Facing Us (Kids of the District #1)

by Nicci Harris

  The thought of him saying that to her coils hatred around my very existence.

  I slump back down on the chair and pant heavily. “Continue.”

  “I went into the room, and when he saw me, I could tell immediately that he remembered everything he did. He sat up straight away and the look in his eyes killed me. He knows, Konnor. The shame and guilt were so obvious. I gulped and so did he. Then I moved in to sit beside him, shuffling awkwardly, and avoiding his eyes. He reached out and touched my hand. My heart jumped into my throat, and when I retracted my hand, he winced. We must have sat in silence for at least twenty minutes.”

  “Where was Elise?” I ask, rigidly.

  “Watching from the doorway. We sat without talking for ages. He could barely open his mouth after having it wired shut for the past three weeks. Then he spoke, and his voice was gravelly and strained. He said, ‘Is there anything I can say that will bring you back to me?’ I shook my head. He said, ‘Are you with him now?’ I sighed, and it felt really good to answer. I said, ‘Yes.’ When I said yes. . . I was smiling. He said, ‘I promise I’ll do anything to earn back your trust, anything. Just name it.’ I started to cry and said, ‘Promise?’ He said, definitively, ‘Yes, anything. I promise, Bebe.’ So, I said, ‘Don’t call me, don’t try to see me, and if you do see me, walk the other way.’ Then I left.”

  My heart throbs in my chest, contracting with relief. “So, you’re not leaving me, then?” I keep my eyes anchored on the unmoving ground, because focusing on her features is too difficult.

  I need to lie down.

  She moves in beside me and puts her hand on my knee. “Did you really think that was a possibility?”

  I gulp and turn my attention to her, dazed and sheepish. “After the way I acted? Yes, Duch, I did.”

  She kisses my cheek. “Leaving you will never be a possibility.”

  ✽✽✽

  Blesk sits with her back flush against my headboard and her legs wide apart, as I lay curled in a drunken foetal position between her thighs on the mattress, half-conscious. I am spooning her leg. I can smell the peach-scented cream she uses and it calms me. Her loving caresses satiate my senses, as her fingers gently brush my brown hair from my face. I’m awake, my eyes are shut, but my mind is taking in this moment’s perfection. The deluxe version of perfect. From the radiating in my temple and the swelling in my hands and feet, it’s apparent I’ve been passed out on her lap for a few hours.

  I’m going to feel like shit for the rest of the day… and most of tomorrow.

  Why does she put up with this?

  Why does she put up with me?

  She’s wearing a dress. A tiny white sundress, and it’s driving me crazy. Her fingers continue to comb my hair and cheeks, tickling my neck and shoulders, while she’s wearing that dress. Her thigh makes for a supreme pillow, and she definitely smells better. My hands tighten around her knee, running up her thigh until one feeds under her backside and the other ends in between her legs. A small surprised gasp escapes her. I bite my lip, groaning when I feel the heat between her legs. My thumb rubs her through her knickers, circling and kneading. She hums. I stare up at her and watch as my fingers make her come completely undone. She has her eyes closed, breathing deeply and arching into my palm.

  I turn, grab her thighs and drag her down the bed until her head hits the mattress. A gorgeous little whimper breaks her lips and her eyes widen with excitement.

  Make that sound again.

  I lie down between her legs, using my hips to encourage her thighs further apart. My breathing is laboured, strained and fast. I want to be inside her, now. My hand caresses her neck, up her cheek and into her hair. My other hand moves down to unbutton my jeans and release some pressure caused by my swelling erection. I shuffle my pants down and kick them off the bed. She peers up with those big brown unwavering eyes, wanting me to take her. I can tell.

  Be gentle with her.

  “Blesk,” I almost plead.

  Her fingers stroke the contours of my back muscles. “Konnor, make love to me.”

  I groan, my cock pulsing, beating against my stomach and heavy under its own weight.

  Breath hurdles out of me. “Ask me again.”

  She smiles. “Make love to me,” she purrs.

  Best. Sentence. Ever.

  I wiggle my brows at her, and grind against her, moaning deep in my chest when I feel her thighs tighten around my hips. “Ask him,” I tease, peering down between our bodies.

  She giggles and looks down at my cock. “Make love to me,” she says playfully.

  I touch the delicate decorations on her dress. “He wants to know if we can keep this pretty thing on.”

  She smiles. “Yes.”

  I almost grunt with primal need as I kneel to yank her underwear off fast. She responds immediately and arches, helping me pull them from her ankles with ease. Then I come down on top of her and prop myself up on my forearms, nuzzling into her neck and claiming that soft skin with my mouth. She moans as I feed one hand down to grip her spectacular arse, and slowly push inside her.

  ✽✽✽

  After working off my alcohol on top of Blesk, taking a long hot shower, and downing two Panadol, I actually feel half-human again.

  “We need to look in that envelope, Konnor,” she states as I walk out of the bathroom.

  “Or we could just have sex again?” I suggest, nodding.

  She talks through an adorable grin. “At some point we have to drive back to campus.”

  “Or we could just take the year off and stay in bed.”

  “Seriously, Konnor.”

  “I am being serious,” I say, walking over to her and grabbing her perfect arse cheeks, kneading her slightly into my groin. “Do I feel like I’m joking?”

  She rests her forearms on my shoulder and peers up at me, tickling my neck with her long fingernails. I grin down at her. I love the way her nails feel running through my hair, goose bumps lacing every inch of my skin. I shiver and keep rubbing her back, kneading her bum into my groin and feeling her shapely figure beneath my fingers.

  My God she does things to me.

  It never occurred to me that touching someone else, all over their body, tracing every curve and arch, as much as I want, is actually a weird concept. This body is not mine. It’s hers. She allows me the pleasure of putting my hands on her most prized possession, her most personal aspect of living. When I kiss her neck, I can feel her heart beat vibrating through her artery, I can taste her skin and sweat when I lick her, and she allows me this honour. I will never take it for granted, and I will never stop touching her. For as long as she lets me, my hands will be on her.

  She arches her neck up and raises her brows at me, her expression displaying a level of severity I don’t often see on her.

  I roll my eyes. “Okay, Duch, let’s open the envelope.”

  ✽✽✽

  I actively ignore the documents she is perusing and analysing. Bank statements. Photos. News articles from when I was taken. A deed to Knight Estate. A collection of paper-based trophies that arsehole kept. I have no interest in them.

  Or do? This is probably my innate self-preservation technique brought about by this potentially life-changing situation. All I’m focusing on is her mouth and the way she licks her finger before she turns each page. Part of me is praying there is a lack of revealing information in amongst that pile. I’m happy. There is nothing in there that could improve my life. I have everything I need, right here -licking her finger. Since we’re already probing into our past, I decide I might as well tell Blesk everything I know. I begin talking from on the corner of the bed, while she sits cross-legged on the carpet.

  "My biological mother died, as you probably know.” I mention.

  But I’m not sure why.

  “She died a few years after I was taken. My biological father thought it would be best if I get a fresh start. He didn’t want me to go through my life experiencing nothing but pity and having people treat me like
I was broken or damaged. So, he never came to collect me, and instead, put me up for adoption.” I exhale loudly and admit, “At least that’s what they told me.”

  “You’ve never met him. Never wanted to?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why? Did the adoption upset you?” she asks, with that exact level of pity that makes my biological dad’s decision justifiable.

  “No. I had very little memory of him anyway, or my bio-mum, so a clean slate seemed fine. To be honest, from the moment I got free, the only person I wanted to see, the only person I wanted to be with, was you.”

  She reaches out and rubs my knee. “Tabula rasa.”

  I blink at her questioningly and guffaw. “Harry Potter spell?”

  She giggles. “It’s Latin. It means “scraped tablet,” but usually gets translated into “blank slate.” I guess we both received a tabula rasa, in a way. I feel our personal circumstances are more akin to the “scraped tablet” translation, though. I mean, it wasn’t blank, it was scraped.”

  “Such a smart cookie, Duch. Maybe that’ll be my first tat,” I laugh.

  She glares at me. “Don’t you dare mark that beautiful skin.”

  I slap my knee theatrically before saying, “Oh man, but all the other kids’ll tease me.”

  Rolling her eyes and ignoring my comment, she points to an old candid image with her delicate finger. “Who is that in the photo? She has your eyes, Konnor.”

  I blink at it for a while, strangely apathetic. “I have hers. That’s my bio-mum when she was in high school.”

  She offers me a smile. “She’s beautiful, Konnor.”

  I nod and remain aloof. “I suppose she is.”

  “Do you know these other people?” she asks, running her finger over their faces.

  I stare at it for a while. “That’s Dad, Ben. I don’t recognise the others. They all went to school together.”

  She lifts a blonde brow. “Coincidence?”

  I shrug, dubious. “It’s The District, Duch. Everyone knows everyone. There are like four-degrees of separation here.”

  “Less I suppose when they were growing up,” she says, flicking through pages and seemingly unimpressed with the spread on the floor in front of her. Her brows tighten and her shoulders drop on a sigh. “This is just useless stuff and articles we could find online” She stays seated and squashes her nose up at me, pouting. “Did Ben ever tell you why he adopted you?”

  Nodding, I shuffle back along the mattress and cross my legs in front of me.

  “Yes, my bio-mum and Ben were close in high school, so when the cops found me, he did everything in his power to get me. He knew my story, and I think he loved my bio mum. I think he loved her a lot. He wanted to make sure my future would be better than my past. I guess he didn’t want to leave it up to chance. He has always been quite forthright with me about it.”

  She tilts her head at me. “What makes you say he loved your bio-mum?”

  I shrug and chew on the inside of my mouth, contemplating. “Sometimes he looks at me with this weird expression. Then he sighs and tells me how much I look like her. I don’t know really, it’s just a feeling I get, like I should be comforting him or something. It’s hard to explain.”

  “It’s plain to see he loves you, Konnor. You’re his son in every way but blood. My parents always wanted a girl, and apparently when my mum saw me, she fell in love with me. She used to tell me the story of when she first laid eyes on me. I was so tiny, so slim, with nearly platinum blonde hair and pink cheeks. And although she said I didn’t look sad, I wasn’t smiling. I was wandering around the orphanage playroom, straightening all the dolls, tucking their clothes in and positioning them neatly on the shelves. She didn’t try to talk to me. She just started helping me clean up the mess all the other kids had left behind. We did this together for nearly an hour, and every so often, we would share a glance and a half-smile.

  She was a saint. The kind of woman who would demand the runt of the litter when picking a puppy. That was me. The underdog. She said it was love at first sight. I never told her this but it was for me, too. I remember thinking she was the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. A foreign princess, with her long dark hair and dark eyes. Like Jasmine from Aladdin. And she had this voice, so soft, so full of passion.” Blesk sighs, with a subtle melancholic smile.

  “I remember when she got cancer, and I read this article that suggested peaches may have a therapeutic effect on cancer cells. I went straight out and spent my whole allowance on baby peach trees. They took ages to grow. But peaches were your favourite fruit, remember? So, I kind of loved being the one who nursed them and saw them grow. I missed seeing you grow. It made me happy. I missed you.”

  What do I say to that?

  I smile down at her, taken aback by that adorable sparkle of recollection in her eye. “Words,” I sigh, “I have none, just… I love you.”

  She stifles a happy tear. “I love you too, baby. What’s your adoptive mum like?”

  “You’ll meet her soon. You can decide for yourself.”

  “Come on, Konnor?” she pleads, peering up at me with those big doe eyes.

  “Okay, Duch. We are doing some touchy-feely stuff, hey? Not really the touchy-feely stuff I had in mind, but I’ll oblige.” I chuckle. “Well… Renee is awesome. She’s a little like Cassidy. A bit eccentric, a little weird. I like her a lot, she—” My words get caught dead in my larynx when something catches my eye. The air seems to thicken. I squint as I lean down and pick up a bank statement with a $5,100,000 deposit. “That’s a hefty transaction,” I murmur under my breath. I check the sending account: Lumad, LTD. My breath catches.

  Why do I recognise that account?

  I glance at the name displayed on the top of the sheet: Donavon Pemberton. I check the date of the deposit: August 22, 1999. Blesk follows my line of sight and then darts between the statement and my tight expression. My brain is in overdrive, calculating. I can feel my face harden, my brows drawing together.

  “What is it?” she asks, looking anxious.

  I shake my head, because what I’m looking at must be a typo.

  “What is it, Konnor?” she says again, her voice hiking up and down with nerves.

  I motion with my hand. “Give me that news article, the one from when I went missing.”

  She picks it up and hands it up to me. I check the date. August 22, 1999. My fingers feel numb as they hold this weightless document that seems impossibly heavy. I jump up and grab my phone, dialling so fast that I type the wrong number twice. “Dammit!” I grunt, smacking the phone on the wall because it feels good to do it and to take my tension out on the useless device in my hand that can’t keep up with my impossibly fast-moving fingers. I begin to type again, and then wait for the tone to drop.

  “Adolf!” I say through the handset. “Konnor Slater.”

  “Mr. Slater, is everything alright? How can I be of service?”

  “I need you to go into my apartment. Go into the top drawer of my bedside table and take a photo of the invoice in there with your phone. Then send it to me.” My voice is curt, and I’m clutching the phone so tightly, my palms are losing all colour and sensitivity.

  There is an uncomfortable pause.

  “Sir, what’s this about?” he enquires, his tone wary.

  “Adolf, I’m sorry to ask this of you, but I need you to do this. I’m in Brussman, and I won’t be home ’til later tonight. I need to see that invoice.”

  He clears his throat. “Of course, sir. I will go up right now.”

  “Thank you,” I hang up rather abruptly. I turn to look at Blesk, her face opaque with worry.

  “Konnor?” she says, on the brink of tears.

  “Give me one second, Duch. I’ll explain everything in a second, okay?”

  I walk out the room and down the staircase. Walking straight to the bar, I pour myself a much-needed bourbon. My hands shake wildly, chinking the ice-blocks around the glass. I take a sip. It really doesn’t suffice so I th
row the whole contents back into my throat. I pour myself another. I wait. And then my phone buzzes within my pocket. Without considering the possible ramifications of the information I’m about to discover, I open the phone and check the new multimedia message attached to Adolf’s name.

  My body turns to stone when I see the document that confirms my fears.

  It’s all a lie.

  Everything I have believed in. Everything I built for myself on this foundation of family, Cassidy, Flick, Ben, Renee, the Slater family... It’s all a lie. I run up the staircase two steps at a time.

  “Duch! This account,” I rush through the door and lower myself to sit beside her on the floor. “This account, Lumad, LTD, it’s the same account that paid my tuition this year. It’s the same account that I saw on a sponsorship invoice for the new sporting precinct. Adolf just sent me a picture of it. It’s the same account. It’s the same fucking account, Duch!” My voice is panicked, and the words are hurtling from my mouth too fast to allow for adequate air intake.

  She exhales in a rush. “Okay. Slow down. What does that mean?”

  “The same person who transferred your bio father, Donavan Pemberton, over $5,000,000 on August the 22nd 1999, the same day I was taken, also paid my tuition this year.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Ben and Renee Slater paid your father to take me.”

  TWENTY-FOUR: Deakon

  “Deakon? My name is Ben Slater. I’m a friend. Do you mind if I sit with you?”

  A gentle-looking man approaches and stands by the boy’s side, a half-smile tight on his lips. The boy gave up a few days ago. But unlike before, he now knows when the days pass because he stares at the ticking hand as it slowly circles around the clock face.

  The boy has gotten more attention than ever before. The people at the hospital are always checking him, testing him, putting him in machines that beep and clank. They stab him with needles, take blood from him, and add fluids. They are helping.

  Go away, the boy thinks to himself. Just go away.

  One of the men from yesterday, when the big hand was at the two and the little at the five, had called him hostile. He doesn’t even know what that means. There is this weight in his belly that won’t go away, and he feels full, and nauseous, and yet empty at the same time. The boy scowls.