Tripping over a divot in the earth, hidden by the grass, Brennan went down sideways. Tommy dropped down on top of him, pushing him into the ground. He’d fallen across Maggie’s grave, landing near the flat, granite headstone, flush to the dirt, in the neighboring plot. He’d braced his fall with his hands, and felt a sharp, brittle, exquisite pain in his left wrist. Brennan cried out. Tommy yanked Brennan’s hands behind his back and forced them upward, holding them together with one hand while the other yanked the yoga pants down.
“No! Stop! Help! Help me!” Brennan screamed. There had to be someone else there, someone nearby who could see.
“Y’all don’t need help, Brennan Holt,” Tommy whispered. “Y’all just need to remember who this ass belongs to, and to stop acting out. You always did love to act out. Maggie sucked at keeping you in line, but I think I was pretty great at it.”
Tommy knelt between Brennan’s legs, forcing them wider apart. Brennan yelled roughly and fought harder, the pain in his wrist, in his arms being forced up his back, straining his shoulder joints, grew enormous. When Brennan lifted head, trying to arch his back, to move, Tommy’s hand wrapped the back of his skull and slammed Brennan’s face down against the granite headstone beneath his face.
His head had been turned to the side, looking around for someone—anyone—so the bones around his left eye socket took most of the force of the blow. They cracked against the hard surface. The skin must have split open, because blood started to run into Brennan’s eye. He grunted with shock, feeling instantly dazed.
“Stop fuckin’ movin’,” Tommy growled. “Maybe I just need to tie your ass down again. You remember that?”
Two dry fingers jabbed up through Brennan’s sphincter, pushing in to the hilt, prying him open. It stirred a nauseous feeling in his gut, the brazen violation of that. Sobbing, Brennan tried to think, to listen to his gut, to find a way out. But his head was swimming. There was so much pain....
“I tied you to the bed,” Tommy was saying as his fingers twisted and jabbed, “peeled these damn yoga pants off of you and gave this sweet ass of yours a good hard fuck while Momma was sleeping in the next room. And guess what, Bren? Gonna do the same thing right now. She’s sleeping right here, isn’t she? Maybe this way you’ll learn that you’re mine. She’s dead, but I’m still here.”
A third, dry finger forced into him suddenly, and it hurt more than his head, more than his arms. There was no lube. There wasn’t even spit. Maybe Tommy was trying to cause hurt, to pull hard enough to split skin. Tommy snapped the fingers inward repeatedly, like he was trying to do the most damage possible, the anger coming out at last. The dry passage gave way to a wet slick that burned.
“You can’t go around lettin’ anyone you want take what’s mine,” Tommy growled. “You need to remember who you belong to. I know you’re upset and missing the way things were, doing sick things to distract yourself, and it needs to
stop
. You need a lesson in
obedience
. Maybe if Maggie’d spanked you once in a while, you wouldn’t be such a little
brat
.”
Tommy’s knee drew up, hard, connecting with Brennan’s testicles. Choking on the sudden agony in his balls, retching, Brennan tried to get away, to curl up, but Tommy held him down. Then he did it again. The kneecap crushed up against Brennan’s bare scrotum, grinding a little as Tommy pulled him down into it. The fingers up his ass pulled out and the knuckles of two bent fingers twisted in instead.
Brennan screamed. Pulling briefly out of his ass, Tommy palmed the back of Brennan’s head again and slammed it against the stone one more time.
Things fogged over.
Get up, Bren. You have to move. You have to go. Find a way. Please.
It sounded like Evan.
“I’m sorry, Ev,” Brennan murmured through the taste of blood and the screaming in his body. Flinching and straining against the hurt—hurt everywhere, but mostly on the inside—Brennan realized his moment was coming. He would only have one. There was one chance for him, and then it would be too late.
Tommy’s pants were still closed; there hadn't been an opportunity yet for him to undress. He was wearing his usual jeans with a button fly. He’d need both hands to get it opened. And if he was using both hands....
Brennan went limp, acting like he’d passed out. It worked. Tommy let go and some of the weight of him lifted from Brennan’s legs.
“It didn’t have to be this way, you know,” Tommy was saying. “I was hoping you’d be happy to see me, like you used to be. I found us a place, by school. I picked up brochures for you about their nursing program, since you always talked about doing that once we’d graduated. I have it all figured out. You’ll see.”
He was opening his pants, then reached for Brennan’s yoga pants to pull them the rest of the way off. As fast as he could, Brennan drew one leg up as he glanced over his shoulder, then drove the heel of his foot against Tommy’s face with more force than he expected..
Something snapped beneath Brennan’s foot and Tommy yelled.
Scrambling up, Brennan searched for his keys. He just needed his keys.
They were a couple feet away, along with his cracked phone. Stumbling over his pulled-down pants, dizzy and not thinking as clearly as he’d like, his wrist in agony whenever he moved it, he scooped up the keys and phone. He ran down the row of graves trying to pull his pants up. Half-falling, trying to go faster, he pushed his body forward while trying to cover himself.
The car was right there, but Tommy had to be right behind him. Brennan could feel it, but wouldn’t look. There was no time.
Blinking the blood out of his eye, fumbling with his keys, he got the Chevy’s door unlocked and threw himself behind the wheel. He sensed Tommy coming, running after him, ready to yank Brennan back onto the asphalt or dirt to be raped and hurt and undone and ruined. It was all Brennan’s fault. Tommy was right. Brennan had promised things, and never followed through. Tommy was great on the follow-through.
Grunting, crying softly, shaking violently and having trouble focusing, he got the key in the ignition and locked the car’s doors. A large hand slammed against the driver side window and Brennan screamed, his wild eyes staying focused on his path of escape. The next assault on the window was louder and Brennan floored it, nearly plowing right into a tree, managing to only scrape the side of the bumper. He reversed and tried again, aiming for the cemetery’s exit, located at the end of a very narrow lane. Then he was out on the road, and he remembered the way he’d come in, the direction he needed to go to get back to the interstate, so he went. He went as fast as he could, running yellow lights, taking turns when he got to a red.
When he was out of Monroe and on the highway, he pressed even harder at the pedal. There were too many hours ahead of him, so many miles, but the farther he went, the more distance there was behind. He could still sense Tommy there, at his back, chasing him, angry, so angry, so Brennan pushed the gas a little more and flew down the road.
Chapter 15
Lost and Found
When Evan got home after returning from Jimmy’s, he knew he’d need to have a talk with Alek and Luka about running out, and about what had happened at the grocery store. But as he walked from the car to the building, carrying two bags worth of groceries in his left hand, he tried calling Brennan again by juggling the phone with his right. It rang five times and went to voicemail.
At the top of the stairs, at the door to the apartment, a recording of Brennan’s voice asked him to leave a message after the beep. Suddenly, Evan had a bigger concern than what he might be walking into.
He opened the door, expecting to find the twins. They were there all right, but so were Carter and Presley. Everyone was standing. Everyone looked freaked out.
Luka had his phone in his hand, too.
“Brennan isn’t picking up,” Evan blurted as the four others turned to look at him. He dropped the bags.
“We know,” Luka said heavily.
“Why isn’t he answering?!” Evan descended straight into panic mode, wanting to tear his hair out. Everything—with Drew, with his worries about being honest with the twins, with his worries about Brennan—twisted into a knot that he couldn’t think around. It was an ache in his chest, pressure squeezing his throat, and a clammy chill on his skin. He became aware, slowly, of other aches in his body, like he’d taken a bad fall or something and had bruises all over. And, bizarrely, there was an ache in his arm. Underneath it all, there was fear. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it. Do you hear me? I can
feel it
!”
They were all standing in the living room. Carter and Presley both had expressions like they didn’t know what they’d walked into, and now had no idea how to help.
Alek had been pacing when Evan had opened the door. Now, he walked over to Evan and pulled him into a tight hug. “We tried calling him after I got off the phone with you. Then these guys showed up, saying they hadn’t gotten Brennan to answer their calls for the past two days either. And we’d been talking about the store—me and Luka. I can’t remember Drew’s last name, or the car he drives. I should have checked, made sure... I didn’t like what he’d said, or how he’d said it, and... But it doesn’t matter. It was just a weird coincidence. We don’t have any contact with him anymore. It’s been years.”
Luka was standing there, hands on his hips, his mouth tight, his eyes staring at nothing. He looked like he wanted to punch a wall. Presley was trying to talk to him, but Luka was almost unresponsive with the degree of his unease and stress.
“Dude, he’s fine. He’s gonna be fine,” Presley was saying.
“I’ve been trying to reach him all morning!” Luka shouted.
Presley held up his hands, gave Luka a look to get him to calm down.
Luke softened his tone just a little and said, “The first couple times, I thought maybe he’d slept in late or was away from the phone, but it’s been hours and he’d not picking up for
anyone
. Hailey isn’t picking up either, and we don’t have anyone else’s number. We don’t even know who to try!”
“Listen,” Alek said, keeping his arm protectively wrapped around Evan’s shoulders, but speaking to everyone. Carter was sitting on the couch, looking worried as hell. “We went through this same thing with you, Evan, after you took off when Charlie walked in on you and Bren. Remember? You needed space to clear your head. Right? You didn’t call, or check in, but you were okay. We were losing our minds, worrying, searching for you. But it was okay. You turned up when you were ready to. So will Brennan. It seems Brennan may have the same sort of flight instinct that you do. Listen to your gut. What do you feel?”
“I feel like he needs me,” Evan exclaimed. “And I can’t even look for him! What is he even running from? What could have happened? What am I supposed to do? Fly to Louisiana?”
“Maybe it’s nothing,” Carter said, “and Brennan and this Hailey chick went out to eat or something. If they’re somewhere like a party with a ton of people and noise, maybe they just can’t hear their phones, or have them turned them off.”
“Yeah,” Presley agreed, latching onto the suggestion. “Bren said there were a lot of people wanting to see him. Seems like he was a pretty popular guy down there. He’s probably just busy. If I try to call Carter when he’s got a gig, it’s nothin’ but voicemail for like five hours at a time. You know he’s down there with tons of friends. It makes sense. Plus, y’all have admitted that your relationship is odd. He was telling me before he left how he didn’t know how to explain y’all to any of his old friends. Maybe he’s just dealing with a lot and it was easier to turn the phone off for a few hours than have to take calls from multiple boyfriends.”
The words seemed to work wonders on Luka, who exhaled and appeared to release some terror with the breath. “Yeah. That would make sense, actually.”
“And it
has
been a stressful morning,” Alek admitted, looking at Evan. Luka wiped at his eyes. It made Evan want to go and hug him. “Maybe it’s us that need Brennan and we’re just a little panicked because we haven’t talked to him much the past couple days.”
“I don’t know,” Evan confessed. He was confused. All he knew was that he did need Brennan. Maybe Alek was right, and it was clouding Evan’s judgment.
Alek said, “Okay then. There’s nothing else we can do right now. Let’s give it some time, then we’ll try something else. Let’s give him a chance to get in touch.”
“Okay,” Evan reluctantly agreed.
The groceries finally got put away. They all ordered food and ate together. Much of the group’s tension dispersed. Presley and Carter left shortly after, giving them some space to continue to calm down and figure things out.
“Sorry about what happened at the store,” Luka said to Evan over the opened dishwasher as they loaded in some plates and forks.
“Why are
you
apologizing?”
“Well, our exes were some pretty shady people. Drew is one of them. I feel kind of responsible for us knowing assholes like that, and the last thing I want is for our past to make you more uncomfortable than you already are with dealing with all of this. I mean, I get that we can’t avoid people. It’s kind of a small town, but I promise you, for both me and Aleksy, that we’ll do a better job keeping you away from all of that shit. Okay?”
Evan dropped his gaze, sliding a dirty plate into the rack. “Yeah. Okay.”
“I mean, Aleksy told me the whole point of the errand was to prove you could be out together without being... you know.
Out
together.”
“I know you guys are just doing your best. Shit happens.” He tried to sound like it was no big deal, hoping this would be the end of it, and they could forget all about Drew. But he couldn’t help worrying. Would Jimmy call Alek? Did Drew follow them home? Would he try to talk to Evan now that he’d seen what kind of men Evan was involved with?
And, most of all, how was he going to tell Alek and Luka about his history with Drew? How was he going to talk about any of it?
Alek came over and gripped Evan’s shoulder, giving him a scrutinizing, concerned once-over. “You don’t look good. Come and sit down. Don’t worry about the dishes. What did Jimmy have to give you anyway?”