"Stop," I hissed. Rubbing my face roughly
with my palm, I tried to get myself under control. "Don't read
another word," I whispered. What the hell was he playing at? Who
the hell was he trying to fool?
Both of my sons.
As a father...
Our family.
Like he had the slightest clue about being a
father…I didn't have a father. I had a fucking sperm donor.
"Where are you, Kyle?" Lee asked quietly.
"You're not in a meeting. I can hear traffic."
Groaning, I leaned forward and rested my
forehead against the wheel. "Thirteenth Street."
"Why did you lie to me? We promised each
other," she whispered and I slumped in my seat.
No more lies
we had promised each other. No more fucking lies and I was still
lying. Goddammit to hell.
"I can't find Derek," I confessed guiltily.
My tone was gruff. My whole body was on fire. "Didn't wanna worry
you." I heard her breathing hitch and I flinched.
"Can you come pick me up?" she asked quickly.
I could hear ruffling noises in the back ground and I suspected she
was pulling on her clothes. "I think I know where he is."
****
Lee
I felt horrible for calling Linda to come
over and watch Hope for me when she obviously wasn't at her best,
but I didn't have any other option. "Thanks so much, Linda," I
mumbled as I shrugged on my coat, ignored the huge swell of guilt
filling my heart from the sight of her washed out face, and rushed
to the door. Kyle was waiting outside in his car and I didn't want
my daughter coming with us. She didn't need to be exposed to all of
this misery and Kyle was too temperamental to go on his own. We
needed to talk about this. He needed to stop lying to me. I didn't
care if he thought he had my best interests at heart or not. He
needed to be straight with me. Lying to each other and hiding the
truth had wrecked our relationship before. It was a horrible
repetitive habit that we needed to nip in the bud.
"Take care of him, Lee," Linda called after
me.
"I will," I replied as I pulled out the door
and rushed down the steps the where Kyle was waiting in his
car.
"I'm sorry," were the first words Kyle said
when I climbed into the passenger seat of his Mercedes. "I
panicked…Fuck." His face held the world of remorse. I wasn't angry
with him, but he needed to stop hiding things from me. I understood
why he did it, but I needed to make him understand why he had to
stop
doing it.
Lowing my hood, I dusted off the flakes of
snow that had landed on my shoulders before turning to face him and
reaching for his hand. "We've screwed this up before by not
communicating. Let's not go down that path again." Stretching
across my seat, I planted a soft kiss on his lips before pulling
back. "I'm not a porcelain doll, Kyle Carter." I rubbed my thumb
over his lip and watched as he closed his eyes and sighed heavily.
"We're a team and I will help you when you're in trouble. Do you
understand me? Consider me your Tails."
"As in Sonic the hedgehog?" He grinned and
shook his head in amusement. "So, I'm Sonic and you're Tails?"
"What?" I said with a shrug as I sat back
into my seat and fastened my seatbelt. "Cam had a Gameboy when we
were kids. It was the best analogy I could think of."
Kyle smirked at me before revving the engine
and speeding off. "So, Tails," he mused as soon as we arrived in
the hill. "Where's our golden hoop?"
He wasn't going to like this. I sighed
heavily before saying, "I think he's at your father's house."
Kyle slammed his hand on the blinkers and
made a highly dangerous–highly illegal–U-turn. "Goddammit. Why the
hell would he go…"
"Because he's more than likely after reading
the paper and freaking out over what David said about Cam," I said
calmly. I had just about fallen off the couch when I opened the
newspaper and read what David had said.
Incapacitated.
That
stung. That hit me hard… "Take a deep breath and slow down. It will
be okay, Kyle."
I didn't believe a word of what I was
saying.
I had a really bad feeling about this.
Dread was rising in my heart…
****
"I don't know if I can do this, Lee," Kyle
muttered as he pulled the car to a stop outside the most prodigious
house I'd ever seen. It was
huge
–at least four stories
tall–snow white in color and completely intimidating. It was
snowing heavily now and instead of making the property look
endearing, the snow seemed to have the opposite effect.
This was
a cold home with no love…
Kyle unfastened his seatbelt and drummed
nervously on the steering wheel with his hands as his eyes
flickered between the house and my face. "I haven't been inside
that house in eleven years…and Derek might not even be here."
He was going to do this.
I didn't need to coax him or persuade him to
do this.
"I'm with you," was all I said and it seemed
to break him out of his panic.
His hand darted from the wheel to my chin. "I
know you are," he said in a soft contemplative tone of voice as he
stroked my jaw with his thumb and nodded in what looked like
determination. "Come on, princess," he said as he opened his door.
"Let's do this shit."
****
Kyle
"Stay calm," Lee coaxed in a soft tone of
voice she stood by my side, with her small hand wrapped around
mine, at the front door of what I liked to call
the manor
.
"I'm with you." I knew she was and that knowledge alone made the
butterflies that were fluttering around my stomach die down.
I would never admit it to Lee, but this place
made me as uncomfortable as Thirteenth Street made her. I felt out
of control here. I
had
no control here. This was his turf
and I was unwanted. Standing on David Henderson's doorstep made me
feel like a vulnerable twelve year old boy again. The last time I
stood on these steps was with my grandfather, the day he brought me
home. I quickly learned that day that I didn't have a dad and I
never would have one. The look of revulsion on David Henderson's
face when he looked at me was burnt into my memory. I would never
forget the way that bastard had looked down his nose at me like I
was a piece of shit on his shoe. I would never forget the words
that came out of his mouth.
"Am I supposed to know who he is?" David
scorned.
"You're not blind, David," Frank growled as
he clamped his huge hand down on my shoulder. "Open your damn eyes.
His name is Kyle. Kyle Carter. His mother was Sarah Carter?"
David looked straight in my eyes, his
expression impassive, as he raised his brow and said, "Am I
supposed to care?"
"Fuck you, asshole," I hissed, my temper
getting the best of me.
"Calm down, Kyle," Frank coaxed as he
stepped towards his son. "This boy is your flesh and blood," he
told David, his tone gruff. "Please tell me you didn't know…"
Frank's voice broke. He looked down at me with kind blue eyes,
blinked back the tears that were pooling in them before facing his
son once more. "David, tell me you didn't know about him? Tell me
you didn't knowingly allow your own son to spend nine years of his
life as an orphan."
David's brow rose in surprise. There was no
flicker of any other emotion on his face besides a glint of
amusement. "So, she's dead?" he mused. "Can't say I'm surprised."
He shook his head and smirked down at me. "Your mother had a nasty
little habit…thought that would've taken care of you."
"You knew she was pregnant…" Frank snapped,
but I was already moving.
Shrugging Frank's hand off my shoulder, I
stepped forward and got right up in my father's face. "You make me
sick," I snarled, shoving his chest with my hands. Even though I
was only twelve, he staggered backwards from the force I used. "I'm
gonna make you so fucking sorry for this."
David threw his head back and laughed. "Do
your worst, runt."
"He's very posh, isn't he?" Lee whispered,
breaking me out of my reverie. "You two are like chalk and cheese."
I cracked a smile. Only she could make me smile when I was standing
here. David's choice of home was just another difference in our
personalities and it made me happy to know that she noticed we were
nothing alike.
Where I liked the things in my life to be
simplistic, David liked extravagance. He valued luxury over
practicality. I liked to think that I was sensible when it came to
money, but that man was fucking wasteful. He could take fifty
homeless people off the streets with the amount of money he spent
on lighting this monstrosity of a house each month. I squeezed her
hand. "You have no idea, baby."
The front door swung inwards and I was faced
with the bane of my fucking existence. "Well, if it isn't it
Boulder's very own broken lovers," David said with a smirk as
opened the door wider. "I have something that belongs to you, Kyle.
Take your shoes off." Turning around, he stalked down the hallway
without as much as a backwards glance.
Lee looked up at me with a nervous
expression. "Are we supposed to follow him inside?"
"Probably," I muttered, sounding like a
petulant teenager but not giving a fuck.
Stepping inside, Lee dragged me back by the
hand. "Wait," she mumbled. Pointing at the white carpet in the
hallway, she looked up at me with the most innocent expression.
"Should we…you know, take our shoes off?"
I snorted and hoped to god that I'd stepped
in dog shit on my way here. "Stamp your feet hard, baby," I said
with a grin and she nodded eagerly, her smile mirroring mine.
God, I loved that girl…
Taking a deep breath, I wrapped my arm around
her shoulders and stepped inside. With each step we took into the
house, Lee moved closer and closer until she was welded to my side.
I tightened my arm around her. "It's okay," I whispered. "You're
safe. I'm with you."
Lee's hand started to shake and I rubbed my
thumb across her knuckles to try and soothe her. "I'm worried for
you," she replied quietly.
We rounded a corner to find David standing
outside the door of the living room with a scornful expression on
his face. Closing the door, he shuddered before glaring at me. "You
owe me for a carpet cleaning," he growled.
The loud moans and groans coming from behind
the door confirmed to me the fact that Derek was here. I'd know his
fucking groaning noises anywhere. I'd heard them often enough. The
walls were thin in Thirteenth Street.
"What's going on, Mr. Henderson?" Lee
surprised me by asking. She surprised me even further by stepping
forward, nudging David out her way and putting her hand on the door
knob. The look of anger on her face matched mine when she swung the
door open and saw Derek lying limply on my father's couch. The only
positive thing about this whole picture was the pile of vomit
sprayed all over his white carpet
.
****
Lee
"What the hell did you do to him?" Kyle
demanded as he stepped forward and shoved David out of our way. I
couldn't hear David's reply. I was too busy trying to wake Derek
up–and trying to avoid the vomit.
"Derek," I whispered as I knelt next to the
couch and shook his shoulders. He was slumped on top of an
immaculate white couch and for the briefest of moments I felt a
twinge of sympathy for Mike. It must have been horrible growing up
in an igloo. Because that's what this house felt like and looked
like to me. Everything was white, cold and clinical. My god, even
the Christmas tree in front of the bay window was decorated in
white ornaments and tinsel. I dreaded the thought of what happened
to children with sticky fingers in this house…
"Cam," Derek mumbled as he threw his arm over
his face and groaned. "Make it stop…everything…hurts." My heart
cracked open as pain for Derek flowed through me, but fear quickly
took its place when his hand shot out and grabbed the back of my
neck. "You…broke me," he sobbed, eyes closed, chest heaving. He
pulled my face so close to his that I felt drunk from the fumes of
alcohol that was coming from his breath. "You…I love you…"
"Derek," I coaxed as I pulled at his wrist
with both of my hands. "Please let me go. I'm Lee."
"Whoa," Kyle shouted from behind me and in
the next moment I was free and being pulled into Kyle's arms. "You
okay?" he demanded as he ran his fingers all over my face and
neck.
"Yeah," I whispered even though I was pretty
sure we were standing in vomit. "What's wrong with him? He's
completely out of it."
"That would be the sedative," David chimed
in.
"You drugged him?" Kyle spat as he rushed
over to Derek. Kneeling down beside him, Kyle shook Derek gently
before swinging his gaze around to his father "Are you insane?"
"Insane, no. Fond of my property, yes," he
mused with a shrug. "Stupid fool showed up intoxicated and shouting
abuse. What did you expect me to do, take it?" David shook his head
and sighed. "I don't take kindly to threats, Kyle. You should know
that. He showed up at my house, damaged my property and intimidated
my wife. He's lucky all I did was stick him with a needle. I
haven’t forgotten about him punching me, Kyle. Crying and whinnying
over a woman who didn’t want him. He's a pathetic excuse for a
man…"
"He is a good man," I snapped as I pressed
down hard with my feet.
Let's see how easily he gets that stain
out...
"Derek is hurt and he is grieving. Your son ruined his
life and
your
thoughtless comments are no doubt the cause of
this."
"He is a dangerous man," David countered,
glaring at me with a look of pure disgust. "A danger to himself and
to anyone he comes into contact with. He needs to be locked up." He
turned to look at Kyle and I noted that his expression softened. I
narrowed my eyes in distrust. "If he steps foot on my property
again, I will have him arrested. I don’t want to upset you, Kyle,
but I can't allow this kind of behavior. Not on my property. Is
that clear?"