Nurture

by Sarah Masters

  Kevin’s red-wine breath stung Carl’s eyes, and he closed them, rolling over, waiting for the inevitable.

  It came swiftly, the belt’s bite wicked on his ass and thighs. Carl clamped his lips closed, determined not to cry out, but the lashes gained speed, the snap of them against his body too much to handle.

  His cries sounded like a wounded animal.

  Carl gritted his teeth, irked that tears fell down his face, mimicking the event of years ago.

  “No,” Carl said to the guy outside. “Get lost.”

  “Well, then. I have no alternative but to—”

  “I’m warning you, man. Fuck off!” Carl’s words seeped from between his clamped teeth, and he balled his hands into fists, willing himself not to give in and let the man in.

  “Let him in, kid. Bet you can’t face up to what you’ve done.”

  Turning, he made sure the door was secure then walked into the kitchen. Irate, he unplugged the fridge. He gripped the sides, his intention to scoot the appliance in front of the door thwarted by a loud crack. He ran into the hallway. At the door, he leaned toward the spy hole. The guy held a rammer and was in the process of swinging it back for another smack at the wood. Other men stood beside and behind him, their flak jackets evidence of who they were.

  Gas man, my ass.

  His anger grew and, with no time to block the entrance, Carl lunged for the bedroom, slamming the door. Uncaring whether Paul woke now, he moved to the wardrobe and slid down one side, pushing it toward the door. Sweat broke out under his arms, and his face grew hot with the exertion. Wardrobe in place, he dashed to the window to check the back of the building. No cops occupied the rear grounds, but he couldn’t exit the apartment from there. He didn’t want to. His plan had been to get himself and Paul somewhere no one could touch them—and that plan hadn’t changed. It would have to be implemented sooner, that was all. He closed the drapes and stood beside the bed, watching Paul. Should he wake him or let him pass on oblivious?

  A resounding snap rent the air, followed by the sound of the front door smacking against the hallway wall.

  “Shit!” Carl whispered.

  Paul opened his eyes and stared at Carl, mouth agape. “What’s going on?”

  Carl studied him. Paul’s reaction had seemed genuine enough. “Some bastard at the door breaking in.”

  Paul’s mouth twitched. Was that a smile trying to break out there?

  No, he wouldn’t find this funny. He wants to be with me as much as I want to be with him. I can see it in his eyes. See the shock. He loves me.

  Carl longed to join Paul on the bed and kiss away his fears. Shouts from the hallway filled his ears, and he clamped his hands over them, humming to drown them out. Then, with an infusion of strength, he darted to the wardrobe, patting around on top until his fingers touched what he sought. He found the handle and pulled it toward him, taking the gun case down and placing it on the bed.

  “What are you doing?” Paul asked, eyes wide, panic written all over his face.

  “Doing what I should have done a long time ago.” Carl opened the case. He removed the gun then inserted bullets with a steady hand.

  “And what’s that wardrobe doing there?” Paul stared from Carl to the door then back again.

  “You expecting someone?” Carl asked, pointing the gun at Paul.

  “No. No! I— Look, whoever it is…maybe we can get rid of them.”

  “Get rid of them?” Carl almost laughed. Was Paul stupid? “Not likely. They’re cops. Too many of them. We haven’t got enough bullets.”

  “What are the cops doing here?”

  Carl stared at Paul. Did he know what Carl had been up to lately?

  He must do. I saw that brawny cop at Brian’s earlier. No fucking way Paul isn’t aware of what I’ve done.

  “They’re coming for me, babe. I wanted to explain, but—”

  Heavy footsteps running down the hall made Carl stop speaking, and a thump on the bedroom door jarred his last nerve.

  “Police! Come out with your hands behind your head!”

  “Carl, make them go away,” Paul said.

  “You haven’t got the balls, kid.”

  “Shut up,” Carl snarled.

  “What?” Paul frowned.

  “Not you. Him.” Carl jerked his head to where he saw Kevin standing beside the wardrobe, smirking his head off. “What the fuck are you doing here, old man?”

  “Old man?” Paul echoed. “What old man?”

  Carl looked at the gun, wishing he’d had time to explain, to make things right with Paul before he blew his head off.

  Then swallowed a bullet himself.

  But there was no time to lay it all out. All there was time for were the two gunshots needed to take them to the place where they’d always be together.

  Carl pointed the gun at Paul. “I’ll tell you everything when we get where we’re going.” He smiled, wishing things had been different. “I swear it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I tried to sit up, remembered the bonds holding me, and shuddered back. I jerked experimentally at them, but Carl had made good work of keeping me captive.

  “Carl, please.” This wasn’t how this was supposed to work. The police had said to let him in, to not make him suspicious. That they’d be there before Carl could do anything. But Carl had arrived too soon, and the cops had taken so long to come. Now, what was I supposed to do?

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  Carl didn’t answer, just kept frowning at the gun, muttering and glancing at the door. I strained to hear Vic’s voice through the hubbub, but everything was too chaotic.

  “We can figure this out, Carl. Please.” I twisted my head away, unable to think with the gun filling my field of vision.

  “Look at me, Paul.”

  “Put that away. Please.”

  “Look at me!”

  Terrified, I snapped my head around and did my best to ignore the threat pointed in my face. “Don’t do this,” I whispered, my voice choked with my pleading, as it too often was with him lately. “Please.”

  “This is the final stage. Everything I’ve done for you…”

  “Don’t make me one of them.” I scooted forward as much as my tied hands would let me. If I could just touch him. Some surreal part of me needed to make sure he still had warmth in his skin.

  “One of who?” Carl asked.

  Outside the bedroom, cops shouted and stomped their feet. I darted my attention to the door and the dresser, but I quickly focused back on Carl. “Those men. I’m yours, remember? You did this all…” I couldn’t say it. That would make it too real. “You said we’d go someplace together.”

  Carl just looked at me. The gun wavered but didn’t fall.

  “You remember.” I swallowed, tugged at my bonds again, pulled my knees up, trying to get comfortable. “Back when…when we started? It was fantastic.” I managed a smile, even, and fought to ignore the commotion on the other side of the door. “You protected me from everyone.”

  Looking back now, I could see Carl’s actions for the signs of dangerous obsession they were, but at the time it had been nice to be wanted that much.

  “We were so good together, Carl.”

  “Were?” Carl’s brow bunched in a deep frown.

  “We’re going to go away, remember?” I hastily reminded him. “Together. We’re going to get all that back. Just you and me.”

  “You want that?”

  “I want you to be happy, Carl. Safe and happy.”

  “I had to…” Carl frowned harder. “You understand, right? They were…”

  “It doesn’t matter now, Carl. It’s over. Whatever they were, it’s over now. Just you and me.” I yanked at my hands again. “See?”

  “You and me.”

  He shuffled over to the bed to flip me easily onto my back. He opened the belt holding my ankles then knelt between my legs. The gun he set down on my chest. It was surprisingly heavy, and I couldn’t take m
y gaze off it. At least for the moment it was out of his hands. Hands that were suddenly at my crotch, popping open the button on my jeans.

  Why haven’t the police started coming through that door?

  “Carl?” It was all I could do not to squirm.

  “One last time, Paul, yeah? You and me.”

  “Carl.” I glanced toward the door. “Get rid of them first.”

  “Why?”

  He had my zipper open, and the beginnings of panic stirred in my gut. Why this frightened me more than having a deadly weapon pointed at my face I couldn’t say. But I couldn’t let him see it.

  “Because they’ll see me.” I willed him to look at me while I could still fake sincerity enough to have him believe me. “I’m yours. No one else should see me. Make them go away.”

  Carl stilled his hands and stared ahead at the wall. Paul was right. He shouldn’t be seen. Not by those bastards out there. They weren’t worthy enough to set eyes upon him, taint him with their steely gazes. Paul was good and pure and whole. Not like them—those men had deserved to die. Deserved a knife to their damn throats.

  Blinking, he zipped up Paul’s jeans and gazed down at him.

  He’s my life. The one I belong with.

  A loud banging smacked on the door.

  And those men out there… They’re in my fucking way.

  Carl snatched the gun from Paul’s chest, reversed off the bed on his knees then turned to face the door. No way were those fuckers going to stop what he had in mind. He teetered on what to do next as the wardrobe nudged forward and an inch gap grew between the door and the frame. Should he shoot them both before the cops came in, or get rid of them as Paul had asked? He could do that one last thing for Paul, couldn’t he? Shoot the motherfuckers to kingdom come then turn the gun on Paul, with promises he would join him a second later? He nodded and raised the gun, waiting for the wardrobe to slide across the floor with the weight of the first unlucky son of a bitch to walk into the room.

  His heart pounded hard and fast, and breaths rushed out of his mouth and nose. His two-hand hold on the gun remained steady, and shuffles from the bed sounded behind him. Paul hiding himself by curling his body into a ball? Yes, Paul was hiding himself. He no more wanted to be seen by those men than Carl wanted him seen.

  He still loves me. Shit, he understands, he really does.

  A surge of confidence winged through him, and Carl watched in a surreal state of calm as the wardrobe glided in a slow-motion arc, the gap between the door and frame growing wider, wider…

  A dark shape filled the space, full police gear on his bulky body, a helmet complete with lowered visor over his face. Carl tightened his finger on the trigger, and he hoped there were only six cops out there, otherwise he was fucked. Adrenaline spread through him, and he snapped his finger back. The retort of gunfire shocked him for a second, the sound ringing in his ears and paining his head. A burning sensation speared his upper arm, and he separated his hands, one still holding the gun, grasping at the air like a claw with his other. He staggered back—everything was so damn slow!—and the figure in the doorway jerked his head to the side as Carl’s bullet ripped and splintered the doorframe.

  I missed! I fucking missed!

  His body at about a forty-five-degree angle now, Carl continued to fall back and smacked against the floor, a huge breath whooshing out of his mouth. Muffled voices—so far away, so quiet—filled the room, and he rolled onto his stomach.

  “You okay, Paul?” someone shouted.

  The tenor abraded Carl’s nerves, the strength of the voice so loud compared to the other near-whispers. He winced, pain shooting up his arm, and he stared at the bed. At Paul, whose wide-eyed gaze was fixed on someone behind Carl.

  How the fuck do they know his name?

  He sighed at his stupidity.

  Of course they’d know it—if they’re the same cops who arrested him for murder.

  “You did good,” the same voice said.

  He did good? What the hell?

  Something pinned Carl down at his lower back.

  A boot. Some bastard has his boot on me.

  Realization smacked him into real time, into knowing Paul had been part of some plan to catch him.

  He betrayed me. Fucking betrayed me. After all I’ve done for him…

  Carl raised the gun, pulling back the trigger, his intent to shoot Paul so no one else could have him.

  “Do it, kid. Kill him. He did good—he did good, you hear me? He’s on their side not yours. He doesn’t love you, and you know what you gotta do if he doesn’t love you.”

  The gun went off a second before another boot came down on Carl’s arm, holding his wrist to the floor. The boot’s tread bit into his skin, and he took his gaze from Paul to watch the gun skittering across the floor. Another foot kicked it farther away—so many legs and feet in here now—and Carl bucked, fighting to free himself from whoever held him down.

  “Cuff the bastard!” someone yelled, a new voice, louder than the previous.

  Rough hands yanked Carl’s arms back, the pain in his biceps so severe his head spun. The cold touch of steel encircled his wrists, the snap of the handcuffs extraordinarily obscene in volume, and Carl cried out. Another sharper pain swept through him, that of losing Paul, losing his control, losing every damn thing he’d worked so hard to get.

  He closed his eyes as someone hauled him to his feet, unable to look at Paul or any of the men crowding the bedroom. A hand closed around his upper arm, the one that burned like a bitch, and he gritted his teeth, refusing to give them any pleasure at his pain. A jerk sent him reeling sideways and he snapped his eyes open. He clamped his lips closed to stop the bark of indignation that threatened to spill and stared at a man in the doorway. A man he’d seen before. One he hadn’t wanted to see again. Black dude, all muscles and brawn, all smug grin and piercing eyes.

  “Get him out of here,” the guy said, hands clenching. “Just get him the fuck away from Paul.”

  Carl made to glance back at the bed, but the helmeted officer shoved him forward. The black guy stepped aside, flattening himself against the hallway wall as though he was disgusted at the idea of Carl touching him. Of them sharing the same air.

  In the doorway, Carl stared at him, giving a glare he hoped summed up how he felt about some cop bastard who had designs on Paul. Yeah, he had designs all right. It was plain to see, and that knowledge tromped through Carl in thick-soled boots, churning his guts. Quick-flash images of this guy touching Paul sped through Carl’s mind, and he resisted walking, dragging his heels on the floor.

  “Move it!” his captor said, fingers digging harder into his arm.

  Gaze still on the black guy, Carl reared his head back and hawked. A glob of spittle landed on the cop’s cheek, but his expression didn’t change. Anger boiled inside Carl. What would it take to rile this man?

  “Paul’s a lousy fuck,” Carl ground out, his focus fixed on the cop’s eyes. “And always remember…I was there first.”

  The cop narrowed his eyes just a little, but it was enough of a reaction to take the edge off the ire spiraling through Carl. He smiled then laughed, throwing his head back as he was escorted down the hallway then out of the front door. The laughter kept coming, gusting out of him in the elevator, the foyer and into the air outside.

  A crowd had gathered, worried residents clustered together, and they stared at Carl, some shaking their heads, others with their eyes so wide they almost bugged out of their sockets. Carl continued to laugh, the sound a comfort, the release a balm. It obliterated thoughts of what would happen next, what had been in the past, what Paul had done to him. Nothing but laughter consumed him until that voice, that hateful, awful voice penetrated the hilarity and brought him smack bang into reality.

  “You’re a damn failure, you know that, kid? Always knew you’d fuck it up. You’ve never had the balls to see anything through to the right conclusion. Always knew best, didn’t you? Always had to do it your way or not at all
. And now look at you. Caught like an animal. Loser. An all-out loser, that’s what you are.”

  Carl stumbled across the grass toward a police car, the grip on his arm tightening, burning so damn much. His laughter petered out, morphing into sobs that racked his chest. Tears fell, hot and wet and real, damn it, and he entered a cocooned state, where everything happened as though under water.

  The rear police car door yawned open.

  A hand covered the top of his head and pressed him into the seat.

  The door closed.

  As did the door to his dreams.

  * * * *

  The shaking started again. The belt around my wrists dug into the old wounds, and the room seemed to drop into freezing temperatures. I had seen Carl making his decision, seen it in his eyes when he’d let go of reason, and I’d felt it in my chest, the tightening bands of regret and revulsion. Not at him. Something had made him this way, and I knew it wasn’t me. Something long before me. I’d had a chance to save him. I hadn’t. I’d watched him lift that gun thinking I was with him, believing in him. I’d curled myself around the nausea rolling up through my gut, a coward right to the end, not even able to watch.

  I’d thought, Carl, don’t. Please don’t do this.

  Gunshots were loud. The sheer force of the sound had spun my head back around in time to see him fall.

  Not like this.

  But maybe that was better. Maybe that was the way out he’d wanted. Instinct had had me trying to get up, to go to him, then Vic had been there, peering past Carl, just watching me as Connelly had come past Carl’s writhing form to the bedside.

  Not dead.

  I hadn’t known if that was a relief or not.

  “You okay, Paul?”

  Connelly’s voice came from somewhere beyond the rational, snapping time like an elastic band and bringing the world back into focus. I gazed past him to Vic, still silent, watching me with that now-familiar but inscrutable light in his eyes. I swallowed. Why did he just stand there? Did he know how badly I’d failed to protect Carl? Did he think I was a fool for caring at all? I couldn’t read his thoughts, but he just stared, dark eyes never wavering.