by D. B. Watson
Enjoying his detective’s newfound libido, Patrick stopped Adam. “Adam,” Patrick laughed, pushing against Adam’s brawny chest. “We can’t, not here.”
“I told you to prove to me you’re happy,” Adam whispered, then bit his ear. Patrick laughed as he struggled against Adam.
“Adam, as much as I want to, here is not accommodating. There’re security cameras!”
“Pat, I want you now.” Adam kissed him and returned to tasting his neck.
Was this how he acted when he had Jamie in his arms? Patrick wondered.
“Okay, okay, Adam, I have an idea. First, stop biting my neck.”
Adam raised his head and gave Patrick a questioning stare. “This had better be good.”
“It is. We can go to the aquarium.”
“The aquarium?”
“Yes.”
“Pat, you want me to drive us to the aquarium. That’s a bit out of the way.”
“Drive. No, I mean my family’s aquarium. We have one on property.”
“There’s an aquarium here?”
“Yeah, it’s belowground,” Patrick said.
“Okay, show me this aquarium,” Adam said, baffled by Patrick thinking it was normal.
Patrick grabbed Adam’s hand. He was about to lead him away from the house when Yuri Jin stepped into their path. They froze, staring at Yuri’s injuries and crumpled appearance.
“We need to talk, Detective,” Yuri said.
“How did you find me?” Adam asked, feeling Patrick squeezing his hand.
“Adam?”
“It’s okay, Pat, just give us a minute.” Adam released his hand and walked toward Yuri. Patrick gave Yuri a warning glare as he left.
Adam made sure Patrick was out of earshot before confronting Yuri, who didn’t want to wait.
“They have him,” Yuri said, his voice shaking. “I need your help to get him back.”
“Keep your voice down; Patrick could hear. Just tell me what happened.”
“I wanted to take Jamie out of the country when someone struck my car from behind. I woke up in a hospital—in WillowMoss.”
WillowMoss, Adam thought. How is it Yuri can say the name out loud? “What happened to Jamie?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember being taken to the town.”
“So, how can you be sure he’s there?”
“I can’t. But why would they take me there, and not him?”
“We have to call the police.”
“No, Jamie told me they’ll be useless.”
“You do—remember, four people are dead. I can’t do anything that interferes with a police investigation.”
“This has nothing to do with the police. Jamie is being held against his will.”
“Why did they let you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yuri, you need to call the police. I can’t get involved anymore.”
“Why not?” Yuri watched as Adam looked toward Patrick, who stood waiting. He knew Patrick was the person he needed to talk to next.
Without a word, Yuri turned and walked toward the front of the house, disappearing around a corner.
Adam headed toward Patrick who met him halfway.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing I’m concerned about now. Come on, you have a promise to keep.”
CHAPTER 43
MoM
“Christopher,” said a tender, familiar voice that penetrated Jamie’s deep sleep.
At first, Jamie didn’t respond.
“Christopher, it’s time to wake up.”
Jamie’s breathing increased as his head rocked from side to side. He opened his eyes and a sweet aroma touched his nose. A person he hasn’t seen for years stared back at him with long, amber hair, painted lips, a clean, natural face, and the same loving smile he had missed for a long time.
“Mom?” he asked.
“Good morning, sleepyhead. Better get up. You’ll be late.” She turned and walked over to the window, opened the curtains, and raised the shade.
Jamie sat up, still groggy, looking over his room. A storage chest at the foot of his bed, a writing desk by the window, and a dresser by the door. Posters of movies and music bands around decades before he was born decorated his walls.
“Mom,” he said.
She turned around and smiled at him. “Yes?”
He wanted to ask her why she was there, but the words escaped him as he rubbed his eyes and yawned. “What’s for breakfast?”
“What else? Your favorite, pancakes. Now let me cover your cast and you go take your shower and come down to eat.”
“Okay.”
She took care to cover his arm with a trash bag to prevent any water from touching his cast. “Don’t be long,” she said, leaving the room.
Jamie climbed out of bed, glancing around again before heading for the bathroom down the hall. When he was clean and dressed, he walked into the kitchen where his mother poured juice in glasses at the table. Jamie enjoyed wonderful smells that floated in the air. He sat in his spot at the table and noticed another place setting. For years, it was just him and his mom. She never talked about his dad except that he died in a car accident when she was pregnant. She stood at the stove, loading up a plate with eggs. She carried it over and placed it in the middle of the table.
Jamie stared back, confused. “I thought we were having pancakes?” he said, looking at his mother, whose facial expression had changed to somber.
She didn’t look at him. She stood staring at the table.
Jamie turned from her and saw a man now sitting in front of him drinking a cup of coffee. For a moment, Jamie didn’t know him as he scraped eggs onto his plate. When the man looked at him, Jamie’s mind seemed to clear.
“Christopher, we had pancakes three days in a row. Can’t I have eggs just this once?”
“I guess,” Jamie said, unaware the man called him Christopher. He grabbed a biscuit, looking at his mother, who hadn’t moved. “Mom aren’t you going to eat?”
She looked at him, not saying a word.
“Christopher,” said the man across from him, catching Jamie’s attention. “Are you excited?”
“For what?”
“The first day of high school,” he smiled, reaching into his back pocket, retrieving his wallet. “Here, take this for whatever.” He held out a twenty. When Jamie reached for it, his mother grabbed his arm.
Right before his eyes, the skin on her arm decayed. It started as dry patches that broke apart, then ooze seeped from the cracks. Jamie struggled to break free as the process attacked the rest of her body.
“Mom, Mom!” His body shook as he shut his eyes to the terror. Another hand touched his shoulder, causing a sensation that jerked him awake. Jamie panted with a cold sweat. He sat staring out a window at passing houses.
“Hey, Chris, you okay?”
Jamie turned and saw his childhood friend, Cole driving. Jamie tried to collect his thoughts when it washed over him—he was going to school.
“Chris-to-pher,” Cole said, stretching every syllable, knowing he didn’t like his friends calling him by his full first name.
“Shut up.”
“Cranky, what did you do last night?”
“I thought I was sleeping.”
“Yeah, me too,” Cole said, switching on the radio. When he couldn’t find anything but static, he turned it off. They sat in silence as Cole turned on a stretch of road lined with fields. Their high school was a half-hour drive away.
Something caught his’s eye. A construction site off in the distance. “What’s that they’re building over there?” asked Jamie.
“The new coven, I think. I heard my dad talking about it.”
“Want to go check it out after school?”
“We’re not supposed to, so hell yeah.”
When Jamie looked back at the road, a pickup truck turned into their lane and charged toward them.
Before Jamie could call out, it was too late.
Another jolt awoke Jamie. He was staring at a ceiling when he realized he was on his back. He didn’t want to move. The image on the ceiling made him feel calm and happy. His entire body responded to what he was seeing. He took a breath and a wonderful smell of earth and freshness filled his nose. The sound of water surrounded him as whatever he was lying on caressed his skin. He combed his fingers through, what he believed was fur.
A face appeared in his line of view, smiling down at him. “Do you know who I am, Christopher?” asked the man.
“Yes, Father.”
“Good. I can see you’re enjoying this, so I’ll be brief. I can’t allow you to leave me again. You mean too much to me. You look so like your mother,” he said, touching their foreheads. “I never wanted to put you under like the others. You were to be my special—one. But you left me with no choice.”
Jamie had no reaction for him except a slight grin.
Father looked up toward someone. “Begin the treatment.” Jamie didn’t understand what he meant, nor cared, as Father moved out of sight.
Slowly, Jamie drifted back to his high when the image above him shifted in shape. The figure of his mother was there, along with other women, all dressed in robes. They circled him as they chanted the same verse. He looked around and saw other boys, about seven or eight. Younger than he was, or so he believed, when he looked down at himself and saw he was as young as they were. They too wore robes with a strange symbol on the front. They were holding hands and seemed calm. They were inside a barn with black walls with a drawing of an eye on each of them.
The women’s chanting increased as the eyes on the walls glowed. Jamie felt safe as the room brightened with a warm light. Until someone screamed. Jamie shot his eyes to his mother and eyed blood on her chest, then he witnessed something shiny go over her throat, causing more blood to spill down. Jamie and the other boys tried to cry out, but no sound came as hooded figures dressed in black swarmed on the women. None of the boys could move as the figures turned to them and thrust a hood over their heads.
Jamie’s eyes opened as he lay in a hospital bed. His sight shifted around the room as his pounding heart calmed. He tried to sit up, which was difficult. He looked at his right arm that had a cast on it and an IV in his left hand. He got out of bed and rolled the IV with him toward the mirror. His reflection startled him, seeing a black eye and a cut lip. He looked around, trying to remember what happened. He checked the wardrobe, finding it empty. He moved to the dresser and opened the drawers, finding nothing. He went to the door and discovered it locked.
Why is the door locked? he wondered. He hurried to the windows, finding no way to open them, then saw him. Yuri walking toward a taxi. “Yuri!” Jamie banged on the window, calling out to him. Tears fell from his eyes as he watched Yuri climb into the cab and the driver pulled off. “Why are you leaving me?” he screamed.
“Because he doesn’t know you’re here,” said a voice behind him. Jamie turned and saw Father.
“Stay away from me!” Jamie screeched.
“Now, Christopher, calm down.”
“Stop calling me that. It’s not my name anymore, my name is Jamie!”
“Now you know that just isn’t true.”
“You killed my mother!”
“You’re still harping on that? It’s time you got over that, boy.”
“Don’t come near me.”
“I don’t have to.”
The migraine came so fast that by the time Jamie registered it, it was too late as his vision blurred and he collapsed to the floor.
CHAPTER 44
help
The aesthetics of the aquarium was breathtaking. Different varieties of marine life lived there.
“We use this aquarium to home recovering aquatic life until they’re released back into the wild,” Patrick told Adam, while both rested naked under a blanket on top of mats they found in a storage room. They propped themselves up in front of the tank that held two sea turtles.
“That tank is huge,” Adam said.
“We want them comfortable.”
Adam looked over at him, seeing his glowing skin. “Are you comfortable?”
Patrick smiled with Adam’s arm draped around his shoulder, pulling him closer. “I’m always comfortable with you.”
“Good, because I feel the same with you.” Adam gave Patrick a gentle kiss against his head. “You amaze me, Young Valdez.”
“Why?”
“Because of your generosity,” he said, glancing at the swimming turtles, then back at Patrick. “And your faith in me.”
“I always have faith in you, never doubt that. Where is this coming from?”
“Nowhere.”
“Adam, you’re lying. Does this have anything to do with what Yuri said to you?”
“Pat—”
“You’re leaving again,” Patrick said, pulling away.
Adam, who moved with him, wrapped his arms around him, stopping him. “No, Pat—listen. I’m here for you and only you.”
“Really? Because it seems you want me to tell you it’s okay to run off again.”
“No. Pat, look at me.” Patrick tried to avoid eye contact with Adam, who grabbed his chin and raised his gaze. “Pat, I love you.”
“I love you—”
Adam kissed him before allowing him to say anything else. Patrick stopped protesting and relaxed against Adam.
“We should get back. We need to get ready for the party,” confirmed Patrick.
“Yeah. You’re right.” Adam stood, pulling Patrick up with him. “Let’s dress and I’ll go turn off the lights so we can go tell your parents about our great news.”
“About our house.”
“That’s right, our house.” Patrick’s face brightened as Adam lifted him off his feet. “That’s the face I wanted to see.”
Adam lowered him and gathered their clothes, handing Patrick his. They tugged them on as Adam helped Patrick on with his shirt.
“Now finish dressing, and I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, don’t forget, just the marked switches.”
“I won’t forget,” Adam said, grabbing his shoes, walking off. Patrick slipped on his shoes and started rolling up the mats to return to the closet. Adam came back and helped straighten up.
They both returned to the house, running into Patrick’s cousin Miguel.
“Adam, welcome back,” Miguel said.
“It’s good to be back,” Adam replied, giving Patrick’s hand a brief squeeze.
Miguel noticed Patrick’s attention was elsewhere.
“Everyone is at the tennis court. Patrick, your mother was asking for you earlier.”
“She was?”
“Yes, she’s in her bedroom.”
“Her room? Is she not feeling well?”
“She’s fine, no need to worry.”
“Well, I should go see her,” Patrick said.
“Good idea,” Adam agree. “I’ll hang down here.”
They kissed before Patrick started up the stairs. He watched Adam and his cousin continue down the foyer. Patrick quickened his steps up the flights of stairs, walking down the hallway toward his mother’s room. A room door opened and Yuri stepped out, startling Patrick.
“Damnit, Yuri, you scared me.”
“Keep your voice down. You wouldn’t want anyone to hear.”
Cleaned and dressed, Yuri seemed back to normal. Only his statement seemed off-putting to Patrick.
“So what if they do?” Patrick snapped, then realized what Yuri meant.
“So, you told him about us?”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? No!” Patrick hissed.
“Then go convince Adam to go to WillowMoss to find Jamie.”
“Like hell I will.”
“Patrick, Jamie’s in danger.”
“So I should send Adam to risk his life for my replacement?”