Deliver Us (60 page)

“I have to do what Gabriel needs me to do. I’m there as a support system for him, and hell, I know what it’s like to have parents fail you. If
he
can be strong, and mature, and rise above all this bullshit, with everything he went through, then I have no choice, do I? Plus, I fully believe in karma. They’ll all get what’s coming to ’em. I have no doubt in my mind.”

Kyle laughs nervously, and shakes his head as if to clear it. “Me too, man. Me too.”

Darrek smiles and looks down at their joined hands. It occurs to him the intimate places where Kyle’s hands have been, and the recent sexual encounter they have shared. Butterflies knock around in his stomach at the dim certainty that one day, it will happen again. The circumstances will be just right, there’ll be temptation, and then... then it’ll go even farther than it did the first time.

Shifting a little in his seat, Darrek hopes that Kyle doesn’t see that his jeans are getting pulled a little snug in the front. But when he tugs down the front of his t-shirt, he’s pretty sure Kyle is staring right at his crotch anyway. It only gets worse when Kyle slides closer on the bench and asks right by Darrek’s ear, really soft and light, a purr of sounds that make goosebumps rise over the skin of Darrek’s neck, “You really love him, don’t you? You really want to do right by him.”

“Yeah, I do,” Darrek nods, clearing his throat. “He’s a part of me now. Always will be. I just want to see him happy. He’s had too many demons to put up with for too long. Maybe tomorrow will be the thing that sets it all right. Then we can move on and just live, you know?”

Kyle makes a small sound and turns his face away. He’s crying, Darrek sees in a flash. Just a little, just some redness and dampness around his eyes, but it’s enough for Darrek to notice.

“Hey, what’s going on with you? You’ve been weird all week. Maybe longer actually, now that I think about it... Why are you upset?”

“Just ignore me,” Kyle grins, wiping at his eyes. “Must be my time of the month and hearing your awesome love story.”

“Bullshit,” Darrek frowns. “You’re freaking me out now. Is this... is this about us? You and me? About what happened? ’Cause I thought we were cool....”

“We are. And it’s not. I’m just... reevaluating things for myself.” He flicks a glance up at Darrek’s eyes and looks instantly away in case he’s able to read what’s there. “I do think about it. About being with you and kissing Gabe. I won’t lie. And you know how I feel about you. That hasn’t changed. This is about something else entirely, though. I swear. But I can’t talk about it, okay? Can we leave it at that?”

“Of course,” Darrek says. Kyle stands and Darrek doesn’t quite understand why but he doesn’t want to let go of Kyle’s hand. He grips it tighter and holds him there.

“Good luck. Tell me how it goes,” Kyle says in goodbye, deflecting the daggers of concern shooting from Darrek’s eyes.

“Do I need to be worried about you?”

Kyle lifts their joined hands and kisses the back of Darrek’s. He tastes of salty sweat and something familiar when he licks over his lips, tries to pull away and fails. “Let me go. Please? I’m fine.”

He doesn’t bother to try to disguise the flush of heat coloring his face at being trapped there by Darrek, at being made to beg for his freedom. Kyle pulls harder at the vice of Darrek’s fist clamped down over his hand and Darrek simply shifts his grip higher, holding Kyle’s wrist instead.

“Then why don’t I believe you? You’re not fine. And you’re lying to me.”

It feels important. It feels like the universe trying to tell him something. Like fate whispering in his ear if only he could make out the words. Kyle is staring at Darrek’s hand clutching to him, and says Darrek’s name in a barely audible, hopeless supplication.

Darrek misinterprets.

“If he’s hurting you, Kyle, and I mean really
hurting
you, I swear to
God
...”

“Nah... nothin’ like that,” Kyle assures him with a too-easy grin and lies hiding in his eyes. “No worries. Have a great trip, okay?”

And with that, Kyle turns his back, sets a quick pace and is lost from sight as he disappears around the corner.

“You’re sure this is it?” Darrek asks, sitting on another, different bench less than twelve hours later, but this bench is in Texas, two car rides and a short flight away. It’s in front of a towering office building. Floor after floor of shining glass windows reach up to the sky. The downtown traffic bustles just behind them, with the raised, paved courtyard in front of the building’s main entrance providing a small barrier to keep milling pedestrians away. They are seated on the far side of the courtyard, eying the doors across from them. So far only two young women have emerged as lunchtime nears.

“This is it,” Gabriel nods. “I called his Executive Assistant, Cherri, when we got off the plane and you were in the bathroom. She confirmed he was in today. I said I was a relative with a surprise for him. She said he leaves by this door to go get lunch at the café across the street there every day, and that was our best chance to catch him.”

Darrek’s knees bounce restlessly. He feels cold though the day is a humid one. Skin clammy and stomach sick, he would rather be anywhere else. He’s already asked what Gabriel’s planning to do. Each time he asks, the response is always the same:
‘I’ll know what to do when I see him. I just need to see him with my own eyes, one more time.’

While Darrek is visibly a nervous wreck, Gabriel, as usual, is calm and collected. Not a hair out of place, dressed in a dark gray suit minus the tie, he looks as intimidating and determined as he did when Darrek first saw him—catching a fleeting glimpse in Diadem’s dungeon of the eerily beautiful man that knew just how to sweep him off his feet and take him apart piece by piece. Gabriel’s hands are folded loosely between his knees, and he stares, predatory, at the double glass doors. He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. He barely breathes.

Time draws out. And then....

“That’s him.” It comes out quiet, a confiding whisper from the side of his mouth. Darrek’s eyes shoot open wide and his head snaps up to stare at the nondescript, gray-haired man with briefcase in hand striding on a diagonal path to the steps leading to the crosswalk near where their bench is positioned. When he has scanned the trim figure of the fifty- or sixtyish guy that Gabriel has identified as his stepfather, Darrek looks back to Gabriel with concern.

“Okay, let’s go,” Gabriel says quickly, ducking his head down and nearly bolting from the bench toward the stairs in the opposite direction of Harry.

“Uh... sure,” Darrek manages, jogging a little to catch up.

But the sudden movement attracts the attention of their prey. Gabriel gets not twenty feet when he hears, “
Gabriel?
Gabey is that you? I can’t believe it. Is it really you...?”

It freezes Gabriel to the spot, mid-stride with his back to the others. Darrek positions himself between Gabriel and the man addressing him, but keeps his eyes locked to Gabriel, waiting for the word, the sign, to act, to do
something
.

Eyes focused on nothing, Gabriel calls out, “No. No, it’s not.”

“Yes it is. It’s you. Come here. Let me see you. My eyes aren’t what they were....”

“No! Don’t you talk to me like you
know
me!” Gabriel barks viciously, finally turning in place, facing the greatest monster he has ever been haunted by. “You don’t
know me
! You are
nothing
to me.”

Darrek watches out of the corner of his eye as Harry gets closer, walking slowly their way. He can almost feel him looking at Gabriel, trying to get a full, vivid image of his face, his body.

“Gabe, let’s go,” Darrek says quietly, taking Gabriel’s arm.

“Son, wait!” Harry calls when he sees the gesture.

“You are
nothing
to me!” Gabriel repeats, not shaking Darrek off but not leaving either. He has a few things to say first after all it seems. “I see that now. You’re pathetic. Just a pathetic, perverted, disturbed old man.”

“Son!!”

Harry is closer now. Darrek’s skin begins to itch. His hand clenches into a fist at his side.

“My father is
dead
,” Gabriel spits. “You aren’t my goddamned
father
. You? You’re just a sick piece of shit who can’t hurt me or tell me what to do anymore. Goodbye, Harry.”

Gabriel takes hold of the hand Darrek has been using to grip his elbow and they start walking without looking back. They descend a small flight of steps and take off down the block. Crossing a crosswalk with the stream of humanity flowing around them, they round a corner and see the rental car waiting.

“Get in,” Gabriel grunts, hitting the button on the keys to unlock the doors.

“Are you okay??” Darrek asks with raw and almost frantic worry in his voice. He gets in and sits in the passenger seat, scanning Gabriel for signs of an impending breakdown.

“We should get going. My mom lives about a hundred miles from here and it’s gonna take a while to get free of the city traffic. It isn’t noon yet, so we might be lucky and miss the rush if we go now. Then we might get back to the airport in time to have a nice dinner somewhere—”

“Gabriel!” Darrek interrupts. He reaches over the armrest and takes Gabriel’s hand in his again. It had been gripped to him tightly enough to bruise on the way back to the car—strong as steel and twice as unyielding. Now, it lays timid as a butterfly in Darrek’s palm, fluttering with tremors that start to wrack his body. Closing his other hand over the hand to still it, Darrek presses Gabriel with audible love, “You okay?”

“No,” Gabriel gasps, shaking his head as wetness gathers on his eyelashes. He sniffs loudly and fiddles with the keys in his left hand. “No, I’m not
okay
.”

“Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe a letter would have been better....”

“No. I needed to see him. He... I don’t know. He got bigger in my head after all the years with only memories to go on. I didn’t take any pictures of my family with me when I ran away. I didn’t want to remember them, so things got distorted I guess. He was huge, but... he’s just an
old man
. I’m
bigger
than him. A
lot
bigger. And that voice... it’s the same voice I hear in my head all the time, but... I don’t know.”

“Not so scary?”

“Mm-mm,” Gabriel grunts, stabbing mindlessly at the dashboard’s plastic with the point of the thick metal ignition key. “This was good. It was good. Wasn’t a bad idea. It was good. Stupid, but good. Really good. Really...” he mumbles dazedly.

“Hey...” Darrek hushes. “Want me to drive?”

“Um. Yeah. Yeah. Here,” he says, handing over the keys. Gabriel doesn’t reach for the door handle to get out, though. He keeps staring at the steering wheel.

“Gabe?”

“Mm?”

“I’m proud of you,” Darrek smiles hopefully.

“Me too,” Gabriel grins shyly back.

The three men wait until Gabriel is walking away and almost out of sight. The side basement door they have been waiting behind opens out on the busy sidewalk, and the lock had been easy enough to jimmy and crack open.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of pedestrians flood by, thinking only of themselves and clutching their handbags and cases as they shuffle toward their destinations. They don’t see the three uniformed men in dark glasses and hats hook an arm around the elderly businessman and pull him in through the darkened doorway, closing the door swiftly behind. It happens in not even a second. One moment they’re there, the next they’re not.

Micah had scouted out the pattern Harry took on his lunch breaks over the past week. It had been the most consistent part of his day. Never failing, he would go to the same corner café, taking the same route each time. They’d found out through Kyle’s texts with Darrek that morning that Gabriel was planning on confronting Harry near the same time, for the same reasons—it was the best chance to pin Harry down.

Kyle has been left back at home, his phone calls to Darrek their only link to Darrek and Gabriel’s actions and whereabouts. In case they should ever be suspected for what they are about to do, however, they need Kyle’s calls to originate from home, and not Texas. It’s instrumental to the plan, but a source of much anxiety for Kyle, who is therefore able to do nothing but imagine what is happening with his Master, his lovers, his friends.

With the single, ancient security camera easily dismantled, it is safer to act in the basement than to try to take Harry away by car, or try to grab him in the parking garage. Latching the metal door, they each pull black hoods down over their faces and turn on the floodlight in Ben’s hand, shining it at Harry’s face to blind him.

Trace has him down on the ground with an arm pulled up tight under his jaw, pressing gently on his windpipe. Micah swiftly gets the metal cuffs on Harry’s wrists and ankles, chaining them together with as little slack as possible. It leaves Harry with his arms pulled awkwardly down between sharply bent knees, his spine digging painfully into the concrete. Kneeling on the length of chain strung between his ankles, Micah keeps him from twisting away.