Rage that had been pent up for years boiled to the surface. “Fuck you!” I hissed, “I’m not going anywhere with you. I live here now.”
He laughed. “Oh, I know you live here. But unfortunately, staying isn’t a choice you have. Your dad has been looking for you to help you through your crisis. Everyone in town knows about it, and they all feel terrible that he’s going through this. You’re hurting a lot of people. So you’re going to cooperate. And to make sure of that, there’s someone waiting at your boyfriend’s apartment, ready to call him outside with news that you’re hurt out there. We also have someone outside of your dear old friend Caden’s little shelter, waiting for him to come out. Your dad is really pissed about him. Oh, and there’s someone at his husband’s aquarium, too. So you see, if you don’t come with me willingly, you’re going to hurt all of them. Would be a shame if Jamie had a motorcycle accident. He’s pretty reckless, though. Caden might get t-boned at the light right past the shelter. What a tragic accident that would be. And your boyfriend ? He's-”
“Fuck you,” I said again as I looked around, but the bus had emptied out at the last stop and there was no one close enough to hear his threats. I wondered if I could get the camera on my phone to record him from my pocket, but he grabbed my wrist to stop me as soon as I reached for it. “You’re lying,” I spat out.
He arched a brow. “Oh, Gavin. Do you really not know better by now?” He held up his phone to me. He had a map pulled up and there were three pinpoints slightly moving on the map. They were all in different locations. Outside of Nick’s building. Outside of the shelter. And outside of the aquarium.
He pulled out his badge. “Now. Do we have to make a scene? Because I can certainly get you on mental instability if you act a fool. Or are you coming quietly at the next stop?”
I stared at the map, at the locations of the people waiting to hurt the people I cared about. I’d known I’d never truly be safe from them. I’d known the entire time that I was only putting off the inevitable. I closed my eyes, blocking out the map. “I’ll go.”
He looked pleased. He nodded and sat back in his seat. That fucking badge meant nothing. It was a jailer’s badge from another state. No one on the bus would realize that, though. They’d see a cop with a lunatic who was resisting arrest, because he’d make sure that’s what they saw. I would never be able to save my friends if I didn’t do what he wanted. I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. “Don’t worry,” his voice, soft as a snake, slithered into my ear, “I’ll take good care of you while you’re there.”
“Like hell,” I muttered, “You’ll fuck right off.”
He laughed again, that time like he actually found something funny. “Oh, I’ll fuck something, you can count on that. Don’t worry, after a while you won’t feel like fighting anymore. You’ll bend to my will and bend over for me, just like you did last time.”
He was blatantly admitting they were all right. He’d been taking advantage, using my desperation and vulnerability to get what he wanted from a scared teenager. I was the age he’d been back then, and I couldn’t imagine trying to coerce a seventeen-year-old into having sex with me. “You’re a sick fucking bastard.”
“I know.”
The bus slowed to a stop, and he stood, looking down at me. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want him to see me do it. I thought again of Nick. I thought of the pizza he probably already had all set up to make. I thought of the first time I’d ridden on his bike. Holding his hand in the aquarium. How he’d asked me if he could take my shirt off right before he’d given me a blow job for the first time. He’d always been worried about true consent. About protecting me from things he couldn’t even understand. I thought about how he cared and how he held me after my nightmares. I thought of his warm embrace, how safe he made me feel.
I forced the tears back and stood, noticing a maroon car waiting beside the bus. Kolders followed me down the aisle, a hand on my arm. Would Nick think I just left him after a morning like that? Would he think I cared so little that I’d lied to him about the pizza and took off after scaring and upsetting him? That I didn’t call him to tell him where I was because he didn’t matter, and let him be the one left wondering if I was still alive, just like he’d begged me not to do?
I couldn’t leave him like that. I had no idea if he’d ever think to look at the bus stop before his, and I knew it was a shot in the dark, but I had to try. I reached into my pocket while Kolders was opening the car door and talking to the driver. I took hold of my lucky penny from the aquarium and dropped in on the ground, sliding it with my foot to the shadows under the bus stop. Kolders looked back at me, and I slid into the backseat without a word. My heart dropped when I realized the pastor was sitting in the front seat. “Welcome back, Gavin. I see that all our hard work was for naught.”
The driver was a cop from my hometown, and one of my dad’s closest friends. Someone he would trust, and who would believe whatever bullshit he told him. I had no idea who he had at the other locations, but it didn’t matter. They were all working for my dad. He’d gotten in trouble for both bribery and extortion, so whichever had them under his thumb was irrelevant. Their presence there was a testament to the kind of people they were. They’d do whatever he told them to, including kill.
I looked at Kolders and he just nodded, knowing what I was getting ready to demand of him before I could say anything. He got on his phone as the car took off. “He’s in the car. We’re heading back. Stand down.” He hung up the phone and pulled the map back up, holding it up so I could see. I watched the little pinpoints move away from the locations of my friends, and relief washed over me to see that he hadn’t been lying about that part. “Good choice, Gavin. You protected the people you care about. There may still be hope for you.” What did that even mean? That because I was gay the others thought I was some terrible person who wanted people to die? Was that what they thought? I had no morals? Kolders just smirked at me and relaxed into his seat. He was so full of shit. He was an adulterous closeted gay man who didn’t care about his family and took advantage of teenagers.
The car took us directly to the airport. Kolders and the pastor stepped out, waiting for me. I paused. If we were getting on a plane, then they weren’t armed. The thought of running was overwhelming. I could contact Nick and warn him, let him know what happened. Maybe somehow we could be together again. But I needed to stay away from the place that would kill my mind if not my body, or we never could be again.
Kolders saw it on my face. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled, “All it takes is one call. They aren’t that far from your friends. You’re outnumbered and overpowered. Don’t make a scene, or it will make everything worse.”
It had been a desperate last resort, and I knew he was right. I walked to the doors with them like I was walking to my own execution. In reality, I knew that’s what it was. I couldn’t handle it again. I was strong, but I wasn’t that strong.
I kept wondering what Nick would think, if he’d find the penny and understand I hadn’t left him on purpose. I’d wanted it to work, wanted us to work, more than anything in the world. I wanted to tell him that.
I kind of wished I’d kept the penny. I hated that it was gone, and now that I was thinking a little more clearly without all the panic, I realized Nick would have no reason to look where I dropped it. Jeff knew I’d made it onto the bus. I had no reason to get out at that stop. The penny was the last thing I might have been able to hide and hold onto, a part of him and our life that they wouldn’t find and take away from me. They would take my phone, my clothes, everything else. But maybe I could have hidden it and taken it out sometimes to look at, to remember that day and stay tethered to who I was. Maybe it would have been the thing that kept me sane, but it was gone.
My dad was standing in the middle of the busy airport, arms crossed like he was an army sergeant and I was just some dumb soldier who’d been caught going AWOL. “Gavin,” he said through his teeth, “Nice move taking off like a fool. You could have had your life back if you’d just listened to me.” Liar. “Now, though, for all the trouble you’ll be punished doubly, and I’ve already ensured that. Everyone in that town knows you’re an addict.” God, he was so narcissistic I was pretty sure he believed himself. Not that I was addicted to drugs. That I was addicted to dick and needed to go through rehab for it. “Everyone is sympathetic to my cause. They know we found things in your car, they know you were stealing from your job, and it’s quite clear to everyone that you’ve been unstable for some time.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout that he was the entire reason I was unstable. That the place he was forcing me back into was the cause. But I said nothing. He shook his head. “You brought this on yourself.” And I had. I’d hurt everyone. I knew when I ran that it would never work, that’s why I’d been on that bridge the day Nick found me. But I tried, with everything I had. I tried to have a life. I would have gotten help. I would have talked to someone, and I would have been ok, eventually. Me and Nick, we’d have been real good together. I’d hold onto the memories of him as long as my mind remained my own. I’d hold onto what we could have had. I’d dream of it to keep away the pain, the fear. He was the only one who’d ever been able to take the bad things away from me.
I followed them through security and to a terminal. My dad took my phone away from me. He crushed it under his foot and threw it in a trash can. I was numb as the plane pulled onto the tarmac. People filed out, talking and laughing, going on vacation or coming home from one, happy in their lives no matter how mundane they were. What I would give for a mundane life with Nick.
I just stood silently as the plane started boarding and my captors stood around me. “Come on, Gavin.” There was nothing nice or caring in my dad’s voice. There was no love there to be found. And there was no room to argue. “Let’s go home.”