by J. A. Rock
“Did you need me?” Bel demanded.
Whitlock didn’t answer.
“Whitlock? You awake?”
Nothing.
“You been texting me. I thought you needed something. Or I wouldn’t have come in.” Bel stood awkwardly by the door.
“I need you,” Whitlock said breathily. He jerked on the cuffs. Arched his back and raised his hips. He dropped the phone onto the mattress and grinned. “I’m glad you came in. Was getting lonely.”
Jesus. Bel couldn’t look at Whitlock sprawled on the bed like that, arms flexed, hips rolling, erection clear through his flannel pants. He looked away. “Now what’d I tell you? We’re not doing any of that.”
Whitlock gave a quiet chuckle. “We can. You want to, don’t you? You kissed me. Officer.”
Just like that first night. Cocky, unashamed. Hot as fuck.
Irritating as fuck.
“Whitlock!”
Irritating because Bel couldn’t have him.
Whitlock laughed. “C’mon, Officer Belman. Lay down the law.” He jerked the cuffs again, and the chains jingled. “Let me out, and I’ll do something good for you.”
“Daniel!”
Whitlock stilled. Lowered his hips onto the bed. Stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.
What the fuck?
“Daniel,” Bel tried again, calmer. Didn’t know why he was using Whitlock’s first name, but hell, maybe it’d get through to him quicker. No response.
“You awake now?”
Nothing.
“You hear me? I need to know if you hear me.”
Whitlock—Daniel—slowly raised a cuffed hand as high as it would go and pointed at something. “Look there.”
Bel looked. Daniel appeared to be pointing to a soot stain by the busted window.
“Look there,” Daniel repeated.
“I see it,” Bel said, not sure if he was irritated or freaked out or both. How the hell did he know if Daniel was asleep or awake? He glanced at Daniel again and saw that his eyes were wet. That his jaw and throat were tight but quivering with the effort of staying quiet.
Shit. Bel definitely hadn’t signed on for this. What the hell was Whitlock crying about? He should have stayed in the car. Daniel had managed sleeping chained to his bed alone for years, hadn’t he?
Exactly why you shouldn’t leave.
Bel glanced back at the stained wall. “That’s seen better days, hasn’t it?”
Daniel gave a soft sob. “Yeah.”
“I guess we all have.” Bel was afraid to look at him.
To his surprise, Daniel laughed. He looked, and Daniel was still crying, but he was trying to smile as well. “I guess we have.”
Bel lowered himself into the chair. “You awake?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, huh?” Bel kept the words soft, resigned. He put his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands.
Daniel’s tears had stopped, and now he was smiling. Not the wicked, seductive grin of a few minutes ago, but an artless, beautiful smile. His smile stretched into a yawn, and Bel could see into his mouth, where two of Daniel’s back left molars were absent.
“You got a couple of teeth missing,” Bel said. A flash of anger he couldn’t place, draining away to sadness.
“Yeah.” Daniel’s smile waned, but he still looked content. Peaceful. Bel couldn’t help smiling a little too.
Ain’t nobody in Logan knows what kind of freak show’s going on here.
“You need anything?” Bel asked. “Before I head back to the car?”
“You can stay in here,” Daniel said. Nothing suggestive about this invitation. It was earnest. “More comfortable, maybe?”
“You want me to stay?”
Daniel looked slightly fearful. “Please?”
Bel studied him. “You awake now, Whitlock?”
Daniel tensed. “Yes,” he whispered.
“You’re gonna go back to sleep, though.” Bel shifted in the chair so he could reach the lamp. “I’m gonna turn off the light, and I’ll be right here, and you’ll go to sleep, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
Whoa. What the fuck? Bel’d been called sir plenty, and his cock had never reacted like this. He sat there like he’d been punched, willing the sensation, the heat, to subside. Two words, so soft, and Daniel’s eyes, wide and a little nervous, and those chains that shouldn’t fucking be there, because no one should have to sleep chained like a dog, but that looked so good on him. And Bel—maybe there was something Bel could do. Maybe that something was just being here, being here with someone who’d been alone too long. Maybe it was just switching off the lamp and saying, “Good night, Daniel.”
And hearing the answering inhale in the darkness.
5
For the first time in a long while, Daniel didn’t flinch when he saw a police car. He was feeling better, sleeping better, and it was all down to Belman. Sooner or later the guy would get sick of spending his nights watching over him, or they’d catch whoever had tried to burn down the cabin, but until then, it was good. Yeah, he was a grown man who needed a babysitter, but this was the best he’d been in years. Even Rylan Davenport said so when he went for his appointment at the parole office.
“You’re looking good, Daniel,” she said.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
He liked Ms. Davenport. She never gave him any trouble as long as he didn’t give her any either.
“How’s the job going?”
“It’s okay,” Daniel said. Cleaning the library in the evenings was hardly difficult work, but it kept him active and it kept him from being a total shut-in. Also, Belman had taken to stopping by if he was patrolling, just sitting in his car in the parking lot under the light where Daniel could see it was him. Waved sometimes before he left again. Felt a little less like a babysitter, and a little more like a friend.
Closest thing Daniel had anyway.
“I heard about your cabin,” Ms. Davenport said.
“Smoke damage mostly. Those old cabins, the logs are thick as anything. Fire didn’t really take. Lost the front windows, but everything else is good.”
It still stank of smoke, but he was getting used to that. He’d scrubbed the walls, washed all his bedding and clothes. Used a whole can of air freshener, and guessed that time would take care of the rest.
“You’re lucky Bel was there that night.”
“Yes, ma’am.” And every night since. Four of them so far. Sitting out front in his car, watching over the place. Watching over Daniel.
Ms. Davenport gave him a look he couldn’t read, and then smiled. “So, have you thought about what we talked about before? Applying for other jobs?”
“No.” Daniel fidgeted. “I do okay at the library. I do a good job. Why? Has someone complained?”
Probably that bitch Trixie. He knew she was the one who’d taped the box of matches to the door of the janitor’s storeroom because of the way she looked at him after he’d seen. Thought she was hot shit just because she’d gotten a job in the town library, when back in school she could hardly string a coherent sentence together and had spent most of the day painting her nails. So nothing had changed there.
“Because you’re a—” She looked at her computer. “A chemistry major. Not a cleaner.” She lifted her coffee cup to her mouth.
“Well, the only call for my qualifications around here would be setting up some toothless redneck’s meth lab,” Daniel said before he could stop himself.
Ms. Davenport grimaced, clapped a hand over her mouth, audibly gulped, and finally burst out laughing. “Oh shit, Daniel! I almost spat that all over my keyboard!”
“Sorry,” he smiled.
Ms. Davenport cleared her throat. “Anyway, you could do a lot better than cleaning.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s true,” Daniel said, his smile vanishing. “Not in this town.”
Ms. Davenport shrugged. “Well, you’re not going to be stuck in Logan for much longer. Once y
ou’re finished with me, you can go wherever you want.”
Daniel looked down at the scuffed carpet. “I don’t think that’s true either, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where could I go? Tried it before, and it didn’t work out. I barely graduated because my grades were so bad. Messed up the only job I got offered, messed up a relationship, and came running back here. And we all know how that turned out.”
“Listen, Daniel, can I be frank with you?”
He cringed inwardly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Okay,” Ms. Davenport said. “I like you.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t been expecting that. Mostly when people wanted to be frank with him, it was to tell him he should be dead.
“Most of the people who show up here, I know I’m going to see them again because they’re drunks, or they’re addicts, or they’re just too plain stupid to go straight. But you’re not like them. You can actually make something of yourself if you want to.” She frowned at him. “Once we’re done, I don’t want to see you in this office again.”
Daniel didn’t know what to say. He fought against the stab of fear at not seeing Ms. Davenport anymore. She was the only person in Logan who’d talked to him like he was a goddamn human being, until Bel.
And it felt so fucking strange to have someone believe in him in some tangible way, after so long, that Daniel couldn’t even manage a polite thank-you. Just stared at her, openmouthed, waiting for her to take it back. He wondered if this was really happening at all. Maybe he’d dozed off in the waiting room, and this was all a crazy fucking dream. He was probably at Greenducks right about now, with his hands down Jake Kebbler’s jeans. And that thought was a hell of a lot less disconcerting than whatever this was.
“In the meantime,” Ms. Davenport said, “keep doing whatever it is you’re doing. You look better than I’ve seen you in a long time. Ever, probably.”
Daniel flushed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“See you next week,” she said with a smile.
* * *
After his appointment with Ms. Davenport, Daniel drove the four blocks over to the library. He usually sat in his car until the place closed and waited until everyone had left, then took his keys from the glove compartment and let himself in.
He still had an hour to kill today, and it was hot inside his car. He got out, locked it, and decided to walk down the block to Harnee’s. Get a bottle of water, even though he wanted something with enough sugar in it to rot his teeth from ten paces. He didn’t eat junk food when he was awake, because he figured he was better off detoxing while his conscious brain was in control. Once, he’d woken up at college and found himself surrounded by empty pizza boxes. Wouldn’t have believed he could eat so much until he was vomiting it up later.
He remembered Belman from his trial. Not a cop then, just the kid from the store. “He would come in most nights and always get the same thing. Mountain Dew and a Twix.”
And, that one night, a lighter.
Daniel waited before crossing the road. There was a car he could have beaten, but half the time he didn’t know if they would speed up or not. Sometimes they did, to scare him. He waited until it had passed before crossing.
At Harnee’s, he took a bottle of water from the fridge, then stood awhile in front of the magazine rack. Tits and guns. And quilting. He probably had a paperback in his car somewhere, something to tide him over until he went into work. Of course, he could always just walk in when the place was open and take a book off the stacks. Except it wasn’t worth the stares and the whispers.
He picked up a woodworking magazine and flipped through a few pages. There was a project on making mailboxes, which might be useful. He put it back anyway. Didn’t matter if he made a new mailbox or not. Sooner or later it’d end up busted on the road. Most likely sooner.
He headed for the registers.
“Daniel!” A sharp intake of breath.
The sound of her voice was like a slap to the face.
“Casey.” A meaningless word. A hollow sound.
She clutched her plastic basket to her chest and stared.
Daniel felt the overwhelming urge to apologize. For being here. For seeing her. For ruining her afternoon as surely as he’d ruined every other part of her life. “Wh-what are you doing back in town?”
She didn’t answer.
“I just came in to get a drink.”
She looked at the bottle in his hands as though she was trying to pick a lie from his words.
“You hear about the cabin?”
She nodded once.
“I’ll fix it up,” Daniel said. “I will, I promise. Make it nice again. You remember—”
She took a step back.
You remember when we used to go out there as kids, Casey? How we told scary stories about the watchers in the woods, how we held hands so we felt brave?
Everything was slipping away now. He could feel it. Belman’s kindness, Ms. Davenport’s strange belief in him; it all melted away under his sister’s stare, and he remembered what he was. Dangerous. Crazy. A killer.
And whatever he did, however hard he tried, nothing would change that.
“Casey,” he said, because it had been so long since he’d said the word. It threatened to break something inside him that Daniel didn’t know could be broken again.
“I have to go,” Casey said.
She put her basket down in the middle of the aisle and walked out the door.
Daniel stood there, arms at his side, trying to remember how to breathe.
Took a while.
When he could move again, he stepped over Casey’s basket and went and paid for his water. The kid behind the counter didn’t even look at him, but afterward, just as he stepped out the doors, Daniel heard him say “faggot freak,” and the girl on the register next to his giggled.
Daniel stared at the ground as he walked back to the library, counting cigarette butts and beer cans.
“Hold my hand,” Casey had whispered to him when they were little. “Don’t let go!”
His throat hurt. He wanted to cry.
Fall break, he realized. Casey was probably in town to visit friends.
He climbed back into his car and sat there. Held the water bottle against his forehead until the cold gave him a headache. He watched as the staff left the library, then he headed inside.
When he was a kid, he’d loved the library. Thought it must’ve had every book in the world, except really it was just a couple of rooms of books, the small lobby, and the meeting room with the stained carpet. The stacks smelled a little of mildew. The Logan town library had the same books it had always had. Sometimes Daniel dug around in the tubs in the children’s section and pulled out the picture books he’d loved. Sat on the floor and read them, and, if he dared close his eyes, could hear his mother’s voice in his head. Not sharp. Soft and mellow. Filled with love. And Casey’s giggle, bubbling up from her like it was overflowing.
He’d never have that again.
Daniel got the floor polisher out of the storeroom and plugged it in. He worked quickly, to keep his mind off Casey, and because he wanted to be home before too late, to meet Belman.
He trusted Belman.
Belman. Bel? Joe? That didn’t sound right.
Everyone called him Bel, except Daniel, who’d managed to avoid calling him anything at all. At school he’d been Joe, Little Joe to some. Daniel guessed he’d always just thought of him as the youngest Belman kid. He’d known Billy better back then. Shared a chem class. And once, Mr. Sherman had made them lab partners. Lasted about a week. Daniel was serious about chemistry, and Billy Belman was more interested in drawing pictures of girls with exaggerated tits in the margins of his textbook and making fart jokes.
Billy had never been mean to him, but he was still one of the reasons that Daniel had been desperate to get out of Logan. Small town full of small minds. But so much for that escape plan. What he was chasing, what he needed, it wasn
’t out there any more than it was here. For now he had Belman. After that, he didn’t know.
Daniel’s phone buzzed in his back pocket, and he turned off the floor polisher and reached for it. Shit. A message from Master Beau.
U gonna pussy out next time, slave? Gonna fuck u so hard you can’t run.
Daniel stared at it for a long time, wondering how to respond.
Because when Belman was gone . . .
When Belman was gone, he’d have nobody.
He put his phone back without replying. Didn’t want to see Master Beau again, but he also needed to keep his options open. He didn’t have many left.
* * *
Bel jolted awake as the text message came through from Daniel. Ftckme hhrd. Which had to be some kind of a test. Maybe the text message equivalent of a Rorschach test, or a test from God. Because yeah, Bel knew exactly what he wanted it to say. And he wanted to go right into the cabin and ftck him. Hhrd. Daniel wanted it too, didn’t he? Except to acknowledge that he wanted this, this thing that had come from his deep subconscious, Bel had to acknowledge that Daniel had wanted Kenny Cooper to die as well.
Earlier at work, he’d pulled the file. Not from the fire, but from Daniel’s bashing. There’d been no complaint, just like Uncle Joe had said, but the initial report from the hospital was in there. So were the photographs.
Kenny, Clayton, and their buddies had fucked Daniel up real bad. Busted up some bones, and cracked his jaw so hard that he’d lost those two back molars. The photographs had been taken the day after the assault, and Daniel’s face was so swollen and bruised, it looked like a lump of moldy dough.
Looking at what they’d done, it was easy to imagine that Daniel had wanted Kenny to die. Hell, Bel wished he was alive just so he could kill him himself. But you didn’t do that. You wished it, but you didn’t do it.
He got out of the car and walked up to the cabin. Place still smelled burned. He stuck his head around the door. “You texting me again, Whitlock?”
The moonlight streamed through the door and around the canvas that Daniel had nailed up over the busted windows. He was lying on his bed, his body bathed in it. All long, lean lines and silver planes.