31. Thirty-One
Thirty-One
Toni
“Good morning, pretty girl,” a still groggy-sounding Brennon mumbled, “I think someone’s been waiting for us.”
Beneath his comforter, he gripped my hips and flipped me. I gasped at the unexpected movement, and maybe, also, at the sight of a fraught-looking Xavier seated on the floor at the end of Brennon’s cot.
“Xav?” Brennon called out
“We need to find those missing files. I’m starting to think this is so much bigger than Rachel, or Holly, or any of us.”
He looked directly into my eyes, worry lacing through every feature.
“Wild girl, Toni, I-”
His reticence was starting to make me nervous, too, “What is it? Just tell me. Our lives are already a shit show. How much worse can it get?”
“Hold that thought,” he took a deep breath, “I, um, uh, don’t know how to say this,” It was so unlike Xavi to not just come straight out with the truth.
He was always so direct, so the way his voice was softening like that would ease the blow of whatever god-awful thing he was about to say, well, it felt unnatural.
“Xav, just spit it out.”
And he did.
“I think your dad is behind those kids’ disappearances. Holly. The siblings yesterday. I think he’s using Agonde like a kind of waystation.”
I looked at Brennon hoping he could clarify, but his confusion mimicked my own. Xav exhaled, closed his eyes as if to gather his thoughts, before speaking again. This time, spelling it out completely.
“He’s using it as a trading post. Like a product distribution centre.”
“Umm, for what?” I asked, feeling more stupid by the second. It was like there was a big black cloud in my own mind where something was scratching to get through but couldn’t quite pierce the fog.
“For kids. He’s trading in kids, T. Buying, selling, trafficking. He’s trafficking children. And what’s worse, I think he’s been doing it for a long time.”
Like a red-hot pin poked through an overstuffed balloon, the black fog burst, and I understood why Xavi had looked so fucking distraught.
I’d known my father was a monster most of my life.
A hideous, despicable nightmare. His DNA was a poison, one that succeeded in infecting my twin brother and that threatened to pull me under at every turn.
Every time I felt my head break the surface, felt my lungs fill with air properly, the disease that was Franklin Barrett just wouldn’t let me go.
But this, thinking that it wasn’t just me whose innocence was ruined by that man, but there were others, that was unbearable.
I jolted from Brennon’s bed, not caring that I had no underwear on and nothing but his oversized shirt to cover the rest of me.
In a haze, I was through the door, barely making it around the corner before I shoved my fingers down my throat.
The bile came up with a cleansing, satisfying burn. At first. But when the boys rounded the corner and found me on my knees, it morphed into a hot shame that made me want to run away from them, or in fact do it again.
“Toni! What the fuck?!” Xavi shouted, “What is this?!”
How could I explain? That this, THIS, made me feel better?
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, wiping saliva from the corner of my mouth, “I’m sorry.
” I repeated over again, not knowing what else to say.
The twisting and turning feeling in my guts that had faded briefly was back and I didn’t know what to do about that.
I wasn’t about to purge again with my guys standing right there.
They were probably already disgusted enough with what they’d just witnessed.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s disgusting, I just,” I stumbled over the words, “I just, I had to get rid of it.”
“Of what?” Brennon asked, as he and Xavi worked together to lift me to my feet.
“Of-f-f-f” my voice shook too badly for the words to come out right.
Xav looked down at the dirt where my sick was still pooled and then back to me, “Let’s take this inside.”
They half walked, half carried me back into Brennon’s cabin. They settled me on the bed. But they weren’t willing to let go of their questions.
“Okay, so what did we just see?” Xavier asked.
“It’s nothing.”
“Birdie,” Brennon growled, “Remember your promise. No more lies.”
With that one sentence, the weight of just how many secrets I’d kept and lies I had told settled like boulders in the bottom of my stomach.
At least with this one, the only person I was hurting was myself.
But still, I had promised. And I was done breaking my promises.
So, I explained to my two very grim-faced men how it was just something I did.
Or started doing around the time we were eleven or twelve, just as my father’s abuse peaked.
How purging felt like the only mechanism I had for ridding my body of all the despicable things he was doing to me.
How, by the time Francis took over where our father had stopped, it had become my default response to dealing with my shitty life.
“So, a coping mechanism? About control?” Brennon asked while rubbing my back. I nodded. Somehow admitting this was nearly as harrowing as telling them about the abuse. Maybe because that was done to me. This was something I did to myself.
“But you never have problems eating?” Xavier questioned.
Brennon scolded, “It’s not about eating, Xav, it’s about control.
What do you do when you feel out of control?
I’ll tell you, babe. You retreat, and you plot, and you spy, and you nit pick until you get to a plan that you think gives you that control back. ”
Xav turned, wide-eyed, but dipped his chin to acknowledge that what Brennon had said was true.
“I also retreat, but not to plan. Usually, I just retreat into a cloud of smoke. Nothing takes the edge off hard feelings for me like a blunt,” his eyes turned wistful for a second, “And for Birdie, it’s clearly this. Is that right?”
I nodded again, the shame still burning through me at even having this conversation.
Xavi sighed, “I’m sorry, Nettie. I guess none of us really have healthy coping mechanisms, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” Brennon confirmed, “But while we’re sharing uncomfortable truths, I have one of my own.”
He reached for Xav, pulling him down beside him on the bed and grabbing his cheek so that the two could lock eyes.
Then, he told him about Cole and their encounter in the paddle shed.
As Brennon explained it again, this time, I couldn’t help but picture them together.
I knew what it looked like to see Brennon and Xav, but I couldn’t imagine he and Cole would have that same dynamic.
Cole would never, could never, submit. Not to Brennon or anyone else.
I also never imagined Cole would consider being with a guy, but then again, the way he’d treated Brennon afterward wasn’t exactly the behaviour of someone ready to deal with their own shit.
Over the last year, I’ve had to tell Xavi so many awful things.
About my father, and brother, and my childhood and he listened attentively every time, always responding just like the little kid who’d patched up my scraped knee.
Xavier’s reaction to this news, though, told me Brennon was right when he warned me I didn’t have the full picture.
Xavier didn’t say a word. His whole body vibrated with what I could only assume was poorly contained anger.
Meanwhile, Brennon brought their faces even closer together and whispered a string of words I couldn’t hear.
I didn’t need to, either. This wasn’t about me; it was about them.
I had to hope that one or both of them would eventually fill me in, but their relationship was just that, theirs.
And if this thing, whatever it was, with the three of us was ever going to work, our individual relationships had to matter just as much as, well, whatever we were doing as a group.
Thinking of us that way was confusing, and happy, and too difficult to consider properly when the inside of my mouth still tasted like bile. Interrupting their heart to heart for a second, I pounced off the bed and thumbed at the door.
“I’m going to go brush my teeth and get dressed.”
“We’ll come find you,” Brennon reassured, before pouring his full attention back onto Xav.
They did find me about twenty minutes later. They were sitting on the steps of my cabin, hand in hand, just as I was about to head for breakfast.
“Come here, wild girl,” he ordered, and of course, I skipped the two steps over to them. Xavi, it seemed, had other ideas, because as soon as I was within his arm’s reach he pulled me down into his lap and held me so tight, kissing me with near-bruising force. When I was breathless, he pulled back.
“Ummm, not that I’m complaining but what was that?” I giggled. From our side Brennon smirked.
“I think Xavi’s just feeling a tad possessive of us this morning, Birdie. We’ve agreed that we’re all going to talk to each other first when we start to feel out of control before defaulting to our bad habits. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” I answered, looking Xav right in his perfect hazel eyes.
He looked back at me, eyes on fire, and his throat rumbled with a low “hmmmm”, as he reached out and grabbed Brennon’s thigh, hard.
Both Brennon and I giggled that time. Being with them like this, out in the open, with the sun up, felt so good.
Too good to be true. Though that wasn’t a feeling I got to keep for very long at the realization of where we were.
Francis’ cabin was directly in front of us.
We were probably just seconds from him storming out here.
I tried to jump up, to scramble from Xav’s lap before he reassured me.
“We checked. He’s not there.”
“You checked?! What if he saw you?! After the other night, Brennon? What if he…?”
“We were careful,” Xavier replied, “My kind of careful.”