Darker Than Desire (10 page)

The feel of her lips moving against his skin was a distracting torture and he had to think those words through twice before they made sense. “I can't do that, Sybil.”

“Why not?”

Why not …

It sounded so easy. Go inside, watch a movie. He tried to remember the last time he'd seen a movie. It didn't count, really, the brainless shows that had come on while he sat in the hospital waiting for news about Max. It had been twenty years, he thought. Back when he'd still been that other David. Weaker, scared, broken.

He was still broken. No longer weak. Not scared anymore, either. You had to care to really be scared and David didn't give a shit if he lived or died.

Broken, though …

Yes, he was broken.

Fisting a hand in the material of Sybil's shirt, he lifted his head, looked down at her face in the pale moonlight.

She waited for him to answer. “Why can't you come inside and just watch a movie? Is there something stopping you?”

You
, he wanted to say.

He needed to stop this. Needed to push her away.

He'd come out here thinking about losing himself inside her, one more time. It was always one more time, but the kid wasn't asleep. If he couldn't have that one last time now …

“A movie,” he murmured.

*   *   *

Dawn rolled around.

David lay in the guest bedroom of Max's house, a small room tucked under the stairs, and he listened to the quiet. Always the quiet, so he could hear those footsteps that would never come.

He'd watched a movie.

Sybil had fallen asleep on his chest and Drew had fallen asleep on her leg.

In the end, he'd left them both there and tucked a blanket around each of them before he left.

He'd gone there hoping to bury himself in Sybil's body. Sex was never a peaceful thing for him, but he didn't need it to be peaceful; he just needed it—with her. He'd find
peace
anyway, just by being with her. The hot bliss of driving his dick inside her, feeling her nails dig into him, the bite of her teeth, all of that was just a drug, something he needed from her—craved.

Last night, though, he'd discovered a different sort of bliss and he wanted to damn himself for it.

He didn't even know what movie they'd watched. A boy named Harry, some sort of stone, a school. It had managed to catch his attention a few times and Drew had loved it, but the magic of the night had been just … the night.

He'd sat in a house, with a woman curled up next to him and a boy sprawled on the floor in front of them for half the movie. Sybil and Drew had laughed, teased each other while they quoted bits and pieces of the movie, and to David it had felt like he was caught in some bizarre spell.

Was that what
normal
was? Sitting down and just existing like that? Laughing and teasing and eating popcorn with too much salt and butter and just …
being
?

Sybil's hand on his thigh, her head on his shoulder, a soft, gentle tease that should have called up that monstrous lust inside of him. Then Drew had curled up on the couch and both of them had fallen asleep.

How could they do that? Didn't they know what he was? What had been done to him and what
he
had done?

It was like they trusted him, and the very idea had left him shaken.

Trust was for people who actually had something in them
worthy
of trust. David was too … broken, with sharp, jagged edges left raw and exposed. Sometimes he imagined people could get too close and they'd draw back bloody all because of those jagged edges.

Not that it was much of an issue. Back on the farm, nobody but Abraham or Sarah had bothered trying to get too close. There had been casual friendships, established later, with men like Thomas who'd realized that there would always be a wall between David and everybody else.

They'd seen that wall and kept a safe distance. He'd let Abraham in. Sarah had tried, pushed for more, tried to pull David into that safer, peaceful world, and each time he pulled further and further away.

Sarah had tried and suffered for it. She'd thought she could pull him into their world, and each time she'd done so she'd gotten a harsh reminder that he—whether he went by “Caine” or “David”—didn't belong in that peaceful, gentle place.

Even when he'd moved in the town, under that disguise, people had kept their distance. Noah, one of the few who'd actually managed to establish even the most circumstantial relationship, had known enough to keep his distance.

Sybil was the only one who'd never bothered.

She'd seen the edges—he knew that—but she'd ignored them. She felt the scrapes, but she never let it show.

That trust that he never wanted was there, regardless.

And the boy seemed to share it.

Now, because of that fragile, undeserved trust, he had the memory of something he'd carry always. Just a simple night, in front of the TV, watching a movie about a boy named Harry, while they all ate popcorn. Sybil and Drew had watched the movie and David had watched them. If he was honest, he might even admit, he'd wished he could really have that. Have nights like that.

But they weren't for him.

Now, in the still, quiet morning, he let himself acknowledge that maybe that night should be it. He should let go. If they ever started to look at Sybil as they looked at
him
, the fractured hold he had on control would break.

If they looked at the boy, then at him, and wondered—

One big hand curled into a fist and he had to breathe through his teeth just to calm the red crawl of rage.

It's your turn now, boy. In time, you'll be a man and it will be your turn to join the brotherhood. Be ready to receive the honor we give you. In time, you'll pass it on to others. Just as we pass it on to you now.

Every secret would come out.

People were already looking at him, but soon, they'd
really
start to look. At him, at everything he did. Everything he touched.

If it was only him affected, he wouldn't care.

But it would spill over and touch anybody he allowed around him and that just wasn't acceptable. The dead surface of his soul might not be concerned with how others viewed
him,
but even he wasn't going to let their thoughts slide down that path as they looked from him to those around him.

And he didn't want her sympathy. Didn't want that hard, desperate hunger of hers to ever turn to anything else. A pity fuck was about as pathetic as they came.

He stared at nothing, gazing through the open window into the coming dawn without seeing. Curtains fluttered gently in the window. He'd spent too many years without air-conditioning, and the unnatural feeling of cool air circulating against his skin annoyed him. The first thing he'd done when he opened up the house was open up half the windows. It had chased out most of the stink of death and stale air. Now he could smell the river, the scent of morning, and the chill of a mid-fall morning felt good on his naked chest.

Rising, he moved to a window and stared out. The outline of the house—
that
house—loomed in front of him, larger than life, larger than he knew it truly was.

I hate you
. The words were like a child's foolish taunt in the back of his head. It caught him off-guard, the venom building inside his chest. That absolute loathing he felt for a pile of rubble and rock. One hand curled into a fist and he had a hot, vivid image of him finding a sledgehammer, taking it to the walls, tearing the rest of that place down until nothing lingered.

It was such a potent image that he had to turn away before he gave in to the urge.

It wasn't like anybody would really miss the place. He'd be doing the world a favor.

But he had something else to do today.

Find that journal.

 

CHAPTER SIX

She wasn't surprised when she woke alone.

Sad, yes.

Surprised, no.

He'd stayed, though, through the whole movie. That he'd even come inside had surprised her, and if she'd let herself think past the next hour, or even the first cup of coffee, it might have given her hope.

Sybil didn't like to think about things like hope. Hope could be such a disappointing bitch, though. Her mother had died of cancer and she'd told Sybil through the whole thing,
We have to hope for the best
. As Layla spiraled more and more out of control, Mom had always said,
We have to pray for her, be there. If she ever hits rock bottom, we'll be there for her. Until then, we hope for the best
. Then Layla had a kid and Sybil and her mother both
hoped
that Layla would get her act together.

Hope was a fickle, useless bitch.

Sybil dealt in reality.

But it had done something to her heart, made something burn hard and bright to see him sitting there on her couch as they watched
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
. He'd even cracked a smile or two, and for David that was borderline miraculous. She'd planned on staying awake until the end of the movie, getting Drew to his room.

The past few weeks had been rough, though, and the exhaustion had dropped down on her like a sledgehammer.

She'd see David in town, though. Maybe she could even
hunt
him down. Drew was going to the Louisville Zoo with a friend of his, then having a sleepover—something they'd been planning on for over a month, so it wasn't like she didn't have the day pretty open.

All she had to do was find David.

Well, get Drew up and moving. Get coffee. Shower. A few other things, including the hygiene things. She probably resembled a brown-haired medusa at this point. But later on, she could definitely hunt him down.

*   *   *

Her good mood evaporated in Louisa's coffee shop.

Sibyl had made plans to meet with Taneisha and her son, Darnell, at ten. It was 9:51 and if she had just waited, she could have avoided this. But no, she had to have her damn latte, didn't she?

“I just don't know what to think,” Louisa nattered on as she put a lid on Sybil's coffee, completely unaware that Sybil wanted to commit bloody, brutal mayhem. “I mean, it's
awful
what was done to those boys. And…”

She paused and looked around.

Then, leaning in closer, she said, “Rumors are flying, saying the Sutter family was involved—that
David
was involved. He got caught up in that ugly, vile mess.”

She paused again, a dramatic sigh escaping her. “If that's true, then his daddy abused him and his daddy was abused by
his
dad … it just keeps going! It would be best, really, if David just left and never came back. We can't break a cycle if any of them are here.”

Louisa
finally
came to the end of her ugly little monologue and smiled at Sybil. “That will be three eighty.”

“I've changed my mind,” Sybil said. She looked at the caffeine, pursed her lips. “I get these awful headaches when I don't have caffeine. Then I have caffeine and it goes away for a while. But the headache just comes back and I'm better if I have another … I think if I just stop the coffee altogether, I'll do better.”

“But caffeine is fuel,” Louisa said, smiling proudly.

“And abuse is abuse,” Sybil snapped. “Whatever was done to those boys was
abuse
. They didn't ask for it and just because
they
were abused doesn't mean they'll turn around and abuse somebody else. Does a rape victim turn around and abuse everybody she comes across?”

Louisa opened her mouth, shut it, looking oddly like a fish as she did just that several times over. Finally, she pressed a hand to her chest. “Why, Sybil. Surely you understand that I have nothing
but
sympathy for those who were injured by this. It's just that I—”

“It's just that it's easier for you to spout shit out and talk about horrors you can't
comprehend
. You don't have
sympathy
. You want to gossip and add to the misery.” She leaned in, held Louisa's eyes. “You want to tell those young boys who had the courage to come forward that they will grow up and be monsters? They stood up; they fought. What do you have to stay about them?”

The coffee shop had gone silent.

“Nothing to say, Louisa?”

“You're making a scene in my place, Sybil.” Louisa looked around furiously, her face going from white to red. “I don't appreciate it.”

“You made the scene. It's okay to gossip like an old hen, but if people call you out on it, there's a problem?”

“Of course there's a problem when people call a rude person out. Nobody likes to have the truth thrown at them—it's too ugly, too blunt … too honest. That's the way it is.” Doug Bell, his voice low and tired, stood, his chair scraping across the floor. “Personally, I'm tired of all of the backstabbing and then the smiles and cooing to your face. I had to listen to it fifteen years ago, and again at my wife's funeral. I think I'm done now. As to those boys…? Louisa, if you lack the words, I can give you a word for them. I call them brave. You probably aren't familiar with the concept.”

Doug smiled at Sybil and nodded on his way out.

In an oddly silent fashion, a family in the corner rose and followed. Followed by Jensen Bell, who'd been leaning against the counter, waiting to place an order. Vernon Driscoll vacated the table where he'd been, as did three more people.

Sybil looked at Louisa through her lashes.

The bell over the door rang and Drew came in, looking for her. He came up to her side and said, “Darnell is here. Did you get your drink yet, Aunt Sybil?”

“Oddly enough, I don't need it anymore, honey.”