2. Chapter Two #3
It was the day Maison’s little brother was taken, and Kellan decided we couldn’t risk saving him, that I realized what position I had ended up in.
I was right in the middle, torn between my loyalty to the brothers who saved and protected me, and the operatives - my brothers, in their own right - who I found all on my own.
I’ve slowly been splitting in two ever since, stuck living with a soul-deep feeling of betrayal in my chest now that I can never give one side all of me. I don't know if that feeling will ever fade.
Just like I don’t know how I’ll keep facing the survivors in this house without drowning in the feeling of loneliness, or how much longer I can fight to keep my mind from wandering into that closet of my past and getting stuck there alongside the little boy I’ve kept there all these years, safe and sound, but never truly free.
Touchstones. I need more touchstones.
I set my keyboard to rainbow backlights and put on my favorite music. I light a small candle that always makes my office smell like vanilla cupcakes. I take out a bag of my favorite candy - licorice.
I make sure the little boy still locked inside my mind can’t be swallowed up by the darkness, surrounding him with all the light I can.
Then I drown myself in work until the house goes quiet.
Once my cameras show most of the house’s occupants are tucked away in their rooms, I make myself leave my little haven of an office.
I need to stretch and piss and eat something.
I should check on the team and with the docs.
Maybe I’ll even get a few minutes of fresh air outside.
Only after I finally do the few tasks I’ve been putting off, though - the ones that required me to leave my office to complete.
Jake came by earlier to grab go-bags for some of the survivors who wanted to leave as soon as possible, the contents depending on if they chose to take a new identity or return to their old one.
There are two survivors who were waiting until morning to leave, though, so I had extra time to put them together.
I grab their bags and sling both over one shoulder.
Then I grab the larger tote bag I filled a few days ago and the two miniature ones beside it.
I hesitate, then grab the pack of cigarettes I bought on a whim the other night too. Not that I’ll smoke them. I don’t even like them. The only reason I started was because Keaton did it and I thought it made me cool like him if I did it too.
A little bit of nicotine tonight wouldn’t hurt, though, and I’ve always liked that slight burn on the inhale.
Everything goes fine at first. I leave the go-bags and miniature totes outside of the corresponding doors for the survivors to find in the morning, the house quiet in a surprisingly comfortable way as I make my way around.
Then I go to put the last tote down, the big tote, and the door opens before I’ve even managed to place it on the floor.
The man who peeks at me through the half-open doorway is Matt, a survivor whose file created by Travis is nearly as sparse as the one I managed to put together myself. Whoever originally trafficked him let most of the details fall through cracks, and what remained might not even be accurate.
I’ll never tell poor Travis this, but it’s rare that a file is completely accurate when it comes across my desk.
Even the ones I create are often marred with gaps and best guesses.
Sometimes, Travis was able to see these for himself.
There are plenty of files with extra notes added, sometimes just updates, but sometimes corrections.
Bryce Jacobson’s is one of the most changed.
He was sold off as a blonde haired, blue-eyed, white boy.
The All-American image always gets more at an auction.
It wasn’t until he’d been owned for a while, long enough for his hair to grow out and his colored contacts to go bad, that the reality of his appearance came to light.
Yet, for every mistake or gap Travis or I were able to address, there’s another we had no way of correcting.
Matt’s file, regardless of how hard I’ve looked, is one of those files.
It’s one of the emptiest when it comes to background information, but the most frustrating thing for me is how empty the section of the file that covers his time at Travis’s compound is.
Matt is the owner of one of the biggest mysteries out of the entire collection of files.
The honor comes from the second page of his file, where there’s only a small, vague paragraph trying its best to be an incident report.
There was a birthday celebration this past spring for one of the men in Travis’s inner circle - Mica.
Calling Mica a monster would be too kind.
Even Keaton had admitted that the man was one of the worst he’d ever come across in all of his years working ops.
Keeping him around and alive was unavoidable for a number of reasons over the years, but Travis had hoped that his stricter rules when compared to others like him would keep Mica’s damage to a minimum.
It worked, if one looks at the big picture.
Those rules didn’t save Matt, though. Not really. Not enough.
It was Mica who stole Matt’s voice - or so we all assume.
Neither Jake or Travis were present when the so-called incident began, but Jake caught the end of it.
His official report had been simple. It included the date, the time, and the words “close call with obstructed airway, only about 45 seconds of complete deprivation, physical appearance fine apart from usual markings.”
On the phone that night, he’d sounded haunted as he painted the picture for me.
He said it was the most fucked up birthday party he’d ever attended.
I tried to comfort Jake, reminding him that the night was over.
Matt was safely tucked away in the slaves’s quarters with Bryce Jacobson at his side.
There was nothing more for him to do until morning, when he’d speak with Travis so the man could tug on Mica’s leash a little in warning.
He’d been calm enough by the end of the conversation to mumble, ‘I’m sure the kid will be fine.’
But the ‘kid’ hasn’t been fine at all. He hasn’t spoken a single word since.
Even when masters had threatened him at first, promising horrific things if he didn’t manage to utter a word and following up on them until they eventually realized nothing they did would make the man talk.
Even when he was alone with the other captives in areas of the house where Travis claimed there was no reason for surveillance, we never heard a word from him.
I’ve stopped following their medical updates now that I live among them, but I really fucking hope that the doctors here - Adam Singh and Devin Deacon - figure out a way to help Matt.
It’s the least any of us can do, especially when Mica is one of the very few people who slipped through the cracks at the end of our operation.
If Matt knows his own personal monster is still on the loose, he must be terrified. Upset, at the very least. If I was him, I’d be - ah, shit.
Matt is now staring at me with wide eyes, his shoulders pulled up toward his ears and curled slightly forward.
Probably because I’ve just been standing here like an idiot, looming in the shadowy hallway, not saying anything.
Not to mention that his roommate Nolan is, strangely enough, downstairs with Maison right now, so Matt is without backup if I had nefarious reasons for visiting.
For all I know, Matt doesn’t even remember briefly meeting me when he first arrived here and I’m nothing but a strange man who was lurking outside his door.
Jesus, yeah, terrified probably doesn’t even fucking cover it.
“Uh,” I say like an utter moron. “Hi.”
He blinks at me.
Right. Mute means he can’t answer. Also, as mentioned, he’s probably terrified.
“Hi,” I say again, officially deciding to go toss myself off the roof after this encounter.
Or just never leave my office ever again.
“I’m Ace. The tech guy. You might remember that I was there when you all first showed up?
I was handing out bags. It’s okay if you don’t.
You probably don’t. I haven’t been around much since then.
I hang out in my office most of the time.
I’m sort of a hermit. Which isn’t the point.
The - uh - the point is that I’m the tech guy and not here to hurt you, okay? ”
He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. One of his hands is gripping the door, slim fingers digging into the wood hard enough to pale his knuckles.
“I was just dropping off this bag,” I try to explain. “I didn’t want to knock in case you were sleeping. I was just going to, you know, put it down. Here. Outside the door.”
I hold up the tote like an idiot, relieved when his intense eyes finally move from me to it.
That only lasts a few seconds, though. Then his gaze is locked back onto me.
I can’t blame him for not wanting to take his eyes off of the threat, but it makes me feel wrong inside. Hot and twisted, a little.
No one has ever been afraid of me before. Not that I noticed, at least. Maybe some of the survivors were when they first arrived, but I was too busy with all of the chaos and my own memories to realize it. All I know is that it’s not a good feeling, to be feared. In fact, it’s pretty fucking awful.
I hate it.
“I’m really, really sorry. I shouldn’t be here. I can just put it down-” I cut myself off when he starts to reach his hand toward me. I hold perfectly still, watching as emotions play across his face over the short span of seconds it takes for him to get his fingers around the fabric handles.