13. Bane
CHAPTER 13
BANE
A s broken as River seemed, he had this undeniable strength to him that captivated me. I craved his presence. Even if we didn’t speak, just breathing the same air as him filled me with a strength I didn’t know I possessed. He was a mystery I wanted to unravel. There were layers and layers to him I couldn’t wait to peel back, but fear of what I might discover held me back.
Every time I thought I breached his walls, another one came up stronger than the one before. The push and pull was infuriating, but it breathed life into me and gave me hope. Every little morsel I learned about him had me on my knees, begging for more. I wasn’t na?ve enough to think he’d given me anything more than the Cliffs Notes version of his life. He’d done what he agreed to and given us vital information that related to the case and had made the next set of raids that we were planning possible. Without him, we would still be sitting there with our dicks in our hands, going around in circles.
I hadn’t slept on the floor outside his locked door for some time, but that didn’t mean I didn’t lie in bed listening to his haunted screams. The visceral agony from each sound that was wrenched from him flayed the flesh from my bones before it ground them to dust. I was trapped in an impossible position, and I didn’t have the mental capacity to work out what was the right thing to do.
My heart made me believe I’d follow River into a burning building because every thought I had was consumed with him. Only him. My brain was filled with logical, if somewhat cynical, thoughts. It urged me to err on the side of caution and not lose myself to overt romantic notions. Something that had never been an issue before in my few fleeting relationships, but this wasn’t one. It couldn’t be.
River was a sex worker, whether I wanted to face that truth or not. They had abused, used, and beaten him in every conceivable way. It had caused irrevocable damage he might never heal from. I had to be a realist, but being around him made me want things I knew I couldn’t. He had severe PTSD and flinched at the slightest sound, cowering on the floor or underneath the nearest surface. He had no sense of self or self worth. It was clear every hour that passed that his mental state was declining. The psychological trauma was consuming him. Every day, another piece of him flaked off and died. His body was recovering, but his mind was failing him.
The amount of guilt I felt for feeling peace in his presence made me wonder if I was making him worse without realizing it. I wanted to hold him. Love him. Keep him safe with me always. But what if letting him go was the best way I could help him? What if I had to set him free so he could learn to fly on his own?
I hated the thoughts that perpetually churned in my mind, but I couldn’t see the light for the trees. Joelle always said I struggled to separate myself from other people’s circumstances when my emotions were involved, and River was a prime example. But even with her words ringing in my head, I couldn’t convince myself to walk away. I needed him as much as he needed me, maybe more.
River had yet to come down this morning, so I thought I’d take his breakfast upstairs to him. It had been particularly bad last night. At one point, I tried his door handle, but he’d locked it—as usual. I’d ended up sitting with my back to the locked door, crying as I listened to him howling in agony, hating myself for being unable to help him. I stayed there until the shower turned on and then passed out in my bed in a fitful sleep.
Nothing beat the smell of freshly cooked bacon in the morning. My stomach agreed as it grumbled and tightened, but I could see to myself later. I added eggs, toast, and coffee to River’s tray before topping up Shadow’s water bowl and adding a bit of kibble for his breakfast. It baffled me how looking after the pup for one afternoon meant he’d assimilated himself into my home, but he had, and he thankfully brought River some solace. Otherwise, I’d have sent him back home. Watching the way River’s dull eyes sparked like embers when Shadow licked his face was enough for me to hold my tongue on the subject.
I knocked heavily on River’s door. It opened from the force, and without thinking, I stepped inside and froze. My body flushed with incendiary heat, and fire licked through my veins. My eyes zeroed in on River’s tight ass as he bent over and pulled black boxers up his toned legs. The tip of my tongue wet my bottom lip as images of my hands sliding up his thighs, feeling the dark hairs against my palms, swam through my mind, dissolving every rational thought that should have been in my head. How I’d spin him around and bury my face in the apex of his thighs, in the crease between his legs and his groin. How my mouth would water as I inhaled his intoxicating cinnamon and orange scent. My nose would charter a course across the soft cotton until it ran the length of his hard shaft. Would he smell sweeter, or have a deeper, muskier note that would make my dick fill and tighten my pants?
River made a sound that snapped me back to reality, and I hastily locked those thoughts in a cement box, wrapped it in lead chains, and threw it into the deep dark abyss in the back of my mind.
The cutlery clattered on the tray as my hands shook. River’s shoulders tensed before he slowly straightened to his full height. My breath caught in my throat as the light streaming from my open bedroom door illuminated his back, revealing angry red welts and still-healing cuts that seeped blood. I edged forward cautiously, as if approaching a wild animal. My eyes traced the tapestry of silvered scars etched across his skin, silent witnesses to the suffering he had endured.
“R-River…”
“No,” he rasped and pulled on one of my missing hoodies.
“Who hurt you?”
River shook his head and crawled onto the far side of his bed, pulling his legs up to his chest and making himself as small as possible. He pulled his hood up and rested his head on his knees, hiding himself from me. Fear and guilt rioted inside me, making me sick to my back teeth. The taste of acid burned the back of my tongue as a million scenarios from previous cases were plucked from my memories and laid out before me. I didn’t want to contemplate him experiencing any of them, but the truth spoke for itself, plain as day. The tray clattered on the nightstand as I rounded his bed and sat down in front of him.
“Go away, Bane.” His broken voice felt like sandpaper on my skin, abrading and rough. I shook my head and reached a tentative hand toward him.
“Who hurt you?” Each word an apology. Each word a plea. I couldn’t rewrite his past and undo what had been done to him, but I could change his future. I could rewrite his stars and give him a future he deserved, no matter the cost.
River jerked when my hand started stroking smoothing circles on his back, and an agonized whimper punched its way out of him. I felt every muscle tighten like a tightly coiled spring. He was vibrating, edging away from me, but I couldn’t let him go. I needed to know who had done this to him so I could tear them limb from limb and watch the light drain from their eyes. Taking a life wasn’t something I ever thought I’d willingly do, but for him, I would. I would raze the world to dust if it meant he’d be safe.
“Please, River, talk to me.” My voice trembled as I edged closer, drawn by a fierce, inexplicable need to protect him. I didn’t even know how, but the urge burned through me. The only threat in this moment was the one inside his own mind—or maybe, somehow, it was me, because I would fight him for the truth. I would drag it from him before I let him crumble in silence any longer.
“No.” His voice was hoarse, brittle, like shattered glass. “It doesn’t matter. I-I’m not worth it.” The words were barely audible, cracking as they slipped from his lips, but a sob caught in his throat, choking him, made it impossible to ignore. He was breaking in front of me. I could feel it. His resolve was collapsing under the weight of everything he refused to say.
“It wasn’t your fault, River,” I said, my voice soft but firm, each word deliberate, as if I could cut through the iron walls he’d built around himself. He shook his head violently, refusing to meet my gaze. His breath came in uneven gasps, chest heaving like he was drowning right in front of me. “It wasn’t your fault,” I repeated, desperate now, hoping against hope that he’d hear me, that he’d let me in before he slipped too far. But it felt like I was losing him, inch by inch. He was falling through my fingers, no matter how hard I tried to hold on.
We sat there, trapped in a silence so thick it felt alive, pressing down on us. His breath hitched in shallow bursts, while my lungs seized, like the very air had grown too heavy to breathe. Tension swirled between us, suffocating, his anxiety filling the room like a riptide dragging us both under.
“It wasn’t your fault, River,” I whispered, my voice barely more than a breath. “Look at me.”
He lifted his head slowly, his movements stiff, like every part of him fought against it. But when his eyes finally met mine, everything else faded away. The world around us dissolved, leaving just the two of us—two broken boys, stranded on a fragile bridge. One wrong move and it would break, and all the progress I was trying to make would be lost. He would be lost to me forever, and I refused to let that happen.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
His eyes, rimmed red with unshed tears, locked onto mine, and something shifted in the air. There was a vulnerability there, raw and unguarded, that cut deeper than any of the words I’d tried to offer him. River was a walking contradiction—an innocent child buried inside a man’s body, yet weighed down with the scars of someone who’d seen too much, suffered too long. Where there should have been laughter and light, there was only pain, a quagmire of suffering that threatened to swallow him whole.
He licked his cracked lips, a shuddering breath rippling through him as if he was fighting just to stay present. “I know,” he whispered, the words so faint, so broken, I almost missed them entirely.
I nudged his head up with my knuckles, needing to feel his skin under mine. He said the words I wanted to hear, but they held no weight, no truth. I shook my head, refusing to let the moment slip away. “It wasn’t your fault, River.” My voice was firmer now, each word etched with urgency. “It wasn’t.”
His face flushed with shame, eyes dropping to his hands as he picked at the broken skin around his thumb until it bled. The first of his tears finally broke free, slipping down his cheeks in heavy, silent trails.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I repeated, pouring everything I had into those four words. I needed him to hear me, to really hear me—not just parrot the words back like a meaningless echo, but to let them sink in. To believe them. To feel them. To understand that his shame was misplaced, that the weight he carried wasn’t his to bear.
River trembled beneath my hands, his whole body shaking like a fragile dam about to burst. I cupped his face in my hands, my thumbs brushing over his high cheekbones. I wanted to haul him into me, to merge his pain with mine and take it from him. To set him free. Desperate for him to stay with me, to not disappear into the void he was teetering over. “River, it wasn’t your fault,” I ground out, my jaw clenched so hard it sent a sharp pain through my teeth.
His bottomless green gaze finally lifted, his tear-clumped lashes trembling as he looked up at me, eyes filled with a depth of pain that left me breathless. We stayed locked like that for what felt like forever, the world shrinking down to just the space between us. His tears fell freely now, each one a stain on my soul. Each one carrying the weight of years of silent suffering.
“I should’ve... I could’ve stopped it...” His voice wavered, breaking apart mid-sentence, as if the mere thought of what he believed to be his failure was too much to bear.
“No,” I said, shaking my head more forcefully. “There was nothing you could’ve done. None of it was your fault, River. None of it.” My voice was almost harsh now, desperate to make him see the truth.
He opened his mouth to speak but stopped, his lips trembling. The guilt was still there, lurking behind his eyes, clinging to him like a dark shadow. But for the first time, I saw something else—a flicker of doubt, a small crack in the armor he had worn for so long. A flicker of hope sparked in the emptiness.
He collapsed into my arms as that dam finally broke and carried him down the river of his pain. His fingers curled around my henley, clutching himself to me. I felt every sob and gasping breath as he relinquished his hold on the trauma he kept locked inside his head.
I was beaten black and blue, charred to the bone, as his words burned right through me. I held him tighter as each story of humiliation spilled from his lips. As he described how johns wrapped wires around his throat so he couldn’t breathe and laughed as he cried until he passed out.
How some tied his arms above his head and whipped him with riding crops, chains, and broken chair legs until his skin broke and bones shattered. Until his legs buckled and he passed out on the floor while they violated his unconscious body before discarding him without a second thought.
He’d been pissed on, defecated on, and forced to eat vomit. He’d been gang raped at gunpoint and had every inconceivable inanimate object thrust inside him, injuring him so badly they dumped him on the steps of the local hospital because they thought he was about to die.
They’d forced River to scream until all he could taste was blood. And when he’d tried to leave, they’d threatened him with death and starved him for a week.
He told me how they’d made him and the other boys watch as they executed an escapee with a bullet to the brain before being locked in the room with his body until they disposed of it, so they would understand the consequences of their actions.
I held him through every whimpered word, through every soul-crushing cry. I held him as he screamed in my arms, and the fight drained from him. Until the gut-churning sounds cracked and broke into nothing more than sawing breaths that echoed in the stagnant silence of his room.
When unconsciousness took him, I finally allowed myself to break and cried silently for the boy I’d known and for the man I was starting to understand. I cried for the injustice of the world and the horror humanity wrought on its own kind. I didn’t understand how another soul could do that to another human being without care or remorse.
I shuffled us around until my back rested against the headboard and arranged River so he sprawled across my chest, protected in my arms as he slept. Exhaustion lined his face. The dark pits under his closed eyes were back, where his wet lashes kissed his tear-streaked skin. His full lips were bleached of color and pressed into a thin line. Even unconsciousness didn’t allow him a reprieve from everything locked away in his head.
With nothing to distract my mind, it wandered to River’s explanation about how he shut down whenever they touched him. How he’d drift off into another place, a life he wished he’d lived but knew was never possible. Today proved his memories were like Pandora’s box. Once he opened that seal, everything came spewing out, visceral and scathing, leaving nothing but rubble in its wake.
River broke me beyond comprehension today. I couldn’t fathom how he managed to smile, let alone had the strength to get up every day and keep going. It wasn’t that I lacked empathy; I just didn’t know how to traverse the hell he was trapped in and bring him back to a world where the sunrise was a positive thing. I didn’t know how to show him I’d give my last breath to see him live.
I held my broken heart in my arms as the pale early morning sun passed and painted the room with golden hues of late afternoon. I held on to him like I would never let him go. And after today’s revelations, they would have to pry him from my cold, dead fingers before I relinquished my hold on him.
By the time my legs were numb, an idea struck that I hoped was a stroke of brilliance. I had to get River out of here, away from the morning that had drained both of us and every depressing thought he’d associate with it. I wanted to show him what it felt like to be free. How amazing it was to fly without wings and blow the cobwebs away and start the day afresh.
My fingers trailed through his matted damp hair with one hand while the other rested protectively on his back, subconsciously checking his breathing was soft and even. God knew he needed a lifetime of sleep, but he’d have to wait a bit longer. My heart rate picked up as my resolve solidified, and my plan came together. A bolt of nervous energy struck my heart at the thought he might not want to do this with me.
I ran my knuckles down his cheek, brushing back the black strands that obscured his beautiful face. “River, angel?” I breathed him in as he stirred on my chest. I felt the moment he awoke as tension snaked through him, and his breathing stopped for a second as his eyes fluttered open.
River pushed back on my chest, re-situating himself so his chin rested on his hands as he looked up at me. A wavering smile flickered across his lips before the tip of his tongue toyed with a fresh scab. “H-hi,” he said shyly, a delicate blush staining his cheeks.
“Hey angel,” I murmured, running my fingers through his hair. My heart grew three times too big when he leaned into my touch, even after everything we’d been through this morning. “I thought we could go out? I want to show you something. How does that sound?”
He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, and a wariness crept into his eyes, shutting off his emotions. River scooted back and knelt at my feet. It took everything within me not to chase after him and pull him back into the safety of my arms. He needed time to decompress and piece himself together. Time to decide if he was going to remain open with me, or if he was going to close himself off and shore up his walls that had fallen spectacularly.
Not wanting to tempt fate or push him any further, I got up and walked to the door. With my hand wrapped around the handle, I looked at him over my shoulder. “Why don’t you have a shower, put on something sturdy, and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
River blinked at me. A wild animal stalked through his eyes, testing the bars of his cage like he didn’t know whether he wanted to run or kill me. I stood patiently, waiting for any kind of signal as to where his mind was at. I might have looked calm, but I felt like a duck treading water, on the verge of sinking, because I didn’t know how to swim.
After what seemed like hours, his top teeth sunk into that abused bottom lip, and he nodded once before getting up and locking the bathroom door behind him. I remained there at his door, stuck in stasis, waiting to hear the shower turn on, but everything remained deathly silent. I sent up a prayer to any god that would listen that River would come downstairs to meet me and left.
While I waited on tenterhooks, I quickly threw together a small picnic, grabbing chips, snacks, and making a couple of subs before packing it all in my bag and pulling a couple of bottles of water from the fridge. I left a glass of water and some Tylenol on the counter, along with a note to meet me out front. I let Shadow out into the yard to do his doggy business before shutting him in his crate. “Sorry, buddy, but you can’t come with us,” I soothed and poked his favorite treat through to him.
I headed into the garage, locking up behind me, and gave my all-black Hammerhead 1190 a quick once over to make sure it was in tiptop condition to transport my precious cargo. I wouldn’t allow anything to go amiss this afternoon. River’s safety was my top priority. It was a burden I’d chosen to bear, and I’d do so to the best of my ability. I should have realized the turn my thoughts had taken, but I was too focused on my tasks as I waited for the garage door to open. Bright sunlight blinded me, and fresh air filled my lungs as I took a long, deep inhale and pushed my bike out on the driveway to wait for River. Excitement thrummed through me. I’d never allowed someone else on my bike with me, and I couldn’t think of anyone more worthy to break my rules for than River.