Deliver Us (62 page)

When she’s almost close enough to touch, he jumps back, inching backward around the car.

“Stop! Stay back!!” he shouts. Darrek runs faster, getting between them. He holds a hand up to Gabriel’s mother.

“Give him a second,” he tells her. “Give him some space.”

“Don’t touch me! Just... just stay there,” Gabriel barks at her, sneering in defiance before his face twists with pained devastation.

“I thought you were dead,” she gasps. “For so many years, I... I was sure of it.... And look at you! You’re beautiful, honey. Oh, my Gabriel. Look at the man you’ve become. You look just like your father....”

Her hands go to her heart, pressing there like it might burst right out of her chest. She’s crying too, but her face is alight like she’s just been granted her life’s greatest wish.

“I’m not
your
Gabriel,” he says gruffly. Darrek steps closer to him and holds his shoulders as he tries to lunge for her. He’s too pale, and Darrek can see it all affecting him. This was too much for one day, he realizes too late. Far too much. “You. You let him hurt me! You! You married that... that
thing
, that
child molester
. And when I tried to tell you... when I needed you to
help
, to
save me
from him, you called me a liar! How could you do that?! All of those years... it was YOUR fault! You were my mother and you did NOTHING. The
things
he
did to me
...” he sobs, shaking his head, lower lip quivering around the words.

“I know,” she whispers, but it’s a fearful, guilty sound. “I know that now.”

“YOU DON’T KNOW!” he screams. “Your husband fucked me, over and over, in YOUR BED. He’d sneak into my room at night, like the boogeyman, and hold me down and RAPE ME. He threatened to kill me. Do you know
that
?! Do you?! Do you know that h-he held knives to my throat? H-he threatened to chop off my genitals. He burned me with cigarettes. And I was a
baby
! I was supposed to be
YOUR
baby!
How could you let it happen
?! Why didn’t you DO ANYTHING?!”

“I didn’t want it to be true. I was in denial. I never knew. Not really. Not until you left. And then it was too late. Years too late.” She reaches out a hand to him, but he hangs on to Darrek and keeps his distance.

“I don’t want to know you,” Gabriel says with forced control. “I don’t want you in my life. But I needed... closure. To let you see that I’m okay. I’m happy now — happier than I ever was before. It took thirty years of living, but I survived and I’m finally happy. Darrek loves me better than you
ever
did. He takes care of me, and I take care of him because he knows ALL about how family lets you down.
He’s
my family now. I’m gonna be with him for the rest of my life, and we are going to be
happy
.”

Gabriel’s mother is crying hysterically, bracing a hand on the car. She doesn’t try to defend herself, or ask forgiveness. Her heart breaks at the bitter words, but part of her heals at the knowledge that her child is alive, and has a good life.

“Dare, I want to go. I want to go, Darrek. All right? Let’s go. I’m done. I’m done.”

“All right,” he says gently, feeling the muscles of Gabriel’s shoulders and upper arms bunch under his hands. Hesitantly, he releases Gabriel, but Gabriel’s hands are locked on him. He’s staring at his mother as she gazes longingly over at him, wiping at her tears and crying into her hand. Backing away, Darrek peels Gabriel’s hands off of him. He moves out from between the mother and son.

She sniffs and nods, resignedly. Then she backs away too, moving out of Gabriel’s path so that he can get in the car. She moves to hug herself in an unconscious near-perfect mirror of the way Gabriel had been standing moments ago.

Time slows, drawing out as Darrek goes to the driver’s side door. He opens it and stands there, watching the thick tension between the other two.

“It’s okay Gabe. C’mon,” he urges.

“It’s why I divorced him,” she tries. “I found out from the police. A neighborhood boy accused him, but then dropped the charges. It made me see the light, though. I kicked him out. But I’d already lost you. That’s the greatest punishment anyone could ever give me.”

Part of the car is between them, but at this new confession, Gabriel suddenly lashes out, seething and screaming. Drawing back his fist, he flies at her. “You BITCH!”

“No! Gabe, no!” Darrek just barely manages to get between them. Ms. Hunter recoils, yelping with fear as Gabriel’s control snaps. “No!”

“You believed a stranger? A STRANGER?!”

Darrek holds him by the arms, using every bit of his larger size to restrain his lover who spits and claws, trying to get free of him in order to inflict some small measure of his pain on his mother.

“
Let me go
,” Gabriel rages.

“You know that I can’t.”

Gabriel’s mother is shaking, her eyes wide with terror and desolation.

“No, it’s okay. Y-you should hate me,” she tells him, her voice hushed.

Gabriel sucks in a lungful of air and bellows, “I DO!”

“I missed you,” she whispers in confession, trying to reach him somehow. “I love you, sweetie. I always will. Even if you hate me. You should hate me.”

Gabriel sucks in a rough breath and breaks a little more. Gradually some of the fight begins to drain from him. When he tries to yank his arms free of Darrek’s hold on them, it’s with less violent urgency. Darrek knows it’s not to get away, but to feel the connection and draw strength from him through it.

He continues to deflate in Darrek’s arms, so with a steady, insistent look, deeply into Gabriel’s eyes, Darrek asks him to end this.

“Take me home,” Gabriel says quietly to him. “I’m done. We’re done.”

He presses a quick, soft kiss to Gabriel’s temple and releases him. He is careful, however, to stay between them as Gabriel goes back to his side of the car and gets in.

Gabriel’s mother looks frantically up at Darrek, and says, “Thank you. Thank you for bringing him here. I just want him to be okay. I want him to be happy. Take... take care of him for me.”

Gabriel closes the door and folds in on himself.

Standing stricken in the middle of the road, she calls out, “
I love you Gabriel
!”

But he’s not looking, not listening. Darrek nods once to her, and gets into his seat. He starts the engine and looks to Gabriel.

“Go,” Gabriel rasps.

Shifting into drive, Darrek carefully pulls away, leaving Gabriel’s mother behind to watch her son leave her a second time, with no idea where he’s headed, or what may befall him there. All she knows is a new name, Darrek Grealey, and that her child is happy and safe at last. It’s not much, but it’s enough.

Kyle’s phone rings. It’s not Darrek. He can tell without even looking, and it’s not because he doesn’t hear the puppy-bark ringtone he set for when Darrek calls him. It’s a generic ring, a shriller sound, because Ben is calling him from the disposable prepaid phone he’d bought before flying to Texas with Trace and Micah.

His hand shakes a little as it picks up the phone and turns it over.

“Yes, sir,” he answers with, sounding even meeker than he’d intended.

“It’s done. I’m coming home. The package will be picked up in a few hours.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The project went off without a hitch. So don’t worry. I’ll see you soon. How’s Gabriel?”

“Wrecked. But he’ll be okay, I think. He’s moving on.”

There’s a pause in which Ben just listens to Kyle breathe. “What do you want to ask me?”

“Um...” Kyle murmurs.

“Go on.”

“What was the total?”

“I don’t think you want to know.”

“Ben,
please
,” Kyle begs.

“We’ll talk when I get home. This line isn’t secure.”

“
Ben
....”

There’s a loud exhale, then the distant sound of a metal door slamming shut.

“Seven. And not a single one was the one we were looking for.”

There’s a hollow
clack
and Ben can’t hear Kyle anymore. Because Kyle set the phone down.

“Kyle! HEY! KYLE!”

“What?” he croaks, wrung out and just done with all of it.

Ben’s voice is soft and low, a soothing hum surprisingly crisp given the miles upon miles separating them.

“I’m holding you. Can you feel me? My arms are wound around your back and no one can touch you. No one but me. I’m right there with you. Mm... you feel so warm. I’m just gonna hold you like this all night. Okay? I want you to go lie down on the bed and fall asleep with my arms around you. When you wake up, I’ll be kissing your perfect lips and it’ll be a new day.... So. Can you feel me?”

“Yeah,” Kyle nods, letting out a shaky laugh in relief. “I love you,” he whispers. “Come home?”

“I’m coming,” Ben promises. “I love you too, Kyle. Now go and do what I asked.”

“Yes, sir.”

He hangs up.

There is a man, faceless to him, in a cold, dark room. His skin is carved up, inscribed with the names of seven of his young victims—innocent children he molested and abused more than once, more than twice. None of those names are Gabriel’s.

This was why they had to do it. They had to mark him for anyone and everyone to see, so that they would know what he is. Kyle knows that the final act that they performed was to cut the words ‘I rape children’ into Gabriel’s abuser’s face, across his cheekbones. The recidivism rate for Harry’s type of crime is astronomical. Even if you send them to jail, even if you give them treatment, even if they repent, even if you chop off their penises,
they will still keep doing it
. It’s a compulsion they can never overcome.
Ever
.

So the logic of Trace and Ben was that if you cannot stop the criminal, except through death, then you at least give clear warning to potential victims. No longer will Harry be able to blend in and ascend the ladder of success at his law firm. No longer will he be able to approach a woman or a child without them being able to see on his face exactly what he is, no matter how charming he is, no matter what excuses he gives or lies he tells.

Kyle is glad they didn’t have to resort to murder. They would have done it—Trace, Ben and Micah. Their anger was enough to push them over that line. Kyle is the one that acted as the voice of reason, afraid for their consciences, for the damnation of their souls. A murder is a murder, no matter the victim. He begged Ben not to go that far, to let Harry stand and be judged for his sins instead. Kyle simply didn’t want to lose Ben. It was selfish, really. Perhaps he was putting his own interests ahead of those children’s, but he couldn’t take the chance that Ben would be caught, tried and convicted for his act of vengeance and justice for Gabriel.

Turning off his phone, he can still feel Ben with him—a whisper in his ear, a caress of his skin, a warmth in his chilled heart. He goes upstairs and curls up in bed, wanting to know more, to be with the others. He has played his part. Now the pieces must fall and land where they may.

Gabriel sleeps the whole way back to the rental car drop-off at the airport. He’s on autopilot when they take the shuttle to the main entrance and then have to trek to their terminal to wait for the flight. After checking in at their gate and verifying the departure time, they go to a restaurant inside the airport’s marketplace where they pick at their meals and Gabriel downs the two beers he orders without really tasting them or saying a word. There’s a hockey game playing on a flat-screen monitor mounted to the wall over the bar, right in his line of sight. He stares at the action, fixated, when a fight breaks out and the players start beating each other bloody.

Darrek calls Kyle, and when he doesn’t answer, leaves a message saying that everything went well and they’re on their way home. He calls Ben and Trace too, at Gabriel’s request, leaving them similar messages when they don’t pick up. Little do Darrek or Gabriel know that Ben, Trace and Micah are at that moment in the very same building that they are, hurrying to another airline’s departure gate as their flight is called for boarding.

As they go back to their gate to sit and wait for their flight to be called, Gabriel dozes off again with his head propped against Darrek’s shoulder and his arms folded over his chest.

A few hours later, they are airborne and Darrek is the one that falls asleep. Gabriel listens to music on his iPod and replays everything in his head, dissecting, labeling and categorizing every second, every look, and every word.

They don’t talk about any of it, except for when they’ve arrived at their destination and are climbing into Darrek’s truck in the parking lot for the last leg of their tiresome journey, back to the comfort and safety of their home. Starlight and street lights shine down from above.

“You okay?” Darrek asks for possibly the millionth time. He asks mainly because the answer keeps changing.

Gabriel thinks it over as crickets chirp from the weeds lining the asphalt and an engine roars in the distance.

“Yes.”

Darrek waits patiently, hoping for more.

Sighing, Gabriel admits, “I feel better now. I feel like I can separate the past from the present a little bit better. It’s what I needed.”