King’s Captive

by Amber Bardan

  “What’s a blow job?” The high familiar voice comes out of nowhere and punctures my heart.

  My feet fall off the table and smack back down to the floor. I’m all-the-way crazy.

  Hearing-voices crazy.

  A head pokes out from under Julius’s arm. Oh my God. Seeing-things crazy.

  “What’s wrong with her, why is she dressed like that?” A kid who looks identical to my brother emerges from next to Julius.

  Thomas?

  He squints with eyes my exact shade of blue. I shriek, then leap to my feet and run to him. His forehead knocks against my chin. I wrap him up in my arms, and my body rushes with a joy-filled pressure.

  Last time I held him, he came only to my bust.

  I squeeze him tight. So tight.

  He hugs me in return, then taps my shoulder. “You’re squishing me.”

  I pull away and press my palms against his cheeks. They’re not as pudgy as they used to be. I run my gaze over his features. My chest constricts at how much he’s changed. Three years on someone his age delivered me a different version of my sibling. But it’s him, it’s really him.

  “I missed you, oh God, I’ve missed you.” I smash my lips against his forehead.

  He doesn’t push me away this time. “I missed you too.”

  I glance up at Julius, and my joy takes on a painful edge.

  Why is Thomas here?

  I glance back at Thomas, and my heart feels like it’s pounding right in the eating part of my stomach, like I could hurl or spew it out whole. How much does my brother know about anything?

  Thomas steps back. “You don’t look good. Are you sick?”

  I pat his head, curls identical to mine brush my fingers. He’s tall but those ringlets give my brother deceptive youthfulness. Make him look closer to six than nine.

  I’ve always been the same. “I’m not sick. Just have my period.”

  Thomas’s nose wrinkles—not an eww-she-said-period kind of wrinkle—wrinkled like someone just spoke a foreign language to him.

  “I guess you haven’t had sex ed at school yet, huh?”

  Thomas glances at Julius.

  “Sex ed?” His cheeks are pink but his eyes are bright. “Will we have that, Dad?”

  Dad? My attention snaps between the upturned face of my baby brother and the man who took him from me. Dad?

  I clutch my midsection. What is happening right now? We had a father. Maybe he wasn’t perfect but he was ours. A father we lost thanks to Julius.

  “There’s plenty of time for that, kid.”

  Kid?

  I stare at Julius. The way he says that. Like they’re the best of friends...when Thomas should’ve been locked tight in boarding school all this time.

  I bite the inside of my cheek. “Thomas, give me and Julius a minute.”

  He glances at Julius. No, no, no. Why the hell is he looking at Julius for direction?

  “Go pick the movie, we’ll be just a minute.”

  Thomas leaves the room. I wait until I’m sure he’s gone, then face Julius. “Where does my brother go to school?”

  Julius moves out of the doorway toward me. “He’s homeschooled.”

  “What?” I gape. “Why isn’t he at his boarding school? What do you mean homeschooled?” I hold out my hands. “Where? By whom?”

  “At my house. By a private tutor, and by me.”

  My hands fall to my side. Now I’m the one convinced I’m hearing a foreign language, because he can’t mean what I just heard. His home? Isn’t this his home? By him? Julius homeschooling my brother? This is some alternate-reality through-the-looking-glass crap right here. I tear off the robe and throw it on the pile of things on the table. Fan my cheeks with my hands. “I don’t understand. Why would you take him out of school?”

  Julius steps closer, takes me by the elbows. My fidgeting stops, and I look at him.

  His eyes flash. “I found him at that school. That means anyone could. I can’t protect what I don’t control.”

  He releases my elbows.

  I swallow but don’t back away. “And how exactly are you able to control what Thomas does and where he’s educated? Why the fuck does he call you Dad?”

  There’s a pause before he answers, a brief moment of hesitation that makes the air freeze in my lungs.

  “Because I adopted him.”

  I stumble back. Lower myself into a chair. Plant my face in my hands. I’ve lost him. Lost my brother. Adoption. That shit’s forever.

  “How?” I look up from my hands. “How did you manage that? Do you have the government and the entire judiciary system in your pocket?”

  Julius says nothing. I’ve never caught him on a lie, but he knows exactly how to withhold. It doesn’t really matter how he’s done it, only that he has.

  My chest tightens. The implications hit me one by one. Julius is Thomas’s legal parent. So long as Julius lives, if I ever take him, it’d be kidnapping. I wouldn’t just be running from Julius, from whatever mistakes my father has made, I’d be on the run.

  From the law. From everyone.

  My fingers link in my lap, and I squeeze. Everything in me squeezes.

  Julius crouches and takes my clenched hands. “I promised I’d protect your brother. I’ve kept my word, and the time is coming for you to keep yours.”

  My throat’s thick. I want to cry. Want to cry so bad, but I don’t let Julius see the tears he gives me. “Is that why you brought him here. For insurance?”

  “This isn’t insurance, or incentive.” His fingers add another layer of tension over mine. “It’s making peace.”

  I meet his gaze. Peace. That’s not something that’s ever existed between us. I’m not sure it ever can.

  “No more games, baby. No more playing around. We can just take things for what they are.” He stares at me, and I can only stare back. More hooked by his eyes than his hands. “If there’s trust, then things will get better. For all of us.”

  He’s making a vow. I feel that promise—that things could be different—and it’s very damn tempting.

  We could stop what we’ve been doing to each other. He’d trust me one last time after all the reasons I’ve given him not to.

  His hands swallow mine and they’re warm, and there’s something nice about how he holds them. Maybe I’ve won some affection from him after all. Maybe it’ll count for something.

  My gaze tears from his eyes to his lips. I watch him breathing. The way his lips part slightly. Then I’m back to his eyes.

  I want what he’s offering. To let go. To be honest.

  His expression doesn’t flicker—it’s set hard—two grooves between his eyebrows. He’s hard but earnest. I can control this, this one little thing. I can say yes, and we’d have peace. I bite my lip, hard.

  There’s no getting out of our deal.

  Peace means giving in.

  My lip catches on my lower canine. A hint of copper touches my tongue. For years, I’ve been looking in on my own life like a stranger. Yet, since that first kiss, I’ve been a participant in my destiny. Since then life’s been tangible.

  I take a breath. I can’t stop looking for a way out, but I want what he’s offering and I’ll take it just like he’s taken what he wants. “Yes, that’s what I want too.”

  His hands move to my ears. “No more games?”

  “No more games,” I whisper, and wrap my fingers around his wrists as he tilts my face to seal this with a kiss.

  His lips brush over mine and I move against him instinctively, with real feeling I don’t try to suppress. I let him into my mouth, let his tongue caress my tongue, let it be gentle and let it be pure—even as I lie.

  I’ll never give in.

  Bloody Birthday

  2:13 p.m
.

  Julius looks up from all fours, chin low, eyes rolled up toward me. Those eyes trigger all the adrenaline ever stored in my glands.

  Accusation rolls from his gaze. His expression draws tight, revealing his true face. Predator. There’s nothing human in him.

  Who the hell have I betrayed?

  I flee, sprinting out the door and through the shed, then tumble into the fresh air. Light sears white patches into my vision, but I run down the path.

  I round the corner, then skid to a stop, hands flying up into the air. Two shotguns fix on my chest. Brice and Pete kneeling on the ground, shotguns on shoulders, eyes pressed to the sights. My father stands, his weapon gripped at the ready in his hands. Joel sits next to the table, a napkin clutched to his bleeding face.

  It’s the sight of Mrs. Carlisle that makes me stumble. She’s still here. Crouched by Jim’s limp form with her fingers resting on his neck.

  Dad lowers his rifle, his chest trembling. I run to him. His arm clamps around me, and I squeeze myself into his side. Suck in a lungful of the reassuring paternal scent of him. Spicy aftershave and the ever-present linger of tobacco.

  “I did it, Dad.” I look up at him. “I did what you said I should do if something ever happened.”

  His mouth melts into a frown that’s not at all relieved. He looks over at Mrs. Carlisle. She stares back at him. There’s a silent flow of information so potent I could almost pluck letters from the air. Then Dad glances to the path. The muscles tense along the back of my neck. Dad’s arm falls away from me, and he raises his gun. Julius approaches, hands up, fingers splayed—unarmed—yet nothing about the way he moves could ever be construed as defenseless.

  A scrape sounds next to me. Dad slides the bolt forward on his rifle, chambering a round.

  “We need to talk, Anthony.” He must’ve cleaned the blood from his face, because there’s nothing rumpled, nothing broken to taint Julius as he continues toward us.

  “Then I’ll make sure the first bullet you take doesn’t affect your mouth,” Dad says, dropping his aim from Julius’s chest to his knee.

  Pressure builds behind my ribs.

  “You don’t have to pay in blood today, but I will take what I came for.” Julius lowers his hands and stops walking, his gaze locked on my father’s. “It’s up to you how I take it.”

  Dad’s grip shifts on the gun. I touch his arm. The muscle underneath my fingers is solid for a fifty-year-old, but my father has always been strong.

  Julius’s attention flicks to me, and to the halting touch of my hand on my father.

  Dad’s bicep contracts, and his gaze darts from Julius to me.

  He lowers his rifle. “Brice, start at the groin.”

  I stare at Julius, my fingers becoming claws on Dad’s arms. Julius only smiles. A dark twist of a smile, and it’s all for me.

  Right now there are three guns trained on him, yet everything in me screams that none of us are safe. I blink a fraction at a time, as though my racing pulse has me seeing things in slow motion.

  “Brice?” Dad says.

  We all turn to Brice. It takes a moment to process the sight. A red trickle runs down the center of his forehead between his wide unseeing eyes. He tips forward, face-planting into the grass.

  Movement blurs around us.

  Black-clad figures spring from what seems like nowhere, faces distorted by ski masks.

  They close in.

  My ears ring, blaring with sound. I breathe in, then again, and again. The sound in my ears gets louder. No, it’s not my ears.

  It’s screaming.

  Mrs. Carlisle stands, hands fisted at her sides, wails pouring out of her gaping mouth. I follow the line of her gaze. Behind Julius, one of the men drags a skinny figure.

  “Ben,” Mrs. Carlisle cries.

  Long, straggly hair plasters over a blood-crusted face, making features impossible to distinguish. I know it’s Benjamin Carlisle they drag. The shape of his body, dangling arms, unbalanced legs, at nineteen he hasn’t quite grown into his height.

  I look at Julius, heart pounding up to choke my throat.

  He hasn’t moved.

  He still watches me. More silent conversation moves through space, and this time I actually hear it.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, baby.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  We watch movies in the theater room I never set foot in before today, sprawled on modular couches that span the rear wall. Thomas leans against me and I cuddle him like when he was a toddler. His hair tickles my nose, but I don’t turn my face away. I breathe in from his hair, which could be fresher, but still smells like the same shampoo he used at home.

  Animated cars talk on the screen. To be honest, I’d thought I’d be stuck watching action movies, not that I’d mind, but Thomas says Julius doesn’t let him watch anything violent. I shoot a glance at Julius. He leans against the cushions, dressed comfortably now in a T-shirt and jeans. Worn denim I bet is softer than it looks, and damn my hands for wanting to find out.

  Who the hell is this man?

  My father used to have action-movie marathons with Thomas when he was tiny. Julius watches the screen even though I now know he’s seen this movie a dozen times. “Be a man,” Dad would say when Thomas cried when the movies got rough.

  And yet Julius watches talking cars again and again.

  You couldn’t have convinced me, not with any odds, that the days and nights Julius spent off the island he’d been with my brother. Thomas probably knows more about Julius than I do. He’s seen him in his normal life. The one where he goes to an office almost like a regular person.

  Thomas shifts in front of me, and I rest my head against the pillow. I don’t care what’s playing, I’m glad I don’t have to answer questions like why I haven’t been around.

  I close my eyes. Hear the movie in the distance. I could almost pretend, almost believe, that this is normal.

  The voices waft from the speaker, and become a drone.

  This could be normal.

  * * *

  The warmth slides free from against me. I open my eyes to a darkened room. The projector shines an empty white rectangle against the wall. Julius cradles my brother against his chest. I watch under my lashes. His biceps flex as he carries a sleeping Thomas from the room. Something clenches deep in my womb. He’s done this before—maybe a hundred times—cared for my brother like a father.

  I drink in the image. One thing I’d never thought I’d see, Julius King caring for a child. It makes me ache all over, and I don’t know why. I let my eyes drift shut. This must be a dream. My abdomen cramps as if to insist I’m awake.

  I hold my middle, and rest even as my body throbs. Heat presses against my lower back. My eyes fly open. Julius hovers over me, pausing with a blanket in his hands. His gaze meets mine, and he tucks the blanket around me.

  My hips shift and I feel the shape of the hot-water bottle he’s put against my lower back. I turn my face toward him. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t make another move on me other than watching me for a little too long.

  He turns off the projector and leaves the room.

  Peace.

  I stare through the blackness, and tug the blanket up to my jaw. Is this his peace? I’ve never spent a night in the house before. Never let myself fall asleep around Julius. He’s always taken care of me, kept me fed, dressed, made sure I was well, but I’ve never let him close. Not like this. Not hot-water bottles at my back and tucking me in. A door clicks down the hall. I imagine him going into his room. Imagine him stripping off his clothes. Imagine where exactly, at what specific point, the tattoos finish on his abdomen. Those things are okay to think about. Julius naked is something I can be fascinated with.

  Sex is natural. Sex is normal. I can think about those thi
ngs. Better than thinking about what’s changing now. The world we’ve been existing in is rearranging—and I can’t imagine what it’s going to look like now.

  Chapter Twenty

  A week passes like something out of a children’s storybook. Where the big brother plays ball with the kid, and people laugh. Where there’s food and ice cream and lots of company, and I feel like Dorothy in Oz—like I could turn to Pa, and Leo, and Dan, and say, “And you were there, and you were there, and you were there.”

  Julius and Thomas play in the water. Today it’s just the three of us. The men have all gone for the night, and Pa’s retired early. The water turns orange with the setting sun. Julius pulls back his arm and throws the football. It lands in the water next to Thomas but drifts away before he can catch it.

  Thomas dives after the ball. The water’s too deep and he loses his footing, short arms lifting out of the water.

  I fly to my feet. “Thomas!”

  Julius dives, catching Thomas by the middle before he can drift away. My stomach rises back up from the soles of my feet. If this week has taught me anything, it’s that nothing could happen to my little brother on his watch. Thomas clings to Julius and wipes the water out of his face. Julius grabs the football and walks out of the water, holding both boy and ball.

  I settle on the towels. He pulls a clean towel from my basket and wraps it around Thomas, then rubs his wet hair vigorously.

  Thomas laughs, a clear, joyous chiming sound that shakes my soul.

  Images assault me of a life I’ve missed. Is this how it’s been in whatever home Julius has on the mainland without me? Him caring for Tom, looking after my brother the way I should’ve been?

  My eyes fill with grit and I blink away moisture.

  Thomas sits down on a beach towel, and Julius takes clean clothes from the bag.

  My brother catches the dry T-shirt and pulls it over his head, then puts on the pants Julius sets beside him. It’s all so natural I could die.