19. Jace #2
The light was already on in Easton’s apartment, and I hurriedly unlocked the front door.
My lungs burned by the time I ran up to the top floor, almost clashing with Mrs. Johnson, who stepped out of the apartment to see what all this noise was.
It was just the shredded old me clambering up the stairs, calling Easton’s name so loudly and desperately that the building shook.
I barged into the apartment, door slamming against the doorstopper. Time stopped. I looked, wild-eyed, at Easton, who stood straight, his head bent low in shame. He looked like he couldn’t take another defeat, yet one was dealt to him anyway.
Laid out on the table, a black mask to blind him, a pair of handcuffs, a slim whip with a small, flat piece of leather at the tip, and a string of beads, each a little larger than the one before. These were the things I had left spread out on his bed, except now they were on the coffee table.
The man who was pointing to the items on the coffee table was red-faced, his hair much whiter than I remembered it from seven years ago.
If Easton had offered any explanation for the sex toys on his bed, Kevin hadn’t believed them.
His anger was so bright that his eyes were shining.
And now, as the two men turned to the door, it was as though I had pulled the lever, opening the floor under Easton’s feet and letting the noose do the rest.
He had been right all along. I only ever took from him. No matter the intentions, the things I did left a trail of devastation.
“Who the hell…?” Kevin stuttered, his infuriating, nasal voice cutting off when his small eyes turned white with shock. “You.”
I clenched my teeth hard enough to crack them, then shut the door behind my back.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said, facing the stuff of my nightmares.
This was the man whose face I wished to exorcise out of my mind.
This was the monster under my bed. The smacking sounds of his palm against my cheek, my butt, the back of my head, or anything he could grab in a moment of hateful fury filled my ears all these years later.
“How are you here?” Kevin demanded.
“Jace, you shouldn’t have followed me,” Easton blurted.
Kevin looked at Easton. Was it possible that some small part of him had been holding on to denial for these few short moments?
Was it possible that Kevin had still remained convinced that I had simply appeared here, unrelated to the mysterious roommates or the unholy objects on the table?
I would have laughed if I didn’t feel like dying.
“It’s him,” Kevin said in disbelief. “The sounds Mirtle called me about. He’s the one…”
“Dad, I can explain.”
“You will keep your mouth shut, Easton,” Kevin hissed. He turned to me, measuring me as if to see if he could still take me down. I doubted it. I wasn’t a defenseless boy anymore, and I knew Kevin only felt comfortable dueling children. “You should be dead by now.”
I looked at him, feeling nothing from his hateful words. “You look halfway there, to be honest.”
The man who had once been my father crossed the room and stared at me. “I always knew your heart was rotten. From the day we let you in, boy.”
It gave me such pleasure to see that Kevin was a good five inches shorter than me. He had once seemed so tall and strong, but the man before me was a scrawny scarecrow with a scraggly beard and bad breath. He wasn’t so scary anymore.
“I didn’t think you’d go so low to come back,” Kevin said, trembling with hate. “Corrupting our boy. Our boy!”
I looked at Easton, whose face was damp with tears.
That was my legacy. I’d done this to him.
Had it not been for me, Easton never would have drawn any suspicion.
Shit happened, and parents discovered it, sure, but it was me who’d introduced him to these kinks and it was me who laid out the tools of our sinful rituals on his bed.
Without me, Easton never would have lost his fucking mind and cried loudly from the top of his lungs, riding me and riding the high of his orgasms, giving up the worries about the consequences.
I’d made him live his life the way I lived mine. Except, most of the time, when I did shit, I had nobody to think about. Nobody was in harm’s way. Nobody got screwed because of it because I was so freaking lonely. So alone.
That was the only safe way for me to exist. Alone. Not dragging the good ones down with me.
“You sick son of a bitch,” Kevin said, his voice creaking.
“That’s your wife you’re talking about,” I said, holding on to the last sliver of cool carelessness. I couldn’t show my feelings. He would win by default.
My words didn’t trigger him the way I’d hoped. “My wife? No. Another woman gave birth to you, boy. She took one good look and saw what it took us years to see. And she gave you up.”
I shrugged. “Don’t remember. Never met her.” I cocked my head. “But I remember you, old man. I remember those calluses you had when you slapped me.” I fought against the ringing sound in my ears, the very one that a well-placed slap of an open hand caused. “Do you wanna hit me now?”
“Jace, stop,” Easton pleaded.
“Don’t speak his name,” Kevin shouted at Easton over his shoulder.
“And you don’t yell at him,” I said, my voice deadly tame. “Try yelling at me instead.”
This dry, wiry man was so tense that he was ready to snap. “You only got what you deserved.”
I sucked my teeth. “See, I have a problem with that,” I said, taking this opportunity the universe had handed me.
I was never going to see Kevin Harper again in my life.
This was unexpected. I pitied Easton, my beautiful Steel Saint, my terrible sinner, but there was, once again, a narrow path out of this.
At least for him. “I’d think beating your child can only put you in debt, Kev.
Giving him crap for Christmas while the other one gets everything?
Yeah, that too. And sending your child to bed hungry because he didn’t like mashed peas doesn’t look great on your resume, either.
Do you know what? I think it’s time to settle the debt, old man. ”
Kevin laughed in disbelief. “Do you want me to fight you? I’ll fight you.”
“Stop,” Easton pleaded.
“Stay out of it,” I growled, shooting him a merciless look. Forgive me, I thought.
“Don’t talk to him that way. Don’t talk to him at all,” Kevin said hurriedly.
“Oh, only you get to talk like that? You’ve always been a hypocrite, Kev,” I said.
Odd how you sometimes said terrible things, but the one hearing them found the strength to remain calm. Then, you said something rather simple, maybe only in a slightly edged tone, and they exploded.
Kevin lifted his hand as if to strike me, but I knew the moves of street fights as well as I knew what the buckle of his belt felt like when it struck my naked back for jumping into the pool when he wanted some silence.
I grabbed his wrist and stepped closer, bumping into his body with mine.
“See what you did, you old coward?” I asked.
“You made me. You beat me and punished me and sent me out, not giving a fuck if I lived or died. And you can’t believe I survived on my own, but I did.
I did it just to spite you, you sick fuck.
You. I thought of you every time I felt like it was too much, and I thought how glad you would be if you knew. So I decided to stick around.”