by J. A. Rock
In back of the barn was a roughed-up patch of ground—flattened grass, an indent in the soft earth. And something glinting.
The aluminum paddle. And beside it, a plug.
What the fuck?
He heard a car door close and ran back to the front of the barn. It was just Jake. “Kebbler! What’d I tell you?”
Jake was freaking out, red-faced, hands waving. “The river! They’re down by the river!”
Bel ran, one hand on his gun and one on his radio.
He saw three figures on the bank. One of them was holding a fucking rifle. Holding, not pointing, but that could change in a heartbeat. Bel yelled into his radio for backup, but didn’t stop running. Not when he couldn’t see Daniel. Not when he needed to know he was okay.
The three guys—Clayton, R.J., and Brock—bolted. Could have picked one to chase, could have caught one, but Bel’s gaze was fixed on the river now. On something in the water that was thrashing one second, then not.
Years ago and not too many miles away, he’d walked up to Daniel Whitlock on the riverbank.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
So fucking nervous of Casey’s big brother, because he was weird, because he was smart, because he was older, and because he was cute.
“You coming in? It’s real nice.”
He could hear Jake shouting behind him, but couldn’t make out the words. Just fixed his gaze on the point in the muddy water he’d last seen movement, hoped to fuck he wouldn’t break his neck, and dived in.
* * *
Daniel must have been sleeping, because sunlight hit his face, and Bel was there. Arms around him, the pair of them soaking wet just like when they’d skinny-dipped in the river when Bel was supposed to be working. Laughing and wrestling. Kissing.
He must have been sleeping, because he didn’t know what was going on.
Bel was holding him.
Had to be a dream.
22
“Now I know that your firearm is mostly plastic and all,” Uncle Joe said at the hospital, “but that doesn’t mean it likes to go swimming.” He clapped Bel on the shoulder and tightened his grip. “You good, Little Joe?”
Bel managed a nod. “I’m good.”
“How’s your—ah, how’s Whitlock?”
“They’re checking him over now,” Bel said. “Okay, I reckon. Swallowed a lot of water, but he’s okay.”
Has to be okay. If he’s okay, then maybe we’re okay as well.
“We got R.J. down at the station,” Uncle Joe said. “Reckon the others will turn up sooner or later.”
Bel nodded dully. Where the hell could they run?
“This is a real mess.” Uncle Joe rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead. “R.J.’s not saying shit about what happened. Don’t suppose you know what Whitlock was doing out there?”
Bel thought of the text that Daniel had sent. I want to say I’m sorry and thanks for everything. He’d known he was putting himself in danger. Maybe he hadn’t known how much danger, but he’d thought to send Bel a good-bye text. And why? Hadn’t Bel given Daniel enough of a reason to want to stay safe? “There was a fight,” he said. “Jake Kebbler said Whitlock and Clayton arranged to have it out. But I . . . I don’t think Whitlock figured on it going like this.”
Or did he?
Could Bel have talked him out of meeting Clayton, if he’d asked why Daniel had hurt himself last night, instead of getting pissed about it?
Uncle Joe squeezed his shoulder again. “Well, I guess you got some things to talk about.”
“Guess we do.” Bel’s chest ached with the knowledge that he hadn’t been enough to keep Daniel from slipping.
“I brought you some dry clothes from your locker,” Uncle Joe said. “Figured you’d want to wait here awhile.”
“Thanks.”
“You remember what I said, Little Joe?” Uncle Joe asked. “About there being no future for you in this town?”
Bel nodded again.
“World’s a big place,” Uncle Joe told him. He patted Bel on the shoulder. “Come by the station when you’re done, and we’ll talk some more.”
“You firing me, Sheriff?” Bel asked stiffly.
“Maybe I’m transferring you. If that’s what you want.”
“Maybe.” Bel paused. Couldn’t deal with this now. “I don’t know.”
“You think on it some. No rush.”
Bel watched as he walked away, then went and changed his clothes in the hospital bathroom. He shoved his wet uniform into a plastic bag a nurse found for him, then headed down the corridor to Daniel’s room.
Daniel was lying on his side in bed, his back to the door. His hair was still damp.
Bel dumped his bag on the floor, and went and sat on the mattress. “You awake?”
“Yeah, Bel,” Daniel murmured, but didn’t turn.
Bel rubbed his back gently, waiting for that moment that always came when Daniel relaxed under his touch. But Daniel continued to hold himself rigid. “You gonna talk to me?”
“Sorry, Bel.”
“I’m sorry too.”
Daniel twisted his head around. “What are you sorry for?”
A moment ago, Bel wouldn’t have known what to say. But now the words came easily. “Hurting you.”
Daniel turned away again. Hunched his shoulders and pulled the sheet tight around his body. “You didn’t.”
“Reckon I did. Didn’t do a very good job bein’ what you needed. Or you wouldn’t have—”
“It was for you,” Daniel interrupted. “’Cause you are what I need, and I had to—I had to get free so I could be better for you. I got—all these good feelings now, but they crash up against all the shit I’m still scared of.” He paused. “It doesn’t make sense. I know that. I’m sorry.”
Bel closed his eyes as relief washed over him. It made a little sense. So he held back the What the hell were you thinking? and How was getting yourself killed supposed to help? “Hey. Look at me.”
Daniel rolled over.
“Daniel.” Bel kept his voice soft. Wasn’t sure what to say now. Didn’t want to tell Daniel how scared he’d been when he’d gotten that text. When he’d thought he might have lost the one thing that made the world seem like the big place Uncle Joe had talked about. When he’d thought it was his fault.
Daniel made Logan seem smaller than it had ever been to Bel before. They both needed to get free. But where did they go from here? My uncle says he can transfer me. So pack your shit and we’ll go try to make this work somewhere else.
In the end, all Bel could say was, “Clayton ain’t worth it.”
“I wasn’t gonna kill him,” Daniel said. “Just fuck him up so bad he’d know what it felt like. So bad he’d leave me alone.”
“And what if he’d killed you? He came pretty damn close, didn’t he?”
“He played dirty.” Bel could hear the anger in Daniel’s voice. “He said if I won, he’d never bother me again. But it was never gonna be a fair fight.” Daniel tilted his head back and gazing at the ceiling. “I figure I knew that.”
“And you went anyway.” Bel held out his hand. “What am I gonna do with you?”
Daniel didn’t move. “Dump me, I reckon.”
Bel reached under the sheet and found Daniel’s hand. Drew it out and twined his fingers with Daniel’s. “You don’t listen very good. Remember I said we ain’t done?”
Daniel swallowed a couple of times. “Why not? I’m never gonna make you happy. I’m just gonna keep screwing up.”
“Already make me happy. And I’m plannin’ to keep screwing up too. So if you want company, you’ve got it.”
Daniel shook his head. “I’m starting to think I’m not the crazy one.”
Bel grinned. “I’d run crazy circles around you any day of the week.” He squeezed Daniel’s hand and his smile faded. “You’ve had it rough, ain’t you?”
“Dunno, Bel.”
“You have. But it ain’t your fault, okay?”
>
Daniel stared at him. His jaw trembled.
“None of it. Not the sleepwalking. Not getting bashed.”
“I told Kenny Cooper I wanted to suck his dick.”
“Don’t matter if you got on your knees and undid his fly. What he did ain’t your fault.”
“What about what I did?” Daniel asked softly.
“You did your time. You paid, Daniel. Time to let it go.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You’re gonna try for me. Yeah?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know why you’re still hangin’ around me.”
“Because I love you.”
Daniel didn’t answer for a long moment, long enough for Bel to get plenty nervous. But he wasn’t sorry he’d said it. Daniel needed to know.
“Well that ain’t fair to spring on a guy.” Daniel’s voice was hoarse.
“Is it really news, Whitlock?” Maybe it was. Shit, the way Bel had bailed on him. What he’d said: “You’re a head case . . .”
Daniel gripped Bel’s hand so hard it hurt. His eyes watered. “Do I have to go to jail?”
“No, you don’t. R.J.’s at the station. We’re lookin’ for Clayton and Brock.”
“I hit him. Clayton. The other guys had to pull me off.”
“We’re gonna sort it out,” Bel promised.
“I woulda beat the shit out of Clayton if it was just me and him.” Daniel blinked several times, rapidly. “Ms. Davenport’s not gonna think much of me.”
“Dav’s glad you’re all right.” Bel hadn’t talked to Dav yet. But he knew she’d be glad.
Daniel shifted. Took a breath. “Are we still . . . You’re not gonna ditch me, then?”
“I’m gonna take you home in a few minutes here. And we’re gonna have a good long talk.”
Daniel picked at the sheet with his free hand. “’Kay.”
“What is it?”
Daniel looked at him. “You’re right, what you said, ’bout me not knowing the difference between fucking and fucking myself up.” He dropped his gaze, and when he lifted it again, his eyes were shining with tears. “Don’t hurt me, Bel. I don’t wanna play those games for a while. Maybe never.”
“We’re gonna take it slow.” Bel rubbed his thumb over Daniel’s swollen knuckles.
“I just—” Daniel faltered. “I just want to see what it’s like when I don’t hurt.”
“You trust me?”
Daniel nodded.
Bel gently removed his hand from Daniel’s and stroked Daniel’s cheek. Ran his fingertips down Daniel’s throat, then up the side of his neck and through his hair. Daniel leaned into the touch, closing his eyes. “It ain’t gonna hurt anymore.”
Not until it was something Daniel wanted for itself, if he ever did. They could find out together what worked, start again from the beginning.
Daniel swallowed. “John’s gonna be mad too. He thought I was doing better.”
“No one’s mad.” Bel stroked the curls at Daniel’s nape. Needed a haircut again. “Just rest a minute while I go see about gettin’ you released.”
Bel started to get up. Daniel caught his wrist. “Don’t—just—sorry. Stay a minute?”
“Of course.” Bel sat back down.
“I love you too. I hope that ain’t news. I meant to tell you.”
Bel leaned forward and kissed his cheek. Daniel turned so their lips touched. Bel closed his eyes. “It’s good news.”
Daniel pressed his forehead to Bel’s. “There’s no magic fix for me. Not therapy, not drugs, not even you.”
“I know that. I ain’t in this to fix you. Just to be with you and help you any way you need.”
“Yeah.” Daniel huffed, sitting back. “You smell bad.”
“So do you,” Bel grinned. “Muddy and stinky. You want to take a hot shower at my place?”
“You gonna wash my back for me?”
“Gonna wash every goddamn inch of you,” Bel said. “You like that idea?”
Daniel smiled. “Yeah, Bel.”
“You sit tight, then. I’ll be right back.”
Bel kissed Daniel again and stood.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said over his shoulder.
“I ain’t goin’ anywhere, Bel. Not without you.”
* * *
The next few days passed in a blur for Daniel. The police station, Bel’s place, out to the cabin to collect some clothes, back to Bel’s place, the police station again. Dreaming of fire and water, and waking up with Bel’s arms around him. With Bel talking low and gentle in his ear: “I got you, Daniel, I got you.”
Daniel had cried the first night and was fucking embarrassed by that. Cried and couldn’t stop, while Bel held him and watched and worried. It was only when Daniel was afraid he’d end up in the hospital again that he managed to stop his tears, to tell Bel he was okay. Which probably wasn’t the sort of breakthrough John would recommend.
“They say fire’s cleansing,” he’d told Bel once in the middle of the night, caught between awake and asleep, “but it’s dirty. Bel. It’s real dirty.”
“I know it is,” Bel had said sleepily, “but you’re clean now.”
“Did the river clean me?”
“No.” Bel had tightened his grip on Daniel. “You were already clean.”
Shit. Was that the sort of stuff he came out with when he was sleeping? When his subconscious took control of his mind? Daniel wondered how much crazy shit he’d spewed out in the middle of the night, how much Bel had to put up with. The next morning, he wished he hadn’t remembered saying it. Wished they could both pretend he was normal.
“You okay going out with Jekyll and Hyde?” he joked at breakfast on the third day.
Bel narrowed his eyes over his toast. “You ain’t Jekyll and Hyde.”
Daniel fumbled with the butter knife. “Just, if you don’t know it, I appreciate it. Putting up with the shit that happens when I’m sleeping, I mean. Makes me wonder if the awake stuff is worth it for you.” He caught Bel’s scowl. “Not trying to put myself down or anything. You’re more patient than me, I mean. Feels wrong to ask you to do that when I don’t think I could do it for someone.”
“Makes us a good fit, is all,” Bel said. “It’s not something you owe me for.”
Daniel nodded.
Bel pushed his plate away. “Do you know what you do, when all the world sleeps?”
I fuck anything. I kill people. I’m crazy.
“You talk a lot. We talk a lot.”
“We do?”
“Yeah.” Bel’s voice was soft. “You draw, and we talk.”
“What do we talk about?”
“Nothing much,” Bel said. “Sometimes you tell me about what you’re drawing. Sometimes you tell me about things you remember from growing up. Once you promised to make me waffles for breakfast, but you never came through on that.” Bel smiled.
“I talk about the fire?”
The smile disappeared. “Sometimes.”
“Good. Because it ain’t all funny, is it? It ain’t all waffles and pretty pictures. It’s fucking frightening, Bel. It’s . . .” He sighed. “There’s this side of me that does all this stuff, or that talks to you, and I don’t even know what happens, or what I say. It’s like I’m not even there.”
“You are there,” Bel said. “It’s you, Daniel. It’s always you.”
“I don’t want us to talk when I’m sleeping,” Daniel said, his throat aching. “I want to remember it.”
“I can tell you if you want,” Bel said. “Every morning.”
“That ain’t fair on you.”
“I can decide that for myself.”
“Nothin’ about this is fair on you,” Daniel said. “I’m wrecking your job, and don’t pretend that’s not true. I saw the looks the other cops gave you at the station.”
“There’re other jobs.”
“You really wanna go back to working at Harnee’s? Because you know there’s nothin’ much else in town!”
&
nbsp; “There’re other towns,” Bel said.
“No.” Daniel shook his head. “You ain’t leaving Logan.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause you like it here. Your family’s here.”
“They’d still be here when I came back to visit.”
Daniel’s throat ached worse. How the hell was he supposed to make Bel understand how unreasonable this was?
“My job ain’t wrecked. I can stay here if you want to stay here, but I don’t think you do.”
Daniel looked down. It wasn’t a secret. He’d been talking to John and Ms. Davenport for a while about moving. About maybe going to school. Just, he’d never let the idea seem real. But after the river . . .
There was nothing he wanted from Logan anymore. He didn’t care if it was running away. He’d tried to face his demons, and he’d failed. They’d beaten him. You had to know when to quit, didn’t you?
And couldn’t it be a kind of winning, to get out of here? To turn his back on a place that would always hate him?
Or was he just trying to justify being a chickenshit?
Bravest motherfucker in Logan.
Maybe he’d be braver somewhere else. This place scared him.
“Daniel?”
He looked back at Bel. “There maybe isn’t much here for me.”
Bel nodded. “I’d go with you. Wherever you need to go.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know right now. I can’t think about this yet.”
“When you’re ready.” Bel finished his breakfast and took his plate to the sink.
“What if we got somewhere and something happened to us, and then you resented me for dragging you away from here?”
Bel stepped behind Daniel and placed his hands on his shoulders. Rubbed at the knots of muscle until Daniel sagged in his chair. “That what we ought to think about right now? How about we start with figuring out where we want to go and goin’ there?” He squeezed Daniel’s shoulders, then released. “You worry too much.”
Daniel laughed. “I got some pretty good reasons to.”
“And just as many reasons to relax and let me love you,” Bel said quietly.
Daniel went still. Bel rubbed his thumb in circles at the base of Daniel’s neck. “Love you too, Bel. I’ll think about it, if you want.”
