Chapter Six Digging up the Past #2
Callum stepped back. Not wounded. Amused. Watching him as if he were something that had once belonged to him and had been left in the care of someone careless.
Like a thing he’d come to collect.
“You look good, Curls.” He roamed his gaze down Jude’s frame.
“Put on some definition, yeah? I can see it under that very low tee. Suits you.” His smile stretched, almost fond, as he brushed a curl from Jude’s forehead, rolling it between his thumb and finger.
“Still got these, though.” He sighed, smoke-filled breath mingling in the small gap between them.
“Missed them. All the boys liked them, didn’t they? ”
Jude’s muscles locked. He didn’t move when Callum’s hand drifted lower, tugging on his blazer lapel with that same old familiarity. Like a craftsman inspecting a piece of work he’d once carved and expected never to be altered.
“That fire must’ve scared the hell out of you.” Callum dipped his chin, eyes cutting up from beneath his lashes. That stare. The one that stuttered between puppy dog and feral beast. “All those kids. That smoke. Jesus, Curls.”
With one sharp yank, he dragged Jude forward by his lapel, until their chests collided and Jude gasped as Callum slid his hand up his neck in a slow, possessive sweep.
“I’m here now, lamb,” Callum whispered into his ear. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Jude wanted to scream.
Not at the words themselves, but at the way they settled over him like a familiar coat. The weight of them. The shape. The warmth turning too quickly into suffocation.
Because this was how it always began.
With tenderness. With hands where they didn’t belong. With words dressed up like love, disguising the sharp edge beneath.
Jude held still.
He breathed him in. Sweat, smoke-laced breath, with that cloying edge of synthetic body spray trying to mask the rot beneath.
It hit his gut like a memory. Violent. Familiar.
He exhaled, letting the glimmer of resistance burn out enough to move without drawing fire.
Then he stepped back. A quiet, calculated withdrawal.
And he slipped free of Callum’s grip, straightening his spine, forcing his shoulders back to feel taller than he was. More whole than he felt.
He was shaking. He knew it.
Callum would notice. Would savour it.
Still, Jude met his gaze. “You can’t be here.”
Callum frowned, genuinely puzzled. “Why not?”
“I have a life now.”
“I know, Curls,” Callum said warmly. “I’m proud of you.” He swept a hand in an arc around the room, taking in the shelves Jude built, the small fireplace, the carefully chosen furniture. “Look at all this. It’s perfect.”
But Jude knew what he meant. He wasn’t admiring the life Jude had fought tooth and nail to build. He wasn’t seeing survival, or growth, or the miracle of healing.
He saw opportunity.
A job. A clean name. A reputation Jude couldn’t afford to lose. Things Callum could now leverage. Twist. Infiltrate.
He wasn’t proud.
He was positioning himself.
Jude’s voice cracked as he spoke again, brittle at the edges. “Please… please don’t ruin this.”
Begging tasted foul in his mouth.
But sometimes it was the only thing that bought space.
Callum blinked, feigning hurt. He splayed a hand on his chest, allowing Jude to see the inked knuckles. “Ruin it? Christ, Curls, I came to support you. I’m a changed man. Just like you.”
He smiled. That soft, persuasive smile Jude had once fallen for. The one that meant absolutely nothing.
“I did my time.” Callum scratched through his dark buzz cut. “I owned my mistakes. I pleaded guilty.”
And he had. Technically.
To the lesser charges. The watered-down version of events never coming close to capturing the full weight of what he’d done.
What he was. The police hadn’t pushed for the rest. It had been too complex.
Too dependent on the cooperation of a boy who, at the time, had been too exhausted to fight.
And back then, Jude hadn’t cared about justice.
He hadn’t wanted courtrooms or testimonies or headlines.
He hadn’t wanted to step forward and admit his failings as a person.
A man. He hadn’t wanted any of those photos and videos proving who he’d been to see the light.
He’d wanted Callum gone.
Out of his house. His body. His head.
Speed had mattered more than longevity. Silence more than exposure. And he’d thought then if he kept the worst of it to himself, he could bury it along with Callum’s sentence. He’d wanted him locked away as quickly as possible so Jude could get on with his life without him.
But that had bought him this.
A knock at his door years later.
Now Jude was paying the price for the deal he’d made with fear.
“The parole board wouldn’t have let me out if I wasn’t rehabilitated, yeah?” Callum unhooked Jude’s glasses from his nose, wiped the lenses for him on his hoodie, then slipped them back up for him. “It’s all good, lamb.”
Jude didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.
They both knew how good Callum was at convincing people. Even trained ones. Even those who should have known better.
Even Jude.
“Look, I know you have this respectable image now.” Callum tilted his neck.
“Mr Ellison.” He stepped closer, and Jude flinched before he could stop himself.
Callum reached out anyway, crooking a finger beneath Jude’s chin, tilting his face up.
“So proud of you. All those kids. Your little classroom. You’ve built something here.
” Then his voice dipped, low and honey-thick. “Why would I want to ruin that?”
Jude didn’t breathe.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Callum’s tone softened, mock-offended, but the gleam in his eyes said otherwise.
“Wouldn’t utter a word about…” He gave a low chuckle, tilting his head.
“Well. You know. Back then. What you used to do. Who you used to be.” He grazed his thumb along Jude’s lower lip. “That’s not you anymore. Is it?”
Jude’s chest clenched.
Not because Callum was threatening him. But because he didn’t have to.
The implication hung in the air like a lit match near dry leaves.
One whisper. One conversation in the wrong pub or parent-teacher meeting.
That was all it would take. Jude had spent years stitching himself into a new shape.
Quiet. Composed. Trustworthy. He’d built a career.
A reputation. A home. Worthbridge was the place where no one knew what he’d survived.
What he’d done to survive. And Callum could undo all of it.
One click, and that photographic and video evidence of Jude’s failings would be online for all to see.
Jude dropped his gaze.
“Now,” Callum brushed the back of his hand along Jude’s cheek, “why don’t you go fix me a sandwich, yeah?
” He patted Jude’s face twice. Light, almost playful.
As if he was praising a dog for finally lying down and shutting up.
“I’ll go wash off the prison stink in your shower.
” He turned towards the stairs. “Then we’ll talk.
I’ll show you I’ve changed. That I deserve a second chance.
” He paused, looking back over his shoulder with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Like you got.”
Jude fluttered his eyes closed.
Callum jabbed a finger towards the stairs. “Take it up there?”
He grabbed his duffel bag from the floor, slung it over one shoulder, and started up the stairs as if he owned the house, the walls, the very air inside it. As if he hadn’t walked back into Jude’s life and rewritten the rules without asking.
Jude stood rooted by the front door, fingers clamped around the frame, lungs dragging in shallow, useless breaths.
His body screamed to move. To run. Run! But his legs refused the command.
It wasn’t a choice. It was a system crash.
A fault line wired deep in his muscles. The same paralysis as before.
And the memories hit like static: the crack of bone when he’d once tried to pull away, Callum’s voice snapping—don’t you dare turn your back on me.
He knew instinctively that if Callum heard the door open, or caught the flicker of flight, the talking would end and the violence would begin.
So he waited. He had to. The safest moment wasn’t now.
Because if he tried and failed, he’d lose everything he’d built since the last time he ran.
The stairs creaked beneath Callum’s weight. Then silence.
A door opened. Closed.
The shower came on.
Jude stayed where he was, trembling against the frame, the sound of running water dragging him back through time. And the lessons he taught his students rang so very personal. History had an echo.
And it had found him.