by Chris T. Kat
“Tell Officer Lopez to break it down. We have an attempted murderer in this room!” I yelled back.
Winston looked at me in surprise, hissing, “You’ll regret this.”
I hoped not.
Winston raised his gun and fired a shot that exploded right next to my head. The commotion outside the door stopped. I swallowed, not sure if Winston had intended this to be a warning shot or if he had simply missed.
Sean cried. Alex hiccupped. Outside, I listened to Lopez ushering people away and talking rapidly into his radio, demanding backup.
“While we wait for backup, why don’t we talk a little bit?”
I blinked at Winston. Crazy people like him always confused the hell out of me. Their unpredictable behavior sometimes scared me shitless.
Winston didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll probably be killed today, so I’ll give you some information. Maybe you’ll understand. Actually, I’m sure you’ll understand. I saw how you looked at Sean. Yeah, he and his kind are disgusting and not easy to be around. Think how much easier it’ll be once he’s out of the picture. You’ll have him”—he shook Alex, whose head rocked like he was a ragdoll—”completely for yourself. Don’t tell me you never thought about it.”
I clamped my mouth shut. Two pairs of shiny, dark eyes looked directly—and oh so doubtfully—at me. I couldn’t reassure them of my honest intentions now, couldn’t tell them how much I loved them.
“Who’s Nelly?” I repeated.
Winston adjusted his position on the bed so Alex’s back rested against his chest. He slung one arm around Alex’s waist while the other one still pointed the gun at Alex’s temple. Alex didn’t fight him. He didn’t help, either. The alarm on the heart monitor became a distant noise in the background.
“Nelly was my wife. A sweet, petite thing. I married her right after school and she was the best wife a man could have wished for. We had four children together, two girls and two boys. The youngest one, a boy we named James, was disabled. He was blind, deaf, dumb, and completely useless. Nelly, God bless her, still loved him. She took care of him for over twenty years. The boy never thanked her for her care. Never.”
I wondered how he was supposed to thank his mother for anything considering his disabilities. “She sounds like a courageous woman. You must be proud of her.”
Winston’s face darkened. “I was. I tried to be a good husband and support her. Even though I couldn’t stand that creepy, repulsive thing that turned our lives upside down.”
Silence stretched out when Winston stopped talking. Sean sniffled occasionally. He had scooted to the furthest end of his bed, pressing his shivering little body against the railing. Alex surprised all of us by asking, “What happened? Where is Nelly now?”
“James, that ungrateful piece of shit, died. Can you believe it? His treacherous heart simply stopped beating. Just like yours did last night.”
Alex blanched in cold surprise. Had no one told him about the cardiac arrest?
Sean whimpered pitifully. His whimpers drew Winston’s gaze to him. Alex swallowed convulsively before he croaked, “Had your son been sick?”
Winston glowered but went on nonetheless. “No, he wasn’t sick or anything. It was as if he had suddenly decided this wasn’t worth it anymore. Nelly couldn’t cope with the loss. One month after his death she overdosed on sleeping pills.” He breathed heavily through his nose. “She left me a letter in which she told me why she was doing it. She wrote she couldn’t live without James. That she had failed him and now her own life wasn’t worth living anymore. Not even her other three children, her two grandchildren, or I were reason enough to go on with her life. How would you feel if your wife didn’t think you were worth living for?”
Grief. It could cause some people to go crazy. Winston obviously belonged to that group of people.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said softly.
“I knew you’d be. You’re a good boy, even if your moral code is a bit off. You should find yourself a nice wife and build a family. Not….” He trailed off and looked from Alex to me. “Not kiss another man. There’ll be enough women out there looking for a man like you. And when you’ve gotten yourself a nice family, make sure to drown the baby in case it’s disabled. I should have done it.”
He said it as if killing another human was nothing. Alex’s face showed all shades of white and gray, except for his left cheek, which still sported Winston’s handprint.
Winston pulled Alex closer to him, even rubbed his nose into Alex’s hair. Alex tensed and gnawed on his lower lip.
Grasping for anything to keep the conversation flowing, I asked, “I still don’t understand why you intend to kill Sean?”
Winston grinned at me. I tried not to bare my teeth and growl. A low chuckle from Winston pulled me away from my glorious thoughts of crushing his windpipe.
“You’d love to get your hands on me now, wouldn’t you?”
Winston’s eyes gleamed. I was eye to eye with a madman; a madman who held my lover in his arms, threatening to kill him. I definitely wouldn’t hesitate if the right moment came.
“Yeah, you would. That’s good. I respect a man who wants to protect his family. Even if said family is partly not worth breathing air and the other part is morally defective.”
My head began to pound.
“To get back to your question,” Winston said, “after Nelly died, I had an epiphany. I’d help other people get rid of their dead weight. Most of them would appreciate it in the end and maybe it would rescue some marriages.”
“But your wife committed suicide after the loss of your son. How could you expect the other mothers to react differently?” Alex asked.
“I wrote them letters beforehand. I even gave them the opportunity to move away if they really wanted to keep their children alive. Those parents knew what to expect. When they didn’t move away, it was a sign for me to act. Sometimes, when I was too busy, I even left some of the children alone, hoping their parents would pluck up the courage to do it themselves. I’m not sure if any of them did it. I’d have to consult my list.” He frowned, for a few seconds lost in his own thoughts. He snapped back to attention too quickly for me to act again.
Unfazed, he went on, “Often enough I made the deaths resemble accidents so suspicions wouldn’t start early. My plan worked out beautifully. In the last eleven months I ended the lives of seven vermin.”
Pride. He was proud of what he’d done. How in the hell did no one notice that seven children had lost their lives? Parker and I had just started to investigate and so far we hadn’t been able to dig up much. How could this be possible?
Winston’s grin grew broader. “You’re asking yourself why no one noticed before, huh? Well, I am that good. I shouldn’t have lost it a few minutes ago. Now I’ll only be able to take one other creepster away from this earth before I go and finally see my Nelly again.”
Sweat trickled down my spine as I tried to follow Winston’s explanations and absurd logic while simultaneously listening for backup to arrive. Winston’s eyes locked on Sean’s huddled form. Sean stared back at him or at least tried to. Tears ran down his cheeks in small rivulets.
“It’s almost a pity to end your life so early since you seem to be able to understand and even learn,” Winston sighed. “On the other hand, you’ll never learn to walk without help, you’ll never be able to go to the bathroom or wash yourself.”
Sean cried harder, though he did his best to smother his fearful sobs. Winston shrugged. “I’ll shoot a bullet right into your brain. You’ll be dead within a second and nothing will ever hurt again. How does that sound?”
“As if you should be in the loony bin,” Alex snapped.
He grabbed the wrist that held the gun and kicked his foot against it. Winston cried out and dropped the gun. Immediately, both of them struggled to get to the gun.
As I rushed forward to the bed, I hollered, “Lopez! Get inside! Now!”
The door splintered with an almighty crash. I crashe
d right into Winston, knocking the breath out of him. My fist connected with his nose and blood spluttered everywhere. Ignoring Winston’s cry of pain and protest, I peeled him off Alex. Shoving him into the hands of another officer, I said, “Get him away. Do not forget to read this son of a bitch his rights.”
“No! No!” Winston screeched. He fought until they got him handcuffed. Even then he kicked and screamed. “No! This isn’t how it is supposed to be! I need to kill him and someone needs to kill me so I can see my Nelly!”
I heard someone muttering, “Your wish will probably become true very soon.”
I turned my attention back to the bed. My impulse to yell at Alex for this dangerous stunt evaporated upon seeing him together with Sean. Alex had lowered the railing of Sean’s bed, scooted over, and pulled him into his arms. He held a hard-crying Sean in his arms and rocked back and forth while he talked to Sean soothingly, even though his voice sounded distinctly high-pitched and hoarse.
Sweeping my gaze around the room and the people scurrying about, I didn’t care what anyone thought. Not even Williams, who stood in the doorframe, observing the scene.
I crawled over to Alex and Sean, pulled them both into my arms, and held on tightly. I arranged them so that both their heads rested against my chest. One of Sean’s little hands tangled in my shirt and Alex gave me a quick peck on the lips before they both closed their eyes. Both gulped in air between sobs and snuggled closer to me. I made sure they could feel my arms around them like a fence, keeping them safe.
Parker came over wordlessly. He disentangled the blankets from the foot of the bed and threw them over us. He opened his mouth to say something but obviously thought better of it. He offered me a tiny and very understanding smile and I reciprocated in kind. Parker turned, already demanding someone should find us a new room. I relaxed into the bed, tightening my grip on Alex and Sean.
Winston had been right about one thing: Alex and Sean were my family now.
Mine to protect.
Mine to love.
About the Author
CHRIS T. KAT lives in the middle of Europe, where she shares a house with her husband of many years and their two children. She stumbled upon the M/M genre by luck and was swiftly drawn into it. She divides her time between work, her family—which includes chasing after escaping horses and lugging around huge instruments such as a harp—and writing. She enjoys a variety of genres, such as mystery/suspense, paranormal, and romance. If there’s any spare time, she happily reads for hours, listens to audiobooks, or does cross-stitch.
Visit her blog at http://christikat.blogspot.com/ or add her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/christi_kat. You can contact her at christi_kat25@ yahoo.com.
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