Heart, page 15
He opened his eyes and looked around. His “cell” was pitch-black and windowless. He figured he was tied up in the back of Mikey’s van somewhere on a site or a disused piece of farmland. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Grāltʹa, boyo.”
The innocuous greeting echoed in his aching head, and the rough Shelta chilled his blood even now… long after rough hands had pulled him from the pavement and banged his head against the door of Mikey’s van until he no longer cared if they killed him right there on the street. He’d lost the hat Seb gave him too, and despite the pain in his battered body, he felt the loss like a knife to his chest.
Seb. It felt like a lifetime since Dex had said good-bye to him, but he had no real idea how long it had really been. In the darkness of wherever he was confined, he couldn’t tell if it was night or day, let alone how much time had lapsed since he’d lost consciousness and come to. It could’ve been hours, or even days. How long would Seb wait for him before he gave up and went back to a life uncomplicated by an illiterate whore in his bed?
The thought tortured Dex as he drifted in that cold, barren place between wakefulness and oblivion, and it was only the jangly rumble of an approaching vehicle that roused him sometime later. Voices came next. They seemed magnified by the time they reached him, and fear stabbed at his heart, but simmering beneath was the paradoxical comfort that he wasn’t alone. Dex didn’t like being alone, not anymore.
The van door cranked open and flooded the inside with a flash of painful white light. So it’s daylight, then. Dex screwed his eyes shut and tried to turn away, but the chains binding him held him in place.
A rough hand grasped his chin. Mikey. “Come on, kid. Time to face the music.”
Dex swallowed thickly and tried to detach his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Are we going back to the site?”
Mikey snorted and spat onto the muddy ground. “There is no site. The gorjers shut it down. This is it… all Braden’s got left, and you’re his only entertainment. Be quiet and do as you’re told, and maybe he’ll kill you quickly.”
It was a phrase Dex had heard before, and in the past it had had little effect on him. Kill me. I don’t care. But he cared now… cared so much that the threat of his inevitable execution made his empty stomach lurch. He’d already been sick, several times over, but he retched anyway.
Mikey unchained him and hurled him from the van like a sack of flour. Dex hit the frosted ground with a bone-jarring thump. Mikey kicked him. “Walk.”
Dex walked, head down, and stumbled along the icy dirt until they reached an outbuilding. Mikey shoved him inside and chained him to a low-hanging wooden beam. Then he tapped Dex’s face with his fist and left him alone to await his fate.
He didn’t have to wait long. Braden appeared just as he lost the last remnants of sensation in his tightly bound hands.
“Well, well, well. Not so quick on your feet now, eh?”
Braden yanked Dex’s head up and forced him to meet his bloodshot stare. Dex blinked and slipped into his well-versed role of a muted, submissive idiot. He knew better than to react.
He watched through clouded eyes as Braden paced in front of him. He knew Braden’s face and form almost better than he knew his own—the hulking frame that disguised a subtle limp, the ruddy skin, calloused fingers, and huge, powerful hands. Hands that had used and abused Dex for years. He wondered how he’d found him. Of all places, Dalston wasn’t the most obvious to look.
On cue, Braden came to a stop in front of him. “We saw you with your boy toy in the city. Don’t think I won’t find out who he is. Is that why you stayed away so long? Busy fucking your gorjer lover, eh?”
“He’s not mine.” Dex thought quickly. “He was a john.”
Braden’s expression hardened and morphed from one of petty revenge to fury. Denting Braden’s pride was one thing, but earning money without giving him his cut? There was no worse crime, and Dex knew he would be punished.
He expected the blow to his face. He lurched sideways with the force of it and felt the blood burst through his already cracked lips. It hurt like hell, but he felt detached from it, like he was floating above and looking down upon himself. Like a dream? No, and not even a nightmare. It just… was.
Braden hit him again and again, punched and backhanded him. Dex ignored it all until Braden’s knee came up and pounded him in the stomach.
Dex groaned a choking, inhuman groan. His breath left his body. His bones rattled and his teeth shook. He coughed and spluttered and ripped his throat raw.
Braden laughed. “Yeah. Now you feel me, boyo. Think you can hide from me? After all I’ve done for you? Let’s see if you remember how to behave.” Dex abruptly found himself facing the wall behind him, his face mashed into the cold stone. Braden ripped his T-shirt away and whistled. “Someone’s been feeding you up. Not sure I like you as much without the bones. Let’s see what the others think.”
Braden called out, and heavy footsteps answered him. Behind Dex, the outbuilding filled with voices—some he recognized and some he didn’t. Or maybe he didn’t recognize any of them. Maybe the voices of animals about to go feral all sounded the same.
Someone pulled on his hair, clipped his ear, and thumped his ribs. Dex closed his eyes, sure he felt the bones crack, and then the rest of the blows washed over him, merging together and becoming nothing more than an undefined haze of bruising pain. The accompanying, muttered words stood out more.
“Whore.”
“Slag.”
“Bitch.”
“You little bag of shit.”
Something inside Dex snapped. Anger and resentment raced through him, swelling his veins and filling his soul with a self-respect he’d never known before. He wasn’t a bag of shit, and he didn’t belong to anyone, not Seb, not Braden and his motley gang of thugs.
Fuck. You.
Rebellion surged through him, and for a moment, it felt wonderful. He fought his chains and relished the bite of them against his tender flesh. He kicked out with his legs, catching someone… maybe Braden… with his foot. Pride surged through him. He wasn’t a bag of shit, or if he was, he was his own bag of shit.
Kill me if you want, but you’ll never own me again.
DEX SPAT blood from the corner of his mouth. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Somehow, they were all still there. Hysterical laughter bubbled in his chest. It was the fourth day he’d been strung up in the barn—maybe the fifth; he’d lost the will to count—and it seemed his value as communal entertainment had finally waned. Only Braden remained, and he regarded Dex now through beady eyes. He’d yet to use the crowbar swinging at his side, but the threat was clear. Braden stopped in front of him. He was sweating, which struck Dex as odd. Stripped to his waist, his jeans so stained with blood and mud they looked like biker leathers, Dex was cold to the bone, and through the cracked window of the deserted outbuilding, he could see a thin layer of snow dusted the ground.
“Who did you tell?”
Dex jerked his head up, unaware he’d slumped forward and closed his eyes. “Tell what?”
“What you saw.” Braden stepped closer and jammed the metal bar into Dex’s ribs. “You’ve never run from me before. Who told you to run?”
“No one.”
“Liar.” Braden twisted the bar, gouging a hole in Dex’s skin to match the other cuts and scrapes. “Police are looking for me. They know what I did. Who told them, boyo, eh? Who told them?”
“I… don’t know.”
Braden hit him. The world went black for a while, and he was alone when he came round. At least he thought he was, until someone unchained him and he fell to the ground in a heap.
Mikey hauled him to his feet. “Get up.”
“Why?” Arguing was futile and dangerous, but after hours bound with his arms above his head, curling up on the ground felt like heaven.
Mikey glanced at him, eyebrow raised. “Because I said so. Now get the fuck up.”
Dex got up and took a quick inventory of his battered body. His legs were bruised but sound. His arms too. His torso hurt the most—his chest and his ribs. It hurt to breathe. He wished he could stop.
He stumbled. Mikey took his arm and led him out of the barn. The daylight hurt his eyes, but he wasn’t in it for long. Mikey towed him across a yard and shoved him inside the deserted farmhouse. A fire burned in a dilapidated room that had once been a kitchen.
To Dex’s surprise, Mikey pushed him to the floor close enough so he could feel its precious heat. “Sit there and shut up.”
Dex hugged his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself. He felt dazed and detached, but a part of him was vaguely aware Mikey’s behavior was more than a little odd.
The feeling increased when Mikey tossed a Mars bar his way. Hunger overcame him. He tore the wrapper and inhaled the chocolate in two choking bites. Mikey knelt in front of him and held a bottle of water to his mouth. He tapped a finger to his lips as he pulled away, then drew an imaginary blade across his throat.
A word about this and I’ll kill you.
Dex gulped at the water, knowing it could be days before he got any more. His greed proved his undoing. He choked and it came out of his nose. Mikey took the water away, like he’d come to his senses, and cuffed him. The blow was halfhearted. Seemed more for show than anything else, but Dex felt it like a bat to the head.
“We’ve been looking for you for months.” Dex opened his watery eyes. Mikey stood by the open door, blowing cigarette smoke into the chilly air. “We thought another gang had picked you up, put you to work. Didn’t think you had it in you to go it alone.”
Dex considered his words. Braden had swallowed his assertion that Seb was a nameless john. He wanted to keep it that way, so Seb could forget he ever existed. “How did you find me?”
“By accident. Wasn’t even looking for you. Me and Shane was scoutin’ a job, and there you were, snoggin’ your trick by that jock-off clock.”
Big Ben. Seb had kissed Dex under the stars and stared at him like he was the most precious thing in the world. The knowledge that Mikey and his mates had unwittingly intruded on that made Dex want to puke again.
“The job was a crock of shite too.” Mikey leaned on the doorpost and looked up at the sky. “Way out of Braden’s league, and that’s his bloody problem. Bastard’s going to take us all down with him.”
Dex laid his cheek on his bent knees. Mikey’s voice was far away, and he felt sleepy. He didn’t care about Mikey, or Braden, or their failed attempt to become big-time gangsters. He just wanted to sleep.
“Someone’s talking to the coppers.” Suddenly, Mikey was beside him again. “Braden thinks it’s you, but I know it’s not. You’re just a kid. You don’t know enough to stir up the shite that’s gone down. You don’t know the bloody half of it, and I’ll tell you one thing for nothing, kid. I’m not going down for no one, least of all that cunt.”
Mikey took hold of Dex’s chin. Dex flinched and confusion scattered his thoughts. Mikey was Braden’s right-hand man, stoic and loyal, and he’d never once shown a hint of dissent. And one of their own talking to the police? To the gorjers? No. It would never happen. Traveller silence was sacred. They didn’t talk to outsiders.
A vehicle rumbled into the muddy yard. Dex closed his eyes, knowing it was Braden. Mikey released him and stepped away. He called a terse greeting through the open door. Braden’s reply was gruff, and for a moment, Dex wondered if Mikey would make his move. Express his discontent and strike out. Kill Braden, or disable him. Perhaps there’d even be a moment for Dex to slip away. He wasn’t bound, and his legs still worked. He could run.
I can run.
But nothing happened. Mikey said no more and left the house, abandoning him to Braden’s ill will and deepening temper. Chains, leather belts, and iron bars. Dex bore it all in silence until his wrist bone broke with an audible snap.
Twenty-Three
DEX CURLED up in the pitch-black of the van. His throat was raw from screaming and his broken arm hung limp at his side, but he felt no pain. Not anymore. Pain was old news, almost a distant memory, and instead, he felt nothing. Nothing at all. He heard voices from time to time, and tried to worry that they might’ve been coming for him, but he didn’t care. Not anymore. His perspective had gone and he was floating. Reality and his own imagination blurred together, and though he knew he was alone in the back of the van, if he squeezed his eyes shut, he found himself back in the barn… back with Braden. The snap of his wrist echoed in his head, and he remembered Braden untying him and letting him fall to the ground. Blood had flowed back into Dex’s uninjured arm, and his eyes had rolled with the pleasure of it.
Braden had seen his reaction and struck him with a length of hose. “You sick little whore.”
Yeah. Maybe Braden was right.
Dex licked his cracked lips. He was thirsty. In between Braden’s increasingly deranged interrogations, Mikey had been slipping him water and the occasional scrap of food, but it had been a while… a few days, maybe? He’d lost track, but he hadn’t seen Mikey in quite some time. Somewhere in the back of Dex’s mind, he was aware it had been a long while since he’d seen anyone, that even his torture sessions had petered out, but he couldn’t be sure. He was distracted. The hunger didn’t bother him—it was like an old friend—but the thirst… God, the thirst. Slowly and surely, it was driving him mad.
Dex closed his eyes. Sounds echoed around the disused farmland, and he tried to gauge the time. The voices and vehicles meant nothing—Braden came for him at all hours—but Dex recognized the birdcalls. They were owls, and the owls only came out at night. Dex strained his ears and heard foxes too, the call of the vixens to their mates. The gravelly screams took him back to London and the first time he’d seen an urban fox scavenging in the bins of the restaurant. He’d watched the young fox, a cub, really, crunch through discarded meat bones for ages before Seb came to get him, and he’d felt a strange and ancient affinity with the wild, resourceful creature. Were it not for hunting and technology, foxes would outlast them all.
“You like animals, don’t you?”
Seb’s voice washed over Dex, warming him from the inside out like the shot of amber whiskey Rick had passed him on Christmas Day.
No. Don’t think of him. It’s too late. He’s gone.
Dex pushed Seb from his mind, but the lull was brief, because in a place where darkness felt like it would last forever, the lure of his memory proved too tempting to resist. Even imagined, fantasy Seb was a balm to his wounds.
“You look like a dormouse burrowed up in there.”
Dex smiled, and the haze overcame him. He let his eyelids fall closed and drifted to a place where Seb’s voice was real, his hands strong and warm and the only hands in the world….
“It’s just a bedroom, Dex. See for yourself.” Seb held out his hand, amused, his grin wide and welcoming.
Dex stared at the spiral staircase. It was harsh and metallic, like the rest of the converted warehouse, and he couldn’t imagine it leading anywhere nice. And why did Seb want him to go up there? Dex’s experiences with stairs had never been good. Though his time with Seb had proved an exception to every rule, Dex always seemed to end up somewhere dark and unpleasant when he went up or down a set of stairs he didn’t trust. “Why is your bedroom up there?”
“Why not?” Seb shrugged and stepped closer. He caught Dex’s hand before he could protest. “Bedrooms are upstairs in houses, right? And they make all these conversions weird when they convert them, so they can pack us in like sardines.”
Dex touched the banister. It was smooth and flawless, like the big high slide in the play park at Kilkenny Castle—the play park he and his cousins had used to break into in the dead of night before his da had sent him away.
“I’m not expecting you to sleep with me, Dex. I just want you to know you can… if you want to.”
“Do you want me to?” Dex took his hand from the banister and turned away from the shiny metal steps. Seb was closer than he’d thought, and it seemed natural to lean against him.
Seb held him a moment, then released him and stepped away. “I do, but more than that, I want you to be comfortable. Maybe we could switch some nights. You take the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“I don’t want to sleep in your bed without you.”
Seb raised an eyebrow but said nothing, and the silence crept over Dex like a wave. He put a foot on the bottom step. Nothing bad happened. No one came rushing down or shoved him to his knees. Seb didn’t suddenly morph into a raging monster.
Behind him, Seb laughed. “Do you want me to go first?”
It was a ridiculous concession, but one that turned out to be valid. Seb preceded him up the stairs, and after that, it seemed easy to follow him….
“ARE YOU trying to tell me I’m fat?”
Dex watched Seb amble around the room and get himself ready for bed. “Eh?”
Seb gestured at Dex and the way he was lying, curled up at the top of the mattress with his head barely on the pillow. “You can have more space than that, mate.”
Dex chewed the inside of his mouth and uncurled his legs. The bed was huge, and he felt lost, like he didn’t know how to behave. Silly, really, considering he’d shared a bed with Seb before.
He muffled his sigh with a cough. Things had seemed different back then. He’d climbed into Seb’s bed that night believing he’d never see him again, and somehow, it had seemed easier that way. Now… this was something Seb wanted him to do every night, and Dex simply didn’t know how.
Seb slid into the bed. He rolled onto his side and fiddled with the duvet until it was covering them both to his liking. Dex watched him, curious. The duvet was thick and white… like a marshmallow, but it felt as light as air.
Weird.
Seb turned out the light. Darkness swallowed him, and for a long moment, he was invisible. Dex blinked and scooted across the bed like a lizard. He found Seb’s chest and clung to him like he’d been gone for a year.
