by Kol Anderson
His load had emptied onto his belly while I was still inside him. I was barebacking, not something I did with anyone else but with Jake I knew. It didn’t scare me. If it scared him, he didn’t say. That feeling of being inside him while he was there right beneath me, when I could smell his skin and his hair and taste his lips, that feeling gave me an orgasm that lasted for an eternity, or at least that’s what it felt like.
When it ended, Jake was still clutching at me, afraid to let go.
TABOO 3
TREY
The door was opened and I never noticed who did it because my eyes were too busy making sense of what was going on right in front of me. I didn’t how old he was but I knew he looked like a teenager. Within moments of facing him, I knew there was something familiar about that face—why did it feel like I’d seen him before when I was certain I hadn’t? A face like that I would have remembered. Even if it was at one of Zach’s get-togethers or Weldon’s recruitment events. He was so tiny and weak, and looked like he hadn’t had a meal in days. His eyes were swollen from all the crying and his face was flushed and covered in tears. He was desperate, trying to get free of Stoll’s hold but Stoll had his arms viciously restraining him from behind, wrapped tightly around his chest. If he held him any tighter the boy would stop breathing and break a number of ribs.
“Do you have it?” Mace directed his question toward me. “Well, don’t just stand there! Help us!” I reached for the messenger bag I was carrying, and put it down on the table next to me. “All yours.”
The boy was hysterical. He was having trouble breathing. It could have been the older man’s death grip. “If you do it,” Mace said. “It might hurt him less.”
Stupid fucks, they never missed a chance to involve me in their fucked up games.
Of course, I didn’t have to do it.
All I had to do was leave the bag with them and walk out. It couldn’t have been that hard, the door was right there. Only I stayed glued to the carpeted floor. “My instructions were to leave this with you.”
Mace shot me a stern look and grabbed the bag. But he hadn’t walked a single step when my hands tore it from him. “Maybe just this once,” I said, unzipping the contents of the bag onto the table. I took out the plastic box that carried the vials and a bunch of empty hypodermics and set them down.
This would be nothing.
Please don’t tell me his name.
This had to remain anonymous for my brain to not latch on. If I didn’t associate a name with him, I wouldn’t give a shit. Or so I kept telling myself. Maybe it was wishful thinking and maybe it was sheer stupidity but I stayed back.
“Come on Colton,” Stoll said, pushing the boy toward me. “The doctor’s here, he’s not going to hurt you.”
Great.
Now he had a fucking name.
So much for not latching on.
But I’d heard that name before…
And that’s when it hit me. I’d heard it from Jake so many times. Jake’s underage brother—who could have passed for a fourteen year old! What the hell was wrong with these people? Were they seriously getting more evil with time?
I wished there was something I could have said or done to help him but there wasn’t. I could have grabbed him and run but that wouldn’t have gotten us far. Getting caught would mean we’d all be in trouble and I couldn’t imagine Jake or his brother getting into any more shit than what they were already going through. I wasn’t even sure what Jake’s deal was anymore. He was trusting Weldon, not a lot of good could come from that.
Colton kept struggling all the time I was injecting him with the serum. It hit his bloodstream fast and he went slack. His body fell lifelessly on top of Stoll and Stoll transferred him to the bed. “That was quick,” Mace said, grabbing the box of vials carelessly and I stopped him. “This is potent stuff,” I said. “This is the purest form of the serum and only intended for occasional use. If you use too much you could kill him.”
“I don’t think Weldon’s worried about his health and longevity.”
This is so wrong.
This is a new level of fucked up.
“You’re trying to get him hooked,” I said. “Is that why you got so much of it? This isn’t safe! This drug isn’t designed for recreational use!”
“Trey. Sometimes I think you forget where you are.”
He was right.
Maybe I do forget.
But that kid was passed out on something that amounted to horse tranquilizer in potency and they wanted to do it again. I could tamper with the dosage back in the lab but the whole place was rigged with surveillance. One wrong step and they’d be putting that shit into my veins. I wasn’t done talking but there was a strange feeling rising in my gut that I couldn’t get rid of.
I had to get out of there. I stepped into the hallway and the door closed behind me. I could no longer see him. That feeling in the pit of my stomach got worse. I couldn’t hold it in and ended up purging my last meal in the hallway.
Working for Weldon was like being in a constant rabbit hole, you never knew where some insane man with crazy hats would lead you.
But I was part of this circus.
And that had to stop.
Maybe until today, I hadn’t realized the extent of what I was into because denial was better than facing the ugly truth but that day I had clarity.
I couldn’t keep going this way. Something had to be done.
They needed my help.
There’s one more person who needs your help, Trey.
Even when I was out in the parking lot I couldn’t breathe and the world felt so small. I loosened my tie when I got in the driver’s seat of my car, and I just sat there trying to get my brain to work.
What are you going to do, Trey?
Are you going to play savior to these two and put other lives in jeopardy? You know what they have on you. You know what’s going to happen.
No, I don’t.
I don’t know anymore.
JAKE
Fooling Weldon long enough to swipe his keycard was the easy part.
Getting him to leave the room turned out to be harder.
“What do you mean I need to come over?” Weldon was yelling at whoever was on the other end, probably one of his associates. He was clearly pissed off, but for him pissed off might have been his resting state. “Do I have to do everything around here?”
Before he was done, there was a knock on the door and I sat there, looking down at my feet. Mace walked in and went over to Weldon who was still having a yelling match with his phone. I always tried to ignore Mace’s presence. In my mind, if I didn’t acknowledge him he wasn’t there. Too bad the nightmares weren’t so forgiving. Mace was standing all silent and dutiful like a toy soldier who only came alive when Weldon gave him a command.
When Weldon was done talking, Mace cleared his throat to get his attention. Weldon rolled his eyes. “If you tell me I have to deal with some shit you’ve created, Mace, you’re going to get me extremely angry!”
Mace tried to smile. “No sir, nothing’s wrong. I just thought I should give you some updates on the therapy.”
It was clearly code for something.
Weldon turned to me, it sounded like he was about to speak but he didn’t. We hadn’t said one word to each other since last night. When I woke up Weldon was in the bathroom which gave me a chance to get that keycard and ever since he came out he had been yelling at someone over the phone.
“Let’s go,” he turned to Mace and they both left.
The door clicked shut.
My hands trembled.
Soon, my entire body was doing the same.
The keycard in my hand was already sweaty, thanks to my overzealous palms. I glanced at the clock and I don’t even know why because there was no need for time in my life. Not like time had anything at all to do with anything anymore.
I must have stared at the door for hours.
Glanced at the clock again but it mad
e no sense because I couldn’t remember the previous time, and I still had no use for it.
On my mind, One. Single. Thought.
Colton.
Still shaking I finally gathered the courage to get up. There were no knives in here, Weldon didn’t allow any cutlery to be stored in the room, it came at meal times and was promptly collected soon as I was finished, so I couldn’t get an actual weapon. I expected any moment for Weldon and Mace to come back and barge in and locate the keycard on my person. It was a downright scary thought but I just didn’t care anymore. When I slid the keycard in the slot, I expected it to not work.
It didn’t.
I wiped the sweat off my brow. It was freezing in here so how was I sweating so much? I had to swallow hard before I tried my luck again.
It worked.
Fuck.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
My hands quaked still holding on to the door. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and opened the door.
Silence.
That’s what greeted me. I looked around and realized I had no idea where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to do from here. There were two options, left or right, so I chose right. But when I found myself standing face to face with an elevator, I stopped. This was clearly not the way to go. Mace said we were in the special wing. Trey had told me once Colton was in the special wing. There was no reason for me to take the elevator to lead me away from the special wing that I was already on.
I headed back, and this time I kept going until I ran into a dead end that wasn’t truly a dead end, but a conglomeration of rooms of different sizes. The largest one was marked “D.” I wasn’t certain of my reasons but I placed my hand on the knob and to my utter disbelief it opened without giving me any trouble.
I was shaking less and less even though the fear kept me on edge.
That place must have doubled for a supply room. There was a table with all kinds of paraphernalia on it, from stationary to bullets. But there was one other thing in there.
“Colton!” I dashed toward the tiny see-through cell. The barrier of solid glass blocked my need to reach out for him. “Colton!” I screamed a little louder so he would come awake. He was on that ridiculous tiled floor, even though there was a bed in there to one side and when he opened his eyes he looked at me groggily and stared. He must have had trouble believing I was actually there. “Jake?”
“It’s me,” I said, gesturing to myself, as if he wouldn’t see me otherwise. “Colton, you’re okay. You’re okay, right?”
Fear tugged at me when he didn’t answer right away. When he did speak, it wasn’t the words I wanted to hear. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Colton, what’re you talking about? We have to get out of here!”
“How?”
I showed him the keycard.
“Jake, the cell is passcode protected.”
He was right. When I paid attention to the tiny block of plastic panel sitting on the glass barrier, I almost banged my head against the wall. “How do we get past this, Colton? Tell me. You’re good at this kind of stuff!” “I break into Dad’s century old liquor cabinet, that’s hardly the same thing!” I knew I was getting agitated but I didn’t know how to control myself. “Fuck.”
Colton came near the wall standing between us and I placed my hand where his was on the smooth surface of the glass. My brother was a few inches away from me and I still couldn’t touch him. It was tearing me apart inside. I could only guess at what he was going through since he was on the other side of this glass cage.
“There might be something,” Colton said.
“Tell me.”
“One the guards keeps a loaded gun in one of the drawers, in case of emergency.”
“Good… good… that’s good Colton, good boy!” I darted toward the desk, and started rummaging through the desk, checking the multiple drawers until I found the one with the weapon. “Are you sure it’s loaded?”
“We won’t know until you actually pick it up, Jake!”
“Fine, I’m picking it up, jeez!”
The last time I held a gun in my hand was when Colton stole Dad’s Glock and we were playing with it for several days. My brother was always okay with that kind of risky behavior, but guns always freaked me out. Regardless, I pointed the weapon at the floor.
“What’re you doing?” Colton yelled at me.
“Trying to see if it’s loaded.”
“Why would you waste bullets like that!”
“There are like hundreds of bullets in here!”
“Yeah, but we don’t know if they all belong to this particular gun. Not to forget, Jake, I know you can’t manage loading bullets into this thing to save your life.”
“What do you want me to do, then?”
Colton stepped away from the wall. “One shot, at the glass.”
I positioned the gun in the general direction of where he was pointing and took a shot. Holy shit, my arm shook. Everything shook. The blast was loud and would have been heard outside which meant we had to be short on time.
“Bulletproof glass,” Colton said, disappointed.
I took one more shot just to be safe but nothing.
So, that plan failed.
I wondered if there was a way we could crack the code. Then, it hit me. “Step back, Colton.”
With renewed courage, I took two shots at the panel. There was a spark and the smell of burned electric wires, and the tiny door moved. It was ajar now, but the gap was miniscule. It wouldn’t fit a finger, let alone an entire person. I tried so hard to pry it open but it didn’t budge. I was still thinking about our next move when the alarm went off. “Shit.”
Colton looked terrified.
Watching him with that frightened look in his eyes made my resolve to help him into an obsession and I went around like a mad man trying to hit the glass with whatever was available and prying the door open.
“Jake…”
I knew it was useless but how could I just give up? I needed him more than he needed me. I wanted to be able to touch him…
“Jake, stop!”
The door burst open and a bunch of guards barged in. They wrestled me to the ground and the gun dropped from my hand.
The guard pulled me up off the floor and I turned to my brother. “Colton! Don’t tell them anything. They can’t know!” Understanding fell over my brother’s face but the fear surpassed everything and I couldn’t tell if he was willing to do what I had asked him to do. One of the guards punched me in the face and my nose started to bleed. I still wasn’t about to give up. Desperation led me into this mess, maybe it could get me out.
“Keep your mouth shut, Colton,” I pleaded.
The tears in his eyes and the confusion made me die a little inside. We both knew what was happening. We both knew there was a chance we might never see each other again and there was nothing we could do about it. In retrospect, it wasn’t a smart move but I had been out of options.
Colton, please just listen to me. I felt something touch the small of my back and heard the clicking sound of a Taser. The pain was shocking the first time but the second time they did it, my head was reduced to static.
The shock incapacitated me and made it hard to breathe. All coherent thought left my brain and was replaced with overwhelming pain.
I let them drag me. They carted my deadweight to the dungeons where they tied me into a chair. My bare feet were on the cold surface of the floor, and they put me in ankle restraints that connected to chains bolted into the ground. My arms were similarly restrained and placed in leather cuffs.
I didn’t struggle, and I didn’t fight. Even if I wanted, the effect of the Taser was still upsetting my brain function and except for some pain in my back where they had used that Taser I felt numb.
“We gotta stop meeting like this Jake,” Mace’s voice was brash and obnoxious. I couldn’t stop being a little afraid of him. I was waiting for him to do something more than just stand there, but someone
walked in just then. “Hello, Jake.” Weldon’s words fell on my ears and I was almost afraid to see his face. But those green eyes were glaring at me before I knew it. I glanced up at him and pleaded. “I had to see him.”
Weldon’s face was indecipherable. “You also had to try and break him out.”
I knew any response to that would land me in more trouble. There was no sense denying it either, that would have been pointless. So, I said nothing. What could I possibly say to him anyway? Inside, I was no longer numb. Fear had replaced that feeling the minute Weldon stepped into the picture. What happened in here the last time, the memory was still vivid. It kept me up at night. Would have been better if they killed me but I knew they wouldn’t do that. I knew they’d do something far worse. Weldon walked right up and crouched on the floor in front of me and I almost pissed my pants. He saw that his movement jolted me and it made him grin. My fear was entertainment to him.
“I’m sorry,” I didn’t think I’d break out in tears this soon but I had. The tremors came back and I was shaking uncontrollably, worse than I had when they tased me back there. Weldon raised a hand and pushed a lock of my hair away from my sweaty forehead. Then he touched the blood on my face. “Who did this?”
Was that concern in his voice?
“It was one of the guards,” I said. Weldon kept his eyes on me but his next command was for Mace. “Find out who did this.”
“Should I go now, sir?”
“No. Stay.”
“Sir.”
Weldon stood up. “You’re shaking,” he said. “Are you cold?”
“I’m sorry…”
“I asked you if you’re cold, Jake.”
“N… no… no, I’m fine.”
“Then why’re you shaking?”
I knew he was just playing with me. I had no game plan. No cards left to play. Whatever came next, I would have to live with it. Weldon grabbed my hair in a vise grip that threatened to tear my hair out. “Are you shaking because you know that you’ve betrayed me?” he growled. “Because you should have known better than to steal my keycard and try to escape?”