“Yes. But young man, I have a full docket today, and I don’t want to hear about your reasons for what you did. You hurt a great many people by what you did, and I’ll not have you making a mockery of this hearing. What is it you have to say?”
Thomas stood up. “I have a list here, sir, that I’d like to read now. If you don’t mind.” Judge Winslow told him to go ahead. “These are all the crimes that I’ve committed in the last three years. Crimes that I did willingly and without help from anyone. I was working to end the world of the homosexual people. In the end, all I did was screw up terribly.”
He read off the entire list and then sat down. Judge Winslow asked him to stand again. It wasn’t an easy feat for him, as his ankles and wrists were bound in chains. Having the ones on his legs made Thomas want to cry. But the judge was being much nicer to him than he deserved.
“Why did you do this? I’m sure you had a good reason.” He said that the only reason he had was that he’d fucked up. “Yes, I’d say that about covers it. Why didn’t you try and get this epiphany before you began this spree, as you called it?”
“I thought that I was.... No, that’s not right. I had it in my head that I wasn’t gay, Your Honor. I have no idea now why that was such a sore spot with me. Even my parents tried to tell me that it didn’t matter to them what I did, that they loved me. But I was too stubborn and bull headed to listen to them. I cost so many lives because I hated what I was.”
“Do you now?” Thomas told him that he wasn’t sure what he meant. “Do you hate what you are now, Thomas? Are you still pissed off because you’re not what you thought of as a normal man?”
“I’m not even sure what I think a normal man is anymore. I should have gotten help when it was offered to me. I even hit my own father for having the nerve to call me what I was. I hurt him. Not just because I hit him, but because I was so willing to throw my life away because I thought they had to be destroyed.” Thomas looked down at his hands, then back at the judge. “They disowned me. My parents did. Even after all I did, the reason that they did that had nothing to do with the murders or the other things I did. They disowned me because they knew what I was and were willing to get me as much help as they could. But I refused. Not just their help, but their love as well.”
“Is it in your head that they don’t love you anymore?” Thomas said that he’d made it impossible for anyone to love him. “I’m sure that you think that, but it’s doubtful to me that they don’t still love you. I would imagine that they did this to you so that you could see what you’ve tossed away by not taking what they so generously offered you.”
“That’s just what I did. I tossed everything away.” The judge nodded. “I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’ve been the monster that I set out in my stupidity to destroy. I’m dying anyway, I know that now. No, I’m doing this because when I’m sentenced, I want to make sure that each of my crimes are addressed, and that I can, in some small way, make my father proud of me for doing this. For not hiding behind lies or anything else that I might have been telling myself all along.”
“I am proud of you.” Thomas turned when he heard his father’s voice behind him. Seeing him there with his mother made him want to run to their open arms. “I’ve always been very proud of you, Thomas. Confused at times, yes. Fearful for what you were doing, a great deal. But right now, you’ve made me realize that despite all that I did to you to make you see reason, you still stood up like a man and are ready to face your troubles.”
Judge Winslow invited them to come to the front. Thomas was sure that he shouldn’t be hugging them like he was, telling them how much he loved them, but he did. And this might well be his last chance to get to say that to him.
“I’d like to call a thirty minute recess. So if you all could please remain seated, I’ll be right back. Mr. Bailey, Mrs. Bailey, if you could please meet me in my chambers.”
He didn’t want his parents to leave him, but he knew that he had no say in what was going to happen. Instead, he sat there with the armed police officer next to him and sobbed. They had come to see him despite him being such a fool.
When the judge came back out, his parents were not with him. Thomas was sure that the judge had told them what sort of things they were going to have to deal with if they stuck with him. Not that he could blame them—he’d fucked up royally.
“Mr. Bailey, could you please stand up?” He did so, wiping at his nose with his hand until the officer with him handed him a tissue. Thanking him, he looked at the judge. “I’m going to ask you three questions. You’re to answer them as honestly as you can, without any thought to anyone else in his room but the two of us, all right?”
He nodded, and then was released from the shackles at his legs.
The door opened and closed several times as he waited for the judge. Thomas wasn’t going to rush him, but would wait for the man who could very well—and more than likely would—send him to prison for the rest of his natural life.
“The first question is this. Did you, at any time you were having sex with the men that you were targeting, get any kind of enjoyment out of it?” Thomas said that he had. “Then afterwards, after your release, what did you do? Think hard about your answer, please.”
“I lashed out. I should have—” The judge told him not to think what he should have done, but what he did do at the time. “I was angry. I was sick as well. Like I’d done something terribly wrong. Also, I kept telling myself that I was normal. That I wasn’t gay.”
“All right. Now, how did you find the men that you were sleeping with? It doesn’t have to be a single place, but in general, where did you find the men that you were with?” Thomas told him that he found them in bars usually. Sometimes with other men. “Did you engage with them, these other men, when you were looking for a single partner?”
Thomas had to think about that one. Did he? “No sir. I only hung out with them. They were nice people too, the ones that I was with. All of them were, for the most part. That made me feel dirtier then. Like I was taking advantage of them when I had nothing but violence on my mind.”
“Last question. At any time did you ever wish that you could have stopped what you were doing? Not now, but at the time.” Thomas was nodding even before the judge was finished asking. “Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know how.” Thomas lost it then, his barely held emotions flooding his heart. “Sometimes I would wonder what I was doing this for. That the men that I was with, they were kind to me. Some of them even offered me their food or blanket. But then a rage like nothing I had ever felt for something would come over me, and I’d want to lash out and kill myself, or wish that one of them would kill me.”
Standing there now, his face wet with his tears, Thomas realized what he’d said. That he’d hoped to die by one of their hands to end what he was doing. Before he could change his mind, he told him the rest of it.
“I didn’t care for me. I didn’t even know me most of the time. I was a gay man—in some way I knew that—and I wanted not to destroy them, but for someone to kill me to put me out of my own torment.” The judge asked him to look at him. “I think, sir, that was my plan all along.”
“I know, son.”
Before he could guess what was going on, a man and a woman came to stand next to him. He wasn’t sure what they were doing, but he took their hands when they were offered.
“This is a psychiatrist and his nurse wife, Doctor Melville Cruise and his wife Emily. I’m remanding you over to their care. It is my opinion that you needed help before all this began and you were lost. I’m not saying that you won’t pay for your crimes—you will at that. But I think you need help more than you do a long prison term. You will have meetings with the doctor and his wife daily—more if you think you need it. Your parents have agreed to come and visit with you once a week, no more than that, while you are getting care. Do you have any questions?”
&n
bsp; “I don’t understand.” Judge Winslow told him that wasn’t a question, then winked at him. “Thank you, Your Honor, but I don’t understand what’s happened here.”
“You will. But you’re a man that was having trouble dealing with what you perceived yourself to be. My brother, he died some time ago—killed himself when something happened to him that he couldn’t handle. There was a little bit of help for him, but not enough. My parents were more concerned with the image that he had rather than working with him to save his life. Benny might well be alive today had he had someone in his corner when he needed someone to talk to. I want you to have that help.” Thomas thanked him again. “No need for that, Thomas. You pay forward whatever you can with this. Make sure that you tell people what you went through. If you can’t talk to them, then write it down, give it to someone that has a voice that you can use. Your form of depression is treatable, but not if the person falls through the cracks and doesn’t bother. I’m going to bother with you.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.”
Thomas was taken to the side door and asked to say one more thing. Standing before the judge, he did something that he’d never dreamed he’d do. He begged him for forgiveness.
“It’s not me whose forgiveness you need, Thomas, but your own. Once you do that, then things will start to open up for you all the way around. Don’t think this is a free pass to what you did—only a delay until you find yourself again. I cannot, nor will I, send a man to prison when he’s not well enough to cope with what he’s done.”
Thomas was taken back to the jail, where he was told that he’d stay one more night. Then tomorrow he’d be sent to a psychiatric facility for the help that he needed. Almost giddy with happiness, he sat there on his bed and tried to calm himself. Even the man in the cell a few down from him didn’t bother him anymore. It wasn’t until he was told that he had a visitor that he realized how jumpy he was.
Calming himself down, he went to the visitor’s room and found his parents. Thomas told them what he’d said to the judge, and that he was going to do what was right. But getting his head on straight was something that he had to work on first.
They were as happy to see him as he was them. The contract that he’d received was torn up, and his father told him how sorry he was that it had come to that.
“Dad, had you not done that, I would still be wondering why you didn’t love me. It was because you did love me that you did this. I can see that now.” Thomas touched his fingers to his dad’s soft cheek. “I’m so sorry that I hit you that day. Every night I’d go to bed someplace, I’d think of how I hurt you. Not just with my deeds, but with violence too. I will make things better. I’ll be a better man.”
“A doctor is going to come and see you too. He’s working on something that might prolong your life.” Thomas cried, and told Dad that he was so sorry. “You’re here now, son. And even if we only have a little while to be together, I don’t want to miss an opportunity to talk to you. Tell you how much we love you.”
“No matter what I am.” Dad laughed with Mom, and he hugged them both. “I’m sorry every day for what I said and did. I might not have long to live, but I’m going to use it well. I’m going to write down what I did, and hope that someone someplace can find some comfort in it before it’s too late for them as well.”
After his parents left, he started writing down things that he wanted to remember to mention. Most of it was just one or two word things that he’d use to jar his memory about it. The list that he’d made before this morning had been returned to him, and he was going to use that as well. It might never be a best seller, or even sell a single copy, but the very thought of doing this made him feel much better.
~*~
Easton was working on the game again when Wayne came down the stairs. Telling him that he was sorry again only had him laughing at him. The game, he told him, seemed to have a mind of its own.
“I can understand that.” He looked around their new dining room, devoid of anything other than a lawn chair and a card table that he was using. “I cannot wait until this place is finished. Yesterday I was in the kitchen with DePaul, and I was ashamed of it. We should have waited to move in.”
“Why? I mean, we have beds for the kids. We have a bed—a very nice one, too, I might add—as well as towels to take a bath with. I think we’ve done all right without stuff.” Easton laughed. “Besides, I think DePaul is having a blast in there making the kitchen his own. Did I tell you that we’re having everyone over when we get furniture? DePaul is going to cook a masterpiece, he told me.”
“Yes, well, if his masterpiece for dinner is anything like his breakfast this morning, we’ll be as big as this house in no time.” It was good though, Easton thought. “Before I forget to tell you again, you have several messages by the phone in the kitchen. And Jorden called too. He wants the next chapter. What’s he mean?”
“He’s my go to kid for this game. I should have been using kids to play my games from the start. I mean, not professional kids, but just kids. He’s been a terrific help.” Wayne asked him what Jorden did. “He plays it without the rules. What I mean is, he doesn’t have any instructions from me, or from the box that it will eventually be packaged in. He’s also getting creative credit with it.”
“That’s wonderful. I have to go away for a few days.” Easton laid down his pen and asked him where he was going. “London. I don’t want to go at all, but I have three houses over there that I’m trying to sell, and I might have a buyer for at least one of them. He’s an American, but he wants a home that he can use when he’s there doing business. His name is Oliver Moody. Have you heard of him?”
“I can’t say that I have. What does he do?” Wayne laughed, and said that he made money from what he’d heard about him. “Rich, is he?”
“Very much so. I think if you were to ask, he’s richer than both Forrest and Jake together. And very...I don’t want to say rude, but he is sort of forceful about what he wants and how he wants it.”
“Did you want me to go?” Wayne said that he did, but he didn’t want to take the kids and he didn’t want to leave them alone just yet. “I don’t want to be rude, but I’m glad you said that. I’m just about to finish up this game program, then I have to put it in the system. That takes a bit of time. When are you leaving?”
“The day after tomorrow.” Easton nodded. “I was upstairs thinking about something. It’s insane, but I was sort of nervous about telling you I had to leave. I have no idea why, but I didn’t want you to beg me to allow you to go. Then I imagined that you’d have a fit and go anyway.”
“I’m not like that. Not anymore.” Wayne said that he could see that. “I sometimes have to tell myself to be positive, but here lately it’s like it’s already there. Like I’m all worked up to be positive before I even leave the bedroom.”
“Because you’re positive, it makes me feel that way too. How did we make it through life with all the negativity around us all the time?” Easton put his things away when the monitor went off in the kid’s room. “I’ll bring them down. You go ahead and get things ready for us to eat, and we’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
With a quick kiss, Wayne was gone. Just as Easton was putting toast in the toaster for himself, someone rang the front doorbell. It was just after five in the morning. Who the hell could that be? Before he was even at the door, he heard Cara saying his name. The trucks, apparently, were here early.
“Hello, my darling.” Kissing Cara on the cheek, he hugged Denver too. “I don’t know how you timed this so well, but I’m glad that you’re here. As soon as Wayne comes down with the kids, I’ll unload us enough chairs to eat around the card table.”
“We’ve come to help you.” Opening the door wider, he saw that they’d come with about fifty other pack members. “I got a call from Mrs. Lacy at the drug store telling me that your things are coming around. She’s been watching f
or them since she found out that you’d ordered furniture. Just tell them where you want things and they’ll be put there. The ladies of the pack have gotten a list from DePaul, and are unloading their cars at the back door to fill the kitchen. You guys are feeding us.”
Before Wayne could manage to get all the way down the stairs, both kids were with pack and being fed their breakfast. Easton had to run up and change, glad that Wayne had taken the time to do so before he came down. People were getting their house finished up by the time breakfast was called.
Breakfast was bigger than it had been yesterday. Not only was there smoked ham slices, but there were homemade biscuits, gravy, and sliced tomatoes. Bacon and sausage, as well as so many dozens of eggs that he was sure that the chicken coop was going to need a rest after this. There were no leftovers, he was glad to see, and it seemed to energize the help they had into getting the second, then the third truck emptied in no time.
He was shocked to see that the baby beds had been put together when he went up to get his coat. Not only were the beds all assembled, but there were pictures on the walls as well as sheets on their beds.
The kids were going to be sharing a room for a little while yet, but someone had set them up in separate rooms. He loved it. Abby’s was all pretty pinks and yellows, and Alex room was blues and greens. Easton also noticed that their bookshelves were filled with not just books, but also stuffed wolves and tigers.
His home office was going to take up the room that had been designed as a pool room when they’d purchased it. Since neither of them enjoyed the game, they had opted to have it turned into his office. Since Wayne needed something more elegant, in the event that someone came by to ask about a house, he’d taken the library. Easton didn’t think he’d get much done in that room anyway, not with the magnificent view at each window.
Easton: Forbidden: Paranormal Romance Page 11
