by J. A. Rock
Daniel stared back at him, his heart racing, his guts clenched.
“He’s got his phone out, Clay,” R.J. said.
“You gonna call Belman?” Clayton taunted. “You can’t face us like a man, Whitlock? You gotta get your pig boyfriend in on this?”
Brock laughed, a high-pitched nasal sound. “Pussy!”
Clayton smashed against the door again, and Daniel jumped. R.J. roared with laughter. “You got him scared now, Clay!”
Daniel’s fingers shook as he lifted his phone. “I’m gonna call the cops unless you leave right now.”
“Pussy!” Brock called again.
“I’ll be seeing you, Whitlock!” Clayton punched the door one last time.
R.J.’s eye vanished from the hole in the wall, and Daniel heard the three of them laughing as they headed outside again.
Daniel flipped the toilet seat down and sat. His stomach churned and he swallowed bile.
Jesus.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Breathe. In and out. In and out.
He became aware he was humming. He was fucking humming every time he exhaled, and if he lost control of the sound it’d be a whimper or a sob or a panicked scream in the space of a heartbeat.
He put his head in his shaking hands and breathed until his heart rate slowed again. Until the noise subsided.
What if they were waiting for him outside? What if they followed him back to the cabin? What if they got him alone, this time without any door to protect him?
No.
No more.
Fuck this.
Daniel sucked in a deep breath and held it. Rode out the burn in his lungs. Rode out his panic and his fear.
He was done being scared. They had no right, no fucking right, to keep hounding him this way.
“It’s all right to be scared.”
Maybe so, but he was goddamn sick of it.
The rage swelled again in the pit of his stomach. If they weren’t going to stop, he’d have to find a way to fucking make them stop.
Dangerous thoughts? Maybe, but it was nothing his subconscious didn’t already know. He wanted those animals gone. This was his life, and he wasn’t going to stand for this.
He got up and walked outside. Squinted in the sunlight. No one there.
But at some point, there would be. And he’d have to be ready for them.
Fucking animals.
He’d do what Clayton said. Next time he’d face them like a man.
* * *
“Goddamn, Diggler, are you serious?” Bel sighed into the radio. There was no answer for a while, so he clicked it a few times. “Diggler?”
“Sorry, Bel.” Diggler sounded a little breathless, like he’d been laughing. He wasn’t sorry at all. “You have fun now.”
Bel shook his head and turned his cruiser around. Headed for the intersection of Gable and Hatcher. There was a silver sedan parked up there, the door open, and two women standing in the street.
Bel pulled in behind the sedan and got out. Put his hat on, adjusted his utility belt, and walked over to them.
Sometimes walking into a job felt like walking onto a stage, something Bel hadn’t done since he was the angel in the school’s Christmas play in fifth grade. Hark, he’d been supposed to say, but the kid operating the cable had swung him out too fast and too wide, and he’d ended up screaming for his mama instead. Took longer than the Christmas vacation to live that one down. But sometimes there was a hushed pause when Bel arrived someplace, when people stopped and gave him room to make his entrance. When they leaned toward him in anticipation, waiting for him to make his opening speech. Which was never as momentous as they expected.
“Ladies,” Bel said, touching the brim of his hat. “What’s happened here?”
Old Mrs. Pritchard began to wail, but got the story out amid her sobs. She pointed at the front of the car, and Bel stepped around to get a look. Saw Poppet the fluffy dog lying dead on the road. He’d been torn up pretty bad. Bel grimaced.
Well, that’s what you got for not keeping your damn dog inside. How many times had Bel been called out to lecture Mrs. Pritchard when Poppet had gotten into the neighbor’s flowerbeds? Bel glanced across the street to Franny Harman’s place and saw the curtains twitch. He bet Franny was loving this.
“I’m real sorry, Mrs. Pritchard,” he said, walking back to her.
She sobbed into her liver-spotted hands.
“He . . .” The second woman drew a deep breath. “He just came out of nowhere. I wasn’t speeding.”
Bel looked at her properly for the first time. Shit. It was Jean Whitlock. Daniel’s mom. “Accidents happen.”
She had Daniel’s eyes.
“Are you okay to drive?” Bel asked her. She looked a little shaky. Bel tried to concentrate on that, rather than anything else.
“I—” Her gaze slid to his name badge and her voice faltered. “I’m fine.”
Bel ushered her away from Mrs. Pritchard. “Okay. Don’t worry too much about it. The dog was always getting loose. Could have happened to anyone.”
Jean nodded, her gaze flicking up to his face. “You’re . . .”
Fucking your son?
“Mary’s youngest,” she said at last.
“Yes, ma’am,” Bel said, wondering which one of them was gonna break first. The whole town knew by now that Bel was seeing Daniel. Whole town had an opinion about it as well. Bel wondered what Jean Whitlock’s was.
When Bel was seventeen he’d taken Amy Peterson to prom. She was the preacher’s daughter, which made the whole thing even more excruciating. Her daddy had sat Bel down in the living room while Amy and her mom fussed with her dress upstairs, and given him a whole lecture on respect and gentlemanly behavior and what he called urges. Only urge Bel had felt was to get the fuck out of there. But he’d nodded and said “yes, sir” a lot, and eventually her parents had let Amy leave the house with him. Hours later, parked down by the river, Amy had blamed her daddy for Bel’s unwillingness to dive in under the layers of her pretty tulle dress, but she hadn’t known that the whole night Bel had been sneaking looks at guys’ asses instead.
Now Bel found himself wanting to hear a parental lecture from Jean, just so he could assure her that he was a decent guy and not looking to take advantage. Mostly though, he wanted to tell her that he was treating Daniel well, that they were doing okay, and that last night he’d written BRAVEST MOTHERFUCKER IN LOGAN around Daniel’s throat and that together they were proving those words true.
Jean drew a deep breath and didn’t say anything. She stared at a point over Bel’s shoulder.
“Okay,” Bel said, regret creeping in. “You take care, Mrs. Whitlock.”
She nodded at him and murmured her thanks.
Didn’t climb into her car though.
“Listen,” Bel said, lowering his voice. “About Daniel.”
She looked at him sharply.
“He’s doing okay, is all.” The words felt inadequate. They didn’t even scrape the surface of what Bel felt for Daniel.
Jean searched his face. “We tried,” she said at last. “We didn’t know. Not how bad it was. Not until . . .”
Until Kenny Cooper.
Bel nodded. He swallowed, and it hurt.
“Some kids are just trouble,” Jean said. Her mouth compressed into a thin line. “Just trouble.”
She got into her car and drove off.
Bel stood there, feeling a chill despite the heat of the day. How many times had he heard that before? How many times had he agreed with it? But Daniel wasn’t some wayward kid he was dropping back at his mom’s trailer after he’d been arrested again for shoplifting. He wasn’t some kid who’d punched a teacher or crashed his daddy’s car when he was drunk.
Daniel had been the kid who’d roamed the streets at odd hours, and who’d stared into Bobby Grant’s bedroom window. Who’d tried to deny it when he was caught. He was the kid your parents had warned you to steer clear off. The weird kid. The freak.
>
Just trouble, unless you looked closer.
He wondered if it would have made a difference if Daniel’s parents had done that.
Bel fetched an old towel from the trunk of his cruiser. He gathered up Poppet and wrapped him in it, trying his hardest not to actually look at the broken little body. Then, even though he’d hated that damned dog, he carried him back to Mrs. Pritchard’s yard, took a spade from the garage, and dug a hole to bury him.
“You good, Bel?” Diggler asked him as he was shoveling the dirt back in.
Bel leaned on the shovel and reached for his radio. “Yeah. Be another few minutes here, then I gotta go home and change.”
“Ewww. Copy that.”
Bel put the spade back in the garage, let Mrs. Pritchard fix him a cold drink, and then drove home to shower and change.
There was a note sticking out of his mailbox. Bel tugged it free and unfolded it.
FAGGOT PIG.
He stared at the words for a while, trying to feel offended. Oddly though, he wasn’t. He’d expected it, and Uncle Joe had warned him it was coming as well.
Bel tucked the note into his pocket and headed inside.
He just hoped that when he was done burning all his bridges, he was left standing on the same side as Daniel.
* * *
“Saw your mama today,” Bel said as he did the dishes in Daniel’s tiny kitchen.
“Oh yeah?” Daniel stared out the open front door into the darkness. He was nervous. He’d been nervous all day, waiting for Bel to get back from work, and, when he had, somehow it wasn’t enough. There wasn’t enough of Bel to fix what was wrong with Daniel, to patch over all the holes gnawed in his insides.
“Yeah. She ran over Mrs. Pritchard’s dog.”
That caught his attention. Daniel turned his head and stared at Bel. “She did what?”
Bel made a face. “Dog was real messed up. I buried it.”
“Oh.” He stared out the door again, into the trees, into the night. The bed dipped as Bel sat beside him. His warm hand slid up Daniel’s thigh. Daniel didn’t look at him. “I’m real tired tonight, Bel.”
“You look it.” Bel squeezed his thigh. “Early night, I guess.”
Daniel glanced at him. “That a problem?”
“No.” Bel showed him a crooked smile. “No problem.”
Tired like this, unsettled like this, sleep should have been an escape. Never was though. Daniel watched as Bel stood up and crossed to the door. Closed and locked it, as though there was any lock in the world that could stop Daniel when he was fixed on getting out.
“You okay?” Bel asked him, his face creased with worry.
“Yeah.” Daniel lay down on his side and listened to Bel in the bathroom. Brushing his teeth. Taking a piss. Thought of his mother, running over a dog. Thought of what she’d said to him at Casey’s birthday dinner.
“Don’t make this all about you.”
It hurt that she’d said that. He’d wanted to tell her that it hurt, but that would only prove her point. He wondered if she was upset about the dog. She would be, he figured. She’d loved animals. Probably still did. That was the sort of thing that didn’t change, did it? He’d thought the same of her love for him, once.
His eyes closed, and the fire came.
His mom was there, standing behind it. A curtain of fire. It shimmered. So pretty, but Daniel couldn’t cross through it. Couldn’t reach out and touch her.
“Mom?”
“It’s okay.” Bel’s voice. Bel’s arms around him.
“I gotta get through the fire, Bel,” Daniel said. He turned, but couldn’t see Bel. Could still feel him though. Solid. Warm.
“You don’t gotta do that,” Bel told him. “You just stay here, with me. Okay?”
No. Daniel couldn’t do that. Had to get through the fire alone. Without Bel. Had to show Bel he could.
“Where are you?” The cabin came back into focus. It was on fire. His mom was gone. “Bel, where are you?” Panic rose up in him, twisting in his guts and clawing in his throat like it was a living thing inside him. Devouring him. But he cut it away. Gotta turn it into something else.
Anger.
Daniel watched as the fire grew. So bright. So hot. The air cracked. God. He’d burn. Any second now and it would touch his skin and he’d burn. But he wasn’t afraid of that anymore. He hoped he’d burn—if he burned, if he made it through, he’d be much stronger than those animals. He’d destroy them.
He stared as a figure loomed out of the flames.
“Kenny.”
“Suck my dick, faggot,” Kenny said.
“Your face,” Daniel said. He reached out to touch it. The charred flesh crumbled away like dust. There wasn’t a grinning skull underneath though. There was a boy’s face, with freckles. It scowled at Daniel.
“We gonna work on this geography project or what?”
The fire receded, and Daniel was in his bedroom. In his parents’ house. There was a movie poster of Jurassic Park on the wall.
“Hey,” Kenny said in a voice that hadn’t broken yet. “We gonna work on this geography project or what? You can draw the maps. You’re good at drawing.”
Daniel sat cross-legged on the floor with his book in his lap. “I’m real sorry.”
Kenny scrunched up his face. “What for?”
Daniel looked around. Confusion washed through him. He picked up his colored pencils. “I don’t know. For the . . . for the fire?”
Kenny snorted.
“Will you tell them to leave me alone?” Daniel asked.
“Who?”
Clayton and Brock and R.J. The kids from his class. Daniel stared at the baseball cap hanging from his bedpost and couldn’t remember why he wanted them to leave him alone. Last week, Daniel hit a home run at Little League, and Clayton whooped and gave him a high five.
They were okay.
They were his friends, weren’t they?
Unease crept up on him, but Daniel pushed it away.
It was okay, here. He’d watch Kenny, and he’d learn how you made an animal scared of you.
He watched as Kenny picked through his colored pencils, looking for blue for the Atlantic Ocean. Daniel dropped his green pencil. It rolled over the carpet and onto the grimy tiles of the gas station bathroom. He picked it up and stared through the hole in the wall. The hole grew bigger. It shimmered somehow, seemed to fold in on itself, and Clayton stepped through.
“Bel!” Daniel yelled into his phone. “Bel!”
“I’m here. I got you.”
“Don’t fucking need you! This is my fight.”
“Then why’d you call?”
A flickering light at the bottom corner of the bathroom stall caught Daniel’s attention and held it. It bloomed into fire and swallowed the stall. Daniel gasped as it caught Clayton, and he dissolved silently into ashes. Then Bel stepped through the flames.
“Hey, Bel,” Daniel smiled.
“Hey. You awake?”
“Yeah.” Daniel watched the flames wash over the walls.
Bel kissed him on the forehead. “No, you ain’t.”
Daniel twisted his head away. “Where’s Kenny?” Then, “Where’s my pencil?”
The world shifted, and Daniel found himself sitting on the cabin floor, a pencil in his hand and his drawing pad open in front of him. He leaned back against Bel, and felt Bel’s arms come around his waist. Daniel drew his knees up. He rested the drawing pad on them.
“I’m good at drawing.”
“Yeah.” Bel’s breath was warm against his neck. Warmer than fire. “You are.”
Daniel relaxed as the flames died.
He began to draw.
* * *
Bel stared at the picture on the floor.
Clayton McAllister. Daniel had drawn Clayton McAllister lying in a field with a shadow spreading all around him. And a figure—Daniel—was standing over him, his dripping fists clenched. Blood? And Jesus, the look on Daniel’s face. His mouth was stretched
into a snarl, his eyes narrowed to slits. It made Bel sick just looking at it.
What the hell was this? Wish fulfillment?
Bel ran his finger along the side of the page and wondered if this was the sort of thing that John Frommer should know about. Maybe he already did. Whatever Daniel’s subconscious spewed out, it wasn’t . . . it wasn’t evidence. Bad enough that the rest of Logan judged Daniel by his actions when he slept; Bel didn’t need to start doing it again.
The picture didn’t mean anything.
Bel looked up at Daniel. He was curled on the bed, murmuring something in his sleep. Something that made him smile. Bel didn’t like to think that he was holding so much rage inside him, so much potential for violence. But Kenny Cooper was proof of that.
It wasn’t fair that it hurt to look at Daniel. It wasn’t fair that at the start of this thing with him, in the part where Bel should have been the happiest, the most secure, it still fucking hurt. Bel knew shit about relationships, but wasn’t there supposed to be a honeymoon period? Wasn’t there supposed to be a time when you were blind to the other guy’s faults?
Or maybe that was all bullshit.
He knew who Daniel was, knew what he’d done. And it didn’t matter, because Daniel was more than his actions, more than his dreams, and more than this fucking picture.
Much more.
Bel tore the page out of the pad and crumpled it in his fist. Shoved it in his backpack so he could dispose of it in the morning without Daniel seeing it.
Then he climbed back into bed with Daniel and held him until dawn.
19
Daniel started seeing John twice a week instead of once.
Ms. Davenport had dug up some info on cases where sleepwalkers were treated psychologically by identifying the triggers for their sleepwalking episodes, and Bel couldn’t seem to get that stupid idea out of his head, so Daniel went along with it.
He still didn’t know who the fuck was paying for all this, but Bel said Ms. Davenport had worked it out with the state and that Daniel shouldn’t worry about it.
